“To meet my new stepdaddy who’s younger than I am!” she answered herself huffily.
Another look at the clock. The hands hadn’t moved an inch, but the next few hours did pass eventually as Kathy had resolved to make the best of it—bathing, straightening and styling her hair, getting dressed and made up and finally making two Clingfilm-covered sandwiches to stash in the fridge. One for Suri—peanut butter and jelly—and one for Brady, who still hadn’t shown her face, but Kathy knew all about her ‘ports of call.’ As she stood in front of the hall mirror once again, she couldn’t help smiling at what she saw. The woman in front of her was dressed in a classy black number with killer heels and had great hair and makeup. She also no longer showed the signs of her collision with Malcolm Scott. It was truly remarkable how the human body healed itself. In just over a week she had gone from puffy and red through a full bruisy spectrum, which included colours she didn’t even know existed, and now foundation was concealing the last of it. She smiled at herself and knew that there was more to it than the outfit and the healing; she looked lighter somehow, as if a massive weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she wondered if the weightlessness would become absolute when every single pervert in the Midlands had been eradicated—and then she would float away and live a joyful life in the clouds where everything smells like candy and people talked in song. She smiled at the idea, wondering if perhaps the wine from the night before was still lingering in her imagination.
With one final glance at the clock, she saw that there were no more minutes left to cushion her against the impact of seeing her mum with some young fella, but she still managed to blow herself a kiss before locking up the house and jumping in the Mini. “You are only supposed to blow the bloody doors off,” she smiled to herself and started up the engine.
***
Kathy’s mother lived an hour’s drive away, which gave her a perfectly valid reason for the scarcity of her visits. She also lived in the city centre, again a good enough reason for her never to receive a visit. No one in their right mind could actually enjoy driving in the city and Kathy grumbled to herself the whole way there, and it didn’t stop as she manoeuvred through complicated lane and one-way systems in the city and sat in traffic that moved slower than Suri in the morning. She pulled the car into the carpark at around 7 p.m., got out of the car and looked up at her mum’s mighty tower block. Living in the city was bad enough; living in a skytickler was the limit. Kathy had tried to talk her out of it when she spoke of moving there, but she had been there for about ten years now and even Kathy could see that it had been the right choice for her. She had surprised Kathy by embracing her social side; she joined every group and society available to her and made a thriving city life for herself. This man—this Marcus—however, was the first whiff Kathy had got of there being a man in her life since her dad. The thought of it jarred her insides as she pressed the entrance button and waited for an answer.
“It’s me.”
“Come up, sweetheart.”
The twisting in her guts continued as she walked up the five flights of stairs. There was a lift, but she walked past it, not needing to speed up her journey. And what would he be like—this boy? Because that’s what he was. Her mum was approaching sixty.
“Sweetheart!” Mum greeted warmly before Kathy had finished with the stairs, the door to her flat flung open.
“Hello, Mum.”
“How was the drive? Did you find me all right?”
“I know where you live, Mum.”
“Oh?” It was an ‘oh’ that said so much, but the woman in front of her was also smiling in such a carefree way that the jibe didn’t stick.
“You look like the cat that got the cream.”
“Oh, I am, I am,” she beamed. “Come in, love. Come in! How are you? Are you keeping well? Are you safe? How’s work?”
“I’m fine, Mum. Stop fussing.”
“But you know how much I worry about you.”
Kathy followed her mother through the hallway and into the open-plan living room/kitchen. It was so much smaller than the house she had shared with Kathy’s father, but it had the touches that made it so familiar to Kathy, as if it were here that she had grown up; not just the photos and ornaments that she knew so well—Kathy at various stages of her schooling and career, big and little ceramic hedgehogs that her mother simply had to rescue from the shops whenever she saw them or the general décor, which was new while being simultaneously nostalgic, warm, autumn colours that her mother believed made a house a home and paintings of sunsets: always sunsets. There was something in the smell, or in the quality of the air itself, that existed only in the space around her mother and it prickled under Kathy’s skin as if she were fifteen again and ready to explode. Her appearance hadn’t changed dramatically since Kathy was a child either. She dyed her hair to cover the most obvious sign of aging and still had the fifties-esque style that was actually more fashionable now than it had been in the nineties when Kathy was growing up. She had obviously made an effort for the dinner and was wearing a long mauve number with a darker jumper that made her look unusually summery, but she couldn’t shake the edginess that made her seem permanently worried; it was in her posture and in the way her hands were always moving and her eyebrows always arched. Whether she looked like Kathy or not, Kathy had no idea; they were just so different in so many ways that it was impossible to tell if their features had originally been intended to look similar. Most people said that Kathy looked like her dad. She didn’t really see this either, though, especially now that he was always so tanned and, well, absent; she hardly saw him from year to year now to compare looks or exchange pleasantries.
“He’s not here yet: Marcus.” Mum emphasised his name proudly.
“So tell me about him.”
“Well, I told you that we met online, but he’s a friend of Jackie.”
“And I told you that I don’t know Jackie.”
Kathy’s mum turned to the kitchen area while Kathy sat down. Either her mum was used to Kathy’s tone or she had promised herself that nothing would spoil her evening.
“He’s twenty-nine.”
The upper end of twenty, Kathy noted. Not as bad as it could have been.
“He’s a teacher and he’s…” she turned back to her daughter with the face of an excited fifteen-year-old. “And, oh, he’s just lovely, Kathy. I so want you two to get on.”
“I’m sure we will,” Kathy replied and really did try to mean it.
“Just be nice to him, Kathy. He’s a good man.”
Kathy held her hands up defensively. “I will! I will!”
“Tea?”
“Please. Something smells nice.”
“It’s lasagne. You like lasagne don’t you?”
Kathy nodded and absently began to leaf through the papers and magazines on the table beside her as if she were in a doctor’s surgery. Minutes later her mother brought the tea over and was sitting beside her. As they sipped, Kathy’s mum told her more about Marcus—how he had taken her to Paris, how he had sent flowers to her work, how he had this funny little snore that she liked to listen to at night—and although Kathy was hearing what was being said she was seeing something else, something that she hadn’t noticed when she arrived.
“Are you alright, Mum?” she suddenly asked. “I’ve never seen you looking so… I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. Loved-up, but jumpy. Why are you so jumpy?”
Kathy’s mum looked down at the cup and her hands wrapped around it, holding onto it for dear life and then the maverick words, “I’ve got a gun,” literally fell out of her mouth, beyond her control.
“You’ve what?”
“A gun! I’ve got a gun!” She reddened a little as she said it and then seemed to deflate a little as if a pressure valve had been released and she was finally able to breathe normally. “There I’ve said it. Isn’t it exciting?”
“No, Mum, not really. Why have you got a gun?”
“It’s Marcus
’s. He says everyone should have a gun in the city. It’s safe.”
“It’s illegal, that’s what it is.”
“Don’t be that way. You want me to feel protected, don’t you?”
“I thought you said he was a teacher not a fucking Mafioso!”
“Don’t be dramatic, Kathy. We both know more than most how evil this world can be.”
“I’m not. But do you really want to be with someone who can get a hold of a gun? It’s your life, but–”
“That’s right, it is,” she replied and her eyebrows lifted as she said it. This was something that Kathy also hadn’t seen in her mother or at least not as far as she could remember; something resolute and defiant; something that sent a very definite message to Kathy that she had never needed or wanted to send before, and it killed the conversation for a few moments.
“What time are we expecting him?” Kathy then asked and watched as her mum looked down at her watch.
“He should be here by now, to be honest. Let me just…” and she moved over to the tiny kitchen area to turn down the vegetables and check on the contents of the oven. As if he had been outside waiting for the best moment to make his entrance, Marcus could be heard letting himself in and walking down the hallway.
“You’ve given him a key?!”
“Be nice!”
“He’s given you a gun and you’ve given him a key. Sounds perfect!”
“Kathy, please!”
“Hi, honey, I’m home!”
Kathy was poised in the direction of the doorway to get her first glimpse of the man who had clearly swept her mother off her feet, full of images of what this young teacher would look like, but something unexpected entered the room before he did. It breezed in unseen and once it was inside, it filled the room and attacked Kathy’s senses. Kathy clamped her hand over her nose and mouth and just stopped herself from being sick. It was festering waste; it was pus-filled, furry meats; it was the vomit of a corpse and it was crawling in her nostrils.
“Not now!” her mother reprimanded her between gritted teeth, spotting the all-too familiar reaction. And then Marcus bounced into the room—a clean-cut, obviously clean-living young man, well presented in a blue shirt, slightly darker blue tie, and tight trousers. He had piercing blue eyes and an innocent grin that Kathy may have found attractive if she could see the man, but her eyes had filled with water and she was wrestling with her bag to find the vapour rub.
“Are you okay?” he asked with a voice full of concern, and crouched beside Kathy, who obviously looked as much of a mess as she felt.
Up to her elbow in bag, Kathy rummaged, but eventually dropped the whole thing on her lap, defeated, and the smell seemed to be getting worse. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling herself to her feet with the bag still attached to her and the other hand still desperately protecting her nose and mouth from the vile stench. “I have to…” And she moved away from Marcus and into the hall.
“I thought you’d grown out of this,” she heard her mum calling as she opened the door to her flat. “You’re thirty-three, Kathy, not thirteen!” And then there was nothing but relief as she closed the door and left them behind. Still struggling with her bag, she staggered down the hallway and this time opted for the lift, all the time the disbelief was hitting her again and again. A paedophile; she’s seeing a paedophile; her boyfriend’s a fucking paedo. With the doors of the lift stubbornly remaining open, she stabbed her finger into the ground-floor button over and over again. “Come on! Come on!” Then finally laid her hand on the precious vapour rub, twisted the lid off and when she had rubbed a little into each nostril, she felt that she could finally breathe again. Finally the doors to the lift slowly began to close but stopped before they could meet each other and opened again. The sprightly figure of Marcus jumped into the lift, pressed the button and they were off. Kathy was too dizzied and terrified by his presence to protest until he pulled the little red button at the bottom of the panel and the lift ground to a halt.
“What the fuck?”
“No, Kathy. You’ve had it too easy. Your mum’s been cooking all day and was so looking forward to us meeting. She told me that you have these problems, but I really can’t let you leave. She’s in bits up there.”
As he spoke, Kathy could see how he would make a good teacher, but then the same thought punched her in the stomach. A paedophile teacher! It just got worse and worse.
“You don’t know anything about me!”
“I know everything about you. I’m your mother’s partner.” He reached out to touch Kathy’s arm soothingly, but she reacted like a caged beast and he pulled away. “We don’t have to be best mates; I’m just asking you to come back with me and sit down to a meal with us. It’s not much to ask is it?”
“I’m not going back in there. Now get this fucking lift moving or I’ll call the police.” With her phone a pile of crumbs under Miles Denver’s boot, this wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“What’s this really about, Kathy?”
“You really want to know?”
“Of course.” He was softly spoken and patient. In other circumstances, they really could have been friends or even more.
“Just the small issue of you being a pervert.”
“A what?”
“You heard me, Marcus.” The vapour rub had circulated sufficiently for her to take her hand from her face and claim a little more control over her situation, managing her posture so that she stood up to him and looked immovable.
Marcus smiled, shrugged and shook his head. “You really are nuts.”
“You can’t laugh and smile your way out of this. What my mother doesn’t know is that I can smell vermin like you. And I know what you’re thinking right now—it’s never far from your mind is it—the touch of soft, hairless flesh, you pervert.” She was talking close to his face now. “Your life’s over, Marcus, starting with your relationship with my mother.”
“No wait!” His face had blanched and the smile had now completely disappeared.
“Not denying it now, huh!”
“You’ve got it wrong, Kathy. Well, you haven’t got it wrong, but…”
“I don’t get it wrong.”
Marcus let out a long sigh and passed his fingers through his hair. He did an interpretation of pacing, the full act made impossible by the confined space, and finally came to rest against the wall, looking up at the light. Kathy reached for the ground-floor button once again and he said, “Please, wait.” She had no idea what it was about the way he said it, but she did exactly that and turned to see that he now had tears in his eyes.
“I belong to a group,” he began. “Yes, we are attracted to minors, but we are committed to never acting on this impulse. We are paedosexuals, not paedophiles.”
“My God, I’ve heard it all now.”
“Hell, do you really think that I would want to hurt a child? This is just who I am, Kathy. I can’t control how my body responds to the sight or thought of a child, but I can absolutely control how I act.”
Kathy reached to the button again.
“Please, Kathy.”
She turned to him sharply and said, “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I can see that you’re interested in truth. And you’re a psychologist. You can tell the difference between what is thought and what is done.”
“And what about my mother? She’s nearly sixty. Is that another perversion?”
“I love your mother. I don’t just… like children. I have had relationships before, successful ones. I love your mother. Please don’t tell her. Don’t ruin this for us.”
“Don’t ruin this for us? And what about the lives of all the children that you’ve ruined.”
“I’ve already told you, I’ve never hurt a child!” his voice was getting higher and his eyes filling with tears.
“The children that you will hurt then.”
“I’m on a waiting list for treatment, Kathy. It’s offered in Germany. It’s helped others a
nd it can help me.”
Kathy looked deep into his eyes and saw a purity there that she didn’t want to trust, but she couldn’t help it. The longer she looked into his eyes the more he fell apart until he was sobbing and begging her to believe him and not to tell her mother. She had heard of such treatment centres and she also knew that they were largely unsuccessful, but she had never met anyone like Marcus before.
“I’m going to be watching you,” she told him and then finally pressed the button to bring the lift back to life.
“Thank you! Thank you!” said Marcus, relief now replacing the tears.
“I have a list and you’re on it. You put a foot out of place and you’re dead. Do you hear me?”
She was a lot shorter than Marcus and gave up considerable weight to him, but he looked terrified and compliant. “You have nothing to worry about,” he sniffled. “I love children. The thought of hurting one makes me sick.”
“You make me sick, Marcus,” she growled and then turned toward the doors and waited for them to open. She could hear Marcus’s heavy breathing behind her, but was determined not to look back. She had said all she needed to say. After a few seconds, the doors pinged open and Kathy stepped out into the foyer. As she moved toward the exit, she heard his final words, “I can see why your mother’s terrified of you.”
Chapter 22
Kathy’s driving on the way home was far more erratic than it had been before, crunching the gears as she changed them and barely slowing down to take the corners. A paedophile? A fucking paedophile! But she couldn’t quite get a handle on her thoughts. Suri kept flashing through her mind. You have me here to do job, Kathy. I will do job. The colours swirling in her sick bowl and the absence of colour on her face filled her mind. And then the toxic package she and Brady had posted in the stranger’s door when they were thirteen. It always came back to this. Her head filled with images of the man himself being stretchered out of his house, his own house where he was chemically bombed. And his wife and children, the eyes rolled back in their heads, bleeding from everywhere. He had a family. Why didn’t they think that he would have a family? Why didn’t they think that he might be like Marcus? Was Marcus even like Marcus? Was there such a thing? Could the beast be contained? And then, as hard as she tried as she powered down the motorway, she couldn’t get Marcus’s last words out of her head. I can see why your mother’s terrified of you. It spun around and around in there, gathering other thoughts and momentum as it kicked up a maelstrom of chaos. Terrified? She had fussed over Kathy her whole life, not leaving her alone for five minutes because she was afraid that something bad would happen to her. She had dressed her in the finest cotton wool as a child and deadlocked the world around her until Kathy’s life was so small she had to cause an explosion to escape it. Terrified? She had no business being terrified of her. The past was the past. Yes, she could be a little abrasive, but terrified? All of this spun around inside her and she was eventually delighted to see her front door. If nothing else, she knew that there was a bottle of wine in the fridge and so a good night’s sleep lay ahead of her. She was less happy, however, to see Spinoza leaning against the wall waiting for her.
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