What constitutes 'reasonable force'?

In this dark Showcase Short Story, a householder prepares to report the death of an intruder in his home.  But how far can you go in protecting your property?  

They Couldn’t Call It Murder

by

Dave Sivers

The bloody baseball bat drops from your nerveless fingers.  Its clatter on the kitchen tiles sounds like dry, brittle bones rattling.  The young man lies at your feet, crimson pooling around his ruined head, stark against the immaculate white floor.  There is no need to check for a pulse.  You know he is dead.

 Your stomach roils at the sight and stench of all that blood.  Your pulse roars in your ears.  You’ve killed him.  But they couldn’t call it murder.  Surely they couldn’t?

A young man, an intruder in your own home.  Surely they can’t call it murder.  Not when you tell them your story.  How you heard a noise.  How you picked up the bat that you’ve kept under the bed ever since Sian...

No.  No.  You mustn’t think of your dead daughter.  Not now.  Not yet.
 Christ, how many times did you hit him?  Three times for sure.  Once to knock him down, once more to make him stay down, once to make sure.  Three, then.

But then you got carried away, didn’t you?  The adrenalin shrieking through your veins.  You see it in your mind’s eye, the bat rising and falling.  Rising and falling.  The blood arcing from the wood, spraying the walls, the worktops.  Befouling Clare’s beloved kitchen.  Her pride and joy. 

How many times?

And the noise!  In novels you have read, they describe the sound of a head breaking in terms of fruit:  like a melon; like a grapefruit.  But there was nothing fruity about that hideous sound.  There are no words to describe that obscenity, the sound of that wooden bat shattering the bones of the young man’s skull, the thin layer of skin and hair affording scant protection against your onslaught.  You realise you are still panting from the exertion.

Thank God Clare is away, at her sister’s.  The thought of her seeing this sends a shudder through your entire body.  The enormity of what you have done wells up inside you, mingling with panic.

Dear God, surely they wouldn’t call it murder.  You think of all those men who have hit the headlines after fighting off intruders in their homes, only to find themselves in trouble with the law.  The farmer, repeatedly burgled, who shot and killed one of the trespassers and found himself serving a lengthy jail sentence.  The massive outcry from the public couldn’t save him. 

Is that what will happen to you?  Even after you tell them you were in fear of your life?  How he came at you with a knife, one of your own kitchen knives, and so you hit him with the bat?

Surely they’ll see how it was.  He went down and you were scared of what would happen if he got up, so you hit him again.  What happened next happened out of blind terror, not vengeful fury.  You’ll tell them and they’ll believe you.

Anyone would understand, especially after what happened to Sian.  In spite of everything, you force yourself to relive it, that moment when you and Clare walked into the living room after an evening at the cinema.  Your beautiful daughter, sprawled on the carpet like a thrown-away doll, clothing ripped, skirt up round her waist, her eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.  Barely sixteen and raped and murdered.

And the police baffled.  Two years on and the case still open.  No wonder you don’t feel safe in your own home.  No wonder you keep the bat under your bed.  No surprise about the emotions another break-in would give rise to. 

Just a man protecting himself.  Not a killer.

You make an effort to regulate your breathing.  You’ve got to think clearly now.  What you do before you dial 999 - as you must do, and soon - could affect your whole future.  Yours and Clare’s. 
You need more than just a plausible story.  You need incontrovertible evidence to back it up.  You know what you have to do. 

Forcing yourself to focus, you go to the knife block and select the long-bladed knife, the one your wife calls ‘Norman Bates’.  You don’t worry about your prints; they will expect plenty of yours and Clare’s.  It’s your knife, after all.  You press the handle into the dead man’s hand and close the fingers round it, making sure the grip is what would be expected in a knife attack.  Then you take a handkerchief from your pocket and use it to carefully grip the point of the knife, removing it from the corpse-grasp and placing it where it might have fallen after you hit him.

Satisfied, and avoiding the pool of dark blood, you go to the back door, remove the key from the lock.  You take it to the corpse and press its thumb and first two fingers onto the bow, the part of the key you grip when turning it.  Then, using the handkerchief, you return it to the lock.

Finally, you take a newspaper from a pile by the door.  You go outside, close the door, and press the paper against the glass pane nearest to the lock.  You smash your elbow into it and the glass shatters inwards, the sound muffled by the paper.  It’s three in the morning.  Dark.  And the noise was slight.  No one would have heard.

That newspaper is a problem; it may have glass splinters on it.  But you keep it simple, taking it to the rubbish bin, burying it beneath plastic bags of garbage.  You don’t expect the police to investigate.

You’re breathing easier now.  He broke in by the back door.  You heard a noise, came down with your bat and surprised him in the kitchen.  He grabbed the knife from the block and flew at you.  You lashed out instinctively, terrified that he’d kill you.  Yes, you suppose you may have hit him a couple more times than was necessary, but you were so scared.  A younger, fitter man.  You or him.

That’s what you’ll tell the police.  And, with the evidence you’ve created, they’ll surely believe you.

Yes.  You think you’ll get away with it.

What you won’t tell them is how you’d spotted him hanging around the house in the days before Sian’s death.  How you’d seen him running from the house as you arrived home that dreadful night.  His face, a face you’ll never forget, pale in the car headlights.

You knew it was him, knew he’d violated your little girl and stolen her life.  And you’d been all for reporting it to the police.  But then Clare, suddenly calm and terrible in the midst of her shock and grief, grasped your wrist as you lifted the phone.

“Think a moment, Steve.  A young guy like that.  By the time the social workers and psychiatrists have finished with him, he might get off with just a slap on the wrist.  If they punish him at all, it’ll probably be only be a few years if he behaves himself.  Then he’ll be out, getting on with his life, while our Clare lies in the earth.  No way.  It’s not enough, Steve.  Not nearly enough.”

She wanted him dead.  And so, you realised more or less immediately, did you.

The plan was hatched that night, before you called the police and reported your awful discovery.  You told the police nothing that would lead them to him, nothing that would risk him being put away, out of your reach.

Instead, you bided your time.  For two long years you both waited.  You knew he was local and it wasn’t hard to find out discretely who he was and then keep tabs on him.  Recently, you started looking for him on those social networking websites young people use, and sure enough, there he was. 

These kids are so free with their personal information when chatting to ‘friends’ online.  It was delightfully simple to get a mobile phone number out of him.  You did it all from an internet cafe.  Untraceable.  Contacted him from a call box.  Told him who you were, that you had evidence of what he’d done.  That you’d turn it over to the police if he didn’t come to the house to talk about it.

He hadn’t been keen on the idea of coming to the back door in the middle of the night, but he’d done it anyway.  You wonder whether what he’d done to Sian had preyed on his conscience.  Whether he even had a conscience.  Whether he’d lived in constant fear of a knock at the door that would mean he’d finally been found out.

You’d given him a lot of psychobabble when he came to the door.  About just wanting to understand why.  What could possibly have led a young man to such a dreadful act?  You put him at his ease.  Even offered him tea.

You’d concealed the bat.  He didn’t even see the first blow coming.  Even as the killing frenzy threatened to consume you utterly, you’d managed to glory in his cries, his begging for mercy. 

The silence, when it came, was overwhelming.

The plan was pure Clare.  She’d always been the brains of the family.  But, by Christ, you’d always been the muscle.  For two years, the two of you planned this revenge.  Now that it’s done, the feeling is surprisingly sweet.  A shame about the mess you’ve made of the kitchen, but worth it.  The young man lies pale and dead at your feet.  Later, you’ll phone Clare and let her know it’s over.  You can finally move on with your lives and let Sian rest in peace.

You move into the hall and pick up the telephone.

It’s time to lie to the police.

 ©  Copyright Dave Sivers 2008