Coombe's Wood (21 page)

Feathers hovered in the hall, turning to leave as the phone line connected with the station. She was forwarded to a central call centre, and gave her details and an explanation three times before someone ‘seemed to know’.

A PC would be sent in the morning. Apparently, there was no immediate threat.

8
^th
Oct

She let Connor sleep in Feathers’ living room. It was easier than dragging him back where the dead rabbit was fresh in his memory, and Button rested in a small cardboard box. She’d have to deal with that at some point soon.

It would be hard. She was going to be ostracised. The villagers could chuck her out of the council flat. She’d led a madman to their door, and if it had been her much-loved family pet sleeping the long sleep in a crisps box, she’d go berserk.

Meanwhile, she flopped on her bed, and rolled up in the covers. Izzy really needed to sleep. She closed her eyes, picturing the cat, swinging gently from her doorframe. How long before another animal, another pet, fell victim to George? She screwed her eyes up, trying to force sleep. A bump filtered through the wood of her front door, through the flat, and to Izzy’s ears. Her eyes blinked open. A bang followed, and Izzy jumped. She peered out of her room, into the gloom.

Throwing off her covers, she climbed out of bed, and tiptoed out of her bedroom and down the hall. Before she got to the end, she smelled something wafting in under the draft seal. She stopped, breathing deeply.

Someone, at 3 o’clock in the morning, was puffing away on a cigarette, immediately outside
the
front door.

She couldn’t decide whether to shout for Feathers, call the police, or sneak back to bed and let her peeping tom sit on the stairs all night smoking cigarettes. She crept to the door and stuck her eye up to the peephole. The landing light had a timer switch, and at 3am, none of the residents had triggered the lights. Staring out was like putting a sheet of black paper against one eye. But the longer she peeped out, the more she noticed. Shapes took form, evolving, creating something different every time she tried to focus.

Then,
on the periphery, she glimpsed
a movement. The smoker wasn’t sitting on the stairs next to her front door, like she’d imagined. Whoever it was must be pacing up and down the stairs to the ground floor. A red-orange glow swung back and forth; paused in front of Feathers’ door, then swung back down the stairs.

George was in
the
building! She stood back, her jaw slack. How had he got in? Was he expecting her to leave? Was he waiting for her? Her questions had no answers, so she stepped back to the peephole.

She stared for a long time, watching the glowing end of the cigarette bounce around the hall, like a nicotine-addicted poltergeist. He’d stop occasionally, face the door, his Marlbourgh between his lips. His face would light up, his eyes slits, his face pursed as he drew on the cigarette. Then he would turn and start pacing again.

She needed to leave her vigil, go to the phone, and ring the police. They could catch him red handed. He might go to jail, be ordered to stay far away from Connor and her. But she couldn’t. Frozen against the door, she waited. There would be a sign, an indication of what he might do. Then she could run to the phone.

Every ten minutes or so, George’s cigarette butt would fly across the hall, landing where the
Welcome
mat had been sitting not long ago. She pressed up against the door, the watched observing the watcher.

Eventually, he did leave. She didn’t realise for a long time, the shuffle-shuffle as he climbed up and down the stairs had gone. Even then, she found it hard to leave the door, and her peephole into the black void outside her door.

She made her way to bed, and fell in. She lay staring at the ceiling until her alarm woke her. She couldn’t even remember turning the damn thing on.

She had to visit three houses that morning: one bungalow and two houses. The bungalow was up the hill in Upper Basildon and the houses were near each other on one of the most expensive streets in Cedham. She checked and double-checked her diary, gathered up a handful of keys and left.

A pile of burnt out cigarettes lay in the indent where her mat belonged. She stepped over the stubs, listening carefully for someone rushing up the stairs. She’d peeked out of the peephole first; to make sure he wasn’t lurking on the landing. But George had always been a night person, sleeping away the first half the day. He would be snoring away wherever he’d holed up.

Morning rounds were slow. She hadn’t the energy to cuddle in her normal effervescent manner. The cats curled around her more than usual as she scraped odorous food from tins into the usual collection of cute designer food dishes. Little painted fish bones waited at the bottom of the bowls for the moggies to discover, having finished their breakfasts like good little cats. She leaned against expensive kitchen counters and scrubbed dried on cat food, stared into landscaped gardens full of plants with names she couldn’t pronounce, let alone recognise, but had to admit were worth a second glance.

In the second house, her hands deep in warm suds, she played out a fantasy, ‘Owner of the house’. She lived here, with these glorious spoiled cats as daily companions, and Connor had not one bedroom, but two, as did she. They grew colourful poppies in manicured gardens, set up vegetable patches in the back, and painted watercolours in their spare time. The only stain on the tea cloth would be Felicity. She lived two doors away in a house – mansion – that she told all was worth in the region of 1.5 million pounds. She hired personal trainers to rid her of flab, lazed in her Olympic pool and bubbled in her Swedish hot tub.

Izzy withdrew her hands from the suds. The dishes were washed, and she was in danger of rubbing off the ‘cute’ motifs or breaking something. She couldn’t afford to waste the wages from one pet-sitting on replacement chinaware.

She slid to the floor, where the cat, Felix, with his magnificent long white coat with a chestnut brown face, sat waiting. He swished his tail gleefully over her mouth and purred like an engine. He flopped over her leg, half on the floor so his bum pointed skywards and his face cooled on the tiles.

“Felix, I wish I were a cat and lived in a house like this.” He purred his agreement. “And all I had to do was curl up on laps or sit in bushes because the sun was too hot that day. I think I could even eat a few birds. I’m sure the thrill of the chase would appeal to me.”

Felix lifted his head off the tiles, and curled up in her lap.

“Then I’d have none of this silly human baggage.”

She scratched Felix under the chin, his fur soft as pashmina. Maybe there was a market
in it. She
ran her fingers the wrong way into the cat’s fur. As if feeling her distress, he stretched up and nuzzled her, pressing his wet mouth against her cheek.

Izzy settled down on the tiles, Felix turned around on her legs a couple of times, kneading as he went, then curled up and fell asleep, still purring. She watched his chest rise up and down, how his head slowly slid from the edge of her leg. As the cat slipped further into sleep, her own eyelids became heavy. She blinked slowly, her hand resting on the cat’s back. She tried to force them open, she should go home. Then her eyes closed, and she fell into a dream.

She was walking down Coombe Lane, and Bodu was coming. Trees to her left crashed down to the forest floor, but she didn’t slow. She didn’t care. She wanted the beast to come for her. The trees were moving, and she looked about. No, she thought, not moving, growing. They closed in on her, until the lane was a path, and the overhead branches raked against her hair. And the beast was close. She heard him, picking his way through the undergrowth, keeping pace with her, out of sight within the scrub.

“I want to meet you,” she said, and stopped.

Bodu emerged from between the trees behind her. Izzy heard saplings bow and snap back, and then his hot breath was on the back of her neck.

“Bodu,” she whispered. She should feel afraid. She knew she should.

He nudged her, and the ground gave way, she collapsed into a dream fall that seemed to go on and on. Her legs twitched and she jumped awake on the kitchen floor. Felix opened his eyes and blinked at her, stretched sleepily and plodded off in search of a sofa or a patch of grass in the sun.

Her dream of Bodu clung to her, along with a feeling of desire, which she couldn’t understand. Izzy left the house, and climbed into her old Toyota, the suspension squeaking as she sat down. There was a strong smell of oil, which she ignored, and turned the key in the ignition. The car roared into life, and she pulled out of the driveway.

Enveloped in her thoughts, a strange and unsettling mix of Bodu and Feathers’ kisses, Izzy hardly noticed, at first, the car behind, rapidly gaining on her, growing larger in the rear view mirror.

This early on a Sunday morning, it was usually only elderly men in search of the Sunday Times and milk who ventured out. The large red car closing in on her rear bumper was a surprise.

She didn’t expect the car to hit, either. Why should she expect such a thing?

It approached fast, speeding up to her Toyota. She checked to see if its indicator was on, for overtaking. Maybe the driver would flick it on at the last moment. Izzy turned her attention to the man behind the wheel. He sat hunched over, and seemed angry
…
furious to her eye. His hair receded, like George’s. Her heart jumped, and she peered into the rearview mirror.

Surely not, she thought, not him.

She looked harder, no longer concentrating on the road ahead, holding her breath in as she waited for the light to change a little, so she could better see… The sun streamed between a gap in the trees at the side of the road, she blinked as the light momentarily blinded her, then focused on the man behind her. The red car filled with light for a second. It flooded over the steering wheel and the man’s hands as he gripped the leather, a white-knuckle hold. Like a dying man, she thought. The sunlight flowed along the arms, and for a moment that froze, but must have been only an instant; Izzy caught sight of George’s wild eyes. He stared back, a crooked smile playing across his face. Then his car hit.

BAM!

She was thrown into the seatbelt, and smacked her head against the top of the steering wheel. Her foot hovered over the brake – in an accident, stop the car, and pull off the road. She p
ressed down hard on t
he pedal.

Then she caught sight of him in the rear view again – what was left of his hair dishevelled and unwashed, his eyes glittering with insanity. He pulled up close again, too close and –

BAM

– hit again.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled.

BAM!

“Jesus Christ!
Moloco
!”

She stamped the accelerator all the way down to the floor. The car jumped as petrol flooded into the engine, and she gained a few precious feet of distance.

With the car still in second, the engine revved hard, climaxing in a high tinny roar until she shifted. Third wasn’t enough, and the engine still complained. But, George loomed in the rear view mirror, a Marlbourgh clamped between his teeth now. One hand rested on the top of the wheel, one arm sat halfway out the open window. Behind a cloud of cigarette smoke, he sneered at her, matching her acceleration, and then catching up – too quickly.

The main road ran long and straight. George’s car was newer, faster, and as her speedometer approached sixty, her car protesting in an ear piercing whine, he eased up casually behind. He grinned – as if bashing the rear bumpers of cars was accepted Sunday morning entertainment.

A sound filtered through the scream of her engine, a pulsing of drums, the crash and thud of a heavy metal band. As if in agreement, George nodded his head to the beat.

Coombe Lane snaked off to the right, almost like a fork. The main road ran smooth and wide, but the lane started twisting from the start, a curving trail filled with potholes and missing chinks of tarmac.

In desperation, she cut the wheel, and darted in between the trees growing either side of Coombe Lane – giant sentries keeping watch. She swerved around the first pothole and put her foot back down, racing deep into the woods. Her only chance was that he’d miss the turn, and she’d gain a precious few moments to escape.

She’d drive down to Pangbourne, where they had a police station. They operated on a part-time basis, but perhaps someone would be there. She glanced in the rear view mirror, turning sharply as the road wound around trees. Under grey puddles, deep potholes hid. The car bucked as the front wheel bounced into one, and Izzy clenched the steering wheel, and pulled against a skid. The car bumped out, trees whizzed by.

George’s car glinted between the trees, behind the corner she’d just passed. She pressed her foot down on the pedal again, and concentrated on bumps and craters.

Of course, the creature with the red eyes must be hidden somewhere within the trees. She tried not to think of him, concentrating as the road fell away almost completely in places, leaving little more than a dirt track, and her tires spun as she accelerated too hard. She lost a second or two as she pumped the pedal, and the car spun through a pit of grit and leaves.