The Killer Next Door(45)

Her eyes are closed. They have been since he held her in his arms and felt her heart stop beating. It’s another thing he holds against her: that she cannot gaze at him the way Marianne does. Discovering that you really can buy anything you like on eBay has been a huge boon, too. Marianne has beautiful green eyes; Jenaer glass dating back to the Spanish Civil war. They cost nearly fifty pounds each, but they were worth every penny. When Nikki comes out from her hiding place, blue eyes just like the ones that made him want her in the first place will be waiting to grace her face.

But, meantime, he must make space for her. There’s no room for freeloaders in his life, or in this room. And yet, he’s not without nostalgia. She had soft, soft skin. He remembers noticing it first of all about her. Lovely English skin, touched with roses, flawless. He loved to touch it, to stroke it, to feel it smooth beneath his fingertips. Hard to believe that this saddle leather is the same substance.

She grins at him, toothlessly, appealing for mercy. But he’s over her now. It’s strange, he thinks, how quickly love can be replaced by indifference. I adored her, once, but now she’s an inconvenience, a chore that must be done to make room for better times.

‘I’m sorry, Alice,’ he says. ‘It was never going to be for ever. You knew that, surely?’

He picks up the circular saw.





Chapter Twenty


And here he is, as she knew he would be. Standing at the foot of her bed, come in, no doubt, through the open window, toying with his BlackBerry and smiling at her in the half-light. His thinning hair is swept back with gel and he wears a slick Armani suit, like the last time she saw him. His eyes catch the shaft of light that comes in through the crack in the curtains, and gleam. His smile widens, and she sees that his teeth are sharpened into daggers.

Collette is instantly awake, but is slowing herself down by the time her feet hit the floor. Tony, or Malik or Burim, turns up almost every night, at some point; always the same, always smiling. Some nights he holds a knife, or a length of electric flex. Some nights he just stands over the bed and grins. She hasn’t slept straight through since the night she ran. Sleep is a luxury whose price is security. Those who can shut the world out and leave it at will are usually blessed by a world that doesn’t want to shut them up.

She collapses back beneath her sheet, the pillow hard and lumpy beneath her head despite its newness, and stares round the room in the light that filters through the curtains, checks the corners as though he might just have stepped back into the shadows, to toy with her. He was always the sort of man who loved to toy. The sort of man who would tell a joke so his business rival would throw his head back in hearty laughter and expose his throat.

There are noises, despite the hour. The tinkle of a piano sonata, turned down but still audible through the wall. From the basement window with its safe, strong bars, American voices arguing on the TV. Cher, talking to her cat in a baby voice, and the drone of Thomas’s voice, intermittently, seemingly unanswered, the way it sounds when someone’s on the phone. In the street, quiet footsteps pass the house, surprisingly many for a road that leads nowhere. A couple walk past, laughing. In the distance, the shrieks of a fox and a tomcat disputing territory.

He will find me, she thinks. It’s only a matter of time. For all I know, he’s found me already. For all I know, he’s right outside the window.

The thought makes her cold, despite the clammy night. She throws herself from the bed and slams the window down. Slips a hand between the curtains to secure the catch, afraid, suddenly, to show herself to the world outside.

The sounds are cut off and the night goes still. I should have bought a fan. I know I can’t sleep with the window open. I’ll buy a fan tomorrow. Oh, God, I mustn’t keep spending money. I know it seems like a lot, but it’s not, when it’s all you have left, when you’ve nursing home fees to pay, when you never know when you’re going to have to run again. This air’s so still. It’s like it’s pressing down on my head. Can I live like this? Can I live like this for ever?

She sits back down on the bed, her foot brushing against the bag as she does so. I need to find a place to hide that lot, she thinks. Can’t just have it lying about. I don’t really know anything about these people, and someone has to have burgled that old lady downstairs. You’re nuts, Collette. You need to get it out of sight. Split it up and get it out of sight.

She checks the street through the chink in the curtains before she turns on the light. The pavements are empty and, apart from a pool of light falling against the street wall from Vesta’s basement window, show no signs of life. Closing the window hasn’t made her feel safer. If anything, with his presence still permeating her subconscious, it’s made her feel hemmed in. The clock on her phone tells her it’s nearly two. She won’t sleep again until dawn, at least.