Final Solution

This is a short story I wrote for a competition with the subject of Murder set in the North West.

Ed Yorke loved puzzles. Sudoku, cryptic crosswords, logic puzzles; he loved the thrill of solving something that seemingly had no answer.

But tonight, he lay awake trying to solve a puzzle he knew had no solution. Except one. Ed was over a hundred thousand in debt and the guy he owed didn’t offer bankruptcy packages.

The cool blue digits of his bedside clock showed 3:34am. He slipped quietly out of bed, and looked back at the face of his wife, Amy. He didn’t dare kiss her for fear of waking her, so he just stared at her sleeping face.

His one and only solution. He’d been planning it for weeks, meticulously revisiting every detail until his head spun. But now… now the time had come.

Dressing quietly, he stole downstairs, through the still kitchen and out the back door. His bike, oiled and prepared was in the garage. Then he was cycling to South Shore. No lights. The night was still. He met no one. His mind was unusually calm and his breathing even, despite the exertion of pedalling into the breeze clipping off the Irish Sea.

Five minutes later he was on the promenade, cycling past the Pleasure Beach and South Pier until he came to the first slip road on to the beach. As he had planned, the tide was in. Abandoning his bike, he descended the worn steps, the waves smacking and slurping on the sea wall, the wind buffeting him harder now. He undressed, piling his clothes neatly on the step and removed his watch and wedding ring. Placing them on top of his note he paused, wondering if tears would come; if the enormity of his actions would suddenly overwhelm him. They didn’t. He just took a deep breath and tried not to think of Amy.

He stepped now, into the foaming waves, flinching as the cold water drilled through to his bones. When he was waist deep, he swam out about 500 yards until his feet no longer touched sand. Gasping and spluttering he turned and faced the shore again, treading water, letting the current carry him southwards toward the pier.

The massive structure loomed black against the lightening sky, like the skeleton of a long dead whale. When he was level with the end of it he struck back to the shore. Grabbing the end stanchion, he scrabbled around for the rope, heart hammering when he couldn’t find it. Then it was there and he pulled up the bin bag. It was secured at a height to make it invisible when the tide was out.

Using the bag as a float, he swam back towards the shore, in the lea of this monstrous Victorian edifice, the dark underside a black and horrific unknown, the amusements and rides above, gazing down idle and silent.

He made for a concrete slip, leaving no footprints and sat shivering in the pre‐dawn. Ripping open the bag, he pulled out clothes and a leather pouch. Working quickly with numb hands, he dressed himself in the last things he’d ever wear. Joggers, sweatshirt and old trainers.

Making his way up to the road again, he stuffed the tattered bag in a rubbish bin and looked back. Somewhere beyond the pier were the clues to his ending. He’d set the scene, but scrambled the letters. Hope was all he had now; hope that things would play out as he’s designed; hope that no-one could figure out his puzzle.

He made his way through the quiet streets and back roads to his brother’s house. It was about an hour on foot. Slowing to a gentle walk for the last few hundred yards, Ed regulated his breathing and became more in control. This was the hard part. The physical part he’d coped with but now he needed mental strength.

He knew he had failed Amy. He had punched above his weight trying to get rich and tried his hand with the big boys; one big boy ‐ his brother. A bad investment and then drug money, armed robbery, illegal prostitution ‐ Ed had moved from desperately trying to get rich to desperately trying to pay his debts in a world he neither knew nor of which he wanted a part.

Leonard Yorke had always been the stronger, more confident of the two, growing up ‐ not just physically but mentally. He’d had the girls, got the breaks, made it rich with a barely legal import-export business. Ed had managed with his small security firm, but Leonard was a ruthless businessman. He had cut Ed in to his business dealings but warned him of the consequences. Brotherly love didn’t exist here and he’d kill Ed just like the others.

Leonard’s house was a million-pound modern property, set back from the road with a drive lined with neatly tended conifers. The house was protected by a CCTV and alarm system, but that didn’t concern Ed. He climbed the huge automatic gates and dropped lightly into the border on the other side.

Walking up the block‐paved driveway, he approached the large house. Leonard lived alone, a string of girlfriends flowing through his bed like the champagne that brought them there. But none stayed. Leonard liked his business and pleasure strictly separate.

Skirting the edges of the house, Ed found the alarm box, secreted behind some low bushes near the rear entrance. Opening his pouch, he removed the necessary tools and within a minute had deactivated the main alarm, punching in the master code and cutting the cameras.

Now he selected a spare key and was soon standing in the dark hallway. His heart was beating its way out of his chest and with blood rushing in his ears he was convinced it was as loud as an illegal rave. He forced himself to listen. Nothing.

Treading carefully, he made his way upstairs to his brother’s bedroom. Stopping outside, he listened and heard snoring. Opening the pouch again he withdrew a hypodermic containing a solution of Tetrodotoxin. Using the connections he had made through his illegal dealings, he had obtained a lethal dosage of the poison, taken from the Japanese puffer fish. His syringe contained 50mg ‐ more than the necessary lethal dose. He held the needle toward the floor and entered the room.

Dawn was just breaking through the open blinds, making Ed’s task easier. He stood a while at the bedside, staring down at the sleeping form. His own flesh and blood. His tormentor. The reason he was here. Ed’s only solution was the one in his needle. He smiled at the wordplay.

Working quickly, he injected Leonard’s thigh. He stirred as the needle scratched his skin, but Ed depressed the plunger without hesitation, quickly filling his veins with liquid death. Leonard’s eyes flew open as he fought for breath and found the eyes of his younger identical twin.

Paralysis came quickly though and even as he struggled to speak, his muscles began to lock up. Right now, his lips and extremities would be tingling, as the neurotoxin swept through his bloodstream. Symptoms of a puffer fish sting could occur within 15 minutes with death up to four hours later.

Ed was nothing if not thorough and had researched the subject with the same diligence he applied to his security business. Four hours wasn’t quick enough; Leonard had just received the venom of over ten thousand puffer fish.

Ed smiled as his brother slipped away, their lives now intrinsically switched. He had a few hours to finish setting the puzzle. The loose ends. CCTV tapes, a body and a few phone calls. But he was confident of pulling it off.

After all, he was already dead.