The Killer Next Door (4 page)

It’s a long journey from Ilfracombe to Northbourne by public transport. Vesta’s been on the road for eight hours, hobbling from bus to train to bus again, and is feeling her back and the arthritis in her knee. The walk from the High Street, dragging her suitcase behind her on its wonky wheel, seems to take as long as the trip from Victoria. I’m not sure how many more times I can do this, she thinks mournfully. I feel my age more each year. But, oh – if I didn’t have my two weeks by the sea, what would be the point of any of it? Just Northbourne day after day, the hoodies in the bus shelter and the litter on the common, the rattle of the suburban trains passing by at the end of the garden. Damn you for a coward, Vesta Collins, she chides herself. You always wanted to live by the sea. You should have gone when Mum died, not taken the easy route and tied yourself to a sitting tenancy.

On the corner of Bracken Gardens, she sees Hossein sauntering up the road towards her, dapper in a shirt of cotton brocade, his beard neatly trimmed. She waves, and his face is suddenly wreathed in smiles. He hurries up to her and stretches out a hand to take hold of the handle of her case.

‘You’re home!’ he says. ‘I’ve missed you.’

Vesta laughs, and pushes at his upper arm. ‘Oh, go on, you. You’re all charm.’

He takes the bag and starts pulling it towards the house. ‘What are you doing?’ she protests. ‘You’re on your way out!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, woman. I can go later.’

‘But you —’

‘Enough,’ he barks. ‘Do as you’re told.’

She subsides, content. The magazines she read when she was young, when feminism was a mere glint in Germaine’s eye, were full of warnings about Middle Eastern men and how controlling they were. Never said anything about the gentlemanliness, though, she thinks. Catch an Englishman dropping his trip to the bookies to drag an old lady’s suitcase home.

‘Did you have a good holiday?’ he asks.

‘Oh, lovely, thank you. It’s so beautiful down there. Even with that silly statue they’ve stuck in the middle of it.’

‘So I heard,’ he says.

‘Yes. You should go and see it,’ she says. ‘Silly, being here and not seeing anything of the country.’

‘As soon as I can, I will,’ says Hossein. ‘There are a lot of places I want to see.’

Vesta remembers. ‘Sorry, poppet,’ she says. ‘Mind like a sieve, me.’

Hossein gives her his lovely smile again. ‘It’s okay. I take it as a compliment.’

‘Where were you off to, anyway?’

‘To sign my little book,’ he says, ‘so they know I haven’t run away. Then I’m going to Kensington.’

‘Kensington!’ says Vesta. ‘Posh!’

He laughs. ‘Iranian shops. I’m going to see my cousin. He lives in Ealing.’

‘That’s nice,’ says Vesta. ‘It’s nice to have family. Even if they
are
in Ealing.’

‘Yes,’ says Hossein. ‘It is. Do you have any family of your own?’

She pauses, sighs. ‘Not any more. I had an auntie in Ilfracombe, but she passed away a few years ago, now.’

‘No brothers or sisters?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

She sees him glance at her from the side of his eye. Don’t look at me like that, she thinks. It’s a fine old day when
you
feel sorry for
me
.

‘You don’t miss what you never had, dear,’ she says. ‘It’s not like I don’t have friends, is it?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘You’re good at that.’

Vesta smiles. Such a charmer. But still, she feels warmed by the compliment. ‘So how’s life at the old homestead?’ she asks. ‘Any gossip? How’s that little girl? Not got into any trouble, has she?’

Hossein shrugs. ‘No. She’s okay, I think. No trouble. There’s a new woman, moved into Nikki’s room.’

‘Oh! Nikki didn’t come back, then?’

‘No. Not a sign of her. And her rent’s run out, so boom, she’s history.’

‘That’s weird,’ says Vesta. ‘She was a nice girl. I didn’t think she would be the type.’

Hossein shrugs expansively, as is his habit. ‘I know. But there you go. And you know what he’s like. Not going to leave it a day longer than he needs without getting some money.’

‘Well,’ says Vesta. Then: ‘She just went? I can’t believe it. She didn’t say goodbye? Not even to Cher?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Well,’ says Vesta, again. The itinerant movements of the young never cease to amaze her. ‘Maybe she went back to Glasgow. Did she make up with her folks, did you hear?’

‘Vesta,’ says Hossein, ‘nobody tells me anything. I sometimes think you’re the only one who realises I speak English.’

‘Well,’ says Vesta again. ‘So what’s she like?’

‘Don’t know,’ says Hossein. ‘She only got here today. I heard the Landlord letting her in, so I…’

‘Oh, you big scaredy-cat.’

He shrugs again. She’s right, of course. A man his age shouldn’t be hiding from strangers, even if they do have Roy Preece attached. They reach the steps and he bends to slide the handle back into the case. Picks it up and starts towards the door. ‘Good God, woman. What have you got in here?’

‘Oh, sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t have anywhere to dispose of the bodies. It was only a bed and breakfast.’

‘How many people you killed? Have you no self-control? You’ve only been gone two weeks.’

She starts up the steps behind him, winces as she bends her knee. She can’t wait to have a sit-down and put her feet up, have a cuppa. There’s not much in the flat, but she at least had the foresight to lay in a pint of UHT before she left. Not as good as fresh, but better than nothing, and there’s no way she’s leaving the house again today. There’s a packet of digestives in the tin, she’s pretty sure, and a block of cheddar in the fridge. There are times when the reduced appetite of age is a great convenience.

Hossein opens the front door, and stands by to wait for her to pass. From behind Gerard Bright’s door a piece of music, all piano and sobbing cello, plays on and on as it had done the day she left for Ilfracombe; it’s as though she’d just popped out to the corner shop. She steps in to the hall and notices that the familiar smells of her childhood – dust and impermanence, and a slight whiff of damp – have had another layer added to them. Something… meaty, she thinks; like something’s died under the floorboards and has yet to desiccate. We need to get this place aired out, she thinks. There’s no ventilation on this stairwell, with all the doors shut most of the time.

She stretches, her journey finally over, and leafs through the mail on the hall table. A couple of circulars – the usual stuff, animal charities thinking she’s a sucker, old-people insurers reminding her she’s going to die. ‘Oh, but it’s good to be home,’ she says, and isn’t sure she means it.

‘No place like it,’ says Hossein, but she misses the faint irony in his voice.

She puffs out her cheeks and drops the letters into her bag, ready for the recycling bin. ‘Can I tempt you to a cuppa?’ she asks Hossein. ‘Before you go out?’

He checks his watch. ‘Sure. I don’t have to hurry.’

She fetches her key from her handbag. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, then.’

She knows the moment she ducks in through her narrow door under the hall stairs that something isn’t right. The air in the flat is too fresh. For a moment, she wonders if she forgot to close a window before she left for Devon, but then she switches on the light at the top of the stairs and sees that her umbrella stand – her mother’s umbrella stand – is lying on its side.

For a moment, her brain freezes. The sight of the unexpected where all is so familiar leaves her grasping for thought. ‘Oh,’ she says. Then, catching sight of
The Crying Boy
, his frame askew on the wall, she suddenly knows what has happened and her guts lurch. ‘Oh,’ she says again.

She hears Hossein drag the bag in through the door as she feels her way wordlessly down the stairs, clutching on to the banister as soon as it starts, like a proper old person. Her legs are weak, her breath watery. Sixty-nine years she has lived here, the world changing around her and neighbours coming and going, but this has always been her place of safety. No one has ever come in here without invitation. No one has ever invaded.

She reaches the bottom of the steps with a flood of relief and dread as she feels the solid ground beneath her feet. The hall is scattered with umbrellas and walking sticks, her father’s precious books tossed out from their shelf on to the faded Axminster, her coats, her mother’s hats – globes of fake fur and fabric roses she could never bear to give to the charity shop – ripped from the hooks above and trodden into the ground. ‘Oh,’ she says again. Hossein, concentrating on balancing his burden down the steep staircase, has yet to see the chaos, is yet to remark upon it.

She doesn’t want to go any further. Wants to turn tail and run, go back to Ilfracombe, not have to face it. Glancing up the corridor towards her tiny kitchen, she can see light where the outside door should be. It’s hanging open, on its hinges, kicked or jemmied during one of the nights she slept unknowing in her bed and breakfast, lulled by the sounds of gulls and water.

Vesta puts a hand on to her breastbone, feels her heart thud in her chest. It’s too much. This is too much. She steps over the fallen umbrella stand and peers into the living room. The curtains are open, the nets still drawn, but the light that penetrates here, even on a blazing summer day like today, is thin and pale. She switches on the light, looks around her, feels tears spring into her throat.

‘Oh, Hossein,’ she says. ‘Oh, my Lord.’

She lies on the bed, listens to the sound of voices in the corridor outside. There’s something going on beyond her door; something’s happened. She hears a man’s voice, foreign; the guttural aitch of the East raised over the classical music that started up an hour after she arrived and continues to pierce her party wall. From somewhere in the distance, floating through the window over the sticky air, the sound of sobbing, a woman’s voice saying, periodically: ‘No! Oh, no! Oh, no!’

Collette rolls on to her side, picks up the pillow and presses it to her ear. She’s exhausted, wrung out after her journey, after three years spent looking over her shoulder, dreading the weeks or months to come. She’s desperate to sleep, desperate to feel that, even for a few days, a few weeks, she can let her guard down and rest while she finds out what’s going to happen with Janine. It’s okay, she tells herself. You don’t have to get involved. Just keep yourself to yourself and —

A series of loud bangs on her door wrenches her upright. Someone’s thumping on it as though they plan to break through.

Collette sits on a stranger’s musky sheets and stares as the wood judders beneath a fist. A man’s voice, the foreign accent that she heard passing out in the hall earlier, an edge of intemperate urgency. ‘Hello? Hello?’

Angry men. The world is full of angry men. She can’t face an angry man today. She feels like she’s been running from them all her life.

He thumps again, rattles at her door handle. ‘Hello? Are you in there? I need to talk to you.’

Maybe if I just keep quiet… at least this one doesn’t seem to have a key…

Another burst of hammering. ‘HELLO?’

She pushes herself off the bed and crosses the room. No spyhole, no chain, no bolts: it’s as secure as a sauna, this room. She steels herself, throws the door open, ready to fight.

The most beautiful man she has ever seen stands in the corridor, clenched fist raised at her face. Golden skin and sad, almond eyes, glossy black hair and a beard trimmed close to sharp, angular cheeks. A generous mouth that, even in what is clearly a state of some disturbance, is dimpled at the sides by good humour. Collette gasps, and blushes.

He misinterprets the sound. Looks at his upraised hand and drops it to his side. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were going to open it.’

It’s a precise diction, its foreign edge poetical, educated, the consonants carefully separated. He’s learned his English from the BBC, not CNN.

Collette feels her blush begin to subside, says: ‘That’s okay. Just lucky I didn’t open it a second later or you would’ve broken my nose.’

He laughs. ‘I was just…’ She sees him look her up and down, take in her crumpled face, her crumpled clothes. ‘I’m sorry, you were sleeping.’

Up the corridor, by the front door, the door to Flat One opens and a man – washed-out sandy hair and skin with the strange plasticky quality that always makes you think that the top few layers have somehow been burnt off – steps out and stares. Collette leans out of her own door and gives him what she hopes is a friendly smile. No point in being stand-offish with her neighbours. It’s not like they can’t all hear each other. The man blushes and looks down, then retreats into his domain. The sound of his music dies back as he closes his door again.

‘It’s okay,’ she says, hurriedly, not wanting to admit that this is how she’s been dressed all day. ‘Stupid thing to do, in the middle of the afternoon. I’ll be up all night, now.’

He offers a hand. ‘Hossein Zanjani,’ he says. ‘I live upstairs. Above you.’

‘Hello, Hossein.’ She shakes the hand, leaves it a beat. ‘I’m Collette.’

‘Collette,’ he says. ‘That’s a pretty name. French?’

Collette shakes her head. ‘Irish mother who spent too much time reading romance novels.’

And a useful name, as it turns out, given that she shed it in primary school after two terms of playground banter and used her second name. It was the work of a moment to swap it back to the front when she applied for her Irish passport.

She deliberately steps out through the door, into his territory. She already feels that the room behind her is her safety zone, but she learned a lot from watching Tony and Malik and Burim, in the time when they weren’t her enemies: watching them assert their authority with a single forward footstep, a cold smile, a refusal to allow their arms to cross their bodies. She pulls the door to behind her, leaving it slightly ajar but blocking off his view of her space.

‘What can I do for you?’ she asks.

He takes a step back, cedes the status.

‘I – so, you moved in this morning?’ he asks.

‘This morning,’ says Collette. ‘That’s right.’

‘The Landlord didn’t scare you away?’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ she says, and sees him blink with incomprehension. Okay. His English is good, but not
that
good. He’s not been here all that long. Either that, or he doesn’t get out, much.

‘I just,’ he says again, then takes a moment to formulate his next words. ‘I wanted to ask you. Vesta…’ He gestures towards a doorway under the stairs that she hadn’t noticed when she arrived. ‘The old lady downstairs. She’s been burgled.’

‘Oh, no,’ Collette makes the appropriate sounds of sympathy, though her thoughts stray immediately to the bagful of cash lying by the side of her bed. ‘How awful.’

‘Yes. It is. Poor lady. She came back from holiday, and… anyway, I was wondering if you’d… noticed anything. You know. Anything unusual.’

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry. Poor lady.’ She wants to ask more, like: is this something that happens a lot? Should I be worrying? But contents herself with saying, ‘No. No, I haven’t. Though I suppose I’ve only been here a few hours, so I wouldn’t know unusual from not.’

He looks impatient, as though she’s not being helpful. Well, what do you expect me to say? she thinks. And by the way, you turning straight up here at my door the second there’s been a burglary doesn’t exactly make me feel welcome.

‘No… you know. Someone moving around downstairs? You didn’t see anybody?’

Collette shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry. Mind you, it’s hard to hear anything over the free entertainment.’ She jerks her head towards the flat next door. Hossein rolls his eyes and grins.

‘Poor lady. Is she okay? She wasn’t hurt, was she?’

He’s backing away already. ‘No. No, she’s okay. She was away. She’s just… upset.’

‘Yes,’ says Collette, and puts a hand on her door handle. It’s clear the conversation is coming to an end. This beautiful man hasn’t come to welcome her to the house, but to interrogate her about her movements; to check her out. She’s not going to get involved. She’s only here for as long as it takes to see Janine through to the end. ‘I should think she would be. Has she lost anything valuable?’

Hossein shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s a mess. And, you know, she doesn’t have much. Family things…’

A fleeting look of inexpressible sadness crosses his face. For a moment, he’s a thousand miles away. He snaps back into the room, gives her a sorrowful smile. ‘She’s still, you know…’

‘Oh, dear,’ says Collette. She knows she should offer condolences, offer to help, because that’s what civilised people do. But I’m not civilised, she thinks. Not any more. You fall asleep at the job, and before you know it…

Their attention is diverted by the sound of someone jogging up the outside steps, whistling tunelessly. It’s a semi-familiar tune, more from its rhythm than from any actual musicality. A key slips into the street door and turns. A man comes in: an unremarkable forty-something, a courier bag in one hand and a supermarket carrier in the other, looking at his keys as he wiggles them from the lock, as yet unaware of them, still whistling. Thinning hair, slightly tinted spectacles and Hush Puppies. A brushed-cotton shirt with a tiny, faded check let into the weave, like a farmer in a documentary. I know what that song is, she thinks. ‘I’m Leaning on a Lamp-post at the Corner of the Street’. Now I know I’m really back in England if the neighbours are whistling George Formby.

The man looks up, jumps and claps a hand over his heart. ‘Jesus!’

He’s instinctively raised his courier bag in front of his chest like a shield, lowers it as his eyes focus on Hossein. He glances from him to Collette and back again. ‘My God,’ he says, ‘you nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘Sorry,’ says Hossein. He doesn’t sound particularly sorry.

‘Hot, isn’t it?’ The man’s eyes run up and down her, like Hossein’s before them. Differently, though. His spectacles glint with a gleeful sort of curiosity. ‘Visitor, Hossein?’

‘No,’ says Hossein. ‘This is Collette.’

She looks over at him. That’s not madly helpful, is it? ‘I – I live here, actually,’ she adds.

The eyes glint behind the specs. A likely story, they say.

‘Nikki’s room. I’ve taken over Nikki’s room, I just moved in today.’

The man’s face clouds with doubt. ‘Nobody said anything to
me
,’ he says.

Were they meant to? She tries again. ‘The Landlord let it to me. Roy Preece? This morning?’

This seems to be the password, the Open Sesame. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Well, sorry about that. You can’t be too careful.’

He gives her one of those toothy smiles that looks like he’s practised it a lot, but doesn’t get too many opportunities to use it in real life. They’re not great teeth. Small and pointy and yellowed from lack of cosmetic care. ‘Thomas,’ he says.

She realises the word is an introduction, shakes the hand he offers. ‘Hi, Thomas.’

‘Welcome to Beulah Grove. I live upstairs.’ He points upwards, in case she is in any doubt as to where it might be.

‘In the attic,’ says Hossein.

‘Oh, right,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know there was an attic flat.’

‘It’s a Tardis,’ says Thomas. ‘I keep thinking I’m going to stumble across a secret portal to another dimension. How are you?’ he asks Hossein.

‘I’m okay,’ says Hossein. ‘But I’m afraid poor Vesta’s been burgled.’

Thomas drops his courier bag on to the carpet. ‘No!’

Hossein nods solemnly.

‘Christ! I knew it. I knew it would happen. It’s that girl. I swear she doesn’t understand how a door works. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve just found it hanging open. Oh, poor Vesta.’

‘It wasn’t the front door,’ says Hossein. ‘Whoever it was came in through the garden.’

Thomas seems to simply tune this out. He turns to Collette and puts a hand on her upper arm. Instinctively, she goes to pull back. It’s overfamiliar, this touch. Grabby. ‘You need to make sure you keep your door locked, even when you just go to the loo, young lady. Especially living in
that
room. Easy access from the street, you see. Opportunists. They can be in and out in a minute. Poor Vesta.’

‘I don’t think it was opportunists,’ says Hossein. ‘It looks as if…’

‘You can’t be too careful,’ Thomas continues, as if Hossein hadn’t spoken. Hossein looks irritable, then forces a look of patience on to his face. He’s clearly used to this man talking without listening. ‘I don’t even like leaving my windows open, when I go out. Even on the top floor.’

She slides her arm out from his clutch, steps back towards the sanctuary of her door. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Seriously,’ says Thomas. ‘I wouldn’t even go to sleep with your window open, if it was me. Someone could easily…’

‘Yes, thanks,’ she snaps. ‘I feel
much
safer now.’

‘Well, I’m just
saying
. I mean, I don’t suppose Vesta…’

She’s got the door open. ‘Yes, thank you.’

He starts walking towards her, as though he’s assumed that the open door is some sort of invitation. ‘Why don’t I…’

‘Yes, maybe some other time,’ she says. Hossein meets her eyes behind her back, and winks. He’s biting his lower lip, and his eyes shine with merriment. Ah, the house bore, she thinks.

‘It’s no problem,’ continues Thomas. ‘It won’t take a —’

‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Ooh! There’s my phone! Got to go!’

She skips inside and closes the door.