The Killer Next Door(95)

‘I told Cher as well,’ she says.

‘When?’

‘Around the time you told me, Collette.’

‘What? And did you tell anyone else? How about them next door? How about them? The greengrocer, maybe? How about the bloke in Flat One? I’m sure he’d like to know so he can keep his door locked.’

‘Sorry,’ says Vesta, but she doesn’t sound it. ‘It’s not like either Hossein or Cher is going to go to the police with the info, is it? And frankly, if there was going to be people turning up on the doorstep looking for you, I’d rather people knew what to expect.’

‘Fuck,’ says Collette, and slumps. ‘Well, thanks. Thanks a lot.’

‘You’re welcome,’ says Vesta, and Collette shoots her a look of pure evil.

‘I can’t believe you did that. What am I? Bambi?’

‘Sorry,’ says Hossein. ‘I shouldn’t have shared that I knew. She swore me to secrecy.’

‘Yeah,’ she sneers. ‘Well, secrecy’s obviously a big thing around here.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ asks Vesta.

‘No! No, I don’t want a cup of tea! What’s that going to solve?’

A reasonable question. Vesta’s been drinking tea every hour of the day since the Landlord died, and she still feels as though her heart’s been sprained.

She gets off her deckchair and heads for the house. ‘I’ll get you one. We could both do with a refresher, anyway.’ I’ll leave them to it, she thinks. She’s cross with me right now. Laying whatever it is she’s upset about at my door. If anyone’s going to get through to her, Hossein will manage it. He can talk to her through her soft spot the way I just can’t.

She steps in through her kitchen door, and her own ghosts swoop back in to haunt her. To all intents and purposes, the kitchen is back to normal. Better than normal, if anything, for Hossein has managed to restart the pilot light on the gas cooker, which went out some time in the 1990s, and has changed the washers on the sink taps so that they no longer drip. But she can hardly bear to be in here. When the bathroom door is open, she keeps having flash memories of the Landlord, squatting face down in the toilet. When the door is closed, she hears someone moving behind it. Using the bathroom is close to agony. She used to love a long bath with a book; now she scuttles through hasty showers, and has to close her eyes and hold her breath when she sits down on that toilet seat.

She puts the kettle on and fills the watering can at the sink, so she can water her herbs while it boils. It’s just an excuse to get out of the room. It’s unbearable, she thinks. I can do this now, but what happens in the winter?

In the garden she can hear the low murmur of voices. It sounds like Collette has at least calmed down enough to talk.

All my life, she thinks. All my life I’ve lived here, and now it’s spoiled. All the memories – all the Mum making cakes, the laundry days and the pegging out, Dad coming home in his butcher’s coat and his straw boater and chasing me round the garden with his cleaver, pretending to be an ogre as I shrieked with half-joy, half-terror, the looking after them as they got ill, the I-love-you deathbeds – all painted over in black by one single moment. I know it’s early days. I know I’m still in shock and I’m scared about what will happen next, what will happen when they find him, but I feel as though it will never be the same again. What if I’m eighty-five, all alone here, all these people long gone, and I’m still dashing in and out of the bathroom like the hounds of hell are on my tail?

The kettle clicks off and she goes back inside. It seems darker in here now, she thinks. It was never exactly a bright room, but now it’s as if there’s a shadow hanging over my shoulder all the time. I want to be gone from here. I want to be gone.





Chapter Forty


Now he’s going to come over all paternal, she thinks, plucking at the grass beneath her shin. Vesta’s left me alone with him so he can give me some sort of Big Daddy lecture. Because the thing I need right now is a mansplanation of the error of my thinking.

Hossein looks embarrassed.

‘I think she wants me to reason with you,’ he says.

‘Well, I wouldn’t bother.’

‘No,’ says Hossein. ‘I don’t think I will. You’re an adult. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’

She’s surprised and, suddenly, a bit hurt. That’s nice, she thinks. Glad to know you care.

‘It’s not like I want to go,’ she says. ‘It’s that I don’t have a choice.’

The cash, hastily unearthed from its hiding places, is hidden beneath her clothes in the bag, a thousand kept back for speedy access in her shoulder bag. Down to ninety-five thousand now, what with deposits and Janine’s latest bill, which came in yesterday. Payable in advance, of course. Still a lot of money, but only a lot of money if you’re not waiting to run.