Bottles
A well-dressed man in his thirties strutted into the public house and pulled himself ceremoniously onto a stool at the bar. He sighed and flicked a bottle blond strand of hair from his eye. Presently the barman, dressed in black arrived and waited patiently for the stranger to speak.
“Can I pour you a drink sir, “ he began, his brown eyes twinkling in the dim light.
“A little early don’t you think?” the stranger replied, consulting a clock over the barman’s head.
“ For a beer?”
The stranger chuckled.
“No, my good man, for stupid questions!”
The barman smirked and proceeded to empty the contents of the tap in front of him into a glass, which seemed to have been pulled from thin air.
In the background Billy Joel’s Piano Man filled the air and droned out the muttering and coughing coming from the rest of the bar. Half empty bottles littered the counter. A long mirror stretched out behind the counter and was interrupted now and again by an odd notice or pamphlet. The barman slapped the glass on the counter with an incoherent grunt. The stranger lowered his eyes and reached out for the glass. The barman’s eyes widened and he stumbled backward. The stranger’s hands, which had been hidden under the counter until this moment, were covered in blood, the dishevelled sleeve of his jacket streaked a menacing murky red.
At the sight of the barman’s shock the stranger smiled arrogantly. He drew down his sleeves with a wink and turned slightly away from the bar. He gave no explanation or excuse, nor did his expression give anything away as he stared unblinkingly into the furthest corner of the dark public house. The barman, his composure having now returned, moved cautiously away from the handsome stranger, his eyes never leaving his solitary figure. At long last his shift ended and he hurriedly left the bar, casting fearful glances over his shoulder.
The following morning the body of a young woman was found in one of the many back alleys of the city. She had been brutally stabbed and left for dead on the cold cobblestones. A few days later, a young barman was questioned following the discovery of a bloody shirt and the victim’s wallet in the bottom of his locker at his workplace. He claimed he was working all that night but the people at the bar that evening claimed to have been too drunk to notice or could not give a definite alibi. Despite his fervent protestations that he was innocent and that it was one of his customers that night that had killed the young woman, a high court jury found him guilty of the young woman’s murder and sentenced him to life in prison for this especially gruesome murder. He was found hanging in his cell two weeks later.
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