Harrowing (15 page)

Shaking like a frail old man, I picked up one of my legs with my own hands and tried to swing it about somewhere. I felt as if my shoe were weighted down with mighty stones. With effort, I managed to drag first one leg, then the other, across the kitchen. My idea was to start cleaning up the chicken and broken crockery.

I started to whistle, tentative. I knelt on the ground and scooped up the chicken, tossing it gingerly into the sink. Suddenly, all appetite fled me. The blood-covered fowl reminded me too much of that gory thing that had been clinging to my window just a minute ago. Gagging, I grasped it with the tips of my fingers and hurled it into the bin.

Tonight I was going out for lettuce.

A clean, bloodless, juicy lettuce and artichoke salad at my favourite bistro.

Yes, that was it. That was what I needed to take my mind off this terrifying nightmare.

This couldn’t be happening to me. Not to Bruno Jarvas, Regional Vice President of one of the most important and influential companies in its niche.

Not to the Bruno Jarvas who owned a mansion in Bedford Park.

Not to the man with his own penthouse suite for an office all to himself. The irreplaceable employee his boss turned to whenever he needed a brainstorm or inspiration. The highly valued intelligence behind the brand name with a position already promised to him as future associate in the enterprise.

No. This couldn’t be happening to me.

A sudden sharp thud against the window stirred the hackles on my neck up on edge again.

I glanced up just in time to feel, rather than hear, the resounding thwack as something solid crashed in through the glass and landed at my feet, whirling in circles on the floor near me. The shattered windowpane crumbled into shards in my sink.

I almost jumped to the roof.

My heart began pumping like a locomotive, battering painfully against my ribs.

The urge to tear from the room and cower underneath my bedsheets was almost unbearable.

For a long moment, I merely stood there, rocking on my soles in the centre of my kitchen, my nerves frayed, hands shivering like those of a sick man dying from malaria. My feet felt rooted to the ground. All of a sudden I noticed the evasive tick-tock of some dorky clock on the wall. I hadn’t even glanced at that clock in years. When had I acquired that useless gizmo, anyways?

Slowly, as if I were made from plastiline, I began to peel my feet off the ground and lug myself to the gruesome object still spinning in slow circles on the floor. I lifted the khaki-coloured plastic tentatively. Almost couldn’t bring myself to peer inside.

It was nearly a relief to discover the bag contained nothing more than a dead cat.

My breath spewed out of me in a rasping screech. I had had no idea I had even been holding it.

I was just about to head for the window, under the remote possibility that whoever had done this to me might still be hanging around out there, when something shot out of the plastic bag at me.

Something acidic that seared my eye when I turned to see what it was.

Something caustic that burned my vision and plunged me into blackness as I toppled, unconscious, to the floor.

I was tickled pink when the girls at the office started inviting me on their coffee breaks. We would sit around one of those high, wobbling tables in the canteen and gossip about men, politics, the state of the nation and more men.

“I’ve been married to my sweetheart for over fifteen years,” Sandy Bleckley said, squealing. “But we have what you could call, a
loose
arrangement. That means we don’t feel like we owe each other any sort of vows of monogamy or anything of that sort. We live together, but I go out with whoever I want. In fact,” she added as she toyed with the row of orange plastic beads around her neck, “he even sleeps with men. He’s bi.”

Ursula stared at her in undisguised astonishment.

“He’s
bi?
And you put up with that?” she exclaimed primly.

Sandy shrugged.

“Why? Does that bother you, Ursula? It’s not like he’s a paedophile or anything like that, you know. He only goes out with consenting adult males,” she added defensively. “It’s a free world, isn’t it?”

Ursula wrinkled up her nose.

“Sounds gross to me,” she said. “What could they possibly do together? I mean, it’s not like his partner’s got a... you know... a decent
hole...
”

Gina, the receptionist, snorted.

“You make men sound like a golf green,” she said, giggling.

We all burst out laughing. I laughed along as well, even though I couldn’t see the humour in it, just to be polite. I studied Gina discreetly. I would never have sniffed her out to be such a prude. Dark-haired and petite, of Italian origin, I thought she was rather sexy, and had simply assumed that she was the sort who would go out with several men at the same time without any qualms. She always wore her eyes ringed with black kohl and lush mascara. Her skirts usually stopped halfway down her thighs and her signature perfume was heavy and musky.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Gin?” Ursula asked. I was glad she did. I, myself, was wondering the exact same thing.

Gina shook her head.

“Last guy I went out with, turned out to be practically a scam artist.” She banged her coffee onto the table with indignation. “When we went out, he hardly ever paid for anything. I usually ended up paying for both of us. He’d offer to drive me somewhere, then
I’d
have to pay the parking fare. Ditto when we went to the cinema. Ugh.”

Ursula grimaced in sympathy.

“Hope you dumped him fast,” she said.

Gina nodded.

“Yeah. I’ve learnt to be more picky.”

They packed up their cardboard cups and tossed them into the bin. I followed suit. We went back into the office. I approached my desk and rummaged through my disaster zone of a handbag in search of some breath freshening mints. I didn’t know about the others, but for me, being presentable included smelling pleasant. My fingers stuck onto something soft and silky, clingy, as if filled with static electricity.

Surprised, I dumped my bag on my desk and pawed through it more suspiciously.

A piece of torn pantyhose drifted out. It clung to my fingers, dripping off me as if made of spider silk. I shrieked, nearly dropped it like a hot potato. All the heads around me popped up, annoyed.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to dissimulate my unfortunate outburst. “There... there was a... an open pin in my purse, and I pricked myself. Sorry,” I repeated, smiling sheepishly.

Everyone turned back to their work, to my relief.

As soon as I was certain no one was paying attention to me, I picked up the piece of ragged pantyhose and studied it carefully. It was sheer, black, plain. Like the hose I’d been wearing on the day I went to Bruno Jarvas’ office.

The hose he’d ripped so violently off me.

But it could have been anything. All pantyhose look the same.

The only thing I couldn’t explain was how it had ended up in my purse.

*

Lately, I felt as if Ursula was keeping tabs on me. Following me about all over the place. Taking note of my every move. When I went to the ladies’, there she was as well, powdering her perky nose. I tried to vary the hours when I went for a bio break, but it seemed that no matter what the hour was, she was either in there already, or entered shortly after me.

Although we enjoyed a certain flexibility in our schedules, somehow Ursula always managed to make her lunch break coincide with mine as well. And more and more, she would just “happen to” park near the subway entrance and therefore “have to” follow the same route as I took after work.

I felt like confronting her. But it was all too subtle. Perhaps I was just making a mountain out of a molehill or imagining threats where none existed. Maybe it was merely a common side effect of suffering a traumatic experience.

*****

Jim Daniels puttered and clucked at me, pecking around me like a brooding mother hen.

“Ah, tsk tsk. What a pity. What happened to you, Mr. Jarvas?” he said, motioning towards my pathetic, patched-up eye. “I trust it will heal soon? So you can admire my star performer’s plans with your full gaze.” He glanced towards me, feigning concern. “What
did
happen to you, anyways? Mind sharing?”

I touched my eye lightly.

“Nothing. It was nothing. Just utter clumsiness on my part. I turned on the taps too quickly in the sink and some vinegar splashed into my eye.”

The fact of the matter was, I still had no idea how whoever it was had set it up so that that festering beast would spray me with decaying gunk when I peered into that bag. It was almost as if there’d been some sort of tiny pump positioned in there.

Or maybe it was only the force with which I’d pummelled the bag, squeezing the foul contents of that dead creature out all over my face without meaning to.

At any rate, the point was, my eye had inflamed up and even now was still tender and red around the edges. I, too, trusted it would heal expediently.

“Well,” Jim was saying, “I’m sorry but I don’t seem to have the plans for your new store prepared, after all. I was certain I’d laid them out carefully on my desk. You don’t mind following me to Calvin Henri’s office for a minute, do you?”

I shook my head. He was leading me straight to the treasure cove, and he didn’t even know it. I would have bet him the brass buttons on my coat that I could spend the whole day rummaging through Calvin’s desk drawers to my heart’s content, digging out mementos that that sexy prig could have left there for her sweetheart, and never tired of it.

As that artless old fogey buried himself in Calvin’s numerous cupboards, I stole a surreptitious glance through Calvin’s drawer again. A hand-written card with baby blue curlicues decorating the borders caught my eye.

“Come in whenever you like, honey-buns,”
the card gushed.
“Just show this card to the building manager, Mr. Kozlowski, and he’ll let you into my apartment. Remember, suite 207. Love ya! Annasuya Rose xx”

She’d marked her simpering love letter with a huge, violet-coloured heart shape at the end. I pocketed the missive discreetly.

*****

I woke up in bed that night, chilled to the bone.

Because I knew I wasn’t alone.

I just
knew
it.

There wasn’t a single sound in the apartment, but it was almost as if I’d developed some sort of bionic sense.

I could almost
hear
his breathing, harsh and laboured, underneath the floorboards. Outside the window. Inside my closet. Just waiting to pounce on me.

I dropped soundlessly out of my bed and pressed myself against the frail wooden slats of the closet. I could almost
feel
his heartbeat, sullen and hushed, palpitating against my skin, just on the other side of the flimsy panels. I slid the closet door open, pushed my arms inside against scruffy wool and sleek cotton hanging innocently and unobtrusively before me. There was nothing there. Of course there was nothing there.

I slipped barefooted out the doorway into the living-room, my heart pounding close to a hundred and fifty, blood rushing so loudly through my ears I could barely hear anything else. Shadows flitted across the pale light from the windows, scrawny branches reaching out with jagged claws to nail me. The silence around me was so complete it was like a tomb. It was impossible that there could be anyone concealed in here. Impossible for any human to remain this still.

All the same, I began to prowl between the scant furnishings. The coarse, scratchy carpet scraped unpleasantly against the soles of my feet. I crouched down behind the familiar sofa-futon. Peered into all the cupboards in the kitchenette and even crept on hands and knees behind the potted plant in the corner, although there was scarcely even any room there for a mouse, let alone a full-sized human being.

At last I reached the bathroom. I breathed a sigh of relief. There was no place for anyone to hide out in the bathroom. I always kept the shower curtain open, and the few tiny cupboards available were located underneath the sink. I checked them anyways, just to make sure. But I knew no one would be able to fit in there. Not even Romeo.

I flicked on the light switch, satisfied there was nothing to be afraid of after all and it was all only my overactive imagination. I checked my reflection in the mirror. A slight, petite figure with a washed-out complexion and waifish, frightened eyes peeked out at me. I splashed some water over my face, ready at last for a good night’s sleep.

But then I saw it.

The toilet bowl cover.

It was up.

I had taught Romeo ever since he was toilet trained to always, always close the toilet bowl after using it. Always.

And he’d never let me down, not even once.

Calvin wasn’t here tonight. And, of course, like Romeo, I never left the cover up either.

Something whispered behind my ear.

I whirled around.

There was no one there.

I thought of Romeo all of a sudden, slumbering innocently in the bedroom in his cot all unawares, trusting and unsuspecting, as a child is supposed to sleep.

Of course, there was no need for him to ever be suspicious. After all, he had his mother to protect him and keep him safe from harm’s way at all times.

A mother is supposed to protect her baby.

At all hours.

At any cost.

I screamed and dashed into the bedroom as if my life depended on it.

Romeo was sleeping on his cot with his arms flung out, breathing softly like a baby, his brow sweaty and sweet. My knees knocked together so hard I couldn’t stay on my feet a minute longer. I collapsed onto my bed, shivering like an aspen. I lay there for a long time, shuddering and wondering how the hell had all that happened.

How had someone come in here and left the toilet cover up in the short time that had passed since we’d gone to bed, and I’d gotten up again to check around? And then let himself out without me even noticing anything?

How the hell was that possible?

Unless he’d sneaked in here while we were out during the day and hidden away somewhere, biding his time. Waiting for the perfect moment and enjoying my surroundings to his heart’s content. Lurking someplace in my bedroom, like the sleaze that he was, maybe even cowering under my bed half the night, breathing away barely inches from me while I was reading on my e-reader. Spying on the games I played with Romeo before bedtime. Watching me prance in from my shower, wrapped only in a flimsy robe.

I reached for my mobile, engaged the torch app and studied the space underneath my bed. There was nothing there except for some pretty major dust motes, large enough to harbour a few hairy spiders, I supposed. But nothing so big as a man.

I opened my closet again and stuck my arms in all the way to the back wall. Prowled about the living-room a second time, this time with the lights fully lit.

Finally, it occurred to me to check the door. The locks were open, the safety chain hung loose. I never left the locks open. Ever. And ever since that night with the dead cat, I always slid the safety chain across when we were at home, if Calvin wasn’t coming in.

I had no idea when or how he’d gotten in. No idea if he’d somehow broken in, gotten a hold of my key in some mysterious fashion and made a copy of it or someone had let him in. I wouldn’t have put anything past such an ingenious scumbag like him. But there was no doubt about it.

He had been in here.