Approaching Zero (23 page)

“He’s not here yet: Marcus.” Mum emphasised his name proudly.

“So tell me about him.”

“Well, I told you that we met online, but he’s a friend of Jackie.”

“And I told you that I don’t know Jackie.”

Kathy’s mum turned to the kitchen area while Kathy sat down. Either her mum was used to Kathy’s tone or she had promised herself that nothing would spoil her evening.

“He’s twenty-nine.”

The upper end of twenty, Kathy noted. Not as bad as it could have been.

“He’s a teacher and he’s…” she turned back to her daughter with the face of an excited fifteen-year-old. “And, oh, he’s just lovely, Kathy. I so want you two to get on.”

“I’m sure we will,” Kathy replied and really did try to mean it.

“Just be nice to him, Kathy. He’s a good man.”

Kathy held her hands up defensively. “I will! I will!”

“Tea?”

“Please. Something smells nice.”

“It’s lasagne. You like lasagne don’t you?”

Kathy nodded and absently began to leaf through the papers and magazines on the table beside her as if she were in a doctor’s surgery. Minutes later her mother brought the tea over and was sitting beside her. As they sipped, Kathy’s mum told her more about Marcus—how he had taken her to Paris, how he had sent flowers to her work, how he had this funny little snore that she liked to listen to at night—and although Kathy was hearing what was being said she was seeing something else, something that she hadn’t noticed when she arrived.

“Are you alright, Mum?” she suddenly asked. “I’ve never seen you looking so… I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. Loved-up, but jumpy. Why are you so jumpy?”

Kathy’s mum looked down at the cup and her hands wrapped around it, holding onto it for dear life and then the maverick words, “I’ve got a gun,” literally fell out of her mouth, beyond her control.

“You’ve what?”

“A gun! I’ve got a gun!” She reddened a little as she said it and then seemed to deflate a little as if a pressure valve had been released and she was finally able to breathe normally. “There I’ve said it. Isn’t it exciting?”

“No, Mum, not really. Why have you got a gun?”

“It’s Marcus’s. He says everyone should have a gun in the city. It’s safe.”

“It’s illegal, that’s what it is.”

“Don’t be that way. You want me to feel protected, don’t you?” 

“I thought you said he was a teacher not a fucking Mafioso!”

“Don’t be dramatic, Kathy. We both know more than most how evil this world can be.”

“I’m not. But do you really want to be with someone who can get a hold of a gun? It’s your life, but–”

“That’s right, it is,” she replied and her eyebrows lifted as she said it. This was something that Kathy also hadn’t seen in her mother or at least not as far as she could remember; something resolute and defiant; something that sent a very definite message to Kathy that she had never needed or wanted to send before, and it killed the conversation for a few moments.

“What time are we expecting him?” Kathy then asked and watched as her mum looked down at her watch.

“He should be here by now, to be honest. Let me just…” and she moved over to the tiny kitchen area to turn down the vegetables and check on the contents of the oven. As if he had been outside waiting for the best moment to make his entrance, Marcus could be heard letting himself in and walking down the hallway.

“You’ve given him a key?!”

“Be nice!”

“He’s given you a gun and you’ve given him a key. Sounds perfect!”

“Kathy, please!”

“Hi, honey, I’m home!”

Kathy was poised in the direction of the doorway to get her first glimpse of the man who had clearly swept her mother off her feet, full of images of what this young teacher would look like, but something unexpected entered the room before he did. It breezed in unseen and once it was inside, it filled the room and attacked Kathy’s senses. Kathy clamped her hand over her nose and mouth and just stopped herself from being sick. It was festering waste; it was pus-filled, furry meats; it was the vomit of a corpse and it was crawling in her nostrils.

“Not now!” her mother reprimanded her between gritted teeth, spotting the all-too familiar reaction. And then Marcus bounced into the room—a clean-cut, obviously clean-living young man, well presented in a blue shirt, slightly darker blue tie, and tight trousers. He had piercing blue eyes and an innocent grin that Kathy may have found attractive if she could see the man, but her eyes had filled with water and she was wrestling with her bag to find the vapour rub.

“Are you okay?” he asked with a voice full of concern, and crouched beside Kathy, who obviously looked as much of a mess as she felt.

Up to her elbow in bag, Kathy rummaged, but eventually dropped the whole thing on her lap, defeated, and the smell seemed to be getting worse. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling herself to her feet with the bag still attached to her and the other hand still desperately protecting her nose and mouth from the vile stench. “I have to…” And she moved away from Marcus and into the hall.

“I thought you’d grown out of this,” she heard her mum calling as she opened the door to her flat. “You’re thirty-three, Kathy, not thirteen!” And then there was nothing but relief as she closed the door and left them behind. Still struggling with her bag, she staggered down the hallway and this time opted for the lift, all the time the disbelief was hitting her again and again. A paedophile; she’s seeing a paedophile; her boyfriend’s a fucking paedo. With the doors of the lift stubbornly remaining open, she stabbed her finger into the ground-floor button over and over again. “Come on! Come on!” Then finally laid her hand on the precious vapour rub, twisted the lid off and when she had rubbed a little into each nostril, she felt that she could finally breathe again. Finally the doors to the lift slowly began to close but stopped before they could meet each other and opened again. The sprightly figure of Marcus jumped into the lift, pressed the button and they were off. Kathy was too dizzied and terrified by his presence to protest until he pulled the little red button at the bottom of the panel and the lift ground to a halt.

“What the fuck?”

“No, Kathy. You’ve had it too easy. Your mum’s been cooking all day and was so looking forward to us meeting. She told me that you have these
problems
, but I really can’t let you leave. She’s in bits up there.”

As he spoke, Kathy could see how he would make a good teacher, but then the same thought punched her in the stomach. A paedophile teacher! It just got worse and worse.

“You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know everything about you. I’m your mother’s partner.” He reached out to touch Kathy’s arm soothingly, but she reacted like a caged beast and he pulled away. “We don’t have to be best mates; I’m just asking you to come back with me and sit down to a meal with us. It’s not much to ask is it?”

“I’m not going back in there. Now get this fucking lift moving or I’ll call the police.” With her phone a pile of crumbs under Miles Denver’s boot, this wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

“What’s this really about, Kathy?”

“You really want to know?”

“Of course.” He was softly spoken and patient. In other circumstances, they really could have been friends or even more.

“Just the small issue of you being a pervert.”

“A what?”

“You heard me, Marcus.” The vapour rub had circulated sufficiently for her to take her hand from her face and claim a little more control over her situation, managing her posture so that she stood up to him and looked immovable.

Marcus smiled, shrugged and shook his head. “You really are nuts.”

“You can’t laugh and smile your way out of this. What my mother doesn’t know is that I can smell vermin like you. And I know what you’re thinking right now—it’s never far from your mind is it—the touch of soft, hairless flesh, you pervert.” She was talking close to his face now. “Your life’s over, Marcus, starting with your relationship with my mother.”

“No wait!” His face had blanched and the smile had now completely disappeared.

“Not denying it now, huh!”

“You’ve got it wrong, Kathy. Well, you haven’t got it wrong, but…”

“I don’t get it wrong.”

Marcus let out a long sigh and passed his fingers through his hair. He did an interpretation of pacing, the full act made impossible by the confined space, and finally came to rest against the wall, looking up at the light. Kathy reached for the ground-floor button once again and he said, “Please, wait.” She had no idea what it was about the way he said it, but she did exactly that and turned to see that he now had tears in his eyes.

“I belong to a group,” he began. “Yes, we are attracted to minors, but we are committed to never acting on this impulse. We are paedosexuals, not paedophiles.”

“My God, I’ve heard it all now.”

“Hell, do you really think that I would want to hurt a child? This is just who I am, Kathy. I can’t control how my body responds to the sight or thought of a child, but I can absolutely control how I act.”

Kathy reached to the button again.

“Please, Kathy.”

She turned to him sharply and said, “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I can see that you’re interested in truth. And you’re a psychologist. You can tell the difference between what is thought and what is done.”

“And what about my mother? She’s nearly sixty. Is that another perversion?”

“I love your mother. I don’t just… like children. I have had relationships before, successful ones. I love your mother. Please don’t tell her. Don’t ruin this for us.”

“Don’t ruin this for
us
? And what about the lives of all the children that you’ve ruined.”

“I’ve already told you, I’ve never hurt a child!” his voice was getting higher and his eyes filling with tears.

“The children that you will hurt then.”

“I’m on a waiting list for treatment, Kathy. It’s offered in Germany. It’s helped others and it can help me.”

Kathy looked deep into his eyes and saw a purity there that she didn’t want to trust, but she couldn’t help it. The longer she looked into his eyes the more he fell apart until he was sobbing and begging her to believe him and not to tell her mother. She had heard of such treatment centres and she also knew that they were largely unsuccessful, but she had never met anyone like Marcus before.

“I’m going to be watching you,” she told him and then finally pressed the button to bring the lift back to life.

“Thank you! Thank you!” said Marcus, relief now replacing the tears.

“I have a list and you’re on it. You put a foot out of place and you’re dead. Do you hear me?”

She was a lot shorter than Marcus and gave up considerable weight to him, but he looked terrified and compliant. “You have nothing to worry about,” he sniffled. “I love children. The thought of hurting one makes me sick.”

“
You
make me sick, Marcus,” she growled and then turned toward the doors and waited for them to open. She could hear Marcus’s heavy breathing behind her, but was determined not to look back. She had said all she needed to say. After a few seconds, the doors pinged open and Kathy stepped out into the foyer. As she moved toward the exit, she heard his final words, “I can see why your mother’s terrified of you.”

Chapter 22

Kathy’s driving on the way home was far more erratic than it had been before, crunching the gears as she changed them and barely slowing down to take the corners. A paedophile? A fucking paedophile! But she couldn’t quite get a handle on her thoughts. Suri kept flashing through her mind.
You have me here to do job, Kathy. I will do job
. The colours swirling in her sick bowl and the absence of colour on her face filled her mind. And then the toxic package she and Brady had posted in the stranger’s door when they were thirteen. It always came back to this. Her head filled with images of the man himself being stretchered out of his house, his own house where he was chemically bombed. And his wife and children, the eyes rolled back in their heads, bleeding from everywhere. He had a family. Why didn’t they think that he would have a family? Why didn’t they think that he might be like Marcus? Was Marcus even like Marcus? Was there such a thing? Could the beast be contained? And then, as hard as she tried as she powered down the motorway, she couldn’t get Marcus’s last words out of her head.
I can see why your mother’s terrified of you.
It spun around and around in there, gathering other thoughts and momentum as it kicked up a maelstrom of chaos. Terrified? She had fussed over Kathy her whole life, not leaving her alone for five minutes because she was afraid that something bad would happen to her. She had dressed her in the finest cotton wool as a child and deadlocked the world around her until Kathy’s life was so small she had to cause an explosion to escape it. Terrified? She had no business being terrified of her. The past was the past. Yes, she could be a little abrasive, but terrified? All of this spun around inside her and she was eventually delighted to see her front door. If nothing else, she knew that there was a bottle of wine in the fridge and so a good night’s sleep lay ahead of her. She was less happy, however, to see Spinoza leaning against the wall waiting for her.

She parked up, walked over to him and said, “Back to business, I see,” referring to the leather jacket and jeans.

“It’s been a long day and it’s still going on.” He couldn’t hide his own reaction to how good she looked this evening, but he tried hard.

“We really should talk about this home/work duplicity, you know,” Kathy quipped. “It could signify a deeper psychological problem.” She meant it as a joke, but Spinoza wasn’t smiling. “Do you want to come in?” she then said seriously and opened the front door.

      Spinoza looked into the hallway and shook his head. “I just need to give you an update,” he said coldly and handed her a photo. “Heston Wellsey.”

Kathy took the picture and looked down at the little face smiling up at her. It was a small boy of about six in a school uniform—ginger, covered in freckles with the self-conscious smile of a child a little unsure of himself.