The Killer Next Door(51)
You bitch. You bitch.
‘And Lisa?’
‘What?’
‘One other thing you need to think about, Lisa. If we know you’re back, how long do you think it’ll be before other people do, too?’
Collette hits the off button, hurls the phone at the bed. Lets her tension out in a single roar, stifles it by biting the back of her arm. Leaves a ring of teeth marks in the flesh. Shouts once more and throws herself on to the chair to punch, punch, punch weakly at its padded back. Fuck! I need some exercise. I’m shut up in this damn room all day, or staring at Janine, and – how did she find me? How the hell did she find me? I’ve been so careful. I didn’t even give a name when I bought the SIM. How did she find me?
Well, she found you before. Just like she always has. Her and Tony. All of them, on your arse, catching up every time you run; you’re a sitting duck.
Her head throbs. Outside in the corridor, she hears Gerard Bright’s door open up, hears him pad down the corridor and stand outside her door. He stands there for thirty seconds. He must have heard her shout. She’s starting to hate this house. Hate the way everyone knows everything about each other here.
She gets up and runs a glass of water, pops four ibuprofen from their foil and swallows them down. The room feels like a prison, the walls closing in, the ceiling pressing down on her shoulders. She massages her temples, tries to think. She doesn’t know where I am. She’s just got the phone number. And even if she finds me, she can’t make me do anything unless she arrests me. Oh, God, why did I take that job? Why? I could have worked anywhere. I should have known that nothing that paid that well was on the up and up. I did know. Who am I kidding? I knew, and I stayed there anyway.
A blast of music through the wall makes her jump. Christ. The bloody Ride of the Valkyries. He must have the amplifier up to ten. How does someone living in a place like this have speakers that size? It’s crazy. It’s impossible. What sort of person thinks it’s okay to do that to everyone living around him? He’s not bloody fifteen. He’s a full-blown adult. He probably thinks that because it’s classical that everyone’s admiring him for being an intellectual, the bloody arsehole. No problem letting other people know they’re bothering him.
She tries hammering on the wall. Thumps until her fist hurts, but the music carries on. Her blood pressure has soared since the music started, she can feel it. Her pulse is hammering in her ears and her face is burning. ‘Shut up!’ she shouts. You’re going to bloody kill me, she rages to herself, never mind Tony Stott. ‘Shut up, shut up!’
She throws herself down on the bed, grabs the pillow and crams it over her head. Hot and dark and unbearably stuffy, but still she can hear it: trumpets, trumpets, trumpets and squealing violins and the thump, thump, thump of her angry heart.
Collette swings out of bed and grabs her keys. It’s too much. It’s just too bloody much. She unlocks the door and throws it back, and storms up the corridor. Hammers on the door, her heart ready to burst out of her chest. You will not. You will not do this to me today.
The music turns down, but no one responds. She guesses he’s listening, not even sure, the noise has been so loud, that he’s really heard her knock. She raises her fist and thumps again. ‘THANK YOU!’ she shouts. ‘And bloody keep it down!’ Finds that she’s panting, hear heart still racing.
He cracks the door open and stands in the gap, blocking her view into the room, and she’s shouting before she notices that he’s half-naked. ‘What the FUCK!’ she shouts.
It’s the first time she has heard his voice. It comes out weak and prissy, selfconsciously posh like a man who’s spent too much time explaining grammar to schoolchildren. ‘Can I help you?’ he asks.
‘Seriously? What? Can’t you hear your own fucking music?’
He recoils at the swearword. ‘Excuse me —’
‘Jesus! Have you gone deaf or something? Is that it? Turn it down! Turn it the fuck down! How can you be so fucking selfish?’
He blinks at her.
‘Have you any idea how thin these walls are?’ she demands. ‘Just because you think it’s some kind of classy music I have to share every bloody note. Just turn it the fuck down!’
He blinks again. Upstairs, she hears the creak of a door, the sound of quiet footsteps creeping along the landing. Someone come to listen, but she knows they won’t join in. Her rage builds. DI Cheyne and Tony Stott and her daft, mad, drunken mother, and that dirty old sod leering at her as he takes her rent and thinking he’s entitled to the deposit because she’s improved his property with a door lock, and everyone wanting, wanting, wanting the money she soon won’t have.