by Will Carver
It looked unused. Sharp. Silver. A bone handle.
Gail was frozen for a moment, three parts of a picture under her right arm, a gleaming blade in her left hand.
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes. I think you said that you need me to … kill … Aubrey.’
The old lady went on to tell some truths and some lies and make some subtle threats along the way. It wasn’t something that she wanted to do, either. She just wanted things back to the way they were at The Beresford.
She told Gail that, earlier that day, Aubrey had been returning a book to the Beresford library – Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. A reread, she had said.
Truth.
They had made polite conversation. Aubrey had then gone on to ask Mrs May a plethora of questions about Gail.
Where she was from. Why she came to The Beresford. What were her plans for work when she had the baby? Apparently, it all came across as concern. Mrs May had answered the best that she could and as diplomatically as her old brain could handle.
Half truth.
Aubrey had mentioned Gail with affection. She had appreciated what had been done for her when she’d decided to use a twenty-five-year-old McAllan to wash away her troubles. It was small talk only. Aubrey wasn’t trying to dig into Gail’s past or her future plans.
Then came the lie.
Mrs May told Gail that Aubrey had said something like, ‘What do you think about Gail? She behaves in quite an odd way, don’t you think?’ This struck a chord with Gail, because Aubrey had said something similar about Mrs May while inebriated. The same sentiment. It rang true. As the best lies often do.
Aubrey told Mrs May that she had spotted Gail going in and out of Abe’s apartment. And she’d noticed that Abe hadn’t been around from the day she had moved in. She’d never seen him. She’d heard so much about him, but he was proving to be fairly elusive.
Mrs May had regurgitated her story about Sythe and how he would often not be seen for weeks. It was the nature of his job and the essence of The Beresford. It accommodated everyone. They could come and go as they pleased, as long as they paid their rent.
More lies.
And everything that followed was manipulation. Mrs May wanted Gail to believe that Aubrey was far more suspicious of her than she actually was. That she wanted to keep an eye on her – as she had said while drunkenly leaning against her doorframe a couple of days before.
She had asked Mrs May whether something was going on between Gail and Abe.
She wondered where Gail went for three hours at a time during the day, taking her car and bags of blankets.
She had knocked on Abe’s door several times to introduce herself, but he was never there.
It had made Aubrey think of the Conroys and how they were looking for their daughter who was suddenly missing. Did Gail know her?
All lies to unsettle the young, pregnant woman.
Pepper in some not-so-subtle messages about prison and giving birth in a cell before having your baby ripped away from you so it can be given to an abusive, alcoholic father or dropped into a system that does not put child safety anywhere near the top of its priorities and it’s clear to see the grip on the paintings release and the knuckles on the hand holding the knife whiten.
Gail didn’t want to kill anyone. Abe had been an accident. It had been self-defence.
It wasn’t her.
To premeditate a murder was a different story.
To look Aubrey in the eyes and know that you were going to take her last breath from her was so different to what had happened with Abe. Gail didn’t remember his eyes – even though she had stabbed him through one of them with a broken piece of vase. She could hardly picture his face anymore – even though it was the last part of him that she had buried. It happened so quickly. A flurry of colours and limbs moving.
This would have to be calculated.
It wasn’t her.
After returning the book and talking about Gail with Mrs May, Aubrey had left The Beresford to go into town with her laptop. She wanted a change of scenery, and the coffee machine she had ordered for her apartment had not arrived yet.
True.
She had told Mrs May that she planned to power through until six then buy a bottle of red on the way home and have a slow evening, maybe even read a book.
Also true.
This meant that Gail only had another thirty minutes to wind herself into knots about what Mrs May had asked her to do. She could spend that time running through everything the old, scheming woman had planted in her mind. She may even conclude that killing Aubrey was not a viable option because it could get Gail into trouble and uncover what had happened to Abe. But it wasn’t really about that. She would kill Aubrey to protect her baby.
Protect it from the horrors of the world.
She would kill Aubrey to end the nightmare.
End the sneaking around by tying up the final loose end.
She would kill Aubrey to preserve the building.
Gail would kill Aubrey.
And Saffy could move in to The Beresford one minute later.
PART FOUR
ONE
Jordan Irving was passing through. He had six weeks of work near the city and The Beresford was going to be his crash pad. The trip was worth a lot of money, and he’d paid two months up front with ease.
In and out. That was the plan. The place was a bed for him, that was all. He didn’t care about the garden space. He had no need for the library. There would be no obligation to get to know his neighbours or fraternise with the friendly but eccentric landlady.
He packed light – enough clothes for the week and his all-important laptop. He wanted to walk in, go to his room, get his work done in that month and a half, then leave the way he arrived.
He was one of three people heading towards the great building that evening.
Aubrey had placed calls to several historical clients, and it didn’t seem that her name had been sullied. There was a sense of enormous relief.
She shut her laptop as soon as the time changed to 18:00 in the top right corner of her screen. So many people she knew would keep going. They’d stay late at work, not to do more, but to seem like they were doing more, hoping the boss would catch a glimpse of them still at their desk when they should be home to eat dinner with their partner or help get the kids ready for bed.
For Aubrey, the people who stayed late were either brown-nosing or they hadn’t managed their time well enough throughout the day to complete their tasks. She also believed in the sanctity of the work/life balance. It didn’t have to be 50/50, it just had to be balanced.
Get your work done.
Get your life done.
Get some sleep.
That’s what her father had taught her.
After her outburst at Kirkly, her scales had tipped too far into the life column. An hour of meetings followed by four hours of hard liquor was pushing towards hedonism. But today, Aubrey had it right. She shut the laptop at six and closed the work away. She bought that red wine she wanted and she planned to go to her room and drink it all while slouching on the sofa in front of some form of entertainment.
The bone handle of the knife, crashing down on the front of her skull would be the last thing she would ever feel.
Mrs May had the idea to let Gail into Aubrey’s apartment where she could wait and pounce at the right moment. It would be simple and unexpected. The knife was sharp enough that Gail could attack from behind and slice through the spinal cord. It would probably paralyse Aubrey. Gail could leave her to bleed out or finish her off.
Gail did not appreciate how cold and removed Mrs May suddenly seemed but reasoned that it was her way of dealing with things. That the old lady was trying to help herself, of course, but was also on Gail’s side.
Mrs May dealt with things by completely removing herself from them, emotionally. Gail did the opposite. Thinking everything through. Experiencing the panic and the dread. Thinking of things she woul
d never have contemplated before she had arrived at The Beresford.
She had killed once but it had been on instinct. She had spent years protecting herself from her husband and now she had to protect her baby.
That’s what it was. She had killed to protect her baby. And, if it came to it again, that would be her only reason.
Maybe she would start to like it. Enjoy it.
Maybe that’s what happened with Abe.
No, Gail. That’s not you.
The plan did not work for Gail.
You can’t reason murder. Not the premeditated kind, anyway.
She was sure that she would either lose the nerve, waiting in Aubrey’s apartment, or she would pass out with anxiety while hiding in a wardrobe or something.
No. It was a terrible plan. Gail needed to know where Aubrey was at all times. She wanted to be near the entrance to The Beresford to leave as little time as possible to pull out from the idea altogether.
Aubrey needed to get home and get killed.
That was the only way it would work.
TWO
The removal guys had taken most of Saffy’s things to her new warehouse location, but she threw a couple of boxes of beads and jewels and string into her car with her soldering gun and pyrography kit, so that she could still create at her new home. Nothing for work, just for fun.
She drove an old, noisy Volkswagen Beetle her mother had owned in the sixties. Even with a sudden influx of cash and investment opportunities arising around her sudden success, she never planned to get rid of that car. It was perfect. It fit her in every way. And, though to look at it, one might consider it ready for scrapping, the vehicle was reliable; it started first time, every time.
The only way it had been updated was to be fitted with a CD player.
She rifled through a wallet of music and pulled out the album Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones. She skipped to song nine, looked in her rearview mirror and set off for The Beresford.
In an unintentional act of sick symmetry, Gail slumped herself down in the reading chair of the library area. The knife was in her hand, covered over by the book on her lap, and her eyes were closed enough to look as though she were asleep but open enough to see when Aubrey was close enough to hurt.
The key turned in the front door, and Mrs May slithered back into the shadow of her apartment. Aubrey used her shoulder to push the door open. The wine bottle was in her right hand and a laptop bag was slung over her left shoulder. She put the keys in her left coat pocket and entered.
She didn’t see Gail at first. She wanted to wipe her feet and make sure the door was closed properly behind her. She called Gail’s name when she finally noticed her on the same chair she herself had been found in a couple of days prior.
Gail did not respond.
‘Gail? Are you okay?’
Normally, Aubrey would have assumed Gail was asleep or too engrossed in her book, but as Gail had taken the time to check up on her when she was drunk, Aubrey felt obliged to reciprocate.
She nudged the laptop bag strap higher onto her shoulder and made her way towards the library. Quietly, Mrs May came out of her doorway in order to witness what was about to unfold. She checked her watch. In a couple of minutes, one of them was going to drag the other around the corner so that the new tenant did not see whoever’s body didn’t quite make the cut.
‘Gail?’ Aubrey asked again.
One step closer.
‘That must be some book,’ Aubrey smiled as she reached the chair, seeing that the pages were left open and had sent her new friend into a peaceful sleep. Aubrey looked down at Gail the way a parent looks at their baby in a crib.
Gail knocked the book to the floor. As Aubrey’s gaze followed it, Gail brought the blade upward and into Aubrey’s stomach. She was surprised at how easily it seemed to penetrate. Gail gripped the bone handle hard and twisted.
Aubrey released her grip on the wine bottle and it smashed on the floor, followed by Aubrey herself, who landed on her laptop. Gail held the knife in place and followed her second victim to the floor.
‘Shh, shh, shh, shh,’ she instructed, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘It’s not me,’ she whispered.
Gail was pressing her weight down on Aubrey. Pressing down the way her husband used to press down on her. This is why he did it from behind, he didn’t want Gail to look at him. He didn’t want to see that she hated it, that she didn’t want it.
‘Don’t look at me.’ There was shame in her voice. But Aubrey, feeling the sensation of the knife continually twisting in her abdomen, all strength now released from her limbs, was still as stubborn as ever. She stared down her killer.
Gail pulled the knife out of Aubrey’s stomach and the blood pooled out of her, turning the cold wound hot. She screamed then turned her eyes back to Gail’s.
Gail’s shame morphed into anger. Her weight still pressing Aubrey into the ground, the blood staining her skirt as she moved up her victim’s body. She brought the tip of the knife around to Aubrey’s chest and rested the sharp point over her heart.
‘I have to protect my baby.’
Aubrey garbled something but Gail could not understand.
She moved her ear closer to Aubrey’s mouth, hoping she would repeat it.
‘Your child is the Devil,’ she whispered again. Even in her dying moments, Aubrey managed to use her words to devastate her adversary.
Gail leant her weight on the handle and the knife pushed through Aubrey’s heart.
They laid there for a moment until Gail was sure Aubrey was no longer moving, then lifted her head to see that she was dead.
Aubrey was gone, but her eyes were still open and directed at Gail. The now two-time murderer pulled the knife from her second victim’s chest and smashed it down onto Aubrey’s forehead four times.
One hit for every word.
‘Don’t. Look. At. Me.’
She stood up, the knife still in her hand and blood down the front of her skirt. Opposite her was Mrs May, who had seen everything unfold.
‘There you go, old lady. Are you happy now? Are you?’
‘You need to hide her. You have sixty seconds.’
THREE
Jordan Irving was twenty-one and hadn’t passed his driving test. But Jordan Irving had never taken a driving test. He hated cars. He hated the way people spoke about cars, particularly men. He hated that they were considered a representation of wealth or success. But, mostly, he hated the idea of travelling somewhere and the only thing you can do is drive.
Sure, you can make a hands-free call but you still have to concentrate on the road so you don’t end up killing yourself or somebody else because you’re distracted by a conversation. You can’t look at your phone if it vibrates to indicate that somebody has sent a text or email.
One time when he was still at university, his friend pulled over because he wanted to change CDs safely. The police pulled up behind, questioned them both and still made them take a breathalyser test – though he thinks they would have been waved on their way had their skin been the same colour as the cop’s.
Irving was a workaholic. He loved the film industry and he had worked on some great movies with talented casts. One day he hoped to become a producer. But not just a money man, a hands-on creative force behind every project he was involved with. Writers and directors had had their day, it was a producer’s medium now.
Before he got to that position, though, he would have to work, and he would have to work hard. He’d been tasked to spend six weeks in the city on a location-scouting assignment and had been granted permission to attend some of the read-throughs while there. Not every filmmaker was as encouraging when it came to nourishing enthusiasm or talent.
Irving would take all of his opportunities.
That’s why he didn’t drive.
He loved public transport. Especially trains. He’d book in advance so that he always had a seat with a table, a power socket and his back facing the direction he was travelling. The fir
st thing he would do after sitting down was take out his laptop, plug it in to the charger – unless his mobile phone was low, then that took precedence – throw his giant headphones over his head and start typing.
If there was work he could be doing, he would do that, but, in between, he was working on his own projects. He’d built enough contacts in the industry to know how to get a screenplay seen, or at least put onto the right desk, so he was writing that whenever he could. And, while creative industries were, on the whole, a lot more liberal and open-minded, Jordan Irving still felt that he had to put in more than the next white guy trying to do the same thing as him.
He had turned up so early for his train that he could have got on the one that left before his, but he’d booked his seat and didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of changing his ticket, so Irving found a bar, ordered a large glass of red wine and wrote three pages of his script.
Even when he was finally on the train he had paid for and it stopped for twenty minutes because there was somebody on the track three miles up – a suicide he presumed – he was happy to tap at the laptop and listen to music that was drowning out the moaning commuters who were pissed off that some selfish idiot had killed themselves during rush hour.
It was lucky his train pulled into the city later than it was scheduled, otherwise Jordan Irving would have arrived at The Beresford before Saffy.
FOUR
‘Why did you say sixty seconds?’
‘What?’
‘Why did you say sixty seconds? That’s so specific. You would say “about a minute” or that it needs to be done right away, but not “sixty seconds”. Why is it sixty seconds? You said it last time. I’m sure you did.’
Gail automatically brought the knife up from her side as though she was ready to do something with it.
Mrs May did not look shocked or scared by the movement. Gail couldn’t hurt her.