The Man on the Middle Floor

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The Man on the Middle Floor Page 6

by Elizabeth S. Moore


  Enthusiasm was not a familiar emotion for Karen, but she had been as close to it as she had ever got this morning. Things could have gone worse with the kids, and she felt excited by her work. Now she sat, deflated, as the easy familiarity of normal human interaction surrounded her.

  ‘How the hell are we going to fill this position?’ said a young man to her left. At a guess she would have pegged him as of Ethiopian extraction: he had a handsome aquiline face with fine bone structure, long limbs, and a confident bearing. Anthropology had been the subject of her first degree, many years ago. She half listened and tried to think of a way of introducing herself and throwing her achievements of last night into the conversation. There was no opportunity, but she did work out that the team she was sitting with were a mixture of pathologists and morgue workers who had lost their jack of all trades. He had done a bit of everything as far as she could tell – prepared the bodies, cleaned up, sterilised the instruments – and everyone at the table seemed to agree that they would struggle without him. He had apparently left to work at a local coffee chain.

  ‘More money, less gore.’

  The easy laugh that accompanied this gruesome observation grated, and Karen finished her banana and headed back to the lab. Once again, something niggled at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t pin it down.

  4 | Tam

  ‘The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.’

  — Ernest Hemingway

  Thursday, early evening

  Tam had no idea what time it was or which end of the week he was at. His flat smelt of a mix of stale sweat, cheap whisky and unchanged bed. He pulled on some tracksuit trousers and a T-shirt that he found on the floor where he had thrown them the night before and headed across the hall. He needed a drink, and he was sure that he had thrown away a bottle a couple of nights ago which was a quarter full. He was on a mission to retrieve it.

  He opened the front door and looked out on to the dark, uneven pathway leading to the bins. It had been warm when he had started his porn-and-curry binge, but now the evenings were drawing in and the wind had a real feel of winter about it. He should have put his shoes on. Fuck it… He tiptoed as best he could, the cold hitting his bones and making him feel even older than life’s general rejection of him already had.

  He lifted the heavy black plastic lid. A neat white bin bag tied in a double knot was on the top. It was bizarrely clean for rubbish and it wasn’t the first time he had seen this. Someone had far too much time on their hands, or OCD. Who the fuck positioned the detritus of their life across a bin in a perfectly straight line?

  He pushed it out of the way, dug down below another smaller, equally neat bag and found the bag for life he had chucked away earlier in the week, untied, grubby, and overflowing with the containers from a takeaway that he had lived off for a couple of days after he had handed in his resignation. Things must be getting better, as he was now working his way through a pizza from Franco Manca; the sourdough crust made it almost healthy. Averting his eyes, he gingerly reached inside and his fingers made contact with the glass bottle. He lifted it out, curry sauce and all, and tilted it into the light of his mobile. About four fingers in here, enough for a pre-dinner relaxer.

  He let the bag go and put the other two back on top of it. As he turned around, the mix of rain, oil from the takeaway which had got on to the path and the lack of balance that had come with his hangover made him lose his footing and down he went with the bottle. He made a vain cartoon-like attempt to grab it and ended up on his knees surrounded by glass. It made a hell of a crash.

  ‘Fuck fuck fuck!’

  Tam heard a window above him open, and a furious-looking woman put her head out of the top flat.

  ‘What the hell are you doing? Get away from our bins. This is a private house and you have no right to be here. Go away before I call the police. I’m trying to work.’

  It was not a great tableau, even Tam could see that. He was barefoot, soaked, unshaven and surrounded by the remains of a cheap bottle of scotch. He looked up before he thought the situation through. As their eyes met, he saw a flicker of recognition. They had passed each other enough times on the way in and out of the house or in the hall to at least be recognisable to each other. Even in London with your head down, you couldn’t completely avoid human interaction.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the woman said. ‘I didn’t realise it was you. I thought it was a fox, or a tramp. Well, I mean I heard the crash, before I realised.’

  If a pause could be awkward during a one-sided conversation with a man by a bin on his knees, then this one was, and after a nervous cough or two she shut the window.

  Tam picked up the bigger pieces of glass, mainly to avoid impaling himself on them, and dumped them in the bin. He got to his feet, tiptoeing gingerly and empty-handed towards the house. His new-found conscience was waiting in the hall.

  ‘Do you want to borrow a dustpan and brush?’

  Tam rubbed his chin, the gesture of a man searching for answers that eluded him. He shook his head, simultaneously exasperated and lost for words, and looked properly for the first time at the woman in front of him. Mousy would probably be the word that sprung to mind. Wiry hair scraped back and held in place by a pencil, which wasn’t doing a great job, a bobbly sweater that had seen better days and had never been near a sheep’s back. Don’t light a match near that one, council house special, she’ll go up like a Roman candle. Pub banter about a long-forgotten barmaid popped into his head. He smiled at the thought. Under the acres of man-made fibre it looked as though she had a fair pair of tits and her legs weren’t bad. No make-up, so at least you could see what you were getting.

  ‘No, I’ll clear it up later. Thanks.’

  The disapproval on her face was clearly visible and Tam sighed. He wasn’t going back out there with no shoes on and covered in mud. Fuck that.

  His mouth was dry, and, like a man in the desert who glimpses an oasis, desperation overcame him. ‘I haven’t got anything in, at the flat. Do you have coffee?’

  It was the best Tam could do; he couldn’t ask her to give him a drink, they’d only just met and it would only reinforce her opinion of him.

  ‘I’m working,’ she said. ‘A very important project. It’s really a vital piece of research.’

  Tam didn’t have the energy to argue. He crossed the hall and let himself in, his tracksuit trousers sticking to his knees. He peeled off his clothes, pulled a small piece of glass out of his foot, went into the bedroom, lay down and pulled the covers over his head. He was well aware from past experience that his grizzly chin and broad shoulders and general air of needing to be fixed were irresistible to a certain breed of woman, and he had a feeling he had just aroused something which he would be sorry for awakening later. Fuck it, he would worry about that when he woke up.

  The knocking was insistent and coming from somewhere close by. He came to, the usual sequence of events kicking in. Head pain, swimmy head, mild nausea. He remembered now: he couldn’t complete the sequence because he had no more booze and his usual hair of the dog would have to wait. Tam swung his legs over the side of the bed and listened. The knocking was on his door. He padded over, sweat starting to form on his upper lip, and opened up.

  Through a mist of sleep and dehydration he made out the mousy neighbour from earlier.

  ‘Thanks for clearing up the glass, I’ve finished my work for now. Do you still want some coffee?’

  Tam knew it. He hadn’t cleaned up, so it had to be a ruse to knock on his door, unless they had a secret house elf that he hadn’t been told about. He had been holding the door half-open so that the hard-on in his boxer shorts was semi-concealed. He hadn’t done a very good job, and her eyes dropped, her cheeks going bright red.

  ‘I’ll be up in five minutes. Thanks.’

  Tam shut the door as politely as he could manage and looked down at his crotch. Well, at least things could only improve from this point. Nothing like starting from
a low base.

  He thought about pulling on the same pair of tracksuit bottoms that he had taken from his floordrobe for the last two days, but from somewhere deep inside he mustered the energy to shake his head clear and strip before heading to the shower and turning on the taps. This self-pitying bender had gone on long enough. He turned on the television while he waited for the water to heat up, and scratched his balls. The news was focused on a pack of deer and the scene was Richmond Park. He tried to follow the story: a couple in their twenties, making out by a pretty lake in peaceful Surrey, had got their heads bashed in earlier in the week, for no apparent reason. What the fuck? No leads, no forensics, no apparent plan from the Met. Typical. This was exactly what his kind of police work was for, old-fashioned plods who could follow clues, and understood people’s motivation. Instead, there were ever-multiplying awareness seminars and blue skying.

  He needed something to take his mind off this; if he started to watch he wouldn’t be able to stop. His fingers were already itching to take notes on the scene and to google articles. He jumped under the shower and began washing away the strain of the past few days from the top down, even turning the water to cold for the last five minutes. Kill or cure. Ten minutes later he was in clean boxers, a semi-clean T-shirt and pair of jeans, and deck shoes, knocking on his top-floor neighbour’s door. It occurred to him that he knew her name, from the letters he saw every morning: Dr Karen Watson. Thank God for the postman with OCD.

  She opened the door, looking as uncomfortable as she had been downstairs, and a blast of chilly unheated air hit him from the interior of her flat.

  ‘Hi, coffee brewed?’

  Karen stood, half-hidden behind the door, and looked him up and down with her head on one side. An awkward ten seconds later she stepped aside and let him in.

  ‘You look different – much better. Have you been ill?’

  Tam considered telling her he had, but shook his head. ‘No, I lost my job and I’ve had a bit of a messy few days.’

  ‘Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, how awful. I can’t even imagine how painful that must be. If anything like that ever happened to me… ’

  Her words trailed off, and Tam shook his head to better understand her unexpected burst of emotion. He looked at her as she fiddled nervously with the fraying sleeve of her jumper. He had told people about bereavements in the line of duty with less reaction, and he could now see her eyes were welling up. He must have completely misread her.

  He looked around him, to give her a moment, hoping to see a pot of steaming coffee somewhere, and was struck by the starkness of the place. She had kids, he had seen them coming in and out, visiting he assumed as they weren’t here often. There were no signs of them. Not a toy, or a homely touch. The sofa looked as though she had bought it in IKEA ten years ago, and there were two mismatched chairs. Awkwardly, he walked towards one of them, but as he passed Karen she made a noise somewhere between a cough and a sob, and he looked at her. There wasn’t much to look at, a tired, uncared-for woman of a certain age, and he began to regret climbing two flights of stairs on wobbly legs. This was a bit much on a hangover and no food all day except a slice of cold pizza, and he wasn’t good with emotions even when he was feeling strong.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  He was still frozen in the middle of the room, and reached out towards her nervously as she now had tears streaming down her face. What the hell was going on? Tam thought that maybe patting her shoulder would help; he had been on a course where they had said CPC, close physical contact, was helpful in situations of distress. As his arm reached her shoulder, she dived towards him, head on his chest, and sobbed against his only cleanish T-shirt, burrowing into him like a puppy who had never been stroked.

  He flattened the back of her wiry hair with his big rugby player’s hand as best he could, as she wept and apologised, and then their faces were very close together and her hand was on the back of his head, pulling him in. He hesitated for about two seconds, closed his eyes, inhaled and found that her breath smelt minty and her hair of supermarket shampoo, and there was a pleasing scent of Simple soap, so he bent towards her and he kissed her. It seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do.

  Tam had heard the expression ‘the quiet ones are always the kinkiest’, and had even heard about dams breaking, but he had never had his clothes ripped off with such speed, or been devoured by a starving female before. He regarded himself as a game guy, a man’s man, always up for what was on offer, but as he was being kissed, and stripped and nibbled and licked, he was begging Karen to slow down and hang on a minute, as she sank to her knees and took him deep in her mouth. He tried not to give in, but she seemed to have made a study of where to put her hands and her tongue, and her enthusiasm was so obviously real that he couldn’t help himself. He warned her that he was going to come if she carried on, and her reaction was to redouble her efforts and use her other hand to play with his balls. That did it, and as he came in her mouth he saw stars. Hearing her swallow made the whole experience even more visceral, and when he emerged from this completely surprising state a few minutes later he had to resist the urge to apologise, as Karen was on her knees, still fully dressed, and they were still strangers. From somewhere far away came the thought, never piss on your own doorstep … God knew what it meant but it seemed appropriate.

  He supported his frame on the arm of the sofa for a minute or two while strength returned to his legs, then he gathered his thoughts and spoke.

  ‘Can I make the coffee? It seems the least I can do.’

  Karen got up, and the awkward silence that had preceded the blow job resumed, as she didn’t answer and got a small, disappointing jar of Nescafé out of the cupboard. At least she wasn’t crying – that had to be a good sign, Tam thought to himself. Fuck it, he felt physically better than he had in ages; she had swallowed every bit of tension in his body.

  He walked over to her as she busied herself with the kettle, put his arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. His knees still felt a bit weak, but even he could work out that she might not be feeling quite as satisfied as him yet. Her body language seemed off, one arm making the drinks, the other clamping her bobbly cardigan around her body, which suddenly he realised he would quite like to see. She turned round, holding his coffee, which he accepted, and he took a deep slug.

  ‘Right, your turn.’

  He led her, both arms crossed across her middle now, to the bed, gently put her arms down by her sides, stood her in front of him and sat down. He took off the cardigan and undid her blouse. He had been right the first time he saw her: she had beautiful breasts, with big, firm pink nipples. He could tell she hated the scrutiny. She couldn’t meet his eyes, but it had been a long time since he had seen a naked woman and he swallowed hard before taking off her jeans. His invisible neighbour had been hiding her light under a polyester bushel, and he leant forward and took her nipple gently between his teeth, pulling her towards him.

  This time they took it slowly, and although they still hadn’t said more than four sentences to each other their bodies didn’t seem to mind. They fitted. He found himself thinking of those salad sets where the vinegar and the olive oil slide together to make a perfect whole. His size matched hers, and his mouth fitted all parts of her, and she was tight around him and when he woke up early the next morning she was asleep on his chest, something that he had hated all his life but which for some reason now seemed perfectly natural.

  Tam felt wide awake, and had an overwhelming desire to spring clean. Karen’s flat might be bare but his, he thought, was a pigsty. He crept out of bed, grinning to himself, and pulled the duvet up over Karen’s shoulders. She didn’t stir. There was a pen and a pad by the computer, and he wrote, Thanks, Tam, then screwed it up and wrote, See you later, then screwed that up too and wrote, Thanks for the coffee, see you, Tam.

  That would get over the awkwardness of her not knowing his name. He had noticed that even when she was coming she hadn’t a clue what he was called, or he w
as pretty sure she would have shouted it. He grinned to himself again, picked up the two rubbish bags by her door, and headed quietly downstairs.

  The fresh air hit him like a bucket of iced water and his deck shoes left his ankles vulnerable. He ran, bag in each hand, towards the bins. There was not a trace of the broken whisky bottle from the night before, or the takeaway containers. Even the patches of oil that had helped him fall ass over tip last night were gone. Maybe they did have a house elf after all. It was mesmerisingly clean, not a sliver of glass on the path and it looked as if someone had wiped the bins down and straightened them up.

  Tam opened the lid. The bags that he had thrown around the evening before in his search for booze had been repacked, at angles of ninety degrees to each other, and right on top was the translucent white one which he vaguely remembered seeing as he dug for his takeaway bag. If he had still been a copper he would have sworn that the T-shirt he could now see inside was splattered with blood. Old habits died hard, and he picked the bag up carefully, tucked it under his jacket and headed back inside to the flat. His nose could smell something off, and his nose was never wrong.

  5 | Nick

  ‘I read that when cats are cuddling and kneading you, and you think it’s cute, they’re really just checking your vitals for weak spots.’

  — Kandyse McClure

  Friday morning

  I was pleased when I woke up at 6.30 in the morning, it’s a good time to wake up. It’s quiet on Staverton Road then, birds tweeting and the sound of distant engines are the only noises you can hear – well, apart from my own breath, which I try not to concentrate on. In and out, it seemed loud to me and I was worried I was getting a chest infection; there are germs everywhere. I quickly googled ‘signs of chest infection’ and counted. I only had two of the symptoms on the list. I had agreed with Mother that I was not allowed to panic if I had less than three on a list of symptoms for any illness. Mother had explained it – the reason was that most illnesses had similar symptoms and I could misunderstand and get really worried and think I was ill when really I wasn’t. Even thinking about it made me start to think I might have symptoms I didn’t have, like ‘itchiness’ or ‘excessive need to urinate’. Keeping calm was very important or stress might follow, which caused so many symptoms you could hardly list them. Shortness of breath was one effect of stress and it was scary as it could also indicate a heart attack. The thought of my heart made me feel like scratching my legs. I started to worry that my position in bed might be making my heart pump harder than it should have to, and that might be putting a strain on it right now. I’d spent hours looking at films on the computer of operations where the surgeons opened someone’s chest and worked on a shiny, slimy heart that had been stopped by a machine before they connected it back up or sometimes put in a new one from someone else and it pulsated rhythmically. It all looked a bit hit and miss.

 

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