The Killer Next Door (16 page)

I can fly, Cher thinks, as she turns into the alley and speeds through the night, as she hears his panting imprecations drop further into the darkness. I’m so fast, it’s like I’ve got wings on my feet. I swear, if I went any faster, I could actually take off and soar through the air like a bird.

Her foot lands on broken glass, and she yelps with pain. She staggers sideways and twists her ankle, lands heavily against the wall, cracks her head on black bricks. No, she thinks, no, no, no! She hears him turn into the alleyway, pushes herself upright and tries to hop-limp away from him. Oh, God, oh God. Why didn’t I check? I’ve got careless. I should have checked.

The glass is embedded in her sole. She tries to balance on the ball of the foot, but the ankle is weak and lets her down. She manages another four, five limping steps before he’s on her, catches her with a punch to the back of her skull. She goes face down among the weeds and the fag butts.

He’s on top of her before she hits the ground. Knees clamped either side of her hips, stale sweat rising from his leather coat. ‘Fucking little —’ he pants. ‘You fucking little…’

He punches her again and snatches his wallet back. Clamps her wrists together with his spare hand as he tucks it into his back pocket. Then he flips her over beneath him and sits on her pubic bone, grinds her buttocks into the grit. He’s huge. She’d thought it would be an advantage, that he’d be slow on his feet, but he’s clearly fit beneath his bulk, like a rugby player. Oh, God, I’m in trouble now. I’m in so much trouble.

He slaps her, open hand and open arm, once, twice across her face. Rips the wig from her head, hairclips tearing through the hair beneath, and slings it into a drain three feet away. Then he clamps her jaw between meaty fingers, squeezes her lips together like a tweety-bird and spits, full on, into her face. ‘Don’t you move. Don’t you fucking
move
, you little shit. Don’t fucking move or I’ll fucking
do
you.’

She lies still, pupils huge in the dark, and looks him in the face. A bald-man’s crop, rolls of fat on the back of his neck like a Charolais bull, thick two-inch sideburns. Flecks of spittle at the corners of the mouth. Three-day stubble that smells of fried onions and stale beer. Eyes made of pure contempt. He can do whatever he wants, she thinks. I’d better let him before he gets angry enough to kill me.

When he’s done, he gives her a couple of kicks in the stomach for good measure, throws her sideways against the wall like a piece of litter and swaggers off towards the light, buttoning his trousers. Cher curls up, pulls her knees to her chest and gingerly closes her bruised thighs. Her knees and ankle and foot throb; pulse with the beating of her heart. Her head is splitting where he punched her, her lip swelling and one eye closing. She can feel the bruises coming through on her neck; ten spreading marks of squeezing fingertips.

Cher drops her head on to her hand, and falls into the rising dark…

When she wakes, the streets are silent. No sounds from the station, no swish of distant traffic on the Embankment. But the sky is lighter, and somewhere, on a rooftop, a nightingale is greeting the dawn.

There’s been a dew as she slept, and her clothes and hair are damp. Slowly, gingerly, she unfurls herself and sits upright. It hurts. There’s not a place that doesn’t hurt – sharp pains and scarlet throbbing, and a screech of white light in her head. Dully, she pulls her foot up on to her lap, her swollen privates strangely soothed by the morning air, and examines the underside. The glass is buried deep in her heel, the thick brown glass they use for beer bottles, a shred of a Watneys label still attached. She takes a grip with trembling fingers, and pulls. Lets out a gasp of pain as it comes loose and slides out. Jesus, she thinks, examining it, it’s huge. It must have gone right through to the bone.

She wants to sleep again, but knows she mustn’t. She needs to get home, hide away, clean up, get over it. Trauma is a luxury for other people. To all intents and purposes, Cher does not exist. She knows this. It’s her choice. It’s not for ever. A time will come when she can come full out into the world, but that time’s not now. She groans as she pushes herself up the wall, limps over to her flip-flops and slips them on. The pain of standing on her bad ankle, on the ball of her foot to avoid dirtying her gaping wound any further than it’s already dirty, makes her hiss through her teeth, but she manages it, and at least now she won’t fall prey to whatever else is left of the beer bottle. She leans one hand on the wall and looks down at her wig. It lies, half-in, half-out of the drain, matted and ratty, the ends black with dirty water. Not worth the effort of bending to fetch it. She’s going to need all the strength she has just to get home.

It takes her twenty minutes to hobble back to her bag, holding on to walls and lamp-posts, stopping every now and then to doze on her feet, like a horse. When she gets there, she is tempted to curl up again behind the gate, where no one will find her, and sleep until the day is full. She lowers herself on to the ground and pinches herself, hard, on the inside of her elbow. You can’t sleep here, she tells herself. If he’s really hurt you, if you really need help, no one will find you. Not till you start to stink. She peels off her grimy, bloodied whore clothes and drops them on to the ground. She won’t be using them again. She doubts she’d want to, but anyway, they’re all spoiled.

She switches on her phone to check the time, and is surprised to find that it’s gone four o’clock. Her sleep didn’t feel like it lasted more than a few minutes. She finds a sachet of wet wipes and passes one over her face, is astonished by the amount of black dirt and rusty blood that comes away. Checks herself in the hand mirror and barely recognises herself. Her right eye is almost completely closed and her mouth is lopsided, her lower lip barely able to obey the request she sends it to close. A trail of dried blood leaks from her right nostril. Gingerly, she dabs at it until it’s gone. Her nose itself looks okay; but it aches inside, as though something’s bust. Christ, she thinks, I won’t get past this in a while. I’ll stand out like a sore thumb for weeks.

She pulls on her street gear, feels better for being covered. Picks the last of the hairgrips from her hair and lets it loose. Inches her hurty foot into an Ugg, sucking air sharply between her teeth as she does so, but it feels better once it’s there, the ankle supported, at least, and the cut cushioned.

At least he didn’t get my bag, she thinks, thankful for small mercies. I’ve still got my Oyster card.

Cher rolls on to her knees and gets to her feet from a downward-facing dog.

The night bus is full of drunks. Drunks and exhausted night workers slumbering in their hi-viz uniforms. Everyone is sunk into their own exhaustion, staring numbly at spots a few inches from their faces, and she’s glad of that. She takes a seat at the back, facing away from the driver, and huddles against the window. The day is already warming up, fingers of pink streaking the sky over the river. London, she thinks. You were going to be the saving of me. Do you remember? I wasn’t going to be like the other girls, in and out of foster care and slipping, with each return, further down the road to street corners and late-night beatings and a place on a methadone programme. Oh, God, this hurts. I think I’ve got some tramadol I found in a bag a few months ago. It’s probably still good. At least I’ll get some sleep. When I get back.

As they trundle along the Wandsworth Road, up Lavender Hill, she realises that she is beginning to drift off to sleep again. Maybe I’ve got a concussion, she thinks. I banged my head enough. You’re not meant to sleep if you’ve got a concussion. I must stay awake. I must make myself stay awake till I get home. Vesta will know what to do, when I get home…

She dreams about the attic again. The secret attic under the stairs. This time, it’s full of dressmakers’ mannequins and brass bedsteads, the mattresses heaped with dustsheets. Something moves, away in the far corner, beneath the eaves, out of her eyeshot. Something big and dark and old. Cher wants to run, but when she turns to get away, she finds that the stairs she came in by have disappeared…

She jumps awake. The bus is empty and the engine is off, and the driver, still locked in his cab, is flicking the lights on and off to attract her attention. Cher sits up gingerly from the bundle she’s made of herself in the corner and peers through the window. Her eye has almost closed as she slept and it takes her a moment to recognise the bus stand at the top of Garrett Lane. She’s missed her stop and ended up in Tooting. It’s an hour’s walk to Northbourne, and that’s on two good legs. ‘Thanks,’ she mumbles, though her mouth is so dry the word comes out as a croak, and stumbles off.

The newsagent is opening up at Tooting Bec, the lights coming on as she arrives at the door. She buys a pack of Nurofen and a can of Fanta, the guy behind the counter studiously avoiding her eyes, takes four pills and drains the can to wash them down. She can barely get her mouth to fit round the opening; a dribble of sugary liquid runs down her chin and on to her collar. But she doesn’t care any more. Everything hurts: her head, her neck, her stomach, her back – everything. Maybe it would have been better if he’d killed me after all, she thinks. I wouldn’t have to live through this, then. It would all be peace and quiet.

She hoists her bag on to her shoulder and sets off for Northbourne. She’s shaking and her legs are wobbly. She wonders if she should stop and get something to eat, a Mars Bar or a Snickers or something full of sugar to get her the last mile home, but she doubts she’d be able to chew it – and even if she did she doubts it would stay down.

She sits for a bit at a bus stop halfway to Northbourne, pulls the hood of her jacket over her head and greys out again. Comes to and finds herself inside a small gaggle of people in work clothes, all keeping a polite and frosty distance from the bench. I’m just another Homeless, she thinks, so much nicer when you’re talking about me on Facebook than I am in real life. One woman has perched at the far end of the bench, and keeps a tight grip on her briefcase. Cher looks at her phone. Quarter to eight. She’s lost another hour. No one meets her eye. Oh, Londoners. You’d step over a corpse in the street rather than cause a scene.

She stands up again as a bus pulls in and her fellow travellers surge silently towards it. Feels the world start to tip and steadies herself against the shelter. When she takes her hand away, she sees that she’s left a smudge of blood on the glass panel. She closes her eyes and breathes. Not so far to Northbourne Junction, now. It’s just across the Common. Then it’s just up to the High Street and home.

The Nurofen doesn’t seem to be working. Her head pounds as if there’s something in there trying to get out. Her pace slows and slows as she limps up Station Road, weaves her way unsteadily past dog walkers and joggers and working mothers wheeling wailing toddlers to the Little Sunshine nursery. She stops by a waste bin and retches. Nothing comes up, not even the Fanta, but her mouth tastes like old tin cans. She can barely see from her right eye, drops her hoodie further down to hide the Halloween mask that is her face. Someone, she thinks. One of you must wonder. Don’t you wonder? No one in Liverpool would walk past someone that looked like me and pretend they haven’t seen.

But it’s not true, though, is it? If Liverpool was so great, if the chirpy-chappie, bravely suffering people of your hometown were so great, you wouldn’t be in London. It’s England, isn’t it? It’s people. They’ll only help you if they think you matter.

The High Street is still half-closed. Only Greggs and the greasy spoon and the Londis and the greengrocer show signs of life. The new shops – the posh shops – don’t open until ten. That’s the thing, if you have money, she thinks bitterly. Ladies who lunch do lunch because they’re never up for breakfast. She feels tearful, weak, despairing. Can feel the blood seeping down her legs and chafing the skin on her thighs. She’s sweating profusely, though she feels so cold she’s shivering. She wipes the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, stumbles blindly on and blunders into sturdy male body.

‘Sorry,’ she mutters, and tries to dodge sideways. Feels her balance go out from under her again and puts out a hand to catch the wall. ‘Sorry.’

‘Cher?’

She looks up. It’s Thomas Dunbar, Mr Chatty from the top flat: a loaf of bread, a pint of milk and a copy of the
Guardian
under his arm. He’s gone as white as a sheet, his mouth open, ready to catch flies, his specs glinting in the early morning sunlight.

‘Oh, dear Christ, Cher,’ he says, and catches her by the arm as she begins to wobble. ‘What’s happened? What the hell’s happened to you?’

There’s a tap on the door. In the bed, Cher shifts and mutters, but doesn’t wake. Vesta puts her book down on the duvet and tiptoes across to open up.

It’s Thomas. He starts to speak and Vesta hushes him with a finger to her lips. Puts the door on the latch and steps out on to the landing, pulling it to behind her.

‘How is she?’

‘Asleep. Finally. Didn’t want to wake her.’

‘No,’ he says.

‘Couldn’t let her drop off properly. Not while we had to check her for concussion. Collette’s coming back up in a bit. She was up all night, poor girl. Didn’t get a wink.’

‘Right,’ he says.

‘So…’ she begins.

‘I understand,’ he says. ‘But I brought some stuff.’

‘Stuff?’

Thomas holds out a pink-and-white tube of cream. ‘It’s arnica. For bruises. It’s not new. I’ve used it. Sorry.’

She takes it and tries to read the back, but her specs are in the bedroom by her book, and she’s reduced to hopeless squinting. ‘It’s herbal,’ he says. ‘You just rub it in. It does help. I know you probably think it’s woo-woo, but it helps.’

‘Okay,’ she says, doubtfully, surprised that this clipped little man would be dabbling in the world of woo-woo.

‘And I got some vitamin C. It’s meant to help, too. I don’t know if it does, but it can’t do any harm, can it?’

Vesta gives him an encouraging smile. ‘I should think it’ll do her the world of good. Easier than making her eat a vegetable, anyway, eh?’

He laughs, more explosively than she expected. ‘I should say so. Is she…’ His face changes, goes suddenly rusty, like he’s been left out in the rain. She realises that he’s on the edge of tears. ‘Vesta, is she okay?’

Well, well, she thinks. You never know with people. It must have been a horrible shock for him, finding her like that. She gives his arm a tentative rub, then finds herself overtaken by the urge to give him a hug. His body is stiff against hers, as though the show of affection has come as a shock. It takes him a full five seconds to respond, then he wraps his arms around her like a teenager at a dance and practically crushes the breath from her. Vesta is suddenly filled with a powerful urge to fight him off. It feels so wrong, squashed against his body like this, smelling his nervous sweat. ‘It’s all right, lovey,’ she sputters. ‘It’s okay. You did brilliantly. She owes you, she really does.’

He lets her go, and seems to stagger slightly as he goes to lean against the banister. ‘She was just so… oh, my God, who would do something like that? She’s only a kid. I thought she was going to die. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to get her home and she was going to just… I thought she was going to die right there on the street, in my arms.’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘Poor you – it must’ve been horrible.’

He snatches his specs off and polishes them ferociously with the tail of his shirt. Without the shading lenses, his eyes are huge, pale blue, like the eyes of a bush baby. ‘She’s only a kid,’ he says, again. ‘Can I…?’

‘Not right now, Thomas. She’s sleeping. Best to leave her. I’m sure she’ll want to see you later.’

‘I think – I should have taken her to casualty. I just wasn’t thinking. I should have.’

Again, she rubs his arm. She needs to calm him down. There can be no hospitals for Cher. No GPs, no crime reports. ‘No. You did the right thing. You did. She doesn’t want the hospital. You can’t
make
her if she doesn’t want it.’

‘But that’s crazy, Vesta. She shouldn’t be… I mean, what if there’s some internal damage? She could be bleeding inside, and…’

‘Well, we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,’ she says, more matter-of-factly than she feels. She’s worried about the big nasty bruise on the girl’s stomach herself. It doesn’t
feel
hard to the touch, but then, she couldn’t touch it very firmly, with Cher howling and fighting her off. It might have to be the hospital, whether Cher likes it or not.

‘And she was filthy. Covered in dirt. And all those cuts…’

‘I know. I know. We washed her, gave her a bath, and we’ve put antiseptic everywhere we could get to, Thomas. Please, don’t worry. We’ve got it as under control as we can.’

There’s a hesitation. She can tell that he wants to ask about the blood on her leggings, doesn’t know if he can. Despite the fact that this is the person who carried her home, who stroked her hair off her face as though she was a toddler, Vesta feels as though confirming his fears would be some sort of betrayal. She puts him off. ‘She’s sleeping. No better medicine. And she’s got the medicines Hossein got for her – penicillin and enough tramadol to knock out a horse. Thank God for the immigrant community, eh?’

I wish I could help,’ he says. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do? Can’t I help?’

‘You
are
helping. You
have
helped. She was just lucky she bumped into you. I’m not sure she’d have made it home if she hadn’t. Go on. I’ve got to get back. I don’t want to leave her alone for too long.’

‘Okay,’ he says, doubtfully. ‘You’ll call me if —’

‘Won’t need to,’ she says firmly. ‘You can come down and see her when she’s awake.’

‘Would she like something to read, perhaps? She’s going to be in bed a while, I should think. I’ve got some old
Spectators
and
New Statesmen
. I know they’re probably not…’

She fights an urge to laugh out loud. Oh, bless you, Thomas. You don’t have the faintest idea, do you? ‘I don’t think she’ll be up to reading for a while,’ she replies soothingly. ‘But it’s a kind thought. I should get back to her now, though. Sorry. And thank you.’

She leaves him standing on the landing and re-renters the bedroom. The air in here is acrid with sickness, overlaid with Dettol. In the bed, the diminutive figure lies on its side, hair plastered to the pillow, the cat wrapped in her sleeping arms. He hasn’t left her side, that cat, since Thomas brought her home. Sits and lies beside her all the time, emitting a loud rattling purr, as though he thinks that this will somehow help her heal. Vesta tries to creep across the room quietly, but Cher hears her and jumps awake with a gasp.

‘It’s okay, Cher,’ says Vesta. ‘It’s okay. It’s just me. You’re all right.’

The girl groans as she shifts in the bed, and the cat moves a couple of paces away and squats, glaring evilly. Vesta goes to shoo him off, but Cher grabs him by the scruff and squashes him to her chest. Vesta leaves it. He must be all over germs, that cat, but Cher loves him and it’s pretty clear that the feeling is, as far as cats go, mutual. God knows, Cher’s not had many things to love in her life. Why deprive her of this one?

And the girl needs all the help she can get. Vesta’s stomach churns as she sees the mess this man has made of her face, of the mouth that gingerly presses itself to the sensitive patch behind Psycho’s ear. Such a pretty face. She could probably have done with stitches in that lip, but what can I do? I’m not a nurse. I’m just a first-aider. How am I meant to know if that’s a straightforward black eye, or if something’s actually broken in there?

Cher’s face looks like a muddy football, half-deflated. Her bruises are turning black, and the left side of her face has swollen so badly it’s hard to imagine that it can ever go back to anything resembling its original shape. Her right eye is squeezed shut, just the tips of eyelashes full of gunk poking out from the slit. Her mouth, lopsided, hangs open, a great chasm down the centre of her lower lip.

‘What time is it?’

‘Going on four.’

‘Have I been asleep?’

‘Yes,’ says Vesta. ‘You dropped off a couple of hours ago.’

She takes the water glass from the bedside table and holds it to the girl’s mouth, waits patiently as she sips. ‘How are you feeling?’

Cher drains the glass and collapses back against her pillow. A single pillow in a sickbed – I must bring some up, later. So she can sit up, at least. Poor little kid, I’ll bring her some more pillows and cushions when I come back up. Pity she hasn’t got a telly. She’ll be bored to tears in a bit.

Cher feels around the inside of her mouth with her tongue, exploring. ‘I think I cracked a tooth.’

‘I’m not surprised. How’s the pain?’

Cher pulls a face, and a single tear forces itself out from her closed eye.

‘Your tummy?’

‘No, I think that’s just a bruise. My ribs hurt really bad. He got me there more than in the soft bits.’

‘You can have another pill, if you like.’

‘Yeah,’ says Cher, and her voice goes small. ‘Yeah, that would be nice.’

Vesta fetches the tramadol and the penicillin, refills the glass. ‘At least you didn’t turn out to be allergic to that. You’d’ve
had
to go to the hospital, if that had happened.’

‘Who says I never get a break?’ says Cher, and coughs. Vesta puts a hand behind her head, supports it as the girl drinks once again to wash down the pills. Under her hand, Vesta feels a lump the size of an egg. Oh, God, what if it’s fractured? What if her brain’s leaking out and I’ve no idea? We should have taken her to A&E. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens.

‘There,’ she says, trying to sound more confident than she feels, ‘there. You’ll soon be feeling better, I promise.’

Cher allows a small sob to escape. She’s been so tough, but she must be worn out. Vesta hurriedly puts the glass down, and takes her hand in both of her own. Strokes the back of it, feels the rough scabs on the grazed knuckles. ‘Oh, love,’ she says. ‘Oh, lovey. You’ll be all right. Just you see.’

The sides of the girl’s mouth turn down and a whimper breaks from her lips. ‘I don’t know what to do, Vesta! I don’t know what to do!’

‘Shhh,’ she soothes. ‘Shhh. You just concentrate on getting better.’

Cher’s face is wet. The salt must sting her grazes. Vesta pulls a hankie from the box and dabs, gently, around the cuts and the bruises, tries to get it all up.

‘He’ll kick me out,’ says Cher. ‘I know he will.’

‘What? Kick you out for being ill? Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘But I won’t make the rent. I don’t know how I’m going to…’

‘Well, he can bloody well wait.’

That bastard, she thinks. Socking the rent up like that, just because he knows he can get away with it. I’d like to show him what he’s done, driving her out to take risks like that. I’d like to rub his bloody nose in it. I’ve got a good mind to go over there and give him a piece of my mind. Lecherous old stinky creep, picking on young girls and probably getting off on it as well.

‘You’ve not to worry about that.’ She is surprised by how calm her voice sounds when it comes out, given the spitting rage inside. ‘We’ll sort it out.
I’ll
sort it out. He doesn’t want to mess with me.’

Cher moans and closes her other eye, shifts on to her side, trying to find a comfortable position. There are cuts all over her buttocks – Vesta and Collette had to pick bits of glass out last night, while she was still warm and sedated from the bath. There’s barely a position she can lie in and be comfortable.

Vesta’s heart wrenches in her chest. She wants to cry. She may be old, but she remembers how it was to be young, in the sixties, when everything was fresh, when life promised exploration and adventure and nothing could go wrong. It’s all spoiled now, she thinks, right from the start, for Cher. She never stood a chance. No one’s looked after her, all her life. For girls like Cher, things like this are just part of the general beastliness.

She reaches out and smooths the girl’s hair away from her face. It’s crunchy under her fingers, the texture of rough wool. I don’t even know which of your parents gave you that hair, she thinks. Which one was black and which one was white. Could have been neither of them, for all I know. I know your nanna was white, because I’ve seen the photo, but I’ve no idea whose mum she was. Oh, it shouldn’t be like this. Not for you, not for anybody. It’s just not fair.

Another tap at the door. Cher raises her head, then drops it back on the pillow as though the effort is just too much. ‘Who is it?’ calls Vesta.

‘Collette.’

Vesta is relieved. She’s been on watch since eight this morning, and her back and hips are aching from sitting in the battered chair. She limps over to the door and lets her in.

‘All right?’

‘Yes,’ says Vesta, and turns to look over her shoulder. ‘Aren’t we, love?’ she asks, encouragingly.

Cher doesn’t reply; just lies on her side and stares at the bedside table.

‘She’s just had her pills,’ she tells Collette. ‘And she’s had a little sleep. Hopefully she’ll drop off again soon.’

‘And how does she seem?’

‘In a lot of pain. But I think it’s okay. I don’t think anything’s broken. Not badly, anyway.’

Apart from her skin, and her heart, and her spirit, she thinks. But all those things can mend. Scars, yes, but they’ll mend, if she lets them.

Collette advances into the room. She’s got a bunch of flowers – carnations, cheap things that Vesta associates with graveyards – and a bag of tins and packets. ‘Soup,’ she says. ‘I thought soup would be good. And I got some bread. And some grapes. You should eat something, Cher.’

‘Not hungry,’ says Cher.

‘Well, maybe later,’ she says. ‘I got Ribena, as well. Everyone likes Ribena, right?’

Cher looks up, her eyes full of tears again. ‘Yeah. I like Ribena.’

Collette grins. Gosh, she’s lovely when she smiles, thinks Vesta. All that pinchedness drops away and she’s just – pretty. She goes over to the sink and fills the pint glass. Puts the flowers in it and makes a show of trying to arrange them. ‘Hossein sent these,’ she says.

‘There, you see?’ says Vesta, trying to jolly the atmosphere up. ‘Isn’t that nice? Everyone’s done their best, haven’t they?’

‘Big whoop,’ says Cher, and closes her eye.

Vesta closes the door and lets her face drop. The strain of keeping up a good front, of projecting reassurance for all these hours, has drained her. That bloody man, she thinks. I’m going to have a rest for a couple of hours, but then I’m right round there. I can’t believe he’s got the gall. Utter bastard. I’m going to go round there and tell him. Just because they’ve done away with tenant rights doesn’t mean he can just
bully
people. I’ve had enough. Really, I’ve had enough.