WICKED WEDNESDAY
Please welcome Marni Graff as guest blogger today!
I’d
never written a psychopath before, so found it was great fun to create the
character of Viktor Garanin for my new book. Here’s a scene where readers can
see how his wickedly twisted mind works:
It had
been a frustrating morning for Viktor Garanin. He arrived promptly as the
museum opened, only to be told that the man he needed to speak with, Mr. James
Fisher, would be out of the building all morning for a talk at an historical
society. He wasn’t expected in his office until 2:30 that afternoon.
Viktor did a good job of hiding his
contempt for the secretary who imparted this information. With her public
school accent and haughty manner, all that creamy pale skin and soft blonde
hair, she was so condescendingly polite she reminded him of his mother. So terribly
British. She represented everything he loathed about the English.
He’d left the museum in a tense
state, fists clenched, wanting to strike out at something or someone. If he
knew the town better, he would have looked for a boxing gym to get a bloody
nose, or to give a few.
Instead, he attached himself to a
tour headed behind Bath Abbey to the Roman baths, where the green, glowing
water, laden with over 40 minerals you could taste—bah!—steamed up into the colonnaded terrace. This was topped with a
collection of statues the Victorians had erected of Roman emperors mixed with
British governors. Who else would they put up there but themselves? More than
just hating British architecture, he hated the people, their looks, their
customs and their bloody-minded assurance that they were superior beings. He
hated his mother.
His contempt for the whole British
nation surged, cementing his resolve to see his plan for their ruination
through to its culmination, whatever the cost. What was one pitiful life of a
dead art restorer compared to the greatness he would achieve with a national
outbreak of smallpox that destroyed the entire British population? Then there
would be no more weaklings, like his mother, who couldn’t take what his father
had dished out.
At the back of his mind, a small
voice whispered that if his succeeded in what he’d hoped, there was no
guarantee the epidemic wouldn’t spread to his beloved Russia. Being an island
had its advantages for quarantine and control. Viktor thought the world would
rise up and make certain that no one from anywhere in the British Isles would
be able to leave or travel anywhere. The thought of the resulting international
upheaval satisfied him almost as much as the ensuing deaths. If he were
extremely lucky, Ireland might be included in the ban, but he wouldn’t dwell on
that. Only Vanya would have notice and time to get himself to Russia and join
Viktor, back to his homeland.
Viktor lingered by the weir. The guide
informed them that this had been built as part of a flood prevention scheme in
the late 1960s. Viktor recognized the site from the most recent film version of
Les Miserables, where Russell Crowe
as Javert committed suicide. Viktor stared at the thundering water, and
pictured himself holding James Fisher of the fancy Holburne Museum over the
weir by his ankles, as the man screamed and bucked and pleaded for mercy. The
daydream blossomed, and he felt satisfaction flood him when he let go and
watched the idiot’s body falling, falling, falling into the rushing water.
You can find more of
Viktor Garanin in Marni Graff’s newest Nora Tierney English Mystery, THE GOLDEN
HOUR, set in England. The award-winning series features American writer Nora,
living in England, with a nose for murder. Available in paperback, Kindle and
Audible (http://amzn.to/2vabUMJ)
and at Bridle Path Press: http:// bridlepathpress.com.
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