The Killer Next Door(93)
‘What “word” is that?’ he asks, though he knows, and he sees hope spring into her eyes. She’s clearly not been having much luck today, judging from the quantity of leaflets she still has left.
‘I’m spreading the Word,’ she says, emphasising the Word as though it’s significant for its very existence, ‘about our church.’
Thomas feigns interested surprise. ‘A church? Well!’
‘I don’t suppose… do you have a church already?’
He can feel little prickles of excitement under his clothes. Such beautiful skin. If I had her alone, I could touch it. ‘Well, I…’
‘I don’t suppose you even live around here,’ she says, and looks disconsolate. It clearly doesn’t occur to her that anyone who doesn’t tell her to piss off might not be interested in God.
‘Oh, no! No, I’m just… it’s funny I should bump into you,’ he says. ‘I’ve only just moved into the area, and…’
‘Oh! Where from?’
He thinks fast. The first name that comes into his mind pops out. ‘Colindale.’
‘Colindale! That’s a long way!’
And I’ve never been there. That’s why I picked it. No one from Northbourne has been to Colindale. It’s at the far end of the Northern Line, and God knows the Northern Line’s a hike from here.
‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
Her skin is so pale it’s almost translucent. It’s as though she’s never been out in the sun before. I can almost see the blood beneath your skin, he thinks. I can almost see your arteries.
‘You must be a bit…’
‘Yes, it’s not… anyway, I’ve not found a church yet…’
She looks as pleased as punch. ‘So I’m preaching to the converted, then!’
‘Hardly,’ he says, and sees her look confused. ‘Preaching – you weren’t preaching. Heavens, what did you think?’
She laughs. Little white pearly teeth. Not rabbity at all, as he’d half-expected. As she does so, she tosses her head back and shows him her long white throat. Beautiful. He feels the prickle of his skin again. And so open. No wedding ring, he notices. No one waiting at home.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Psycho has caught a beetle, and is torturing it on the lawn. Funny, thinks Hossein, how that cat always looks at his best when he’s at his most vicious. He’s all sheen and lean, long muscle, stalking the hapless insect on dancer’s legs with a tail like a shepherd’s crook, glancing up occasionally to check that his audience is still entranced.
‘I’m sure that cat used to be called Toby,’ he says.
‘He did,’ says Vesta. ‘And before that he’s been Snooki, and Bell-end, and all sorts. For a bit he was Mr Skwoodgy.’
‘Mr Skwoodgy?’
‘I know. I think you can probably guess what that lad was like.’
Hossein smiles. For a moment, with his almond eyes and his golden aura, he looks not unlike a cat himself. ‘Psycho is better, I think,’ he says.
‘Yes. It suits him. Mind you, I don’t think he cares what you call him, as long as you call him for dinner.’
‘Talking of dinner,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ says Vesta. ‘I should get started, I suppose.’
But she doesn’t move. Looks instead at the steps going down to her kitchen with a face full of sadness.
‘It’s all spoiled, you know, now,’ she says.
‘Oh, Vesta…’
‘I know. I’m sorry. After all the work you’ve done and all the help, and all of you… the things you’ve risked for me… but I can’t. Every time I’m in there, all I can see is…’
He glances at the fence that divides the garden from the Poshes’. It’s not just walls that have ears. It’s fences, too. Vesta sees his eyes move, and quietens down. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be; I understand.’
She looks at him with a face that says that no one will ever understand. ‘I don’t want to be here any more,’ she says.
Hossein nods. ‘I understand. After Roshana… even though none of it happened there, I couldn’t be in the apartment any more. I kept seeing her. Disappearing round corners, standing on the balcony. Sometimes, places… they get poisoned.’
‘But I don’t know how to leave,’ she says.
‘You just… leave, Vesta. People do it all the time.’
‘“People” aren’t nearly seventy. With no money and almost no savings, and the only thing they’ve got that’s of any value at all is a secure tenancy. If it weren’t for the secure tenancy, I would have left years ago.’