Bloodeye (4 page)

“Ew. Go and get clean. You want a drink?”

Keane smiled again, thinking about the little things that made them tick. Showers, tea, sex, brushing teeth together in the bathroom before bed. Nothing huge. Not big gestures. Just the little things.

“Beer?”

“I think there’s a couple of cans.”

“Well, then, yes to beer. I’ll be down in a minute.”

He headed up the stairs to the bathroom where he did bathroom things. Just the important bits; he didn’t need a shave, and he wouldn’t brush his teeth till after his beer.

Showered, smelling 100% better, Keane finally opened his bag to put away his things and saw the photograph folded away beside his home camera.

Frowning, he unfolded it.

“I didn’t…” he thought, but then, for a moment, wasn’t sure. Had he packed the print, taken it home…broken his rules, unthinking?

“No,” he told himself, quietly, though, because he didn’t want Teresa to hear him talking to himself.

Didn’t want to be talking to himself at all, in fact. With slightly shaking hands, he began to fold the print in half to take back to the coroner’s office in the morning. Then he saw it. The thing that ate away at him. The shot caught the bottom of the murderer’s prints up on the wall, and the array of body parts on the cherry sideboard. In particular, the shot on the wall showed the woman’s toes being clipped off. Two—one shot for one toe, a second shot for a second toe…

Two missing from the girl.

Three on the cherry sideboard.

12

The sheet atop Keane felt as though it weighed fifty pounds. It may as well have been a yak skin some Mongolian slept under to keep the snow off. Teresa, next to him, slept soundly with nothing but the occasional snorting snore. He, on the other hand, could not sleep at all.

His inner thighs were slick with sweat. His lower back, his brow, his balls; dripping.

The sheet beneath him was drenched. The heat hammered his chest with every breath. Even with the window and bedroom door thrown wide open, there was no breeze. No respite. Just heat, unrelenting.

Keane slid carefully from under the sheet and out of bed, going slow because the springs on the mattress were old and cranky. He walked softly across the bedroom with the little light the street lamps threw into the bedroom. Softly, still, down the stairs and into the kitchen. He thought about having a cup of tea, but there was beer in the fridge and it was cold. He let the chill air from the fridge wash over his nakedness for a moment, sudden goose bumps rising as the air hit his sweat and skin. He sighed, took the beer from the fridge. He thought about putting the tin against his forehead, but decided if anybody were watching him through the window, outlined in the fridge’s light, he’d look like an idiot in a beer commercial. What he really wanted to do was put the ice-cold tin on his balls.

“Fuck it,” he said quietly, and did exactly that.

He grinned and took his beer into his downstairs study. With a cigarette on the go and beer, now open, he finally allowed himself to do what he’d been wanting to do since seeing that snapshot in his work bag. He opened the bag, reached in, and found nothing.

The picture wasn’t there.

13

Shit.

His mind leapt through the trouble at work, the trouble with the wife, straight to the heart.

There’s someone in the house.

Images of a murder in progress taped to a magnolia wall.

“Teresa,” he said and in a sudden rush threw the chair to the floor and bolted for the stairs. He thumped his ribs on the newel at the bottom end of the banister and didn’t notice. He took the stairs two at a time, heartbeat going crazy from the unaccustomed effort and panic and terror.

It’s him.

Must have watched me come and go.

Along the landing with his footsteps thundering on the floorboards. Into the bedroom. To find Teresa had slept through it all, in the same position he’d left her. He thought, just for a second, that he’d killed her, but then Teresa’s breath came in that weird kind of snort and he knew she was all right.

He wasn’t, though. Not anymore. Because there, on his side of the bed, was the missing print.

He’s been in the house.

Might still be in the house,
he thought. Cold waves washed up through him, up through his gut and chest. A small trickle of piss hit his leg. But scared or not, Teresa was here.

He could wake her, panic her, but he didn’t.

Instead, he checked under the bed. His legs were weak, but he did it. The wardrobe and the walk-in toilet. The spare bedroom, the toilet. Getting stronger, bolder, as he went.

He’s gone. He’s gone.

The living room, the kitchen, his study, though he couldn’t have somehow passed him on the stairs.

Nothing. Nowhere left to hide. Nowhere left to check.

Keane was freezing, despite the heat. Shivering like he was naked in the middle of winter.

He checked all the windows—downstairs windows, then back, front, and garage doors. All locked.

On his weak legs, shaking now, he walked back up the stairs. He knew he should wake his wife, tell her what had happened. But he didn’t, and then, when he picked up the print from the covers and flipped it over, he knew he wouldn’t.

There, on the back, was a message.

Make the most of Monday.

Tuesday, it ends.

14

Keane spent a moment staring at the script on the back of the print. Then he slid the picture between the mattress and the slats. He pressed the LED light on his watch—a generic brand. 2:37 a.m., Sunday night. He had until Tuesday.

He had an irrational urge to wake up Teresa with a kiss, maybe for making love, maybe just for kissing. She was the constant of his life. Changing jobs, houses, friends…things fell away in life—anyone’s life. Foundations crumbled, but they could be dug again. Teresa was the only one who’d stayed around. She was bedrock.

The urge to kiss passed.

Action, inaction. Simple choice between two simple options.

He chose action.

15

Monday

By 6:43 a.m., Keane was in his study, smoking his first cigarette of the new day. The sun was already burning the air. Sweat around the waistband of a pair of cargo shorts and the soles on his feet against his most comfortable pair of sandals. A short-sleeve shirt.

Coffee steamed next to his PC as he hung up the telephone, calling in sick to work—he was on call, still, but he didn’t need the police calling him. It didn’t cross his mind, either, to involve the police.

Why?

Because some things you have to do yourself. He’d also seen enough to know what their involvement would cost him. His job, for certain, though he wasn’t worried about that. But also his sanity. Police round the house, constantly. The circus coming to town. His wife’s peace of mind. She didn’t need to know. He protected her. It was his responsibility.

Nobody else could do what he could do.

Because the man had threatened his wife.

Keane wasn’t shaking anymore, but he was still scared. Not for himself. He didn’t care for himself as much as Teresa thought he should.

But they were in it together. Always would be.

If he could escape? That threat…would that carry over? Was it like some kind of IOU?

He didn’t know. But he knew what to do.

He walked up the stairs carrying a second coffee from the pot he’d brewed. Walked past the cases he’d packed in the night.

She was still sleeping. Sound asleep, and still cute.

Beautiful, even.

“Morning, baby.”

She opened her eyes slowly, a little groggy, but smiled at him. That smiled told him all he need to know.

“Morning, handsome.”

He smiled back. Made the smile as real as he could. He was afraid. But it wasn’t just about him, but the two of them. That made him braver than he would have been. Better, perhaps, than he had any right to be.

“I called in sick,” he said. “Fancy a little drive?”

“Are you sick?”

“Nope.”

“You’ll get fired.”

“No, I won’t,” said Keane, and winked. “Drink your coffee.”

She pulled herself up the bed, fluffed her pillows. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he laughed. “Spontaneity. Good word, eh?”

She laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

He kissed her on the lips. Slow, but not too slow. They had places to go.

“You want help out of bed?” he asked.

“I’ll manage,” she said. “Let me have my coffee and a shower and I’ll be down.”

He nodded and kissed her again.

“Don’t be too long, okay? Got a bit of a drive ahead.”

She cocked her head to one side, raised an eyebrow.

“No,” he said. “I’m not telling.” But he smiled, too, and left her to get ready on her own.

16

Keane dished up bacon, eggs, beans and toast as he heard the stair lift whine.

Just as he placed the plates on the table, she came in, wheeling across the smooth floor. Smooth floors downstairs, for her, where she used the chair.

They’d had the doors widened, too, and handrails put in, and concrete ramps built at the front door and the back patio. She got about pretty well.

She looked at the breakfast and then Keane, then back at the breakfast again.

“Are you after a blowjob?”

“No? Unless you’re offering?”

“Nope.”

“Well, then…no. Just because I love you.”

“Thank you, baby. Looks great.”

They ate, companionable, not hurried. Keane itched to be on the move, but he wanted this, too. Time with his wife.

Just in case?

Don’t think like that,
he told himself. He covered his disquiet by taking a last mouthful of beans, then put down his cutlery. He wasn’t hungry enough to eat, but he forced himself too, nonetheless, if only because he didn’t know when he might need the energy.

Tuesday. The last day? Wasn’t that specific, but he planned on midnight. Better to err on the side of caution, he figured.

Would Tuesday really be her last day? His last with her?

Not if he got this right. Of course, he didn’t even know what, or who, he was up against.

But then, neither did the killer.

III. The Hardest Dark

You can’t see into the dark from within the light. The light might be warm, comforting, even, for some. But not for you. The light makes the dark
hard
. It carves the dark with sharp, bold edges. You can cut yourself on the shadows. It’s a heat wave. Those shadows? They may as well be stone.

You can’t see into the dark from within the light. People don’t get that. They live in the light, they breathe in the day, they sleep in the warm summer nights, they laugh and drink and play and they don’t
feel
the dark.

A shadow in the summer sun. You can see the shadow. Just look. Black, short in the high, bright light. Your shadow. There, with you. But it’s so bright. You stare, you look, but it’s like looking inside.

There are things a man can’t do without blinding his eyes. Stare at the sun long enough and you can’t see anymore.

Stare into your shadow? You can’t, because it’s dark in that shadow. It’s where he lives. The man in the shade. He’s blind to the light, but it calls to him. He wants the light. He wants it so bad. But he can’t have it, because the light belongs to you. This is your world, your life. Your wife.

Not his. He’s the hardest dark, but he’s not you. He’s just a shadow, and shadows can’t exist without the light.

He’s not you. Of course, he isn’t.

He’s just your shade.

17