Psychological thriller writer and our main speaker for our February meeting, Karen Hamilton, kindly gave her time to adjudicate our competition. The brief, a twist on our usual format proved popular and ensured everyone was suitably inspired. A reminder of the brief below:
Follow Storyblocks link provided, listen to the thriller music samples on the first page and select a piece of music or sound effect which inspires you to write a 300 words psychological thriller piece.
Karen, prior to announcing said: ” I very much enjoyed reading them, thank you.”
And the winners, along with Karen’s comments, are:
First Place: Action – Chase – Car – Cello by Simon Meats
“I thought this was cleverly written. I loved how music and instruments were used to create the scene, given that music was the inspiration for the competition.”
Second Place: Messages by Frank Devoy
“I thought the tension in this piece built up very well. I could picture the scene and sense the fear.”
Third Place: I May Be Some Time by Syd Meats
“I loved how the soundtrack of Tension in the Air was used to create a scene of claustrophobia and confusion.”
Highly Commended: In Cold and Tender Water by Dave Sinclair
“I thought this was very well written and of course, enjoyed the local names.”
Highly Commended: Blue Leather Gloves by Maggie Farran
“I enjoyed the twist at the end.”
First Place: Action – Chase – Car – Cello by Simon Meats
Herman Bernard was a professional cellist of modest means and an extravagant imagination. Convinced that he was being stalked by a black Citroen saloon, during rehearsals his thoughts became dominated by an internal symphony of autopredator obsession. Why he should be so targeted was a mere Macguffin, a decorative motif.
Leaving the safety of his rehearsal, Herman discovered a full orchestra of paranoia tuning up in the pit of his innermost being. Lugging his quarter-sized coffin of a cello case into a multi-storey car park, steel strings wove their harmonies around Herman’s cardio-vascular structure like snakes around a harp. A bank of demonic violins menaced his spine, as though a squadron of delinquent seagulls were circling under the low ceiling. And there it was, the chevroned menace, its headlamps pitiless halogen pursuers, as recognisable as a human face, familiar and reviled. He knew that the stationary vehicle was waiting for him, imploring him to make a move.
An internal brass fanfare accompanied the pair into a lift. Exiting at the storey below his hearse-like van, Herman anticipated that the Citroen had already swept upwards, seeking to corner and flatten him. But as he smiled a warm internal fugue, he saw the Citroen smiling too, advancing on him. As a sadistic pizzicato plucked his nerves, Herman charged the stairs and pelted for the ground floor, the heavy cello case propelling him downward.
At the exit, with the halogen glare hard upon his back, Herman leaped in an aortic crescendo up some flimsy maintenance steps. As the Citroen approached below, he thrust the case like an inverted dagger down towards the windscreen, the cello’s metal spike penetrating the glass and skewering the fleshy mass behind it, splintered glass peppering the dark red paintwork. “Dark red,” Herman quavered, as a black Citroen slunk away outside.
Second Place: Messages by Frank Devoy
Callaghan’s office is bare and windowless – forty square feet of cellar below his east end taxi drivers’ club.
The room sends messages; cash is precious, conversations are private, and there’s no escape.
His overweight companion tries not to sweat. On the scarred wooden table between them sits a bottle of Macallan, seal intact, and two empty glasses. Another message; this is not social.
‘Five years? After pleading guilty?’ Callaghan asks, slow and low.
‘Caught with two hundred e’s. Fiscal said he’d want ten, if they wasted court time. Lawyer reckons out in three.’ Proctor shrugs.
‘Any risk to us?’
The Glaswegian giant sits bolt upright, forearms flat on the table, hands clasped. His stiff white shirt, and tailored mohair suit, black as 2 a.m., emphasise the differences in physique and status. He lifts his glass to the naked light bulb, inspecting minor flaws, reinforcing the point that it’s empty.
Proctor watches, pursing his lips. Involuntarily.
‘Er, naw. Lawyer says we’re okay, if they don’t blab.’
‘They won’t. They’re good soldiers. How were they in court?’
‘Like schoolkid shoplifters. Hope they’re better inside.’
‘I’ll send word in. We look after our friends.’
‘Aye, okay.’
It’s Proctor’s second flippant comment, on top of an uncaring shrug.
Callaghan tightens, almost imperceptibly.
A noisy intruder breaks the tension, ellipses twice and lands on the table to suck sugars from a sticky mark. Finger to lips, Callaghan turns his tumbler upside down, moving patiently, into position above and behind the bingeing bluebottle.
The outcome is already known.
It takes off.
Backwards.
Into the glass.
Callaghan rests the rim on the table.
His tiny captive throws itself, crazed, against a wall it can neither see nor understand. Each time it lands, Callaghan taps the glass with a manicured nail.
Toying, torturing.
A drip of sweat runs down Proctor’s veiny nose.
Callaghan looks up, eyes cold and grey as a corpse, and points at Proctor.
‘That’s what prison feels like. And it could be you.’
Third Place: I May be Some Time by Syd Meats
(Soundtrack: Tension In The Air – Jon Presstone)
The problem with whiteout is that it’s difficult to tell whether there is actually nothing there or not. He wasn’t delusional. He remembered the psychiatrist saying that paranoid people always believed they were being followed by the CIA or FBI, not MI5 or MI6, which shows how good the British are at keeping a low profile. In the case of the British Antarctic Survey, they had world class invisibility.
Dr Hitch had explained how any conspiracy theory was always trumped by the cock-up theory, but something was clearly wrong with this whole South Pole thing. What was it that they didn’t want him to see? Was it the fabled Ice Wall? The edge of the earth? Keith began to think that this whole Antarctic phenomenon was fake. The extreme heat and brightness were surely the result of inefficient studio lighting from a bygone era. He must be in a film studio, like the one they used for the moon landings.
Wherever he was, he desperately needed shelter from the elements. With nothing but white visible in all directions, even a hallucination at this stage would be a source of comfort. Suddenly he heard the clattering of a cooling fan as it sprang into action. At last there would be some relief from the studio lights. A serious industrial fan with enough power to cool a blast furnace. It was descending in the near distance, getting louder, bringing gale force winds to the vast expanse of nothingness. He watched it in profile as it staggered like a drunken dragonfly and fell like a stone. In seconds it was gone.
Highly Commended: In Cold and Tender Water by Dave Sinclair
Chapter 1
DCI Charlie Wykeham had received the poem three days before the body was found. Written with quill and ink, its coarse handmade paper contrasted sharply with the crisp, white envelope in which it had been delivered to Wykeham’s home address. The postmark indicated it had been posted in Winchester the day before. At the time, he had been both intrigued and mildly concerned but there had been no obvious action he could take, except to carefully file the envelope and letter in an evidence bag in his office desk. Now, as he walked past the boathouse and followed the river downstream, the words of the poem resurfaced in his mind.
While fields submit to winter’s white campaign,
clouds kiss and bruise the hills with grey,
the wind pins the sky to earth’s window frame
and I flee the town to climb my favourite way.
Atop the hill, the hard and frosty sward
is cut by dark and winding lines. I ask what strange,
mad maze is this, with only but a single path?
No answer heard, just winter’s wild refrain.
You could not know whose feet would trace your craft.
But now my steps between the frigid turf
decode your labyrinthine cryptograph
and bring me to the centre of your work.
And though you’re gone, I still remain, a mourner
To your death below, in cold and tender water.
After a minute of trudging through the soft mud and puddles of the towpath, Wykeham came to a small tableau. Stopping at the Crime Scene – Do Not Enter tape, he nodded to a uniformed constable who recorded Wykeham’s arrival on a clipboard. A figure dressed head to toe in blue coveralls emerged from the white tent that had been erected by the riverside, and seeing Wykeham, came over. As she removed her mask, he saw it was the pathologist, Dr Rebecca Ferguson.
“Early days of course, but there are several indications this may not have been an accidental drowning.”
Highly Commended: Blue Leather Gloves by Maggie Farran
We met in ‘The Red Lion ‘in Salisbury. Before that, there had been the usual messages backwards and forwards, that are all part of on-line dating. When I saw him, sitting relaxed on an armchair by the open fire, I was furious. He looked nothing like his photo. He was at least ten years older and three stone heavier. We spoke about our jobs and our mutual love of solitary walking by the sea. We talked about the murder mysteries we enjoyed reading. He boasted about how good he was at solving them, and how he always knew, who the murderer was, long before the end. Conceited men always fill me with hostility. I screwed up my fingers into tight fists and I felt my back stiffen.
The next day he was dead. His body was found sprawled on the beach. He appeared to have fallen from the cliff edge. I felt shocked, but not sad. After all I’d only met him once or was it twice?
I scanned the newspaper. Yes, it was him, although it said his name was Brian Grey. He’d told me he was Gary Taylor. Why had he lied about his name? Liars make me angry. You can’t trust them. Maybe everything he told me over that red wine was a fabrication.
A few days later I felt compelled to visit the scene. I looked down over the cliff and imagined him falling to his death. I wondered how he felt in those few seconds before his death. Did he remember me sitting opposite him in the pub? I walked back along the cliff path and there were my blue leather gloves balanced on a shrub. A kind person must have picked them up. I hadn’t missed them, but I was pleased to get them back.