Vanishing Trick

‘How did you find me?’

‘I am a detective, remember?’

Charles laughed. Dear Sybil either had an inflated ego or else she had acquired a sense of humour; being a department store’s detective hardly qualified her for a police badge.

Still, he had to give her credit for having been able to trace him.

He didn’t know what had motivated this unexpected visit, but at a guess it involved the fortune he had accumulated prior to his ‘retirement’.

Still, this was his territory and, if it came to the crunch, he would be able to negotiate from a position of strength.

They were sitting on the terrace of his villa perched on the top of a cliff, having dinner; a gentle breeze blowing in from the sea. A very romantic setting indeed.

What a peculiar situation, thought Charles, here I am with my wife - my widow I should say - who identified my body in the mortuary and, presumably, received a hefty payout from the insurance company.

He had read the coroner’s verdict in an English newspaper when it eventually reached the island: accidental death.

Sybil, meanwhile, was thinking of another place and of the time when the whole saga had begun.

***

She had long suspected that Charles was cheating on her and was almost sure that his secretary, a dizzy blonde with a bust bigger than her brain was the recipient of her husband’s advances.

It didn’t take a genius to work it out; all the signs were there: late coming home from work, the faint scent of cheap perfume lingering on his shirt and the ambiguous e-mail messages, carelessly left on his laptop.

Their marriage was disintegrating; Charles had gradually been denying her conjugal rights and had finally ceased physical relations altogether by taking to sleeping in the spare room.

‘I don’t want to disturb you when I get in late’, was his excuse.

She had spent many lonely nights unable to sleep, her body aching with desire sated by the only means available to her: a hand surreptitiously sliding between her thighs; her moans drowned by the snoring from the room next door.

The idea of a tit-for-tat revenge, taking a lover herself, had crossed her mind, but had dismissed the notion as ludicrous; it wasn‘t part of her nature, or so she thought. That she eventually did was due to a dare.

A new floor manager, Anthony, had recently been appointed.

He was an intriguing character, very handsome and muscular; as far as she knew he was unattached but as nobody had ever seen him with a girl, rumours soon circulated that he was gay.

A race began in earnest among the girls to discover whether it was true. Sybil thought it would be a giggle to find out.

One evening, at the end of her shift, she was walking through the car park when she noticed him fiddling with the ignition key of his vehicle.

'Are you having problems, Anthony?’ she asked.

‘My car won’t start’, he replied. ‘Can I borrow your mobile to call the AA?’

Later she was to reflect on her reaction and wondered what her motive had been. Did she see the encounter as an opportunity to release her deep frustrations or as a challenge to discover his true sexuality?

‘I’m sorry Anthony, I haven’t got it with me’, she lied, burying her phone deep in her coat’s pocket and praying that it wouldn’t suddenly bleep.

‘But’, she added, ‘I can give you a lift home so you can ring for assistance from there.’

She stopped the car outside his flat and, before he had undone his seat belt, she switched the engine off.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me in for a coffee?

‘Why, yes… of course.’

His trembling hands fumbled with the keys while unlocking the door.

He was full of confusion and did not know how to handle the unexpected situation.

He had never taken a woman into his flat.

Once inside, he busied himself drawing the curtains and switching the lights on and was about to make his way towards the telephone, when he froze in astonishment: Sybil was shedding her clothes, seductively letting them drop to the floor.

Poor Anthony didn’t know what had hit him.

He was hypnotised by her beautiful naked body.

She was the kind of woman he had often drooled over, but only on the pages of Playboy.

The chance had come at last to say goodbye to his virginity.

They got round to the coffee two hours later.

‘I have to confess that I have lusted after you since the first moment I set my eyes on you’, said Anthony blushing.

It was the best compliment that anyone could have made to her. That someone wanted her only for her body and not her intellect. She felt a sense of liberation now that she had let go of her inhibitions. Her self esteem was restored.

Despite being physically exhausted, Sybil was thoroughly reinvigorated.

She looked at the young man and was startled to see in Anthony a resemblance to Charles; the same build, lean and muscular.

It must be true, she mused, that when we choose a lover we pick a clone of our spouse.

Now that she had embarked on this particular course she had no qualms in continuing a casual relationship whenever she felt the need to ‘recharge her batteries’.

Little did she know that the affair would develop into something deeper and more meaningful. She grew fonder of Anthony and he was besotted with her, urging her to leave Charles and marry him.

***

Charles had been fantasising about getting away from civilisation to a remote tropical island.

Over a period of time he had siphoned funds from his firm into several, untraceable, offshore accounts and was now ready to disappear before the internal audit revealed any discrepancy.

His scheme involved a fake a suicide, by abandoning his car and leaving a bundle of clothes on the beach, à la Reginald Perrin.

Everything was proceeding smoothly and he was irritated when he received a call that might have derailed his plans but which, on reflection provided him with an alternative option.

A young man by the name of Anthony phoned him saying that he was in love with his wife and wanted her to move in with him.

Charles suggested a meeting to discuss matters man to man.

It never occurred to Anthony to question Charles’ choice of venue, an isolated cliff top.

The two men got out of their respective cars and walked towards each other.

In the darkness, Anthony didn’t notice the jack that Charles was carrying. A heavy blow landed on his head and he crumpled to the ground.

Charles didn’t waste any time in making sure that Anthony was dead; he quickly swapped wallets and documents and removed anything else that could have revealed the victim’s true identity and threw the body over the cliff.

After what seemed an eternity it landed on the rocks below.

He left his own car at the scene and drove off in Anthony’s vehicle.

***

‘Yes, it’s him. That’s my husband.’

Sybil looked at the body on the mortuary gurney and her eyes shifted from the unrecognisable face to a little butterfly tattoo on the left shoulder which confirmed beyond doubt that the badly decomposed body belonged to Anthony.

But as far as she was concerned she was not lying. Of late he had been her true husband.

***

Charles realised that the bottle of Veuve Cliquot was down to its last drop. It had turned to be a very satisfactory interlude, after the initial shock of his wife‘s sudden arrival.

He didn’t know if it was the effect of the champagne but he was seeing Sybil in a new light: sexier and very desirable. He felt a surge of libido.

He knew that she was dangerous and sooner or later he would have to get rid of her, but first he might give the old girl a bit of a thrill.

He lifted Sybil to her feet and tried to kiss her.

For a fleeting moment she toyed with the idea of letting him have a final fling, like a praying mantis prior to the execution of her mate, but her contempt and resentment towards this man who had deprived her of the chance of lasting happiness, by killing her lover, prevailed and she recoiled from his embrace and stood defiantly by the balcony’s rails.

He was not used to being rejected and flew into a rage. He pressed himself to her body.

‘Bitch. Why did you come? What do you want from me?’ He hissed, shaking her violently.

‘I want to be the widow you intended me to be. But this time for real.’ She shouted, and gave him a mighty push which catapulted him over the edge.

Unblinkingly, she watched him fall to his death and heard, or thought she heard, him say: déjà vu.