The Killer Next Door (26 page)

Psycho has caught a beetle, and is torturing it on the lawn. Funny, thinks Hossein, how that cat always looks at his best when he’s at his most vicious. He’s all sheen and lean, long muscle, stalking the hapless insect on dancer’s legs with a tail like a shepherd’s crook, glancing up occasionally to check that his audience is still entranced.

‘I’m sure that cat used to be called Toby,’ he says.

‘He did,’ says Vesta. ‘And before that he’s been Snooki, and Bell-end, and all sorts. For a bit he was Mr Skwoodgy.’

‘Mr Skwoodgy?’

‘I know. I think you can probably guess what
that
lad was like.’

Hossein smiles. For a moment, with his almond eyes and his golden aura, he looks not unlike a cat himself. ‘Psycho is better, I think,’ he says.

‘Yes. It suits him. Mind you, I don’t think he cares
what
you call him, as long as you call him for dinner.’

‘Talking of dinner,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ says Vesta. ‘I should get started, I suppose.’

But she doesn’t move. Looks instead at the steps going down to her kitchen with a face full of sadness.

‘It’s all spoiled, you know, now,’ she says.

‘Oh, Vesta…’

‘I know. I’m sorry. After all the work you’ve done and all the help, and all of you… the things you’ve risked for me… but I can’t. Every time I’m in there, all I can see is…’

He glances at the fence that divides the garden from the Poshes’. It’s not just walls that have ears. It’s fences, too. Vesta sees his eyes move, and quietens down. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be; I understand.’

She looks at him with a face that says that no one will ever understand. ‘I don’t want to be here any more,’ she says.

Hossein nods. ‘I understand. After Roshana… even though none of it happened there, I couldn’t be in the apartment any more. I kept seeing her. Disappearing round corners, standing on the balcony. Sometimes, places… they get poisoned.’

‘But I don’t know how to leave,’ she says.

‘You just… leave, Vesta. People do it all the time.’

‘“People” aren’t nearly seventy. With no money and almost no savings, and the only thing they’ve got that’s of any value at all is a secure tenancy. If it weren’t for the secure tenancy, I would have left years ago.’

He’s silent for a moment, thinking. ‘So in a way, it’s been a prison, not a blessing?’

She starts, as though this is the first time she’s ever thought of it. ‘Well. God… Stupid, isn’t it?’

Hossein shrugs. ‘Most of us are. It’s human nature, to stay. Change frightens us because we don’t know what will happen. You see it all the time in countries that are being held hostage as much as people. Most people have to get to a point where they don’t have a choice before they’ll change something. I read once that we’re more afraid of change than we are of death, and I can believe it.’

She looks at him shyly, this man who’s crossed the world. ‘Where would you be, if you had a choice?’

He sighs. ‘I’m tired, Vesta. Tired of being sad, tired of being afraid for the future, tired of waiting to know what’s going to happen next. It’s not a place I want particularly. It’s just peace. Peace and quiet and a tomorrow I can predict. It’ll be good when I get my residency and I can go back to work. Work’s good for the soul.’

‘That’s all I’ve had,’ she says. ‘At least, that’s what I thought I had. And I know what you mean. I’ve felt sort of… pointless since I retired.’

‘And you? If you had a choice, if you could go anywhere? Be anywhere?’

‘Oh, that’s easy. Ilfracombe. I’d be off to Ilfracombe like a shot.’

‘Vesta? Hello?’

Collette’s voice, coming from the flat. They sit forward and peer towards the house. ‘In the garden,’ calls Vesta.

She appears at the kitchen door: wearing a jacket and jeans, sports bag over her shoulder. ‘Your door was open,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’

‘That’s okay,’ says Vesta. Strangely, her home invasions have made her more, rather than less, careless about security. She no longer feels there’s much point, when people seem to come in with such ease anyway. ‘What can I do for you?’

She comes up the steps and they see that she’s got biker boots on. Full armour, ready for flight. She arrives on the lawn and drops her bag on the straw-dry grass in front of them. Psycho starts at the sound, and shoots off into the bushes.

‘I came to say goodbye,’ she says, and they see that her eyes are red from crying. ‘I’m off.’

‘Off?’

Collette nods and looks away. ‘Can you say goodbye to Cher for me? I can’t find anyone and I want to get moving.’

Hossein jumps to his feet. ‘No,’ he says. ‘You can’t!’

Vesta sees the blush that rises to her cheek, the refusal to meet his eye. Oh, look, she really likes him, she thinks. I hadn’t realised that he liked her, though. How blind can you be?

‘What’s wrong, love?’

She hesitates and eyes Hossein, clearly unsure how much to say. Eventually, she just forces a gay little laugh out and goes: ‘Oh, nothing. You know me. Always on the move.’

‘Where are you going?’

Again, the hesitation. ‘Oh, you know,’ she says, eventually. ‘I thought I’d just go up to Victoria and see what’s on offer.’

‘You’re going
away
away? What about your mum? Collette, has something happened?’

‘Oh, look,’ says Collette, ‘it’s not like she’s got the first idea who I am. She won’t miss me. I’d sort of made my mind up to go when – you know –’ she gestures towards the empty shed ‘– everything happened. But now… itchy feet, you know? What can you do?’

Something’s happened, that much is obvious. Collette looks like she’s seen a ghost. Like her ghosts might be catching up with her. ‘It’s almost dinnertime,’ she says. ‘Where are you going to go?’

Collette lets out a sigh. ‘Transport runs most of the night,’ she says. ‘Might as well sleep on a bus and get a head start.’

‘I thought,’ says Hossein, ‘we were all going to sit tight for a bit.’

‘Yeah, well,’ says Collette. ‘Nobody actually knows I was here, do they? It won’t make a lot of difference if I bugger off again.’

‘Collette, has something happened?’ asks Vesta. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No,’ says Collette. ‘I just fancy a change of scene.’

‘Is it your old boss?’ asks Hossein. ‘Has he found you?’ And the bravado goes out of her like the air from a pricked balloon and she turns to Vesta, shocked.

‘You told him.’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘Jesus,’ says Collette, and drops down on the grass beside her bag. ‘So much for secrets.’

‘I told Cher as well,’ she says.

‘When?’

‘Around the time you told me, Collette.’

‘
What
?
And did you tell anyone else? How about them next door? How about them? The greengrocer, maybe? How about the bloke in Flat One? I’m sure he’d like to know so he can keep his door locked.’

‘Sorry,’ says Vesta, but she doesn’t sound it. ‘It’s not like either Hossein or Cher is going to go to the police with the info, is it? And frankly, if there was going to be people turning up on the doorstep looking for you, I’d rather people knew what to expect.’

‘Fuck,’ says Collette, and slumps. ‘Well, thanks. Thanks a lot.’

‘You’re welcome,’ says Vesta, and Collette shoots her a look of pure evil.

‘I can’t believe you did that. What am I? Bambi?’

‘Sorry,’ says Hossein. ‘I shouldn’t have shared that I knew. She swore me to secrecy.’

‘Yeah,’ she sneers. ‘Well, secrecy’s obviously a big thing around here.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ asks Vesta.

‘No! No, I
don’t
want a cup of tea! What’s that going to solve?’

A reasonable question. Vesta’s been drinking tea every hour of the day since the Landlord died, and she still feels as though her heart’s been sprained.

She gets off her deckchair and heads for the house. ‘I’ll get you one. We could both do with a refresher, anyway.’ I’ll leave them to it, she thinks. She’s cross with me right now. Laying whatever it is she’s upset about at my door. If anyone’s going to get through to her, Hossein will manage it. He can talk to her through her soft spot the way I just can’t.

She steps in through her kitchen door, and her own ghosts swoop back in to haunt her. To all intents and purposes, the kitchen is back to normal. Better than normal, if anything, for Hossein has managed to restart the pilot light on the gas cooker, which went out some time in the 1990s, and has changed the washers on the sink taps so that they no longer drip. But she can hardly bear to be in here. When the bathroom door is open, she keeps having flash memories of the Landlord, squatting face down in the toilet. When the door is closed, she hears someone moving behind it. Using the bathroom is close to agony. She used to love a long bath with a book; now she scuttles through hasty showers, and has to close her eyes and hold her breath when she sits down on that toilet seat.

She puts the kettle on and fills the watering can at the sink, so she can water her herbs while it boils. It’s just an excuse to get out of the room. It’s unbearable, she thinks. I can do this now, but what happens in the winter?

In the garden she can hear the low murmur of voices. It sounds like Collette has at least calmed down enough to talk.

All my life, she thinks. All my life I’ve lived here, and now it’s spoiled. All the memories – all the Mum making cakes, the laundry days and the pegging out, Dad coming home in his butcher’s coat and his straw boater and chasing me round the garden with his cleaver, pretending to be an ogre as I shrieked with half-joy, half-terror, the looking after them as they got ill, the I-love-you deathbeds – all painted over in black by one single moment. I know it’s early days. I know I’m still in shock and I’m scared about what will happen next, what will happen when they find him, but I feel as though it will never be the same again. What if I’m eighty-five, all alone here, all these people long gone, and I’m still dashing in and out of the bathroom like the hounds of hell are on my tail?

The kettle clicks off and she goes back inside. It seems darker in here now, she thinks. It was never exactly a bright room, but now it’s as if there’s a shadow hanging over my shoulder all the time. I want to be gone from here. I want to be gone.

Now he’s going to come over all paternal, she thinks, plucking at the grass beneath her shin. Vesta’s left me alone with him so he can give me some sort of Big Daddy lecture. Because the thing I need right now is a mansplanation of the error of my thinking.

Hossein looks embarrassed.

‘I think she wants me to reason with you,’ he says.

‘Well, I wouldn’t bother.’

‘No,’ says Hossein. ‘I don’t think I will. You’re an adult. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’

She’s surprised and, suddenly, a bit hurt. That’s nice, she thinks. Glad to know you care.

‘It’s not like I
want
to go,’ she says. ‘It’s that I don’t have a choice.’

The cash, hastily unearthed from its hiding places, is hidden beneath her clothes in the bag, a thousand kept back for speedy access in her shoulder bag. Down to ninety-five thousand now, what with deposits and Janine’s latest bill, which came in yesterday. Payable in advance, of course. Still a lot of money, but only a lot of money if you’re not waiting to run.

‘Have you any thoughts about where you might go?’ he asks.

‘No. I’ll see what’s leaving at Victoria coach station.’

‘So mostly Eastern Europe, then?’

‘Snarky.’

He bobs his head in recognition. ‘I think if I were running away, I’d probably want to go somewhere warm.’

‘Obviously,’ she says. ‘That’s why you came to Britain.’

‘You have a point. I came here because America’s further away. And besides, you don’t have the continental winters. You have a bit more choice available to you when you have a European passport, though.’

She finally gets over her rage enough to look at him. His face is calm, but friendly. No sign that he wants to tell her what to do, that he’s waiting for his opportunity.

‘You can borrow my computer, if you like,’ he offers, ‘to research a destination. It seems a bit random, just going to the bus station.’

‘Random is good. Random’s great. If I don’t know where I’m going to go, it’s harder for other people to work it out, isn’t it? You’ve got a computer?’

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he says, ‘or they’ll all want a go. It’ll turn into a conduit for eBay. But yes. I use it to write, and cause trouble on the internet with my little wireless dongle. Are you going to be okay for money?’ he asks.

She deliberately keeps her eyes off her bag. ‘Yeah. I’m okay for now.’

‘Because, you know, if you need some, I…’

She gapes. He can’t have more than a bean himself. She’s been amazed by how open-handed the poor people she’s met have been, on her travels. Most of the types she met on the up-and-up seemed to think that helping other people out was a sign of weakness.

‘No, Hossein! I wouldn’t dream of it. Don’t be stupid!’

‘Okay.’ He hold his hands up. ‘Just… you know. So you know.’

‘I’m okay,’ she says. ‘Really. Money’s the least of my worries.’

‘I’ll take you down there, when you’re ready, then.’

‘Why would you do that?’

He shrugs. ‘If you’re running away, I’d like to make sure you at least leave safely. I’m assuming you’re not really just going on a whim? Nobody goes on a whim without a couple of days’ notice.’

‘I can’t believe she told you.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’d be annoyed, too.’

‘Christ!’ she snaps. ‘Don’t be so bloody
understanding
!’

‘Okay,’ says Hossein. ‘If you like. So you’re just going to leave your mother, then? How is she, anyway?’

She feels like she’s been slapped. Gulps. ‘I don’t have a choice.’

He’s going to tell me everybody has a choice now, she thinks, and then I’ll have to punch him.

‘What happened? Please, can I ask?’

She feels exhausted. Plain worn out. Shakes her head.

‘So it is your old boss, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. No. Oh, God, I don’t know. It could have been.’

He waits for her to speak, doesn’t prompt her.

‘I saw one of his… people. Malik. Yesterday. I think it was him. No, I’m sure it was him.’

‘Oh.’

He considers this fact, turns it over in his mind. ‘And did he see you?’

Somewhere nearby, a woman screams. A single scream, high-pitched and short. One that sounds like it’s been cut off mid-breath. They tense, look up and do a city-person’s pantomime scan of the near horizon. With everyone’s windows and doors open to the heat, they can’t even tell if it’s come from somewhere inside a house, or out.

‘It’s so weird, with all the windows open everywhere,’ says Collette. ‘You don’t have any idea how much noise people make, normally, do you?’

‘Yes, God, Saturday night especially,’ he says. ‘I wonder if people realise how much it sounds as if they’re getting attacked when they make noises like that in the street?’

‘They don’t think about it at all. They’re pissed, mostly.’

‘Yes. It’s so funny, though, isn’t it? You read in the papers all the time about how people ignore people screaming for help in this city, but they never seem to put the two things together. We’d be out on the street with baseball bats four or five times on a Saturday night, and this is a quiet road.’

‘And the foxes,’ says Collette. ‘They sound like someone being strangled.’

‘Ha. At least they’re having fun, though.’

She blows a strand of hair off her face. ‘At least someone is.’

‘Oh, I know,’ he says. Their eyes meet for a brief second, then they both look hurriedly away. Oh, God, she thinks. I think he fancies me, too. Does he know? That I’ve been having stupid dreams about him, between the dreams of Tony? It’s not been
that
obvious, has it? Jesus. It’s like being back at school, trying to hide your crush on the football captain in case anyone finds out.

‘Anyway,’ he says. ‘So that’s why you’re leaving?’

She nods.

‘Collette,’ he says, and the name sounds like poetry from his mouth. She looks up and sees kindness in his eyes, and wants to wail.

‘You’ll leave your mother when she’s dying because you
think
you saw someone?’

‘Don’t patronise me,’ she says wearily.

‘Sorry,’ he says.

‘I
did
see him. He was as close to me as you are now.’

‘Okay.’

One foot wrong, he thinks, and she’ll be gone. And I don’t want her to go. Not in chaos, with loose ends left dangling that she will never be able to tie up. And because I like her. I really do. She has an attitude, an independence, I admire.

‘Maybe I could come with you.’

‘Hunh?’ She’s so caught up in her memory of Malik that for a moment it sounds to her like he’s just asked to run away with her.

‘To see your mother. I could come with you. Make sure you don’t come to any harm. It’s not as if I’ve got anything pressing to do here.’

A hole opens up in the pit of her stomach. No. No, look, if you do that, it will mean I’ve agreed to stay. And I decided. I already decided. It’s stupid. I have to go.

‘Collette, it could be a coincidence.’

She shakes her head, vehemently. ‘In Collier’s Wood? On a Tuesday afternoon? Come on. What are the chances?’

‘I don’t know. I just…’

‘Hossein,’ she says, ‘if you were in Tehran and something like this happened to you, what would you think?’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Christ,’ she says, and tosses her head. ‘I love the way you think this country is some kind of fucking safe haven. There are bad people here too, you know. Really bad people. They’re not the ones in charge so much, but they’re still bad people. This isn’t some stalker thing, Hossein. It’s not – you know – get a restraining order and he’ll go away. It’s… he’s a bad man. A
really
bad man. People
die
around him, and nobody does anything because they’re either too afraid or they belong to him. No. No, I’m not doing it. I’m not. He’s enjoying this. He’s loving every minute. Every time he calls me on the phone, I can hear it in his voice, how much he’s liking it, and every time I change my phone he finds the number again. He doesn’t let go. I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t. I’d give my right arm to be free of this, but I don’t think I ever will be.’

Hossein stretches in the sunshine and shows her a sliver of flat brown belly, a neat line of hair pointing down into his crotch. She is suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of lust that almost knocks her sideways. It’s the fear, she thinks. Just being made to think about this and I’m all over adrenalin. I’m mistaking adrenalin for arousal. People do it all the time. He looks over her shoulder and smiles at Vesta, coming up the steps with the tea mugs.

‘Well, think about it,’ he says. ‘For your mother.’

‘She wasn’t a very good mother,’ says Collette, doubtfully.

‘Still,’ says Hossein. ‘You’ll never have another.’