Flowers for the Dead (28 page)

Adam froze. Why was she asking John for help?

“I’m scared. Nothing is what it seems.” Her brown eyes were huge as she looked at John, full of all the sadness of the world, brimming over and pouring down her cheeks. “Help me,” she said again.

And suddenly Adam understood.
Nothing is what it seems.
Irene wasn’t talking to John, she was trying to communicate with him. He gave a sharp intake of breath. That was it! Just like in programmes he had seen, when someone is in trouble and the police turn up, and the person answers the door saying everything is fine, but their eyes are darting towards the figure hidden out of view threatening them. And the police realise and say, “thank you, mam” and go – then burst in to rescue them.

That was what Adam had to do. He would prove himself by being Irene’s hero and saving her from her awful ex. He snatched up the bouquet and marched into the chilly night.

When he reached her house ten minutes later, he hesitated. Should he park outside and then knock on the door firmly, demanding to be let in? Or let himself in and drag John bodily from the place? Adam was not keen on confrontation, the thought made his guts twist. Unlike a knight in shining armour, he decided discretion was the better part of valour and parked a street away, then once more checked the surveillance footage on his laptop. Lanky John was not there; Adam breathed a sigh of relief.

Time for him to come to his love’s rescue and introduce himself. Like in the fairy tales, she would look at him and know instantly that he was the man for her.

It was exciting. This was the moment he had been dreaming of for so many years. No more loneliness, no more pain. He wanted to settle down. He wanted to understand somebody and for them to understand him. He wanted that feeling of comfort, safety and nurturing that he used to get when he walked into his gran’s house as a child. Despite living there still, he recognised that emotion had to be provided by another person’s presence.

More than that, though, he wanted to inspire all those feelings himself in another. Love was not a selfish act of taking, but reciprocation.

With a thrill of anticipation, Adam took his lock pick out and opened the door as quickly as if he had used a key. He made no sound apart from a tiny click as he closed the door gently behind him. Took a moment to gather himself, shoulders back, flowers in hand, and swung open the door.

“Oh! Thank God you’re here!” said Irene, turning.

Her face fell from welcome to terror.

Realisation hit with the speed of an Exocet missile. Irene really did want that lanky waste of space. Adam felt sick. He couldn’t lose Irene. The thought of her being with another man… No. Adam had given her everything. Loved her, cherished and looked after her for months. He had done the washing up without complaint, without even having to be asked. He had cooked and cleaned, sent her flowers, left thoughtful little gifts such as pretty shells, gone food shopping – and she had never even said thank you.

All this he realised in a flash as they stared at each other. Then anger exploded and he was flying towards her. He could hear his gran’s words: “A gentleman never strikes a lady.” With superhuman effort he held back from the punch he was so desperate to land on Irene’s face. Instead his hands wrapped around her throat.

Nails raked down his face. He shouted in pain, squeezing harder. Cut off the scream that was building up inside her. Feet, elbows, hands flew at him. A blow here, a kick there. Pain flashing then disappearing across his body.

Adam’s anger was like nothing he had ever felt before. It was a force bursting from his body. All the pent up frustration, all that time he had wasted patiently waiting for Irene’s feelings to mirror his own, all his subsequent anger, confusion, hurt, betrayal, everything exploded.

Just like an explosion, it was over in a flash - but left behind devastation.

Shocked at himself, he let go of Irene. She fell to the floor, the whites of her eyes red thanks to tiny veins bursting with the force of Adam’s attack. What had he been thinking of, hurting her like that? He loved her.

A horrible rattling noise escaped from her lips. Every breath was a wheezy fight. Irene’s red eyes bulged strangely and roved around the room, unseeing, and Adam knew he had gone too far.

Confusion and pity were all he felt now as he watched her. The noise…it was heart-rending. It reminded him of his gran’s death all those years before – and of what she had asked of him. Adam had not been able to put her out of her misery, but that was what he was going to have to do for Irene. He could not let her suffering continue, not when he was the one who had caused it in the first place.

All his hopes of love and happy ever after were shoved to one side. That would not happen now, instead he must put Irene’s needs before his own.

So he placed his hands once more around the young woman’s delicate neck. Forced himself to look deep into her eyes so that she would know she was loved, so that the last thing that she saw would be his face. No one should be alone and scared when they die, he reflected.

This was the thought that gave him the strength to act. He clenched his hands, making himself do what had to be done even though it was the last thing in the world he wanted. He squeezed until his knuckles were white with the effort.

A small rattle, the tiniest moan and Adam saw in her face that this was it, she was dying. He could not hold himself back any longer.

“I love you,” he choked, his tears dripping into her eyes.

Invisible strings seem to pull him towards her and he kissed her, as he had always dreamed of. He poured his heart and soul into it. It was everything, everything that he had ever imagined. Then, suddenly, he felt her last gasp inside his mouth. She was dead.

But there was something else.

Confused, Adam pulled back and looked at Irene in amazement. She was gone, and yet she was with him more than ever. She was still there, he could feel her, just as he had always wanted. No more complications, no more silly games, she was now truly his soul mate, shifting her essence from her flesh to his in those final moments in order to live on inside him.

No one would ever come between them, they would be together forever. It really was everything he had ever dreamed of.

Adam shook his head in amazement. It was the best gift she ever could have given him. He had thought that he had known what love was, but what Irene had done for him filled him with awe. It was true selflessness, and he knew then that she appreciated everything that he had done for her. Like him she had been unable to express it in words so had found a physical way to show it. But this was so much more that anything he could ever convey in flowers.

That reminded him… He looked at the bouquet that he must have tossed aside in his fury, and an idea formed.

Gentle as a lover, Adam picked Irene up, her body still warm in his arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder and he gently planted a kiss in her hair as he carried her upstairs. He lay her on the bed then stood back. There, she looked like Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White in her glass coffin.

The ancient ritual of cleaning the body sprang to mind. It seemed fitting. First he scraped under her fingernails with his Swizz Army knife, then got a cloth and wiped over her face. Next, he brushed her beautiful brown hair because it had been messed up in the struggle.

When he was done she looked more peaceful. Her swollen eyes, now closed, and the livid bruising on her face and neck detracted from the look though.

Soon he must say goodbye, he knew. He chided himself for being silly, knowing that ultimately Irene had not died because she was living inside him. He felt her warmth spread through his innards and knew she was hugging him. What was in front of him was nothing but a shell, yet he wanted so desperately to kiss her. Only to kiss, not to lose control in the shameful way he had with Lisa. He held back, though, afraid of making her look messy again.

Instead, he took the flowers he had brought and arranged them lovingly around Irene’s body to create a halo of blooms.

“Now you look as beautiful in death as you did in life,” he whispered to the battered corpse. “Take care. I-I’ll miss you.”

With a heavy heart he gave the house a final wipe down to get rid of any fingerprints he may have left, then closed the door behind him.

For the next few weeks Adam felt a strange mixture of happiness and sadness; of comfort at having his love so close inside him, but also despondency that he was unable to put his arms around Irene and kiss her.

Why was it so hard for him to get what everybody else got so easily that they often took it for granted?

As time passed, he grew lonely again. While it was lovely having Irene with him, it simply was not enough, he felt ashamed to admit.

He kept thinking about the single, wonderful kiss he and Irene had shared, and so wished that he had kept something of hers as a memento, something physical.  The closest thing he could do was plant some lisianthus for her in a sunny, sheltered spot of his garden.

Sometimes he would go outside and look at it and touch it, stroke the soft petals very gently, pretending they were her lips. But he could not gather a flower up in his arms and hold them like he wanted to hold Irene. He could not do something as simple as share a meal with her, because she needed no sustenance now. He could not do any of the simple things that ordinary people take for granted: he had sacrificed all of that for Irene’s sake, to stop her pain. That broke his heart.

There was no choice but for him to put himself out there once more, open himself up to hurt, and try to find someone who would love him. First he read a couple of self-help books to boost his flagging confidence. One in particular strongly suggested he stand in front of a mirror and give himself a pep talk. That seemed a bit much to him. Still, he went to his office, which was full of stainless steel surfaces reflecting his image back at him, and stared down at the shiny table where he liked to do his clock repairs.

“I am, erm, I’m a good person,” he began hesitantly. “I-I always think of others. I’m polite, and well brought up. I am…yes, I am fully deserving of love. Yes.”

The image looking back at him was warped from a slight imperfection in the table surface. Still, he nodded to himself firmly. “I am fully deserving of love,” he repeated.

Plus, he had a bit of money, and worked out a lot so had a decent body. Adam was a catch.

CHAPTER THIRTY

~ Primrose ~

I Can’t Live Without You

PRESENT

Christmas has been a wonderful respite from real life for Laura. Part of her had felt gutless, as though she was running away, but when a bouquet had appeared on her doorstep just an hour before she was due at her aunt’s house, she had known she was doing the right thing.

The bouquets are getting odder, she has noticed. At first they were pink roses, and sometimes other pretty flowers that seemed a bit wilder. Now though all sorts of weird things are being used. She gets the feeling they hold some sort of hidden meaning, as if her stalker is trying to communicate with her, but she has no way of understanding it. That revelation had come to her on her first morning away; the first morning in a long time that she had woken up after a full night’s sleep, feeling refreshed. It was the only time she had allowed herself to think of her problems.

Of course, the festive season had made her ache painfully for her parents and brother, but she had forced herself to join in with the festivities, and surprised herself by enjoying them. Aunt Linda had made such an effort, buying all Laura’s favourite food, and enough Wensleydale cheese with cranberries to sink a ship.

It had been exactly the escape Laura had needed – and as such, she has not been able to bring herself to sully that time with talk of her problems. Her aunt is still in the dark, believing that the confrontation with Ryan fixed things.

Now, it is the day after Boxing Day, and Laura steps into her flat with renewed determination, after staying an extra day at her relatives’ house to gather her strength that little bit more. She looks confident as she marches around each room of her home, checking it for signs of an intruder. There is nothing.

Perhaps her stalker has got bored and gone away.

Leaning to one side at a dangerous angle, she lugs her heavy case into the bedroom. Still no sign of anything. She breathes a sigh of relief and starts to unpack, most things being flung straight into her wash basket, but one or two items she didn’t wear being set aside to hang in the wardrobe.

When she opens the wooden door to her closet, she sees something unusual.

A hanger with an olive green zip-up cover, and tied around the top is a red ribbon with a sprig of holly attached.

It is not hers.

Her hands shake as she undoes it, the pounding of blood in her ears almost drowning out the sound of the zipper. Inside is a beautiful midnight blue satin dress.

“What the…?” she mutters, pulling the dress out further so that she can get a good look.

Now she can see it properly she knows it is not satin it is silk, and looks incredibly expensive. The floor-length gown feels as cool and fluid as water as she runs the material through her fingers. The neckline drapes wonderfully from the delicate spaghetti straps, which also criss-cross the back. She knows without trying it on that it will be an ideal fit, and show off her slender waist.

It is perfect. Even the colour is just right for her pale skin and red hair.

Whoever is stalking her knows her very well indeed. Although…if they knew her that well, they would realise she never went anywhere classy enough to warrant an outfit such as this.

She photographs it then zips it back up again. Makes a note in her diary of the time and date. With a calmness that gives no evidence of the fear and fury tearing through her, she picks up her purse and heads to the big electronics shops on the estate on the edge of town. It is time for her to hit the sales, and she has something very specific in mind to buy.

***

Adam is close by, watching as ever, as the scene unfolds. Sees the wonder light up Laura’s face as she caresses the gown and studies it. Bless her, she even takes pictures of it because she is so pleased. When he sees her go out and head for the shops, he wonders if she is looking for a pair of matching shoes, and kicks himself for not buying them for her too.

***

THREE YEARS AGO

Adam was wandering aimlessly around the house at a loose end, alone and unloved, when suddenly he remembered something from his youth: the stuffed creatures that had so scared and fascinated him as a child. He had felt so guilty when his mother threw all but two of them away. He went hunting for the snarling fox and bird of paradise, and found them in the cupboard of his old bedroom. With a smile on his face, he put them on display in the hallway.

Boredom flew out of the window as he became gripped by the desire to find out how they were created. Within weeks he had become an expert in the theory of taxidermy.

His new hobby and his old obsession of finding love collided in his brain.

Adam was nothing if not practical. Though he longed for love, he was starting to realise that his was an unusual life, and that it made sense his love should be extraordinary too. After all, he already had two women’s spirits living inside him, and while he desperately hoped that his next attempt at courting would have a more traditional end… Well, he suspected that might not be the case, and his new motto sprang to mind:
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

It led to some rather interesting thoughts about how he could keep the woman he loved with him for all time, physically as well as spiritually.

At first he got quite excited about the technique of freeze-drying corpses. Increasingly popular with taxidermists, it was the preferred technique for preserving pets. He dreamed of preserving his love’s body whole too. Looking into it further, he was put off though. Freeze drying was not only expensive, it was also time-consuming – it would take well over six months for a human to be treated properly in a freeze dryer. What really dissuaded him though, was that afterwards the woman would be susceptible to being eaten by carpet beetles. That thought gave Adam the nervous giggles.

A few months later, by sheer coincidence, he was surfing the internet looking for something completely different when he stumbled across the story of Yoko Ono and her Box of Smile. She and her beau, the famous Beatle, John Lennon, had appeared on the David Frost show in 1969. In a bid to explain conceptual art, the lovers had presented Frost with a small box, little bigger than a ring box. When he opened it up all that was inside was a mirror at the bottom. Bemused, he had grinned – voila, he had provided the smile in Box of Smiles.

It was such a sweet, simple thing. Adam kept thinking about it, wishing he could somehow capture the magic smile of his own loved one for himself.

Inspiration had struck suddenly. There was a way he could use taxidermy to make his wish come true. He would use photographs and his real life knowledge to create an exact replica in clay of his beloved’s smile. At the same time, he would remove her flesh, preserve it through taxidermy, and when it was ready he could carefully place it onto the model lips. The whole thing would then go into a mirrored box where it would be preserved forever.

Yoko Ono really was an artistic genius coming up with the Box of Smiles, Adam felt. But he liked to think he was even better by taking it one step further, because he was giving the women in death the thing they had failed to discover in life – happiness.

Perhaps one day he would share his inspiration with Yoko.

***

PRESENT

The surveillance camera is not the smallest she could have bought, as the really tiny ones are quite expensive, but Laura is pleased with it nonetheless. She twirls it in her fingers, studying it from every angle, amazed such a tiny piece of electronics can do so much.

She has never looked at such things before and had been stunned at the range available – if she had wanted to blow a few hundred quid she could have purchased a camera system that was motion-activated, and had a live feed she could remotely log on to from her smartphone.

It had been tempting to hang the expense and buy that system. But her parents had raised her to always live within her means, and she was just a waitress earning very little; she could not bring herself to spend any of her inheritance, apart from when she had bought the flat, which had seemed a massive extravagance.

The camera she has gone for seemed simplest to use of all in the shop, which had been a big deciding factor. It even had some money off in the post-Christmas sales.

Which room should it go in, she ponders. The lounge, definitely. The stalker often uses it, whether to tidy it, leave flowers there or her freshly-done ironing (often still disturbingly warm-to touch when she discovers it) or of course to set out a meal for her. Plus he has to walk through the room to reach the kitchen, another frequent hive of activity.

Nervously, Laura moves it around the lounge trying to find the right location to hide it. The bookshelf, the table, even behind a cushion: she tries everywhere she can think of. Finally, she plumps for placing the camera by the television. Nestling it in amongst the other technology of her Blu-Ray player, Chrome stick, and speakers, she hopes it will be innocuous there, though she does obscure it slightly behind the photograph of her last birthday with her family.

“Wish me luck, Mum, Dad, Marcus,” she whispers to them before going to bed. Her mum would be having kittens if she were around for this.

She deadlocks the front door, piles the books beside it, and then shoves beneath her bedroom door a plastic wedge she bought from a hardware shop whilst out.

“That should stop you getting in,” she shudders.

And if someone does get in, she will have a picture of them to take to the police. Then the force will have to take her seriously.

“Win/win,” she smiles grimly against the terror, pulling the duvet tightly around her and listening to the clock tick loudly once more. It is almost 3am before exhaustion drags her into sleep and she wakes just after 5am, but does not dare move until much, much later.

“Come on, come into the trap,” she urges silently. “I want to see exactly who you are.”

Finally she winkles the wedge out from beneath her bedroom door and tip toes out at around lunchtime. The books are in place by the front door, but she knows better than to feel comforted by that fact. She almost feels excited as she heads into the lounge, knowing that finally she will see her persecutor’s face.

The camera is not there.

***

Adam had laughed to himself when he had seen Laura’s preparations with her own surveillance camera. How funny that she was turning the tables on him. It is cheering and flirtatious the challenges she is making him overcome. She is asking him to prove himself to her, and he is passing with flying colours.

For the first time he feels his intellect being stimulated by a woman, and not simply his emotions. Laura is smart, and he cannot help feeling his gran would have liked her gumption. Amused by her little love game, he sneaked in and took the camera as soon as Laura had gone to sleep, chuckling to himself and shaking his head at her cheek. She is going to have to learn a bit of patience before she sees him, but he adores the fact she is so keen – clearly she has missed him as much as he has missed her.

On his way out, he had hesitated for a moment then pocketed the photograph too. Laura looked stunning in it, her smile dazzling, and really reminded him of Audrey Hepburn. He cannot wait to see what test she has in store for him next.

***

THREE YEARS AGO

Adam stood at the end of Sandra Yang’s bed, looking down on the twenty-three-year-old like a protective angel. He adored watching her slumber. Adam lived for these moments when she looked at peace, although lately she did seem to stir restlessly. Sometimes she shouted out the odd word,  “no” or “help”.

At those moments he wanted to reach out and cuddle her and say: “It’s okay, go back to sleep.”

Sandra clenched and unclenched her hands fitfully then turned over in her sleep. Adam automatically stepped back before rebuking himself. Now was the time to reveal himself, he knew. It simply felt right. The only thing he was not sure of was how best to go about it.

Should he pretend to bump into her on the street and strike up a conversation now that he knew her well enough to feel confident in front of her? Or should he let her open her eyes now and see him?

It was important to get the first meeting just right, Adam felt; it would set the tone for the rest of their relationship. Sandra was such a shy, fragile young woman, with the sweetest way of smiling that pulled up one side of her mouth more than the other. A violinist, she struggled to deal with the real world, that much had been clear to him from the moment he had seen her months earlier in Covent Garden, being chivvied along by her overbearing mentor after she had performed at a nearby concert. If ever there was a woman who needed rescuing it was her, he had seen it in the grey streamers of despondency trailing behind her.

When he had followed her to her Sheffield home, he had spent some time simply watching her, cautious not to rush into a relationship this time. Not after the Irene debacle. Sandra’s first floor flat was in a former Victorian mansion, boasting high ceilings, wonderful ceiling roses and sconces, and huge sash windows. In fact, they were original features, and glided open soundlessly and easily for Adam to slip in and out of – especially as Sandra tended to sleep with them open a crack.