Fast Fiction: At The Cottage
A briefcase... A cottage, with firelight making the room glow... A woman with shapely legs... Richard Mallinson weaves a four-episode mystery in 317 words.
Having driven for hours in the rain, I reached the cottage after dark. I parked under the trees and unlocked the door. I went in, locked the door and switched the light on. I closed the curtain.
The room was furnished with tables, glass cabinets and armchairs.
The door to the bedroom was slightly open. I went in and switched the light on. It was cold in there and I shivered and closed the curtain. There was a double bed, under which I put the briefcase.
Back in the other room I lit the made-up fire. I spotted a bottle of whisky and two classes. I switched the light off and sat in one of the armchairs, drinking. The firelight made the room glow. I felt sleepy.
There was a knock at the door.
*
At HQ earlier that day I’d been briefed by a stern woman and her male assistant, s drooping dolt.
‘You’ll be safe at the cottage, no one will bother you there so long as -’ the dolt had begun but the stern woman had told him to be quiet.
*
I opened the door. It was the stern woman. I let her in and locked the door.
‘Very cosy,’ she said. ‘I’ll try some of that whisky, if you don’t mind.’
She sat in the chair and drank. She had shapely legs which I hadn’t seen before when she’d been behind her desk. In the firelight her face was soft.
When I woke up in the morning she’d gone and so had the briefcase.
*
‘And you mean to say that you allowed this woman. . . whoever she was. . . to enter the cottage and spend the night. . . it’s incredible. . . the briefcase. . .do you realise what was in it. . . you idiot?’
The drooping dolt, now upright and stern, paused.
‘But -’ I began.
