The Funfair Photo

There was no denying it, Katrina was holding unequivocal evidence in her shaking hands. She was usually quite lackadaisical when it came to getting her photos developed, especially now that everyone had gone digital. The only reason why she still took photos with her dusty old point-and-shoot was simply because it still worked, not to mention the excitement of getting your prints back. “In a way,” she had once said to her friend Tom, “it’s kind of like childbirth, you don’t know what they’re going to look like. Digital has ruined the excitement of the unknown…”

The excitement of the unknown. The funfair had been definitely been exciting, Kat had used up an entire roll of film, not caring that the vast majority would most likely come out blurred due to lack of light. Major disadvantage with not having lots of different settings. She had gone with Tom and his girlfriend Manda (Manda the Panda as Kat referred to her). Manda was one of the most annoying people to have around a camera; “Katrina! Take a picture of Tom and me!”, “Katrina, this is so cute, take a picture of it!” and Kat’s favourite, “You MUST send me copies!”.

The funfair was just a normal run-of-the-mill funfair. There was a haunted house and a Ferris wheel, there were dodgems and spinning tea-cups and not to mention the sheer magnitude of shooting ducks, basketball throws and other various target shot games. Creepy “ice-cream van” style music was played over megaphone speakers yet fortunately was drowned out by the hundreds of children laughing and screaming with delight.

It had been Tom’s mother, Bethany, who had called early the morning after the fair to ask Kat if she had heard about “the incident”. Apparently, a nameless man had been found behind one of the stalls, beaten to within an inch of his life. Police were asking for anyone who may have information.

“We can hardly provide information without even knowing the man’s name,” mumbled Kat.

“I suppose,” replied Tom. They had met for their morning sandwich and coffee at Bethany’s before heading to work. “Hey, listen, Manda asked me to remind you about those photos, she’ll kill me if she doesn’t get copies.”

“Then make sure you kill her first!” Snapped Kat but recoiled instantly at the stern look from Tom. “Fine, fine, I’ll get them A.S.A.P.O.K?”

As tempted at she was to purposefully “forget” to get the stupid photos developed, it had only been after a further two text messages and a phone call from Tome that Kat gave in. She threw the film into her bag and went to drop it off at the developers before heading for a quick bite to eat with her sister.

“Did you see anything?” asked Hilary, her soup spoon suspended in midair.

“No,” said Kat. “Like I told Beth, it seems no one saw anything.”

“Just seems…” said Hilary, trailing off.

“Weird?” suggested Kat. “I know, there were so many people, you’d think someone, anyone, would have seen at least something. But the police aren’t even releasing a picture of the man who got beaten up, so how can we even be sure we know what man it is?”

There was a moment while the two sisters sat in silence, deep in thought.

“Well, I’m sure they’ll find whoever did it.”

“Hmm…”

Kat didn’t look at the prints as soon as she got them because she was sure they were going to be of shoddy quality. Instead, she threw them into her bag and forgot about them for a couple of hours. It was only when she received a text from Hilary that evening saying that the police had released a photo of the victim. Upon finding this out, Kat had headed straight round to Beth’s house.

“Ben Murdock, 24, was visiting his brother and nephew,” recited Beth, holding up the evening paper with Murdock’s smiling photo on the front page. “Did you see him?”

“No, I don’t recognise him,” said Kat.

“Hmm, neither did Tom or Manda…” said Beth, sounding almost disappointed.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Kat, taking the prints out of her bag and handing them to Bath. “Could you please pass these on to Manda? She wanted copies.”

“Are these from the fair?” asked Beth, taking the prints out and idly sifting through them.

“Yeah,” replied Kat. “I’m no photographer of the year but she insisted she have -”

Beth gasped, her hand flew up to her mouth.

“What?” asked Kat, shocked by her reaction. “What is it?”

“It’s him, it’s Ben Murdock!” stuttered Beth, handing over a print.

“Oh my goodness!” exclaimed Kat, taking the photo. It was an awful shot of Manda holding up the giant teddy bear that Tom had won for her. But directly behind her, in the background as clear as crystal, was Ben Murdock. Two other men were with him, one of them had their hand shoved into the side of their jacket which was pushed up against Murdock’s side. It looked suspiciously like a knife.

Sitting down now, the two women went through each of the photos meticulously, studying every spare inch of the prints. In the end, they found two photos with Murdock in them, but it was the one that Beth had gasped at that held the evidence. It was a good shot of all three men’s faces, and while Manda was a blur in the foreground, the men in the background were sharp and in focus.

It was little more than a week after Kat and Beth handed over the photo that the police had caught the two criminals. Ben Murdock, who was proving to be a quick mender, had shown his appreciation with bunches of flowers and lots of chocolate. He was even promising dates to Kat, which Kat certainly wasn’t fussed by.

“You know what,” Kat mused one morning with Tom over coffee. “I’ve never been happier that Manda is such an attention seeker!”


Word count: 995