How an angry woman committed murder and got away with it
Dr Vernon Coleman
The piece below is part of Chapter One from Vernon Coleman’s novella `Balancing the Books’ which is available through the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com
Chapter One
When Harriet first came across Deborah she intended only to mess with her life a little, to give her the opportunity to taste the pain she had caused her husband and herself; to feel just a smidgeon of the anguish she had brought into their lives. She had thought it likely that Deborah had destroyed their lives on a mindless whim, without thinking about what she was doing.
But when Harriet had studied her prey for a while, she realised that Deborah was a malignant woman, a cancerous growth doing enormous damage to society; contentedly breaking the hearts and minds of strangers without feeling, without a whisper of restraint, a flicker of self-doubt or a moment’s hesitation.
And Harriet then decided that the only sensible, honourable, decent thing to do was to bring about her demise, to delete her from society in the same way that someone using a computer might delete a literal or a misplaced adjective. Those with a Shakespearean view of life might call it taking measure for measure. Those with an Old Testament turn of phrase would refer to it as taking an eye for an eye. Others might, I suppose, call it payback, revenge, redress or recrimination. Harriet liked to think of it as ‘balancing the books’.
Deborah was a specialist one star online reviewer, an absolute star in the modern world of criticism, and, like most of her breed, she hid behind a pseudonym; so that she could dispense misery with no recourse; pain without responsibility. She reviewed books, films, plays, hotels, restaurants and everything else reviewable. And the one star review was her trademark.
Within the world of literature, her speciality, as she thought of it, was to do her best to destroy a book completely. She was not content to say simply that she didn’t like the sound of a book (she hardly ever began one and had never read one through to the end) but wrote reviews (and headlines) which were designed to ruin. She did this anonymously, of course, abandoning fame and kudos for privacy and protecting herself with one of those anodyne, unoriginal pseudonyms which seem to be favoured by the ‘ubercritic’, and which are inevitably shared by a thousand others. She was a keen reviewer of books which she had never looked at.
It apparently never occurred to Deborah that if she didn’t enjoy a book (or didn’t think she might enjoy it) it might, just possibly might, be because she wasn’t the sort of person for whom the book was written. It never occurred to her that it might be her ‘fault’ if a book didn’t tickle her fancy. It never occurred to her that it might be cruel to give a book a devastatingly damaging review because she was in a bad mood or cross because the book’s supplier had failed to satisfy her high standards. It never occurred to her that if she didn’t enjoy a book she might be well advised to keep her doubts to herself. It never occurred to her that in damning a book she had never read she would be sticking a dagger into the author’s heart.
She had views on anything and everything and was always eager to share her simple-minded opinions and prejudices with the world. The world is now full of arrogant and illiterate bullies such as Deborah, and everyone is at their mercy. The Deborahs of this world are overwhelmed with disappointment, frustration (of every known variety) and a burning sense of personal failure and they obtain their only satisfaction by spewing venom at anyone and everyone within range.
In the old, pre-Internet, days the Deborahs of yesteryear would have been sanctimonious street gossips, obtaining their raw material by peeking through net curtains and then standing on their doorsteps to share suspicions, resentments, accusations, prejudices and plain old-fashioned lies with anyone prepared to listen. But today, the malignant gossip has been super-enfranchised and the world is her doorstep. She can sit in her kitchen and spew venom around the world through the endless variety of social media sites. She can do it anonymously and apparently without responsibility.
With a few stabs at the keyboard any ignorant fool can destroy a book and eviscerate an author. She can mark down a restaurant she’s never visited or skewer a film she’s never seen. The evil old bat who used to share her gibberish with a handful of like-minded idiots can now reach a global audience.
Sane and sensible people used to steer clear of the street gossip because they knew she was dangerous and batty (the twitches and the saliva dribbling from her chin were good clues) but the modern Internet gossip hides in the dark and spreads her venom anonymously.
The ravings of the mad witch living at No 13 were temporary and relatively harmless; quickly forgotten even by the other witches. But the anonymous ravings of the modern, ignorant and intemperate reviewer are permanent, damaging and sometimes lethal; a review written by a toxic, half-witted psychopath is afforded just as much importance as a review written by a skilled and thoughtful critic. It occurred to Harriet that it is sometimes possible for democracy to go too far.
Deborah had reviewed four books written by Mallory, who had been Harriet’s husband, and she had given each one a single star. She had put much the same comment on all four books and she had done all these within a single five-minute period on the same day. The woman was clearly too egocentric to empathise with the author.
The words she had written bad been burnt into Harriet’s soul: ‘Not my cup of tea.’
That was it.
‘Not my cup of tea.’
The same words, written four times; decorated on each occasion with a single star.
In the old days, a bad review in a newspaper or magazine might hurt a book but it would not kill it. For one thing, only the readers of that particular publication would see the review. And, of course, reviews published on paper quickly end up wrapping chips, stuffed in the rubbish bin or helping to light a fire.
In contrast, a bad review on an Internet site lasts forever and affects sales for eternity. Some one star reviewers seem to delight in having the power to destroy the sales of a book.
Like many of her colleagues, Deborah did not confine herself to reviewing books. She reviewed hotels, restaurants, holiday resorts, stately homes and a wide variety of retail establishments. When Harriet did a little research she discovered that Deborah had written over 400 reviews – and she found that virtually every one of those reviews had been accompanied by a single star. She was full to the brim with attitude and never short of a trite mal mot; from afar she seemed convinced that the world was forever waiting for her latest views on something or other. Some of her reviews were blatantly racist and some were overtly sexist but most were merely abusive and spiteful. All were full of spelling mistakes and basic grammatical errors. It is, thought Harriet, so much easier to criticise than it is to create.
Harriet had never killed anyone before so she had to think for a while before she worked out the best way to get rid of Deborah. She thought it was probably vital for the reviewer’s redemption that she should know who was killing her – and why.
It seemed to Harriet that if you’re simply killing someone in order to steal something from them, or to stop them doing whatever it is that they’re doing that you want them to stop doing, then the killing can be clean and quick. There is no need at all for the killing to be drawn out.
But if the killing is for revenge, and is designed, at least in part, to provide the killer with some relief, some liberation, some sense of necessary retribution, then it really needs to be as slow and as painful as it can be made. And the victim must know why he or she is dying.
Harriet felt the victim has to suffer if he or she is to stand the remotest chance of redemption.
And it seemed to her only fair that someone who has caused considerable suffering should themselves be exposed to a little suffering. She didn’t think that anyone could possibly claim that to be an unreasonable, unchristian attitude. After all, the words ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ come straight from the Bible and not from an old KGB handbook. Furthermore, in such circumstances it seemed vital that the person who is being killed should know that they are being killed (as opposed to suddenly not being alive) and to know precisely why they were being killed.
It would be terribly unsatisfying, Harriet decided, for a wronged individual looking for revenge to push someone under a train and have them die instantly without ever knowing precisely why they’d died or who had killed them.
Harriet decided that Deborah had to die for what she had done to Mallory and to prevent her destroying other people’s lives. In Harriet’s mind it would have been as wrong of her to do nothing as it would have been for a policeman to do nothing about a serial killer.
But since Deborah’s crime was one not yet recognised by a society which is proving slow to catch up with the strange mores of an Internet controlled world, Harriet had to take on all the responsibilities herself. She needed Deborah to die as slowly as possible so that she could be redeemed. And Deborah needed to know why she was dying; so that she had a chance to repent. Harriet decided that she would have failed Deborah if she allowed her to die a sudden death.
She felt that it would, in addition, be good for Deborah if the dying was excruciatingly painful or, at the very least, extremely uncomfortable. But she was prepared to accept that the pain did not have to be physical. Fear, frustration and a feeling of helplessness can all be painful.
Harriet’s problem was that she was very small and not very strong. Even if she wanted to she couldn’t rely on being able to kill her victim by hitting her over the head with a brick or sticking a skewer into her heart.
Moreover, she wanted Deborah’s death to look like an accident, so that the police would not start hunting for a murderer. She knew she would have to find a subtle way to kill the reviewer.
Note
Taken from Vernon Coleman’s novella `Balancing the Books’.
To find out precisely how Harriet murdered Deborah, and exactly how she committed a number of other murders without any risk of getting caught, please read: `Balancing the Books’ which is available through the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com
You’ll cheer Harriet all the way – she’s a serial killer on a mission.
Copyright Vernon Coleman June 2024
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