Free The Midnight Hour by Neil Davies Page A

front door at the end of the day and it starts…..nagging, shouting, swearing. The house is a tip. I’m out at work all day, she’s in the house or round at her friends’ houses, so whose fault is it that the house isn’t clean? Mine of course! Everything’s my fault as far as she’s concerned.
    I’ve had another day to think about it and I haven’t changed my mind. Now all I have to do is think of a way to do it.
     
    6 th March, 6:10pm
     
    Wonder if the police can trace things back to the shops like in the movies? I bought the rat poison with cash, I’m not stupid enough to use a cheque or credit card, too easily traced. Still, I wonder how clever they are these days?
    Anyway, tonight’s the night. I’ve offered to make the evening meal, something I do occasionally so she’s not suspicious about that. A good proportion of rat poison in her chicken should do the trick and I can be one grieving widower cursing the lack of care in supermarket food preparation and blaming general lack of standards for food poisoning.
    I’m shaking with the excitement. Not easy to cook like this, but I’ll manage.
     
    8:00pm
     
    Damn!
    Just when exactly did she turn vegetarian?
    I have had to sit there watching my freedom being scraped off the plate and thrown out the door. An argument followed of course. I never listened to what she said anymore! Why didn’t I take any notice of her? If I worked less and spent more time at home I’d have known she didn’t eat meat anymore!
    Calm down. It’s not over yet. Time for another plan.
    She must die!
     
    7 th March, 9:30am
     
    There was a dead cat on the doorstep this morning.
    Not my fault. Well, ok, maybe it is my fault a bit but how was I to know she’d throw the food out the door in a fit of pique?
    Anyway, time for plan B. It’s quiet here at work at the moment, gives me time to think. I already have an idea. Electrocution.
    How do I make sure I don’t get electrocuted instead? By a bit of clever mis-wiring on the vacuum cleaner of course. Her mother’s due to visit day after tomorrow which means that tomorrow she’ll be cleaning up the house because if there’s one thing we agree on it’s how irritating her mother’s “holier-than-thou” attitude towards house cleanliness is! A visit from her mother is one of the few times she does clean the house.
    A chance that I might use the vacuum first? Don’t make me laugh! That’s woman’s work that is. I’m out earning money, she cleans the house….well, she should but she doesn’t. That’s one of the reasons I’m doing this!
     
    8 th March, 10:00am
     
    It’s painful this excitement, waiting for the phone to ring, preparing myself for the performance of the century as I take the news of my wife’s demise.
    Yes, I did some rewiring last night and everything’s ready to go.
    Hang on. Who’s going to phone? God I’m stupid sometimes. No one will know she’s dead until I get home and “discover” the body.
    No problem, just need to refine the act slightly and make a sobbing phone call to the police. No, maybe the ambulance would be better, after all I’m not meant to know she’s dead particularly. Surely I’d be concerned to get her treated in case there was a chance she survived? Was there a chance? I doubt it, not with the job I did!
    There were a couple more dead cats in the garden this morning. You’d think owners would feed them occasionally so they didn’t go looking for scraps!
     
    11:45pm
     
    The electrician says it’s going to cost me over £1000 to get the house properly checked out. Damn!
    My “darling” wife? Still alive! Her mother’s funeral will be sometime next week no doubt.
    How was I to know she was going to come visiting a day early and insist on cleaning up the house herself? Still, no great loss to the world.
    Suppose I’d better get back down stairs and do the comforting bit. It’s not easy you know. Life’s hard sometimes!
     
    19 th March, 12:45pm
     
    It’s been a