Dark Terrors 3 (41 page)

‘Me too. I dreamt that you were going to fuck me again.’

So I did.

* * * *

Dream or not, Louise had been right. Jules and I did make a go of it.

We saw each other constantly that summer, although I must confess I tried to spend as much time as possible at her place, a
pied-à-terre
down the Goldhawk Road. It wasn’t bad. Just twenty minutes’ drive away, or a few stops on the Victoria line, then change, and a few more stops heading west.

But Louise didn’t come back to visit, and eventually I forgot all about it.

Then, one evening that September, I came in from work to get changed for a publisher’s dinner, and she was sitting at the kitchen table holding Percy on her lap. He was looking longingly at the fridge, and it struck me that whatever Louise had said, some dead creatures still remembered about being hungry.

‘Hello,’ she said when I walked in. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’

It was the same thing she’d said to me myriad times before. And I answered like I’d always answered. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Put the kettle on.’

She dropped the cat on to the floor and did just that. ‘I told you that you two would get on, didn’t I?’

I nodded and lit a cigarette.

She made the tea. Just one cup, and said, ‘Party tonight?’

‘You obviously know,’ I replied. ‘Been using your crystal ball again?’

‘That’s right. Taking Jules?’

I nodded.

‘You could always take me.’

‘Can anyone else see you?’ I hadn’t asked that question before.

She shook her head.

‘It’d be a bit weird then, wouldn’t it? Me sitting next to an empty chair having a conversation with an untouched plate of chicken Kiev.’

‘I suppose you’re right. But I might come anyway. The Savoy, isn’t it?’

‘Is there anything you don’t know?’

‘No.’

‘Then why this visit? Not that you’re not welcome.’

‘You’re forgetting me. I can tell. I’m fading away.’

‘Does that happen?’

‘Only to people that no one cares about.’

‘But I do care.’

‘Not as much. Not since Jules came along.’

Of course it
was
true.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Don’t mention it. Some people only last a few weeks.’

‘How do you know that, if you’ve never seen anyone else?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I just do.’

‘So what can we do about it?’

‘Lots of things,’ said Louise. ‘But I’d better let you get changed. You don’t want to keep Jules waiting.’ And she hauled Percy up, and walked out of the kitchen, closing the door behind her. I only waited a split second before I followed, but when I searched, the flat was empty again.

* * * *

After that, things started getting
really
weird. Louise and Percy were hanging out a lot at my flat, and I wouldn’t let Jules anywhere near the place. Not that Louise didn’t make the odd appearance at Jules’ place. She did. And often I’d know she’d been there when we weren’t. Things were moved or vanished, and Jules started talking poltergeists. Hey, I knew better. And then she started showing up at work, and in pubs, bars and restaurants. I was losing weight and smoking too much, and people started commenting on it.

It got so that I dreaded spotting a redhead anywhere. A redhead in a black sweater, black short skirt, black tights, and scuffed black shoes. A redhead who didn’t look a minute older than the day I met her all those years ago.

Then, just before Christmas, I made the biggest mistake of my life. On the twenty-first of December I asked Jules to marry me.

And on the same day, she made the biggest mistake of
her
life.

She accepted.

She was going up north for Christmas to visit her family who had moved there.

She wanted me to go with her, but I had family commitments of my own. And besides, I wanted her to break the happy news to her folks whilst I was a couple of hundred miles away. I spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day in the bosom of my family. I told them the glad tidings just before I left, and split to leave them to mull it over in their own time.

I got back to my flat at lunchtime on the 27th, and Louise was waiting for me.

Talk about ‘Hell hath no fury’.

She was well pissed off, and even old Percy spat at me. And I’d fed the little bugger for years.

‘I knew it,’ she screamed. ‘I knew you’d do something stupid.’

‘Hey, listen,’ I said back. ‘You’re dead. I don’t even know if you’re a figment of my imagination. So don’t get all aerated with me.’

‘Try this for a figment,’ she said, and cleaned my clock with a right hander. It hurt too. ‘If you marry that bitch, I’ll be gone. I know it. She’ll want babies and shit like that, and you’ll forget me, and I’ll be gone.’

‘I told you, Louise,’ I said as calmly as possible under the circumstances, holding a cold flannel to my throbbing nose, I’ll never forget you.’

‘And you want me to stay?’

What could I say, after all we’d been through? It was time to shit or get off the pot. Cast the die, and to hell with the consequences.

‘Yes,’ I said. And with that single word I invoked the chaos theory. A butterfly spread its wings in Venezuela, and it rained in Somaliland.

Louise calmed down then, and Percy rubbed his fat, furry self against my leg. She even cooked me dinner. A most acceptable lamb chop, mashed potatoes and peas.

Later on, when I was smashed on a bottle of port that one of my authors had sent me for Christmas, I broached the subject of sex.

We were watching the late-night movie. A stalk, strip and slash exploiter from the late seventies.

‘Do you still fancy it?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘That’s all over. Just as well really.’

I had to agree, but didn’t vocalize the thought. Necrophilia had never been a fantasy of mine.

Louise stayed until the end of the film, then she blew me a kiss, collected Percy and left.

She stopped in the doorway as she was going, and asked, ‘Did you really mean what you said?’

‘What?’ I’d said an awful lot that night.

‘About me staying.’

‘Of course.’

She smiled a brilliant smile. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘See you around.’

But after she went, I remembered the story about the man who wished for something, and got exactly what he’d wished for.

Jules came back for New Year, we went out and celebrated, and surprise, surprise, Louise didn’t show.

I was amazed. At the very least I’d expected her to pop in and wish me the compliments of the season.

In fact I didn’t see her for months. And as the wedding plans advanced, Jules and I visited both sets of parents, God was in his heaven, and all was right with the world. At least our little piece of it. I even cut down on cigarettes, and started to put on weight.

Then, on the sixth anniversary exactly of Louise’s death, I got home from work to Jules’ place where she’d promised to cook me dinner, and it had all come on top.

Of course I had a key to the flat, and the first thing I saw when I’d let myself in through the front door was Percy giving himself a quick wash and brush-up by the foot of the stairs.

I looked at him, he looked at me, and I knew that this was a bad news day. I’d known it since I’d woken up, and his being there confirmed it.

I walked down the hall to the kitchen. The door was ajar, and there was a light on inside the room.

I pushed the door all the way open, and for a moment I thought that Jules had redecorated the white walls.

In red.

But it wasn’t Dulux vermilion gloss that coated every surface.

It was blood. Hot, scarlet blood. Already turning brown in the air. Jules’ blood. My wife-to-be. And she was lying on the black and white checked vinyl floor in a pool of the stuff, with more gushing from the multiple wounds that Louise had stabbed in her body.

Louise was still bending over her, and when she saw me, she stood up, wiped the blade of the kitchen knife she was holding on her skirt, and stuck the point of it into the butcher’s block that rested on one of the work surfaces.

‘Hello Paul,’ she said. ‘Supper’s nearly ready.’

I went straight to Jules, but it was too late. She was dead. I knelt in her blood and tried to revive her, but all I managed to do was to cover myself in the stuff. Big mistake number one. Too much blood, I thought. Too much blood for her to have in such a small body.

When I realized it was useless, I stood and tore the knife from where Louise had stuck it, and went looking for her. Oh yeah, I can hear you say it. A stupid thing to do. But I did it anyway. Maybe you would’ve done the same thing under the circumstances. Big mistake, number two, you might say.

Of course she was gone. Percy too. So I did what any good citizen would do at a time like that.

I called the emergency services.

You see I’ve always prided myself on being a good citizen. Big mistake number three.

* * * *

So naturally the coppers arrived with the ambulance. They took one look at me and hustled me into the living room to wait for the CID.

Ten minutes later, a pair of plainclothes police got to the house, and the fun really began.

Have you ever tried to explain to the law that your ex-girlfriend, dead exactly six years to the day, had turned your current fiancé into steak Diane on the kitchen floor? Or steak Julia in this case.

Don’t bother.

It doesn’t wash.

They cautioned and charged me when I’d told them my full name, and they drove me to the station, where, after being processed through, I was taken to an interview room. One of them, the youngest, put on a tape recorder, and they started.

What made it worse was that just then, Louise walked into the room, carrying Percy like a baby, sat down in an empty chair in the corner, crossed her legs and joined in.

So the conversation went something like this:

‘Well, Paul,’ said the oldest of the two coppers. ‘No “Mr”. Just “Paul”, all the time. ‘This is a bit of a mess, isn’t it?’

I agreed that it was.

‘So what happened?’

I told him. From the moment I walked through the front door and saw Percy until the two policemen arrived.

He seemed quite amused by the notion. I’m sure he was the life and soul of the police social club.

‘They’re never going to believe you,’ said Louise.

I didn’t answer. I figured I was in enough trouble as it was.

‘Come on, Paul,’ said the young one. ‘You don’t really expect us to believe all that.’