Killing Cupid

by Louise Voss

  She pulled the black bin liner out of the jiffy bag. There was, all of a sudden, a strange smell in the room. My heart was beating very fast. I put my hand on Emily’s shoulder and she jumped.

  ‘Alex! Jesus – don’t do that!’

  ‘Give it to me,’ I said, holding out my hand, and Emily passed me the package. Slowly, I unwrapped it, and as the packaging fell away, the smell in the room became a stench and Emily screamed, leaping out of bed and running to the bathroom. I could hear her throwing up, but instead of going to comfort her, all I wanted to do was get it out of the room. I opened the window and threw it out. And then I ran to the bathroom myself. I watched Emily throw up the last contents of her stomach. All I could think was, who? Who would do this? And that’s when it struck me, and I felt even sicker. Pernilla’s words came back to me: that it was probably an aggrieved author.

  I only know one person who meets that description.

  Chapter 27

  Siobhan

  It was a really horrible thing to do. I know. I know. But she deserves it. Why should everything be plain sailing for her, when she’s fat and unattractive, when my own life is a total disaster? I’m aware that Alex, behaviourally, is borderline obsessive (and possibly even psychotic) but he’s actually a very good-looking guy, and for some mysterious reason he absolutely adores her! I don’t understand. He could have been mine. I keep hearing her whiny voice inside my head, saying ‘My boyfriend’, as if she’s licking her forefinger and drawing the number one in the air in front of her, ie. I’ve got one up on you, loser. Urghhhh, she’s so SMUG.

  I didn’t plan it. It just happened, in a glorious collision of circumstance. I suppose after sending those magazines (if I was that overweight, I’d want a friendly hint from some kind well-wisher, of course I would. It’s like having BO or bad breath – you need your friends to tell you otherwise you’d never know) the idea of posting things was still fresh in my mind. And it just so happened that I’d had this great big jiffy bag lying around for ages waiting to be recycled. Can’t even remember what came in it – oh, yes, those pink glass cabinet knobs I bought on eBay..

  Anyway, I’d just peeled off the label, and was vaguely thinking, shame I don’t have a manuscript to put in this and send off to Patricia, to be rapturously received and lauded to the heavens… when I heard Biggles banging and crashing against the cat-flap, like he’d suddenly gone blind and couldn’t see where the door was.

  I got up to look.

  ‘What are you doing, you daft – ’ But the words stuck in my throat like a fishbone.

  With one huge push, like childbirth, Biggles shoved his prize through the cat-flap and jumped in after it, beaming proudly at me.

  It was a massive dead rat. One that had been dead for quite some time, by the look of it. For God’s sake, I thought cats wouldn’t touch anything that wasn’t fresh, what was the matter with him?

  I had to press my lips together to stop myself being sick. I couldn’t even open the back door because the – thing – was blocking it, so I ran over and flung the kitchen window as wide as it would go, burying my nose in the pot of droopy basil on the windowsill.

  ‘Oh Biggles, you idiot’, I moaned at him. ‘Take it away, please take it away.’

  But of course he didn’t. In fact, by the way he was regarding it, I think even he was beginning to think he might have been a little hasty. I can cope with the odd dead sparrow, or even mouse – but this? It was like a horror movie on my very own kitchen floor.

  ‘I’m sorry Biggles, but I am never going to allow you lick me again,’ I said out loud. ‘Not now that I know where your mouth has been.’ Funny, actually. That’s something I was always quite tempted to say to Phil. But the thought of my sweet Biggles’s jaws clamped around that stinky matted rat fur really did make bile rise in my throat, and I retched. What the hell was I going to do with it?

  So I put on rubber gloves, ripped a binliner off the roll, and stuck one hand inside it. Then, with Biggles hovering anxiously around me, and holding my nose with my free hand, I edged gingerly towards the corpse, arm outstretched. The rat had thin hooked claws and its tail was fat, hairless, and much longer than I would have imagined rat’s tails were. Its teeth were, of course, as yellow as my Marigolds. My stomach was roiling and jumping so badly that I had to shut my eyes.

  When I felt my hand, through its black plastic and yellow rubber layers, close around the soft body, my teeth clenched, and the only thing stopping me vomiting was the knowledge that if I didn’t do this now, I’d have to do it later. I picked up the rat, and turned the bin liner inside out over it, letting go and feeling its weight thud heavily down to the bottom of the bag.

  Then I threw up in the sink.

  Now what, I wondered? There was no way I was going to go to the trouble of digging it a little ratty grave – some other predator would probably only excavate it for me later. I couldn’t put it in the outside bin because the bin men had only just been. My kitchen was still smelling really bad, so I wrapped the binliner around the body as many times as possible, and then, for extra protection, slid the whole thing into the empty jiffy bag.

  I swear I only sealed it up to stop it smelling. I suppose it was lucky that I had a stapler in the kitchen drawer, and sellotape. But once the bag was closed, I could open the back door, put the thing outside, and air the place out. Because now there was the stench of sick to get rid of, as well as dead rat. My beautiful clean kitchen.

  I chucked the rubber gloves into the bin, donned a fresh pair, upended the kitchen chairs onto the table, and mopped the entire floor with a solution of bleach, before throwing away the mop head. Next I poked all the regurgitated peas down the plughole of the sink – can’t remember having eaten peas at all, but there you go – and bleached the sink. Finally I got down on hands and knees and washed the floor a second time with pine Flash and a J-cloth.

  Then I made myself an industrial strength gin and tonic, which I drank in the living room, my back aching from my exertions. The drink did relax me, but it also made me quite drunk and, if truth be told, somewhat maudlin. I shouldn’t drink gin during the day. But honestly, I’ve had a terrible time of it lately. Nothing’s gone right. I felt I deserved a little drink or two.

  I’d just topped up the gin when the phone rang. Oh goody, I thought. Company. I hoped it might be Jess – she still hadn’t returned my calls from a couple of weeks ago. But it was an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

  The exact details of our conversation elude me, but it turns out that the woman was a friend of Kathy’s. She – the friend – had been away for a year somewhere, and had only just heard about Kathy’s death, and couldn’t believe she’d fallen off a fire escape. Apparently Kathy had never done it before – although, I mean, surely one can only fall from the top of a fire escape once? I didn’t really understand what she was on about, if the truth be told, but it was nice to talk to somebody sympathetic.

  We chatted for some time – enough time for me to have another gin – and it got me thinking even more about how crap my life is. I mean, Kathy and I were actually pretty good friends. We certainly could have been. I really liked her.

  ‘I really liked her,’ I found myself sobbing down the phone. ‘She was a really, really good friend to me. I miss her so much.’

  I’m not sure, but I think the woman on the end of the line was crying too. ‘So do I,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ I said, the tears coming thick and fast, dripping into the melting ice-cubes in my glass. ‘It’s not fair, is it? Nothing’s bloody fair.’

  Nothing was fair. I mean, look at me. No boyfriend, no book, no job, no friends – and all the time Alex and Emily rubbing my nose in it with their smugness, and him about to get a publishing deal, knowing my wretched luck; and her laughing behind my back and wanting to give me a piece of her fat mind. The woman was saying something else.

  ‘Wha’?’ I think I might have been slurring my words slightly.<
br />
  ‘I said, did you go to the funeral? I couldn’t even get back for the funeral.’

  ‘Yes, I went,’ I said, fresh tears coming at the memory of that sad, sad day.

  ‘Did you know any of Kathy’s friends?’

  ‘Nobody. I didn’t know anybody there at all – oh, except Alex Parkinson. He was there.’

  ‘Alex Parkinson from your writing class?’

  That was odd. I didn’t realize this woman knew about my class. And how did she know who Alex was? In fact, why was she ringing?

  ‘Yes. Why did you ring me, again?’ I was gradually becoming aware that I sounded a little odd.

  ‘Like I said just now, I want to talk to everyone who knew Kathy. I can’t believe that her death was an accident. The police aren’t doing anything.’

  And there I was thinking she’d just rung to offer her condolences. Still, I was shocked to the core.

  ‘You mean, you think Kathy was murdered?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I know she wouldn’t have killed herself. So, were Alex and Kathy friends?’

  I tried to remember, but all I could think about was Alex coming back home with me after the funeral, and us having a row about the clothes he’d bought on my credit card.

  ‘No. Don’t think so. He only came to the funeral because he was in love with me and guessed I’d be there.’

  There was a sort of disgusted silence at the end of the line. It was only later I realized that that statement didn’t put me in the best possible light. But it was true! That was the day Alex confessed his feelings for me, and, like an idiot, I kicked him out. Why am I such a moron? True love stared me in the face and I turned it away. And now he’s all over Emily.

  The woman hung up soon after that. Still don’t really understand why she rang or what she wanted.

  The rest of the day passed in something of a blur. I forgot about the rat for a while and had a little sleep on the sofa. It was only later when Biggles jumped up onto my chest and demanded to be fed that I remembered, and pushed him off, imagining him breathing dead rat in my face.

  The sealed-up jiffy bag was still outside the back door and, in my defence, I was still dizzy from the gin. I laughed at the thought that it looked like an exciting mail-order present, a nice, fat parcel waiting to be opened. I could just pop it in the post, I thought. It should just fit through the slot of that letterbox on the corner, if I flatten it a bit. But who could I send it to?

  I didn’t have to think about it for all that long, just long enough to look up Alex’s address in my college records, write her name c/o him on a label, whack it on the jiffy bag and walk to the postbox.

  I think I’m still a little bit drunk, even after that walk. Better just go to bed.

  Chapter 28

  Alex

  Thursday

  Emily had to take the day off work yesterday, most of which she spent in my bed, eating sweets (her diet forgotten) and listening to an Eighties compilation album over and over. She said she couldn’t face seeing anyone after receiving ‘the parcel’, as it became known, euphemistically. A dead rat. Someone had sent her a dead rat. It was unbelievable. And the thing that made it worse was that Emily had a terrible fear of those long-toothed, long-tailed rodents. She had told me about it one night, lying in bed, when we were talking about things that scared us. Emily had said, ‘When I read 1984 I didn’t need to imagine what would be in my Room 101, because it was right there in the book. Rats.’ She had shivered at the thought of it.

  And I shivered at the thought of who might have sent it to her. The more I turned it over in my mind, trying to persuade myself that I must be mistaken, the more I was convinced. If I hadn’t seen Siobhan talking to Emily, I would never have considered her as a suspect. But it was too much of a coincidence. I quizzed Emily, trying to find out if she’d made any enemies recently, but she was adamant that she’s never had any enemies, apart from a couple of girls at school who used to pick on her for having puppy fat. Plus she couldn’t believe that any ‘aggrieved authors’ could have discovered her home address, let alone her boyfriend’s address. She was upset and bewildered, unable to figure out what she’d done and to whom.

  But what the hell can I do about it? I can’t tell Emily about Siobhan. I can’t go to the police. Part of me thinks I should contact Siobhan, talk to her, ask her why she’s doing this. I mean, I paid back the money I owed her. I’m out of her life now, moving on. I just don’t get it. If she’s trying to get revenge against me, why is she sending stuff to Emily? What is she trying to achieve?

  And although I’d like to know the answers to my questions, I know that if I contact her it’s bound to make things worse. I just have to hope that now she’s carried out her little act of revenge, she’ll be satisfied and stop. So, for now, I’m going to be an ostrich and bury my head. But if she does any more to hurt Emily, well…

  I’ll have to do something.

  Just typing this is making me feel weak and sick. It’s all I need at the moment, what with Kathy’s friend and everything else. My life feels like that scene in Star Wars when Luke, Han and Leia are in the waste disposal room, up to their waists in shit, when the walls start closing in.

  Except I’ve got no R2-D2 to save me.

  Friday

  This morning, at 11am, something wonderful happened.

  I was sitting in my bedroom, brooding about the Emily/Siobhan problem, trying to decide if I’d be better off in Tibet, chilling out with a bunch of monks - women and sin forsaken forever – when the telephone rang.

  Whenever the phone rings in this flat it might as well be a death knell, or the sound of a harpie calling me to the rocks. Sighing, I dragged myself to the living room and said a tentative, ‘Hello?’

  ‘May I speak to Alex Parkinson?’ said a shockingly-posh, strangely-familiar voice.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Ah, Alex.’ A kind of purr came into her voice, the sound a cat might make when it spies an exquisitely juicy mouse, and that’s when I realised who it was. It was Pernilla. And as soon as it struck me, I had to sit down, my heartbeat almost drowning out her voice. ‘I’m calling to tell you that I absolutely love your stories.’

  I can’t recall every word of the conversation: it seemed too unreal. But she went on to tell me that while she had been exceedingly sceptical about the literary credentials of her assistant’s boyfriend, she had been bowled over by my astonishing stories. ‘Your voice is so different yet authentic,’ she said. ‘I was thrilled – and also a little disturbed – by the way you got inside the mind of a chap who is so clearly on the edge of sanity in The Long Drop. Wonderful.’ I soaked up the praise like a desert welcoming rain. And after she’d buttered me up for a while, she told me that unfortunately they couldn’t afford to offer me a ludicrous advance like those I might have read about in the Sunday papers, mainly because short story collections are not huge money-spinners. But they could offer £5000 for a book of short stories and then we could talk about a novel. ‘I think this could be the beginning of a long, successful career.’

  I was reeling, hardly able to speak, and at the end of the call Pernilla said, ‘Well, I’ll let you absorb all this, then maybe you could call me after the weekend and we’ll set up a meeting to talk about the book and your future.’ She emitted an extra loud purr. ‘I shall tell Emily to pick up a bottle of something fizzy on the way home.’

  When I put the phone down I didn’t know what to do. I felt as if someone had stuck a needleful of adrenaline into my heart. All my problems were forgotten and I was pumped full of energy, sparkle, joy. I wanted to call Emily but I knew she’d be sitting right next to Pernilla and would know about it already. I desperately wanted to spread the news – I needed a megaphone and a rooftop. I even had an urge to call Mum, but knew she’d merely greet the news with a ‘So what?’

  I decided to call Simon at work. He was thrilled. ‘That’s fantastic, mate. Wow. Hey, do you think one day they’ll put one of those blue plaques outside our front do
or: Alex Parkinson, Novelist, lived here? We’ll have to go out to celebrate later. Tell you what, I’ll call the Indian and book a table and the four of us can go out. Or is the Indian not good enough for you writers? I guess you’d rather go the Groucho or something.’ He laughed and I laughed too, feeling even more giddy and ecstatic.

  I kind of floated into my bedroom and sat down in the front of the computer. I didn’t have a megaphone and a rooftop, but I had email. I wanted to let everyone know so I composed a message, announcing my good news, and sent it to everyone in my address book, which isn’t a huge number of people, to be honest. The people on the list included my old colleagues (who would no doubt be extremely pissed off to discover that they were soon going to be selling a book with my name on the cover) and even that idiot Brian, who once foisted his email address on me at the writing class, though I’d never had cause to contact him before. The only person I removed from the list before I sent the email was Siobhan.

  Then I went out for a walk. The city looked so beautiful, so alive, and I could feel its history – its resonant literary past – seeping through the cracks in the pavement which actually seemed to contain a trace of gold. I stopped off at Waterstones and found the space where my book would go, between Jefferson Parker and Adele Parks. I walked as far as the river and looked down at the grey water, the shadows of the buildings opposite reflected on its surface, and although I couldn’t see my own reflection I felt like Narcissus, absorbed by myself, feeling the coat of self-doubt and loathing I’ve worn for so long dissolving, melting away.

  Later

  Of course, that feeling didn’t last for long.

  Emily and I had celebratory sex as soon as she got here, then we got ready for our meal with Simon and Natalie, both of whom were genuinely happy for me. We dressed in our best clothes and the flat smelled of the girls’ perfume. It was dark outside, the air crisp, streetlights shining against a deep black sky, as black as the cab that would carry us to our destination.