Love You Dead

by Peter James

  ‘A local firm, Streamline.’

  Tooth thanked her. His charm offensive had got him what he wanted.

  He left and walked along the seafront back to his hotel. He stopped outside to smoke a cigarette, then went up to his room and ordered a pot of coffee. As he waited for it to arrive, he worked on his story.

  Then he picked up his phone and dialled the taxi company.

  41

  Sunday 1 March

  For the next few hours, Shelby slipped in and out of sleep. He tried several times to reach for the glass of Coke on the bedside table, but could not muster the energy. He listened to the continuous stream of cars and buses and lorries passing outside the window on the busy thoroughfare of Carden Avenue.

  His phone rang.

  It was Angi, calling to see how he was feeling and if he had been drinking the Coke she’d left him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Two glasses.’

  ‘Well done!’

  He put the phone back on the table and stared at the glass, untouched since she had left. It was now 1.30 p.m. His stomach felt as if it was on fire. Weakly, he hauled himself up in bed and managed to swallow some of the drink, then he checked his ankle again. It didn’t look any worse than earlier; in fact, maybe a tiny bit better. Perhaps the antiseptic cream was helping. And maybe the way he was feeling was down to that damned bug. Dean hadn’t made it to the pub on Thursday night because he’d got it. It was just a twenty-four-hour thing. So many people had been going down with it in Sussex – it had even made the local news. He’d start feeling better soon.

  He had to.

  It was Sunday. The one night of the week the couple in No. 27 Roedean Ridge went out. He’d tailed them for the past three Sunday nights, driving in their large BMW down to the Rendezvous Casino in the Marina Village, where they stayed and didn’t return until well after midnight. Their regular pattern.

  He’d found out from contacts that the secluded property belonged to a bent Brighton antiques jeweller. There had to be rich pickings in that house for sure. And if he went in early enough after they left, he would have sufficient time to find them. In another few weeks the clocks would go forward, which meant an hour less of darkness in the early evening.

  He had planned to go there tonight to see if they went out again. He had to pull himself together and do it. He grabbed the glass and drank down the remaining contents, with difficulty.

  Then he fell back into a sleep full of weird dreams in which hissing, crackling snakes spun across the floor like Catherine wheels that had fallen off their pins and were spitting sparks and flames.

  He woke again, drenched in sweat, at 4.03 p.m. with another nosebleed. He had to get up, somehow. He could not allow Angi to come home and take him to the emergency doctor. He didn’t want the risk of having to lie to a doctor about where he worked and then have her phone them.

  Up!

  He hauled himself out of bed, placed his feet on the carpeted floor, then stood up. Instantly he sat back down again with a thump.

  Shit.

  He stood up once more, his stomach heaving, ran into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. He remembered something a cellmate had once said to him: ‘When the bottom falls out of your world, come to Calcutta and let the world fall out of your bottom.’

  He stood up and peered down. And a shiver ran through him.

  The toilet was full of blood.

  He flushed it, then stepped into the shower, feeling scared. What the hell was going on? Was this the bug or was it some kind of a reaction to the bite? And when was it going to stop? The powerful stream of hot water made him feel a little better.

  He dried himself, then saw fresh blood was still coming out of his two-day-old shaving nick. He put more styptic pencil on it, then, to be sure, a larger strip of plaster, rolled deodorant under his arms and ran a hand across his damp stubble of hair.

  Feeling slightly human again, he dressed in his dark clothes and trainers, and went downstairs. The two large tumblers of Coke that Angi had poured were on the kitchen table. He sat and sipped the first, slowly, thinking about the blood in the toilet. He must have burst a blood vessel in his backside, he decided.

  Comforted by that explanation, he drained the glass and began to work, as Angi had instructed, on the second. After a couple of sips, he started to feel hungry. He stood up and walked, unsteadily, over to the fridge and opened the door. But everything he looked at – a wedge of Cheddar, a lettuce, a carton of tomatoes, a packet of ham, some eggs, sausages, bacon, a supermarket moussaka – all made him feel queasy again.

  He closed the door, thinking. Maybe a joint might make him feel better. Kill or cure?

  He stood up on a chair and reached for the tin marked BREAD, where Angi kept her stash. He lifted it down, put it on the table, removed the packet of cigarette papers, the plastic bag full of weed and a strip of cardboard, and rolled himself a fat joint.

  Knowing she would not be happy, he replaced the stash in the tin and put it back on the shelf, then went out into the tiny back garden to smoke it.

  Yes!

  Wow, oh wow! That was powerful stuff. Wowwweeee!

  When Angi arrived home, just after 6.30 p.m., he was standing in front of the television in the sitting room, with his fists balled, dancing to the sound of the Eagles, ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ blasting from the speakers.

  ‘You’re feeling better!’ she greeted him, joyfully.

  ‘Magic!’ he said, still dancing. ‘Magic that Coke!’ He took her in his arms and nuzzled her neck. ‘You know what, you’re a genius! Magician! Will you marry me?’

  ‘You already asked me that, and I said yes. Did you forget?’

  ‘Just checking!’ he said.

  ‘Checking?’

  ‘In case you’d gone off me during the night.’

  ‘In sickness and in health,’ she said. ‘The marriage vows. OK? I’ll be sick one day, too. Will that turn you off me?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘What time are you off to work?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘At 7.30. Just under an hour.’

  ‘Have you eaten anything?’

  ‘No, but I’m ravenous.’

  ‘I’ve defrosted a moussaka. OK?’

  ‘I’m so hungry I could eat the carton!’

  ‘I’ll save that in case you want to roll another joint,’ she said, tartly.

  Then he realized. Despite his elaborate precautions of replacing everything in the bread tin, and smoking it outside, he’d stubbed it out in the ashtray on the kitchen table.

  42

  Sunday 1 March

  The woman who answered the Streamline Taxi company phone could not have been more helpful after Tooth explained his predicament, in the very posh English accent he had practised for an hour before he made the call.

  ‘Oh, hello, this is Andrew Mosley, General Manager of The Grand. We have a slightly delicate situation. Last Tuesday night we had a couple dining here who were – how should I say it – playing away. You sent two cabs, booked in the name of Carmichael, just after 11 p.m. One collected a gentleman, the other a lady. I’m afraid the lady’s in a bit of a state. She’s just rung to say that during the course of the dinner she lost the very expensive engagement ring her husband had given her. She thinks she took it off in the ladies’ toilet when she washed her hands. He’s due back tomorrow from a business trip and she’s terrified he’ll go berserk if she’s not wearing it. Luckily one of our cleaners found it on the floor, but of course we’ve had no idea, until she just rang, who it belonged to. She’s desperate to have it returned, but in her panic she forgot to give us her address or phone number! Could you possibly trace the booking and find out her address for me, and I’ll get someone to run it over to her this afternoon?’

  43

  Sunday 1 March

  Shelby clipped on his seat belt then reversed his Fiat Panda out of the driveway and onto the street. Normally Angi would stand in the doorway to wave him off, but tonight, angry at him, she’
d even turned her head sideways when he’d kissed her goodbye.

  He struggled with the gear lever, crunching the gears loudly as he tried to engage first. Then the car bunny-hopped forward and stalled. He pressed the clutch in and twisted the key. The engine turned over and fired. As he started forward, the car bunny-hopping again, he heard the almost deafening blast of a horn as a van shot past him, nearly taking out a car coming in the opposite direction.

  Shit. He checked his mirrors. Nothing behind him now. He accelerated and again the car jerked forward. Handbrake, he realized, and released it. Then he drove on, winding down past a pub called The Long Man of Wilmington, his vision blurry. He leaned forward in the darkness, peering through the windscreen, and switched on the wipers. But the screen was clear. Headlights came towards him. Two of them suddenly became four. He swerved slightly to the left and the car juddered over the kerb and on to the pavement.

  Shit, shit, shit. He steered back onto the road, missing a tree by inches. He was clammy with perspiration. Ahead was a mini-roundabout, and suddenly he could not remember where he was supposed to be going.

  Roedean. Kemptown. He halted at the roundabout. There was nothing coming to his right. But he stayed there, eyes trying to focus. Checking then double-checking the road was clear. Then he heard an impatient toot behind him.

  He wound down his window, pushed his arm out and gave the car behind two fingers. ‘Fuck you!’ he said.

  Suddenly a shadow loomed towards him. A man, towering over him. Shelby smashed the gear lever into first and jerked forward, turning left into London Road, accelerating hard. He saw red tail lights ahead. Bright headlights coming towards him, one set after another. Each so bright they felt like they were burning his retinas, as he if was staring at the sun through binoculars. ‘Dim your lights!’ he shouted. ‘Dim your lights, bastards! Dim your lights!’

  Then red lights in front were growing brighter. Brighter. Brighter still. Shittttt! He stamped as hard as he could on the brake pedal. The little Fiat slewed forward, its tyres squealing, and came to a halt just inches from the tail-gate of the lorry right in front of him.

  He sat still, his whole body palpitating, his head swimming. After a minute or so the lorry moved forward again, over the green traffic light and on past Preston Park. He ought to turn round, he knew, he wasn’t up to this – turn round, go back to Angi, go back to bed. But he drove on, fighting it, trying desperately to concentrate, to focus. ‘Focus!’ he shouted at himself.

  His voice sounded strange. Sort of echoing around inside his skull.

  He stared at the tail lights of the lorry, imagining it was towing him, that there was a long rope between them he needed to keep taut. No slack. He was safe all the time he stayed behind this vehicle. Just follow it. Follow it. He braked when it braked, accelerated when it accelerated. They crossed over more green traffic lights. Stopped at a red. Moved on. Keeping that rope taut.

  But the lorry indicated right.

  ‘Gooshbye,’ Shelby slurred. He was going the other way. Left. East.

  Then he frowned.

  He was at a roundabout. Right in front of him were the dazzling lights of Brighton Pier. Shit. He’d come too far, totally missed the earlier turn-off he’d intended taking into Edward Street.

  Bugger. Shit. But no matter. He could go along Marine Parade instead.

  He continued to stare at the lights of the pier – and of the Brighton Wheel to the left. So many lights. Like a thousand torches all beaming straight into his eyes.

  He heard the toot of a horn behind him. He put the car into gear and stalled it. He pushed in the clutch and the engine turned over without firing. There was another toot behind him, louder and longer. He twisted the key in the ignition and the engine again turned over without firing.

  No, don’t do this to me. Do not fucking do this to me.

  Headlights flashed behind him now, flooding the interior of the car with a light so bright it was blinding him. Another blare of the horn. He tried again and the engine stuttered into life, backfired, then caught.

  Drenched in perspiration, he crunched the car into gear and jerked forward, then stalled again. He was losing track of where he was and why he was here.

  He’d engaged third instead of first. The lights behind him again flashed angrily. He started the car once more, got first, then shot forward, right in front of a taxi coming across the roundabout which also flashed its lights and hooted angrily at him. He accelerated hard onto Marine Parade, the front of the taxi filling his mirrors, still flashing its lights and hooting at him in fury.

  He changed up a gear, holding the accelerator pedal to the floor, looking at the lights behind him, in front of him, all around him. Mesmerized. Two big orange globes like setting suns loomed ahead.

  Then, right in front of him, almost in silhouette, he saw a woman pushing a buggy.

  Zebra crossing.

  The orange globes.

  The woman staring at him. Frozen.

  He was closing on her.

  His foot stamped on the brake pedal. But it wasn’t the brake, it was the accelerator.

  He swung the steering wheel wildly to the left. Almost instantly the car stopped dead, with a massive jolt, a metallic boom and, simultaneously, a loud bang, like a gunshot.

  He smelled cordite.

  Had he been shot?

  He could see nothing through the windscreen except for the buckled bonnet pushed right up. Had he killed the woman and the child?

  He stared, bewildered, around him, his ears popping. Then, in the moments before he passed out, he noticed what looked like a large spent condom hanging out of the steering wheel.

  Or it could have been an octopus.

  He heard someone shouting.

  Then a massive bang above him sent his head crashing forward into the wheel.

  44

  Sunday 1 March

  The wind had died down and the rain had stopped, as Tooth climbed out of the taxi at the junction of Roedean Road and Roedean Crescent. He gave the driver a ten per cent tip, knowing he was more likely to remember the people who didn’t tip than the ones who did, and strolled off into the darkness. He wore Lycra beneath his clothes and a hairnet beneath his baseball cap, to minimize any risk of dropping anything that could give an investigating team his DNA.

  There were smart, detached houses all around. Mostly mock Tudor, reminding him of houses in Beverly Hills where he had once done a hit, and where he had met his dog. This was a much more likely place for Jodie Bentley to be residing than Western Road, he thought. He turned right into Roedean Crescent, and began to walk along it, looking at the house numbers and counting them down until he reached No. 191.

  He stared at it. The house sat a short distance below the street. There was an alarm box high up on the front wall. A light was on in an upstairs window, and another downstairs. A swanky place, architecturally in keeping with the neighbourhood, and with an integral double garage. There was a builder’s sign by the entrance, and scaffolding had been erected along one side of the house. Behind the scaffolding, one first-floor window looked securely boarded up.

  He stood still, watching the house for several minutes for any signs of movement inside. To his right he saw a bobbing light and the flash of a hi-viz jacket under a street lamp. An approaching cyclist. He took a few tentative steps down the tarmac driveway, keeping close to the bushes on the right. The cyclist passed. A few seconds later he heard a car. He held his breath, ready to step right into the bushes. But it carried on along the road above him.

  He hurried down the drive and into the porch, rang the front-door bell and heard a faint, shrill ring. It was followed by silence. No frantic barking of a dog, which was good. He didn’t like having to kill dogs; it wasn’t their fault their owners were assholes. After some moments he rang again. A third time.

  Then a fourth time, a real long ring.

  He pushed open the letter box and peered through. The place had a feminine look about it. Parquet flooring. Contemp
orary furniture. Modern art on the walls.

  No sign of life.

  He’d figured that most likely she lived on her own. And was out right now. On a date? Gone to a movie? Away for the weekend? In another home she also owned, perhaps?

  With gloved hands he pulled from his pocket a tool he had made himself, some years back. Its shell was the casing of a Swiss Army penknife. If any customs officer had searched his hold luggage, they would have dismissed this innocuous-looking piece of a traveller’s kit. But he had removed all of its tools, apart from the large blade to which he had fitted a locking device, turning it into a flick knife, the marlin spike, which also could lock into place and was the perfect length to stab someone through the eye or ear and pierce their brain, the screwdriver and the scissors which always came in handy. The rest of the tools were replaced with his set of lock-picks.

  If he needed further proof about the dubious nature of the occupant of this house, it was in the length of time it took him to work away at the three heavy-duty locks that secured the front door. It was a full five minutes before it finally swung open.

  He stepped into the hall, the spike protruding between his fingers, and closed the door behind him, listening for any beeps of the alarm being triggered. Then he clocked the internal keypad on the wall, close to the door. A steady green light was glowing. It had not been set. Was someone in the house?

  He called out, loudly, ‘Hello?’

  Silence.

  The house had an empty feel and was cold. Scattered on the floor was a small amount of junk mail and one brown, official-looking envelope addressed ‘To The Occupier’. Nothing else. Switching on his torch, he went through a door on the right, into a tidy living room. There were two modern white sofas, a curved-screen television on the wall, a coffee table on which sat a glass ashtray, and two framed photographs on the mantelpiece above a large fireplace with an empty grate. One photograph was of a grey and white cat, curled on a rug on the floor. The other was a woman in jeans and a black roll-neck, grinning at the photographer, with an enormous python coiled round her neck and part of her body.