The adventures of ISLA!: Sunday Snippet - Accidental Death by Louise Wilford

Originally written for a group Halloween competition, the winner of the competition (author, Louise Wilford) has allowed me to share with you one of her other entries. Enjoy...

Accidental Death

‘Bit of all right, this, sir!’

‘How the other half live, Bridges.’

It was a routine case. Homeowner electrocuted in his living room. Accidental death. Sad, but we see this sort of thing all the time.

The facts that made it exceptional were that it happened on Halloween, the dead man was Miles Tessell, CEO of the biggest IT company in Cambridge, and the person who found him next morning was his new, much younger, glamour-model girlfriend, Tricia Makepeace.

The fallen lamp that had killed Mr Tessell lay beside his corpse on the Turkish rug.

Ms Makepeace was sitting on the upmarket sofa, sniffling into a tissue, still drop-dead gorgeous. When my old woman cries, her face looks like she’s done four rounds with Tyson Fury, but Ms Makepeace’s mascara was unsmudged.

Detective Bridges could barely keep his eyes off her – at least when he wasn’t staring round the gaff as if he’d never seen the inside of a posh house before. Personally, I find these techy modern mansions a bit unnerving. I mean, they had those Alexa things in every room. Ms Makepeace had already demonstrated by telling Alexa to open the blinds, and – whoosh! – they slid open like magic. How the other half live, indeed.

Weird, though. You’d think an electronics genius like Miles Tessell would know better than to get himself electrocuted by a desk lamp.

I thought I’d try something.

‘Alexa, turn on the lamp.’

There was a pause that was just a bit too long.

‘Do it yourself,’ said Alexa, in a nasty voice.

We all stared at the squat little machine on the coffee table in shock.

Then we heard a quiet click.

‘She’s locked us in!’ cried Tricia, just as the lamp burst into flames…