From Dark Places (11 page)

“Haven’t you learnt anything?!” the teenager yelled at him. “Hesitate and you’re dead. God, you’re rubbish!”

“They were in love.”

“Whatever,” she said, reloading the shotgun. “They’re the last ones, I’m sure of it. Let’s get moving.”

She left but he couldn’t take his eyes off the couple lying dead on the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said and left, the lovers’ blood joining on the carpet between them.

EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE

The letter lay on the writing desk, the envelope exactly six inches from the lower and left hand edges of the table. The fountain pen lay parallel to the top of the letter. Beneath him the pristine ocean of beige carpet ran out to meet the rug, fringe ends coaxed to attention, stretching out perpendicular to the edges like neat cotton soldiers. Everything was ready.

The hallway clock told him he had two minutes.

He returned to the bathroom, paying his numerical dues at the doorway, sucking in the manufactured-pine scent and admiring the immaculate grout, still damp from the toothbrush scrubbing an hour earlier.

At the sink he stopped, ensured his toes were perfectly aligned with the edge. In the mirror he checked the grey hairs and noted the dark circles around his eyes. He rechecked the position of his toes, his shirt sleeves—folded back three times on each arm—and the razor blade glinting silver against the white porcelain. It would make a terrible mess, but after careful consideration of all his options this seemed right… somehow. Besides, he wouldn’t see any of it.

Everything was in place.

He nodded to himself, looked into the hallway to the grandfather clock, the hands at two minutes to the –

Two minutes?

He gripped the edge of the sink and listened. The hallway was silent, only the faint hum of the freezer could be heard. The clock had stopped at exactly the wrong time.

A strangled cry escaped his lips as he clutched the porcelain between his fingers. What was the time? It could already be noon. The panic exploded through his chest.

He had no idea how long he stood there, panting, but finally he gathered the ragged edges of his thoughts. He filled his lungs as best he could, and released the breath slowly.

He washed his hands. Then he cleaned the sink and the mirror he’d blasted with a fine mist of spittle. As he washed his hands a second time, the doorbell rang.

He froze. It rang again. He turned off the tap and dried his hands, staring at the front door.

Could they have found out?

“Hello?” a woman’s voice called through it. “Is anyone in?”

He paused at the bathroom door long enough to count to eleven, then made his way silently to the front door and peered through the spy hole. A woman in her twenties, with similar dark circles under her eyes, waited on the other side of the wood. She wasn’t wearing a police officer’s uniform. Maybe she was a plain clothes detective?

“Who are you?” he asked, deciding that not knowing would be worse.

“Oh thank, God! Please can you help me? I can’t find the stopcock and the flat’s flooding—the one above yours.”

The flat above his? An arid breath sucked the moisture from his mouth. That was impossible.

“I—I’m rather busy right –”

“Please, it’ll only take you a minute, no-one else is in. The water will come through your ceiling if you don’t help.”

Her pleading made him cringe. Why was everything going wrong at the same time? He glowered at the clock.

“This is your fault,” he hissed.

He had to help her; he couldn’t cope with the thought of filthy workmen coming into his apartment to repair water damage. He unbolted the door, unhooked the chains, took the keys hanging next to the door frame and opened the deadlock. She was already half-way down the hall.

After counting to eleven he stepped into the hallway. It smelt of cooked cabbage and paint and had done for the last twenty years, despite the fact nobody cooked cabbage anymore and the hallway hadn’t seen fresh paint in all that time.

“Hurry!” she said, banging her way through the fire doors and leaping onto the stairs. He followed as quickly as he could, but it was like wading through mud. He was in such a state by the time he reached the fire doors he had to restart his count three times before he could be certain it was okay to go through.

By the time he reached the upstairs corridor, she had unlocked the apartment door and disappeared inside. His head pounded. Blood roared in his ears. The approach to the door had the quality of an awful nightmare, one he’d been expecting every time he went to bed. But it had waited until now, to be faced in the daylight hours.

“In here,” she called from the kitchen.

He steeled himself for the onslaught of stale air and the stench of cigarette smoke. It was fainter than he remembered, the ceiling still yellow however and the paintwork grimy with dirt.

One, two, three, four-

“What are you doing? There’s water everywhere!”

Damn! One, two, three, four, five-

She darted back to the doorway; their eyes met, hers shadowed by a frown. “Come in for God’s sake, the kitchen –”

He held up a hand.
One, two, three-

She grabbed the raised hand and yanked him into the apartment, swiftly dragging him through to the kitchen. His thoughts tumbled and crashed like waves on a beach.

“Where’s the stopcock?” she yelled at him.

His body jerked into action, splashing across the floor to the cupboard beneath the sink, fingers locating the small wheel and turning it.

“Thank God for that!” she said. “Are you ok?”

He grabbed for the washing up liquid, no antibacterial hand wash in sight, and concentrated on squirting it over his hands. He lathered them vigorously under the tap, before realising with horror he’d just shut off the water.

She started to laugh and then he was too. It felt like cobwebs were clearing from his lungs. For a bright moment he saw himself standing in an inch of water, hands covered in green slime in the apartment of the man he’d killed a week ago.

He managed to rein in the laughter before it became hysterical. “I need to wash this off,” he said and sploshed out of the room.

“I’ll mop this up before it goes through to your kitchen,” she said, but he was already out the door.

He washed his hands, cleaned the door handles and changed his clothes, throwing the drenched socks and slippers straight into the bin. He was preparing to take the rubbish outside when the doorbell rang again.

He wasn’t surprised to see her through the spy hole. He took a deep breath, unbolted the door and opened it as close to forty five degrees as he could estimate.

“Hi,” she smiled. “I mopped it up. Has it come through?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s all fine.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

An awkward moment filled his silent hallway, the grandfather clock dormant in the background.

“Look, I was wondering if you knew my father? That’s his place, above yours—and, it’s just—well, I haven’t heard from him. He didn’t come to lunch yesterday. He never misses it.”

He let her worried eyes roam over his face. “I saw him once or twice.”

She nodded. “Recently? I’m worried he wandered off somewhere, got lost or something. He wouldn’t move into sheltered housing, even though we –” she stopped herself.

He could tell she needed someone to talk to. Perhaps he did too.

“Come in,” he said, ignoring the instinct to keep her out.

She stepped inside and glanced around. “My name’s Amy by the way, Amy Johnson.”

“Harry,” he said, but didn’t shake her hand.

He led her to the living room, gestured towards the sofa, sliding a piece of paper over the letter on the writing desk.

“Tea?”

“Please. White, one sugar.”

He left her in the living room to make the tea.

“They’re lovely flats here, aren’t they,” she said from the doorway. It irritated him she hadn’t stayed in her place. “So big. They just don’t build them like they used to.”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear Dad up there?” She pointed at the ceiling.

Hear him?
He wanted to shout.
It was like living beneath a herd of drunken rhinoceros with Long John Silver as their keeper
.

“Yes, I heard him sometimes.”

“He was walking with a stick lately, his hip was playing up. And with those wooden floors up there…” She shrugged. “And I know he had the TV on loud, he was deaf as a post. I wondered if you noticed when the noise stopped.”

Yes, he’d noticed. He’d come downstairs and sat in the middle of his sofa and listened to the hum of the freezer and the tick of the clock for the first time in months.

“No, not really.” He squeezed the tea bag against the side of the cup and marvelled at how well he was coping with her being in the apartment. He’d shampoo the carpet after she left and clean everything else. That was enough to comfort him.

He handed her the cup and noticed she was looking at the freezer. “My gran used to have one of those chest freezers,” she said, blowing the tea. “There was more food in it than she ever needed. She used to make huge vats of stew and freeze it in little bags, then forget she’d made them. Mum used to go over every few months to empty it out.”

He smiled, hoping it looked convincing. He could feel his anxiety building, but it was weaker than the desire to make everything seem normal.

Amy drifted back into the living room, sat on the other sofa, in exactly the wrong place. His teeth ground at the way her careless feet disturbed the rug fringe.

“I’ll call the police,” she said, looking down into the cup. “I was going to anyway, before I saw the cufflink.”

His chest constricted. “Cufflink?”

“Yeah, I saw something under the washing machine in his kitchen. When I tried to move the machine I knocked something out at the back, that’s why it was flooding.” She placed the cup on a small side table, plucked the cufflink out of her pocket and held it out to him on her palm. “He never wore them.”

He thought of its counterpart in the black velvet box, tucked in a bedroom drawer.

“How odd.” He sipped his tea. “I wonder how it got there.”

She shrugged and dropped it back in her pocket. “Thanks for the tea, but I’d better go and make that call. Poor Dad. I hope they find him soon.”

He escorted her out to the hallway. “I hope so too,” he said. Passing the clock, he remembered the original problem. “I don’t suppose you have the correct time?”

She glanced at a wristwatch. “Half twelve.”

After a relieved goodbye and false wishes of good luck, he locked the door behind her. He washed the mugs, then his hands, revising his plan as he went. He’d throw the lone cufflink and its box out with the socks and slippers. Then he’d find the correct time and wind the clock. Then he’d burn the letter and put the razor blade away.

What had he been thinking?

He retrieved the box, tapped the three tiles by the bin in the correct order and threw it inside. He tied the bag and placed it ready by the door, then went to the freezer.

A plume of frozen air rushed past him when he opened the lid. He slid the frozen peas to one side, lifted out the chicken drumsticks and parted the cloth. Mr Johnson’s grey face, crusted with ice crystals, looked as if in repose.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to him. “I didn’t know you were going deaf. If you’d explained that to me, maybe I wouldn’t have… ah well, too late now.” He pulled away a box of fish fingers pressing into the man’s ear. “I didn’t know you had a daughter. She’s very pretty, you must have been proud.” He covered him back over. “Let’s hope she’s quieter than you were.”

THE BEST PIE IN THE WORLD

She bent down and peered through the murky glass. She could just see the top of the pie rising nicely. The smell of baking pastry filled the kitchen and she sucked it in as she slowly straightened up again and went to the window. The great-grandchildren were chasing each other on the grass, squealing with delight. It was good to see the lawn trampled again.

“Something smells good.”

 Her youngest grandson grinned from the doorway, and she laughed and hobbled over to him, reaching up to cup his face in her hands and kiss him tenderly.

“Mel! It’s good to see you,” she said, the door slamming shut as he squeezed her tight.

“And you, Nana. How’re you doing these days?”

“Bit slower, but still running just fine,” she said, heading for the washing up.

He stopped her and picked up the rubber gloves.

“I’ll do this Nana. What smells so good?”

“Blackberry and apple pie. Your little sister’s here already.”

He peered out the window as the sink filled with water. “She’s had more kids?!”

“Yes.”

He frowned and shook his head. “They’re all so damn ugly,” he muttered and she chuckled. She might be getting old, but her hearing was still good.

She eased herself into one of the wooden chairs around the kitchen table. “How’s work?”

“Hellish,” he sighed, swirling the soap suds in the water. “I’m overworked and unappreciated.”

“It’s better than being bored. You’d be miserable without the family business.”

“Mmm,” he grunted. “Is
he
here yet?”

She almost pretended not to know who he meant, but decided against it. “Not yet. Are you two still bickering?”

Mel scowled. “He’s a stubborn idiot. Why doesn’t he just apologise? We’re all suffering because of what he did.”

“Suffering?” Nana scoffed. “You all have good jobs and respect. That’s more than a lot of people have these days. Your brother will come ‘round, he’s just a little sore that’s all.”

“Sore? Sulking more like.” Mel pouted and Nana saw the child in him again. He said nothing more until all of the dishes sparkled in the drying rack.

“I’d better go say ‘hi’ to the monsters.” The coins in his pockets jangled in time with his footsteps on the way out.

Nana heard a brief exchange between siblings and her eldest grand-daughter appeared at the door.