The Killer You Know

by S. R. Masters

  Had that really happened? And I’d been half-considering it, too. Had been slightly afraid. Now in the clear light of day it was surely bonkers.

  Apparently Jen didn’t think so. She’d added us all to a WhatsApp group called Will Stuff early that morning, with an introductory message that just said: LOOK. DRUGS! followed by a link to a local newspaper article about the body in Loch Ness. I only skimmed the article—a report on the inquest, the salient points being that the victim was a woman called Sara Kuzmenski and a pharmacy of substances had been found in her system and in the car she left nearby. The length of the article and the lack of detail suggested that the press thought nothing more than a sad accident had taken place. Steve responded with:

  Huh… Interesting.

  No response from Rupesh, though. Maybe he had crashed? I replied to Steve’s first text suggesting that, since I’d be going back to Mum and Dad’s anyway, we meet at Rupesh’s in an hour.

  Balsall Common and Blythe had been bleached overnight. The lanes and the fields between the hotel and Elm Close gleamed with frost; the sky was a grey sheet. I hummed “White Christmas,” taking every winding corner slowly despite having the road to myself. The deserted landscape gave me the same sort of contrarian thrill I got from mid-week trips to the shops or the cinema while everyone else was stuck at work.

  Rupesh’s house stood on Blythe Lane near the entrance to Elm Close. Steve’s black estate car was parked opposite, just before a string of white ex-council semis, one of which used to be Will’s. I pulled up behind Steve, got out and went around to his passenger door which he opened for me. It was a big vehicle for a man with no family. Inside it was pristine and redolent with the sweetshop smell of new car. The heaters blasted my face. He initiated an awkward hug across the handbrake and wished me merry Christmas.

  “I’m surprised you of all people don’t have anything planned for today,” I said. “No fireplace to lie beside.” Something registered on his face. It hit me, what he’d said last night. His parents. What an idiot I was.

  “What’s better than Christmas morning with old friends?”

  “I’m sorry about your mum and dad. I should have known. I wish—” Realising I had nothing insightful or helpful to say, I clammed up.

  He came to my rescue. “It’s fine, Adie. They were both a while ago now. Dad’s love of cake finally caught up with his heart and Mum went just as she would have liked, at high speed in a European city. Car crash, it was instant.”

  “Jesus,” I said. Unable to help myself, I leaned over and pulled his head to my chest. He started laughing. Fuck, he smelled nice. I actually kissed his big forehead, told him how sorry I was again.

  “Sorry about your mum, too,” he said. “I remember you and she weren’t exactly best friends.”

  “We keep our distance. That works for the most part. I have a safe space in my mind.”

  When I’d given him his head back, he stared at me and smirked.

  “What?” I said.

  “Just funny. In some ways, it’s like no time’s passed at all.”

  Over the road the solid brown gate at the front of Rupesh’s house was pulled closed, blocking any view of the drive. “So what’s our plan? I take it the gate was open when you went past last night?”

  “Yeah, it was,” he said.

  “So the fact it’s now closed probably means he’s home. So he’s alive.”

  “Let’s check anyway. He’d probably appreciate it, and I’m worried we got a bit carried away last night. Maybe he felt ganged up on a bit.”

  “I don’t think we did anything wrong,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure how appreciative Rupesh would be about us rocking up mid-hangover, but when it came to yuletide spirit I trusted Steve’s instincts over mine—Christmas hadn’t meant anything to me for a very long time. Steve obviously wasn’t happy about how things had finished last night and I was keen to put off going to Mum’s for as long as possible.

  We climbed out of the car and crossed the road to Rupesh’s drive. Like its owner, the front garden hadn’t changed much since we were kids. The lawn needed mowing, and the statue of Ganesh wanted the moss scraping off, but that was about it. Unlike the surrounding houses, the exterior was bereft of seasonal lights.

  Rupesh answered in his boxer shorts and a white Led Zeppelin T-shirt—if I missed one thing about the West Midlands it was its unabated commitment to heavy rock music. The night had brought disorder to his haircut but he was otherwise intact. Steve told him we’d been concerned, and after a momentary hesitation Rupesh invited us inside.

  He went through to the kitchen while we stayed in the lounge. A photograph of Rupesh as a young boy and another of him with his parents around the age he’d been when I’d met him adorned the mantelpiece above the fire. I’d only been in the house a handful of times, but I was sure those same pictures had been there back then.

  “It looks the same,” I said when he came back in. He’d put on a pair of dark purple joggers and held a mug of tea.

  “It’s strange,” he said, “after Mum died it made me so angry that Dad kept it all the same. Then he died and now I can’t change it. I couldn’t even bring myself to sell or rent the place. Good job too after Becky kicked me out.”

  “Sounds like it’s been a shit time,” Steve said.

  “Listen,” Rupesh said, “I was a bit much last night. I tend to start speaking my mind when I’ve had a few.”

  “Honestly, it was fine,” Steve said.

  “We’re just glad you got home safe,” I said.

  “Yeah, that was stupid. Sorry.” He sat back and appeared to take in the empty room. “It’s… a problem.”

  “After my dad died I don’t want to tell you how much I used to put away,” Steve said. If this was too frank Rupesh didn’t let it show. “And you had a point. People do look to the past when they’re dissatisfied with the present. I’d actually been thinking about it a lot in the run-up to all this. What with my parents, a big break-up… I have such good memories from back then, of being really happy over those summers we were friends. Maybe I wanted a piece of it coming back here.”

  He’d not simply said a break-up, but a big break-up. That sounded serious.

  Rupesh sipped his tea. “Just forget what I said, mate. I was pissed off my face.” In the following silence it felt like some sort of equilibrium had been found, and I even started to consider where Steve and I might go next now we knew he was fine. Only then Rupesh said, “I wonder if we were really happy back then. Or did we just think we were happy because we didn’t have any obstacles? No bills to pay or boring things to worry about like mortgages or settling down.”

  “I don’t know,” Steve said. “What do you think, Adeline? This is your area, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t ask me,” I said, but when he wouldn’t look away I threw him something I’d said in a few interviews: “I think it’s also to do with us knowing how the past ended. All our worries have been concluded. Mostly. We know it all ended fine because we’re here to think about it.” It was Xan I always had in my mind when I made this point. He loved films that reminded him of his childhood because those were happier, safer times. Safer places: because they had borders and could be visited again in memory; everything in them was finished and finite.

  “I look back and partly I remember this lovely time,” Rupesh said. “Mucking about in the fields and watching films, having all that freedom without any responsibility. But if I really remember it, really try hard, was I that happy? What am I forgetting?”

  “I remember being happy,” Steve said. “I think. Bored, but happy.”

  Rupesh gave a gentle, derisive snort. “You were never happy with me.”

  “I was,” Steve said, smile wavering. “I mean, seriously? You don’t think I was happy with you? You were one of my best friends.”

  “Forget it,” Rupesh said, “I was just joking. You were fine.”

  “Was I a bully?” Steve said. His smile had gone completely. “I k
now I wasn’t exactly perfect, Rup, I remember that. I have a lot of regret about how I probably behaved towards everyone, but—”

  “You weren’t a bully,” Rupesh said.

  “No,” I said, wanting to throw my weight behind this.

  “You were just very hard to say no to. But you know… we all had our own issues going on at home that as kids you just aren’t aware of. I mean, it must have been weird for you being isolated in that house all the time. Have you ever thought about how abnormal that was?”

  “You were going through worse,” Steve said. And like a switch had been flicked, his composure returned. “I’m sorry, mate, really. I know I must have made things difficult for you when they were probably difficult enough. I was a massive knob, all those public school edges. It’s haunted me a bit, actually. In my mind it’s so positive, you know, but I’ve always known it probably wasn’t for everyone else.”

  Rupesh, now embarrassed himself, said, “Don’t worry, mate, what’s done is done. I have good memories of it too.”

  The thing was, despite what they were saying, I only had good memories really—although I got why Steve felt like he did about himself. But I’d found all his confidence thrilling then. It had lanced this nothing village’s stultifying atmosphere. What’s done is done, my arse.

  “What about Will?” Steve said. “How does he remember things, do you think? I sort of wonder if you weren’t onto something else last night about him not showing up. Maybe he did hold what happened to him against us? He was a bit off with me when I saw him last, if I’m honest.”

  “Did you see Jen’s message?” Rupesh said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “She’s definitely keen,” I said.

  “Have you decided whether or not you are going to pursue ‘the case’?” Rupesh said.

  “Not yet,” Steve said. “But I was just going to suggest maybe asking Adeline’s mum if she knows where the Oswalds live now. Maybe pay them a visit. I know it won’t prove anything, but I’m curious to see if he’s around. If you don’t mind, obviously?” Steve turned to me.

  “It’s Christmas Day,” I said.

  “Exactly. He might even be home. Today’s better than most. Like you said last night, Rup, that would put an end to the idea this is his big murder spree year. Nip it in the bud. At the very least we could just ask them about his whereabouts. That ought to make Jen happy.”

  “Isn’t it a bit confrontational if he is there? Means he probably gave us the swerve last night?”

  “Good point,” he said. “Although he might’ve genuinely just forgotten. If he is there and doesn’t want to see us we just awkwardly say hi and leave. At least we know then.”

  “Listen, since the divorce I’ve not been on great form at work,” Rupesh said. “I’ve not been in our practice manager’s good books, so I couldn’t really risk looking anyone up on the patient notes system because each time we bring up a patient record we have to log why we are accessing it. It’s all monitored to protect confidentiality.”

  “That’s totally understandable,” I said.

  “Ah,” Rupesh said, holding up a silencing finger. “The thing is, last night I wasn’t exactly in a vigilant state of mind.”

  “You looked the parents up?” Steve said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “What about Will?” I said.

  “I don’t have anything interesting to add on that,” Rupesh said. “But given your mum’s not in good shape, Adeline, perhaps you don’t need to go and disturb her.”

  “You’ll give us the address?” Steve said.

  “Not exactly. But let’s go for a drive. A nice Christmas Day drive, and I can show you the sights, point out what’s changed. You know, as a local.”

  “Now?” I said.

  “Well, unless you’ve got plans?” Rupesh said. “Like Steve said, it should make Jen happy.”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ve got an empty hotel room waiting for me, so this is better than my original plan to raid the mini-bar and watch crap films,” Steve said.

  Rupesh fired off a message to the WhatsApp group. Jen responded immediately: she’d been roped into entertaining the children and was desperate to escape. If her car started again she’d be over as soon as possible.

  While waiting for her, Steve went to the bathroom leaving Rupesh and me alone.

  “If you need to ask me anything about your mum, Adeline,” he said, “I’ve dealt with plenty of patients with similar conditions. They can be challenging as they go on.”

  “Thank you.” I wouldn’t take him up on it, though. He was only offering to fill the quiet. As if to confirm this we immediately fell silent.

  The buzz of Rupesh’s phone came to our rescue, and he smiled when he read the message. “Jen says her car is still being a bit funny so she’s robbed her sister’s. She’s only just left.”

  “I haven’t got that message,” I said, taking out my phone.

  “She didn’t send it on the group,” Rupesh said.

  So Rupesh and Jen were exchanging private messages, interesting. The two had been an item, although I didn’t remember them being as serious as Steve and me. But maybe I’d been wrong. It went some way to explaining Rupesh’s interest in going along with us about Will now, despite having made such a fuss last night. Or was I just projecting my own motives on to him?

  Steve returned, and while we sat waiting for Jen something occurred to me.

  “It must have been quite alienating to have been Will once the four of us coupled off,” I said. Strange really, because none of us even noticed that back then. “He was the odd one out in more than just the obvious ways.”

  “I suppose so,” Rupesh said. “Are you looking for motives?”

  I laughed. “Not really. I suppose I’m just reassessing everything. I think we’re more than likely going to end this mystery in about twenty minutes.”

  “Well, we’ll need more than a motive,” Steve said. “COM-B.”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “Capability, Opportunity, Motivation. It’s a behavioural theory we use at work.” To Rupesh he said, “Evidence-based.”

  “Evidence-based psychology,” Rupesh said. “Now there’s a thing.”

  Steve glowered a little, but didn’t bite back. Instead, he rearranged his face into a grin.

  “Just don’t ask me to remember what the B stands for.”

  Through a ridiculous series of yawns, coughs and comments on unremarkable bits of landscape (“If we go left here you’ll notice a nice bit of pothole repair work the council did last year”), Rupesh directed us to the house where Will lived after leaving Blythe without specifically telling us the address—if it made him feel better, why not?

  We drove through Hampton-in-Arden, past the train station that lay tantalisingly beyond reasonable walking distance from Blythe. Funny just how short that journey was in a car.

  “Pull up here actually, Steve,” Rupesh said from the back seat where he was sitting with Jen. We’d reached a cul-de-sac nestled deep in the suburbs of the next village along, Meriden. “I’m feeling sick.”

  It wasn’t until we were outside the car that I realised this was part of Rupesh’s bit, too. He was quite funny. I couldn’t believe he’d kept it up this long.

  “You go on without me,” he said, leaning up against the car. He placed his hand on his forehead. “My temperature’s not a healthy thirty-seven, that’s certain. Yes, definitely not thirty-seven. I’ll wait here. Don’t want my patients catching this. I’ll end up having to treat them.”

  “Okay, settle down, McKellen,” Jen said.

  “We’ve parked far enough from the house, haven’t we?” Steve said. “Out of viewing distance.”

  Rupesh nodded once.

  “Is three of us turning up not overkill?” Jen said. “I’ll wait with Rupesh. I’m actually bricking it, to be honest. The last time I saw Will’s mum she gave me this impassioned speech about being a professional actor. I’m not sur
e I can face telling her I didn’t exactly make it.”

  “Well,” Steve said, “maybe not yet you haven’t. We’re all still young.”

  “I’ll stay here,” she said.

  The cul-de-sac was typical of West Midlands developments from the 80s and 90s: identical and neat, with lots of room on the drive. Plenty of those drives were full this morning. The cooking smells made my stomach rumble. It was almost lunchtime.

  At the end of the road was a T-junction, and number thirty-seven was at the tip of the right fork. One house stood out immediately. A caravan and a small blue Toyota occupied the drive; both were equally ancient and equally rusted. Weeds poked from every gap in the concrete, and the upstairs window had a crack on which gaffer tape had been stuck from the inside. Gaffer tape had also been arranged into a thirty-seven on the small window to the right of the front door.

  On approaching the grand bay window overlooking the drive, it became apparent the occupants didn’t use the room beyond as a living space. Inside, tools littered the bare wooden floorboards. Steve pressed the doorbell.

  I had no memories of Will’s parents when they lived on Blythe Lane. Had I even been to Will’s house back then? I’d met all the other parents, but not his.

  A middle-aged woman answered the door. She was squeezed into a vintage red dress and wore a shoulder-length blonde wig. This woman I’d have remembered.

  “Merry Christmas,” the woman said, her voice breathy. She saluted us with a glass of red wine. Her bright red lipstick strayed a fraction beyond the border of her actual lips.

  “Mrs. Oswald?” Steve said. “Sorry to bother you, you probably don’t remember us, but we’re old school friends of Will’s from Blythe. We were just out on a walk and thought we’d pop in and see if he was around.”

  “Oh, goodness, no. Will? No.”

  “Do you have a contact address for him at all? Or an email?” I said.