The Killer Next Door (6 page)

‘It feels a bit like moving into someone else’s grave, though,’ says Collette, suddenly. ‘What happened to this Nikki? Where did she go?’

‘I wish I knew.’ This much is true. Cher’s had few friends in her brief life, and has felt the loss of Nikki surprisingly strongly. Nikki was kind to her, let her watch the telly, used to make her fry-ups on Saturday mornings, the two of them nursing their come-downs in companionable silence. ‘She just – I mean, I know she was bothered about making the rent, but it’s not like he could just have thrown her out on the street or anything.’

‘What was she like?’

Cher remembers. What do you say? Bright orange hair and a ginger complexion; a tendency to eczema on her ankles, and an embarrassing passion for Johnny Depp… ‘Scottish,’ she says, eventually. ‘She came from Glasgow. I guess maybe she went back there.’

‘Mmm,’ says Collette.

‘She didn’t even say goodbye,’ says Cher, mournfully.

The Landlord doesn’t suit the heat. Or the heat doesn’t suit him. Either way, on a day like this, he would usually spend most of it in his flat, the curtains drawn. On a day like today, he likes to lie beached on his leather sofa, naked, watching his DVDs with a fan playing over his flesh, drinking Diet Coke from the bottle and occasionally lifting up his belly to let the air get to the crevices beneath.

But today is rent day, and rent day gives him purpose. He is out on the street by eleven o’ clock, shuffling up Beulah Grove in his Birkenstocks, sticking to the shade to keep the sun off his pate. Behind him, he drags a shopping trolley in Cameron tartan. He likes to take this with him when he goes to Beulah Grove, not just because of the convenience, but because no one would ever assume that someone pulling a shopping trolley might also be carrying large amounts of cash. The Landlord is a lot wealthier than most of his neighbours, but they’ll never spot it from the way he looks.

He pauses at the foot of the steps to take a breather, and surveys his domain. Though he doesn’t have a lot of time for beauty, Roy Preece can see that number twenty-three is a handsome house, in a road of handsome houses. If it were in one of the gentrified boroughs – City-money Wandsworth, perhaps, or Media Putney – it would be worth two, three million, even in its current state, even with the railway running past the bottom of the garden and the old bat in the basement. As it is, with the Farrow & Ball front-door paint going up all over and the front pullins full of SUVs, he’ll have enough to live like a king for the rest of his life when he gets shot of the place. Go somewhere where life is cheap, and buy as much of it as he can.

The Landlord reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a handkerchief, mops his glistening face and the top of his head, and tucks it back in. The exertion of walking up from the station in the heat has left deep, damp stripes down his shirt. But it’s
clean
sweat, he thinks, and sets off up the steps.

Thomas Dunbar has left an envelope on the hall table, neatly separated from the piles of junk mail, most of it addressed to long-gone residents. He’s the only one of his tenants, as far as he can work out, who is actually gainfully employed. Punctilious, quiet, respectable. He works at the Citizens’ Advice and, since the hours there were cut back, has involved himself in some organisational role with a furniture recycling charity. He has paid his rent on time in every month of the thirty-six he’s been here. Never any trouble, with Thomas. Or, it seems, with Gerard Bright. His envelope’s there next to Dunbar’s, the Landlord’s name in neat block capitals on the front. The Landlord tucks them in his pocket, doesn’t bother to check their contents. He knows that Dunbar’s will contain a cheque for the precise amount of his debt, made out in careful, neat script, the gaps scored through with a ruled line and a capitalised ONLY, and that Bright’s will – God help him for leaving it out for anyone to nick – contain cash. Of course, he’s probably in there anyway, he thinks, listening, although there’s no music playing. Watching through the keyhole, for all I know. Anyone tried to nick it, he could be out there before they got to the front door.

He knocks on the door of flat two. Hears the sound of a bolt being pulled back and a chain being slipped on, raises an eyebrow. Collette opens the door in a knee-length cotton dress, her hair pulled back from her face with a rubber band. She looks better than she did when he first met her. I bet she’d brush up nicely, he thinks. Quite a looker, our Collette, if she’d wipe that don’t-touch-me look off her face. ‘All right?’ he says.

‘All right, thanks.’

‘I see you’ve added some extra security,’ he says.

She shrugs. ‘Yale lock’s not a huge amount of protection, is it? Specially given what happened to the old lady downstairs.’

‘I hope you’ve not damaged my door,’ he says.

‘You can take it off my deposit if I have.’

She looks him straight in the eye. The look of someone who’s used to handling stroppy clients. Managing that bar in Spain, he wonders. But he’s never believed any of her story, never will. Policewoman? Could be. A no-questions-asked rooming house like this attracts all sorts, and where all sorts are, the plod are rarely far behind. Teacher? He considers for a moment. Yes, that’s it. She’s another teacher. Split with her husband and on the downward slide, but she’ll never shed that air of judgement.

‘Settling in?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ she says. ‘I’ve got the rest of that money for you inside. Hang on a sec.’

She turns away and closes the door. He’s used to that. His tenants rarely seem to want to let him look inside their quarters. Ironic, really, considering that he has keys to every room in the house. He presses an ear against the door, hears the sound of things being moved around, and a zip being drawn. He is back in the middle of the corridor by the time she returns. She extends an arm from behind her chain, a sheaf of notes in her hand. ‘There you go,’ she says. ‘I think that’s the lot.’

The Landlord counts. Three hundred and twenty pounds, all present and correct. ‘Yup,’ he says. ‘That’s you done till next month.’

‘You’ll be giving me that receipt I asked for, of course?’ She gives him The Look again. No one’s asked him for a receipt since he made a brief, unsatisfactory foray into student accommodation back in the noughties, though Vesta Collins is a stickler for her rent book. He has a receipt book somewhere in his desk, he’s sure of it. It might be a bit yellow by now, but he doesn’t suppose that matters. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I’ll drop it in next time I’m passing.’

‘Thanks,’ she says, and closes the door, firmly.

Rent day’s not a lengthy procedure at the moment. The Government pays the rent for Hossein Zanjani directly into his bank account. It’s swings and roundabouts with these asylum-seeker/single-parent DSS accounts. The tax is a nuisance, but at least the pay is regular. No feckless bimbos skipping out on their bills, no I-swear-I’ll-have-it-next-week types. A bit of a wait for payment to start, sometimes, but it always come through in the end.

He tucks Collette’s money into the pocket alongside the envelope, takes his Filofax from the shopping trolley and leaves it parked in the hall. Hauls himself slowly, step-by-laboured step, up the staircase, gripping the banister like a mobility aid. Good God, this heat is heavy. It’s been threatening to thunder for weeks, but nothing ever happens. He wishes it would. It’s like wading through treacle. If the fun bit weren’t on the first floor, he would leave it until later.

He stops on the landing to mop his brow again and takes the bunch of keys from his pocket. The padlock key stands out, polished by the rubbing of his fingers. He likes to feel it sometimes, when he’s sitting on his sofa; touching it somehow makes him feel closer to the contents of his cupboard. He leafs past it, finds the key marked Three. He always likes to have the key to the room in his hand when he comes knocking, in case the tenant doesn’t answer. Sometimes they try hiding until they think he’s gone, to wriggle out of paying up. It gives them the shock of their lives, when he comes in anyway.

He stops outside Cher Farrell’s door and has a little listen. Faint sounds of movement, then the hiss of the tap being turned on and off. She’s in there. He’ll be interested to see how she responds. He knocks.

To his surprise, her footsteps cross the room immediately, and she throws the door open as though she’d been expecting him – something of a contrast with last month. He had to make three trips back before he caught her in then, and in the end he only managed it by waiting in his cupboard until he heard her thunder her way up the stairs. ‘Hiya!’ she cries, and beams at him. It’s a false, over-bright greeting, too friendly.

‘Hello,’ he says, suspiciously.

She’s stunning, today. Her hair’s pinned loosely to the back of her head with a chopstick, brassy tendrils falling loose against a neck so smooth it could be made of alabaster. Skin that’s like that all over her skinny body, he knows. He’s thought about touching it many, many times. Her make-up is relatively light – in smoky browns and taupes – her eyelashes not coated into tarantula legs like she so often wears them. She has on a pair of pedal-pushers, like the ones the young girls used to wear when he was a child, and a crop top, which they certainly never did, and a pair of platform shoes so high you could use them as a step-stool. Her legs go on and on, colt-like, and her belly is flat and brown and muscular. He knows she’s been sunbathing in the garden and she looks young and fresh, and fragrant and, standing before her, he feels squat and sticky and ungainly. He’d thought he’d got over his resentment of all the young girls, their careless beauty, the eyes that turn away as he shambles down the street as though he’s something they don’t want to exist, but Cher is something else.

‘I suppose you’ll be wanting the rent,’ she says.

‘That’s right,’ he replies.

‘Hang on a tick. I’ve got it right here.’ She turns back into the room, striding across the threadbare carpet to her knock-off Chloe handbag, which lies beside the bed.

The Landlord follows her in, and closes the door.

She whirls round at the sound of the latch clicking to, crosses her arms over her small breasts and backs against the sink. All legs and wide, wide eyes, she looks like a fawn overtaken in the forest. She’s taller than me, he thinks, but I’m so much bigger than her. I could do anything I liked, really.

The vulnerability doesn’t last for long, a couple of seconds at most. Then she masters her fear and the street-smart Scouser is back. ‘I thought I said to hold on,’ she says, and digs in the bag for her wallet.

He can see her surreptitiously glance through her lowered eyelashes in case of sudden movement, enjoys knowing that, however insouciant her demeanour, she is still ill at ease. A lot less friendly than last month, he thinks. But then she came up short and had to suck up, last month. ‘I thought you might want to give me a cup of tea,’ he says.

‘No milk,’ says Cher. Finds the wallet and starts pulling notes from it, fanning them out of the top of the slot like playing cards. Fifties, twenties… she’s had a good month, he can see that. ‘And no tea either. I don’t do tea. It’s the devil’s drink.’

‘Never mind,’ says the Landlord. ‘I’ll have a glass of water instead.’

He goes to the sink. She totters backwards on her stupid shoes, not fast enough to avoid a brush from his arm as he approaches. For a brief moment he feels the softness of that little breast against his forearm, through her flimsy top. Feels goose bumps raise themselves where they’ve touched. Then she’s away, striding purposefully over to the bedside table and picking up her cigarettes as though this was always her intention. She turns back round, lights one and blows smoke towards the ceiling, amateurishly, without inhaling.

The Landlord slows his movements down as he selects a glass from the choice of two, mismatched, on the drainer. An Arcoroc tumbler, like they had at school, and which the bistro on the High Street affects for wine, to stimulate the nostalgia of the local self-improvers, and a pint glass, complete with Weights and Measures markings. She’s got a few more bits and bobs than she had last month: nothing matching, all cheap; stuff that pubs and cafés use on street tables. A couple of side plates, a soup bowl, a chunky glass latte mug in a metal cage. Teaspoons, a knife, a fork. Building herself a home, bit by bit, with pickings from the edges of other people’s lives. There’s a saucer on the floor, encrusted with the remains of something brownish. She’s feeding that bloody cat, he thinks. Oh, well. If I ever need to get rid of her, I can add it to the list of Whys.

He chooses the pint glass – the heat and the climbing have made him thirsty – and runs the cold tap for a half minute to pass off the warm. Fills the glass and turns back to face her, drinking. Looks her up and down over the top of his hand.

‘Aaaaah,’ he says, ‘that’s better. So how are you, then, love? All cosy? I see you’ve got yourself some new bedclothes.’

She looks affronted that he would mention the place where she sleeps, though they are both standing in full view of it. There are etiquettes to bedsits, and one of them is that you treat the bed, in company, like a sofa. The duvet is pushed over to one side, a polycotton sheet rucked up where she’s clearly been sleeping. Too hot for proper bedclothes. He wonders if she wears anything under that sheet, hopes that she doesn’t.

‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Ta.’

She finishes counting out her money, steps forward and places it, at arm’s length, on the drainer. Steps back, refolds her arms, tries to stare him down.

The Landlord gets out his handkerchief, takes off his specs, polishes them, then mops his face again and picks up the notes. Starts to count them, relishing her mounting tension as he does so. ‘You’ll find it’s all there,’ she tells him. Sucks another drag off her cigarette and flicks the ash into a grimy saucer on the nightstand.

‘You’re not smoking in bed, are you?’ he asks, once again violating the unspoken rule. ‘Only that’s a fire risk, you know.’

Cher shrugs. She’s not going to rise to the bait. The Landlord finishes counting, starts to count again, for the pure pleasure of it. ‘All right?’ asks Cher.

He reaches the end, rolls the notes up and snaps them in alongside Collette’s in his rubber band. Slips the money back into his trouser pocket. ‘Yup,’ he says. ‘That’s fine.’

‘Good,’ says Cher.

He picks up his water glass and takes another drink, studies her again as she taps her foot on the carpet. He wonders if he might extend things by sitting down for a minute, but the chair is piled with clothes. Her clean laundry, he assumes, as there’s a small heap of underwear and a couple of skirts kicked into a corner beyond the bed.

‘Well,’ she says, uncomfortably, ‘I must be getting on. People to do, things to see.’

The Landlord finishes his drink and puts his glass back on the draining board for her to wash up later. ‘Thing is, I wanted a little word.’

A little frown plays across her face. Suspicion, mixed with boredom.