The blond with a purple nose stud sat fingering the photograph.
He was a good-looking man, no doubt about that. Crinkly black hair, swarthy complexion, dark brown eyes and a very thin moustache; perfect! She felt the colour come to her cheeks as she realised she had actually said the word. She looked nervously around the café. Nobody had noticed. He’d sent back saying how he liked the photo she’d sent. He said how much he was looking forward to meeting her. She checked the time. He was late. Held up in traffic probably. The dating site said he had a car and was local, so he wouldn’t have too far to come. She peered out into the darkness. This was her first time. She told him that. He said it was for him as well. That had put her at ease to some degree, but a feeling of self-doubt and anxiety were there constantly.
It was getting later and later. She waited and waited. When the café’s clock told her she’d been there for more than an hour her heart sank. She would have to face it; he wasn’t coming. Feeling both disappointed and foolish she left the café and made her way to the bus stop. She was soon sitting at the back of the bus as it made its way through the city. She was looking at his photo again and dabbing away tears, when the bus braked abruptly. She looked out. A car had crashed head on into a pole on the sidewalk and had ended up sideways across the road. The traffic was down to one lane. They seemed to be having difficulty getting the driver out. Then, just as suddenly, the bus moved on.
Meanwhile, a policeman was having trouble dragging the lifeless body of the man with the thin moustache out of the crumpled vehicle. As he did, a tiny roll of soft cloth wrapped around something hard and held together with an elastic band tumbled out of a jacket pocket. Curious, he opened it up and found a small bottle of chloroform. Now, even more curious, he searched through the dead man’s other pockets and found a large flick-knife and a photo of a blond with a purple nose stud.