The Killer Next Door(75)

‘Yes!’ says Collette. ‘Is that it?’

‘Looks like it,’ says Hossein.

‘Thank Christ for that.’

‘I think I’ll keep this thing running for a bit,’ says Hossein. ‘If this stuff’s all the way down to the sewer, I think we need to get as much of it off the sides as we can.’

‘What is that?’ She comes over and squats beside him, looks disgustedly down at the sludge. He’s suddenly, acutely aware of her proximity, the soft roundness of her bare shoulder in her sundress, the smooth curve of her neck, the golden curls tumbling around her ears. She smells good: like freshly ironed linen and baking bread. He feels himself blush, and turns his gaze studiously back to the drain. ‘Where’s it come from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It doesn’t look like anything I’ve… we should dig it out, you know. We can’t just leave it there. It’ll just gum everything up again.’

Hossein feels an urge to hurl. The fat looks evil, somehow. Unnatural. And now that the liquid sewage has drained away, he feels even less inclined to touch it. But he knows that Collette is right. There is an old plastic bucket in the corner of the area, covered in paint. If he uses the ladle from Vesta’s kitchen, it will probably work as a receptacle. They can dump it at the end of the garden. Dig a hole, if they have the strength left.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ asks Collette.

‘Cher’s with Vesta in the garden – and I think Gerard Bright is back in his room. I heard him coming in this morning. Thomas, I don’t know.’

‘How’s Vesta doing?’

Hossein shrugs. ‘As you would expect, I suppose.’

‘Yeah.’ She scratches the back of her neck and stares uncomfortably at the drain. ‘I’ll get the bucket,’ she says.

‘Oh, no,’ says Hossein. ‘It’s okay. I’ve got this.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ says Collette, and gives him a sweet, sunshiney smile.

He gives the hose another push, and finds that he can feed another three feet into the drain.



With all the water flying around in the shade, Hossein and Collette have no idea how hot the day has become. Sitting out in the sun is like being on a barbecue. The shed must be as hot as an oven inside, its contents baking like a slow pot roast. Vesta and Cher sit on the deckchairs, their backs turned firmly to the light, their eyes closed, in silence. Vesta looks old. It’s as though she’s aged a decade overnight, deep lines etched around her mouth, her skin grey and toneless, despite the long, long summer.

Cher has covered her eyes with a pair of giant panda sunglasses, but the bruise on her face is still visible around the edges, beginning to turn green as it develops. Her lip has scabbed over and looks worse than it did when Thomas brought her home. She’s a skinny little thing; looks like a baby bird in her sprigged cotton sundress, and her platform wedges. Neither of them stirs, but nor are they asleep.

The party is warming up over the fence, in as much as a British middle-class party ever warms up, the sound of glass clinking and confident voices ringing out in the hot air. The women’s laughter sounds like church bells. If they knew, thinks Vesta, what’s lying there on that concrete floor just yards away from them, they wouldn’t sound so sure of their place in the world. It must be great, living in a world where nothing’s ever undermined your self-belief. Where pension funds and mortgages figure because you think you’re going to live to ninety. Where your prospect for the night involves tipsy, sunburnt sleep and the worst thing that can happen to you is feeling jaded as you start the week, rather than creeping your way through darkened streets with a corpse in the boot of a car.

The sunlight has that strange yellow-gold tinge you only find in cities. Pollution, presumably, but it’s a pleasurable thing to look at through half-closed eyes. Vesta turns her head and soaks up the rays. Hears the power jet’s engine cut out, and its hum be replaced by the sound of rhythmical scraping. Oh, dear, she thinks. I know I should help him, but I can’t do it. People look at me and think I can handle anything, they always have, but they’re wrong.

Now the engine sound is gone, she can hear the conversations next door with greater clarity. A woman is telling a long, boring story about a trip to an all-inclusive resort hotel in Thailand. ‘Gaad, it was gorgeous. Premium-brand spirits and food all day. We didn’t really leave the pool, except to eat. And we had a waterfall in our room! Imagine! Your own waterfall!’

‘Did you go on any trips?’

‘There was a trip to an elephant sanctuary. We went on that, but we didn’t feel like anything much other than sleeping and sunbathing.’