The Killer You Know

by S. R. Masters

  I hold up my palm, a wry smile on my face. “Sometimes, you like something because you like it. And other times you like something because it symbolises or embodies something else that you really like. Only you don’t know that. So you hear a song in a club, ‘Saturday Night’ by Whigfield, and you get off with some boy and it’s your first kiss and you go home and think about that boy and all of it’s really good. The Whigfield song is terrible. Sure, it’s in tune and it’s in time, but the song sucks. It just does. But you think you like it when it comes on because it fills you with all those happy memories again.”

  “Bloody hell,” Jon says, trying to catch his breath. “So Ghostbusters is ‘Saturday Night’ by Whigfield.”

  “Ghostbusters is a classic,” I say. “It’s not terrible, obviously. It’s brilliant—that’s not the point. But, listen, I’m appalled by the way Bill Murray treats Walter Peck in their first meeting. Mr. Pecker? Just fucking rude. And that is what this podcast was always about, separating what we actually like as grown-ups from what we just like because it reminds us of nice times we had as kids, back when our brains hadn’t developed enough to have proper opinions about films. So yes, despite its brilliance, free-market propaganda piece Ghostbusters is getting crushed. I’m voting to put it in.”

  I lean back in my chair and cross my legs. It’s gone well despite my concerns that we had overdone the number of podcasts recently. Ghostbusters was number ten of ten. I am trying to appear cool, but am loving that the other two are still giggling about my closing monologue even though the recorder is now off.

  “Well, at least we’re going out on a high,” Jon says.

  “Our best batch maybe,” Xan says.

  “You think?” I say, though on the whole it might be true.

  “Everyone here sure about the choices they’ve made?” Jon says.

  Xan barely acknowledges the remark, only giving himself away with a smirk and a minuscule shake of his head. They’re through the worst of it now. Xan is preoccupied both with his break-up from his boyfriend and with the new podcast he’s planning to do with Rose Hamlin, a former criminal lawyer turned podcaster who’d made a small name for herself three years before with a podcast about white-collar criminals. It’s not been long since Christmas, but already things are moving on. Jon and I were waiting for the final details of our BBC contract, and the events from Christmas are already starting to seem like they happened years, not weeks, before.

  “When are you seeing him again?” Xan asks while we pack up the tiny studio. “Cusack?”

  I’ve not been entirely honest with them about how things ended. About the doubts still niggling away at me. I’ve given the impression that we are taking it slowly, which if I look into his eyes tonight and believe him might turn out to be true.

  “Tonight,” I say. “I’m driving straight to Oxford now.”

  Nothing has become any clearer since the New Year. Steve’s been difficult to pin down, vague about meeting up. It’s annoyed me. But then I’ve been busy, so it hasn’t been entirely his fault. It doesn’t mean anything necessarily. I need to go up there like everything is normal, like we really are going on an actual first date again. Give him a chance to convince me. That the police haven’t been in touch since makes me assume they really do think that Will was responsible, which makes me more confident that it can’t be anything to do with Steve. Every time I try to run through all the things the others told me in my head I can’t see what scared me so much that afternoon.

  Rupesh occasionally tries to call, but I don’t answer. I assume he and Jen still want me to firm up their story and I don’t want anything poisoning my judgement.

  Once we have packed, the three of us stand at the door of the empty studio.

  “It looks like an abandoned film set now,” Jon says. “Just another functional space.”

  “Xan,” I say, “are you absolutely sure you don’t want to come with us?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You two go and give those endless superhero films hell. You don’t need me for that.”

  “Enjoy your life of crime… solving,” Jon says.

  Xan raises his hand. “See you on the other side then, Ray.”

  “Nice working with you, Dr. Venkman,” I say, and with that, he walks away.

  The days are just beginning to grow longer, the very worst of winter itself the stuff of nostalgia for another year. When I drive into Oxford it’s just getting dark. I only ate toast between the Howard the Duck and Ghostbusters podcasts, and my stomach is making noisy complaints.

  Once off the motorway, my satnav guiding me closer to the city centre, it’s obvious Steve is doing all right for himself. Whatever he gets paid it befits the private education for which his parents forked out, although he probably got a fair bit of inheritance money too.

  I pull up in a two-hour parking bay that expires at 6.30 p.m. Steve assured me it would be safe until 10 a.m. the next day, hinting at how he imagined the night might go down. I’m nervous, and I calm myself by rehearsing my excuse to get away should I need one: Mum. She is still in hospital, Dad home alone. I’m quietly optimistic about her. The doctors are being cagey, and she is still unconscious. Her body is still living, though, even without life support, and there have been signs that both Dad and I think indicate that there may be more to come by way of recovery. She’s been moved into a private room and Dad plays her Roy Orbison albums and puts on her favourite films, like Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz. Dad remarked one day on what he’d do with all Mum’s royal family memorabilia if she passed, and as a joke I suggested eBay. Mum then groaned, which made us laugh, and then cry, even though the noise was most likely involuntary.

  I walk up a large gravel drive filled with expensive cars and Steve’s Octavia, then descend a set of stone steps and ring the bell on his front door. His flat is in the basement of a four-storey town house. The only one without a shared entrance, he’d told me.

  He answers with a grin, dressed in tight blue jeans and a blazer buttoned up over a red T-shirt. When he pulls me to him I get a nose full of his spicy aftershave.

  “You smell nice,” I say. He does, and it’s distracting.

  “So do you,” he says. “Hold on one second.” And he goes back inside, closing the door in my face.

  “Okay,” I say to no one.

  He returns with a coat in his hand and says, “Just in case.” He steps outside with me and turns to lock the door.

  “Do I not get to see the abode?”

  “Sure, later maybe,” he says. The door locked, he bounds up the stairs and gestures for me to follow. I oblige. “It’s just I’ve told the others to get to the restaurant for five thirty, so I don’t want them thinking we’re not going to show up.”

  I’m confused. Have I misunderstood?

  “The others? Who else is coming?”

  “The gang. Although I hoped we’d get some time to catch up first, but obviously you didn’t beat the traffic. Did you come the way I said?”

  We walk out onto the main road. “Uh huh.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Well, I think I must have got the wrong end of the stick,” I say. “I thought it was just us two, actually. The way you made it sound. I didn’t know the others were coming.”

  “It might be just us. Neither of them got back to me to confirm.” He looks at his phone like it might provide him with answers. “Us at a table for five,” Steve says.

  I’m not paying attention, and the number only strikes me as odd after I replay the words I caught in my mind and work out what he must have said.

  “Five?”

  “Maybe you think it’s dark, but I thought a chair as a tribute to Will, well, the Will we once knew, might be appropriate. Obviously we couldn’t really rock up at his funeral.”

  “Oh right,” I say.

  The restaurant is an Italian chain on the high street. After persistent badgering from the waiters about the whereabouts of the rest of our party, Steve and I are moved to a window seat
for two where the night I’d been preparing for begins, albeit visually only.

  He’d given no hint of a group gathering in the things he’d said, in the suggestive way he’d spoken. What the actual fuck is he playing at? He hadn’t even asked if I wanted to see the others. What planet is he on that he thinks they are interested in seeing him, unless something has transpired that I don’t know about?

  “Don’t be cross with me,” Steve says. He grins, straight teeth beaming, skin around the eyes crinkling.

  Fine, he’s handsome. But he is fucking weird. That’s the bottom line. How have I forgotten this about him?

  But somehow he manages to pull it back, charming me with his ability to listen and repeat back the important parts of what I say, nodding along in the right places and generally being nice. I’m more aware that this is what he does now, but it doesn’t make him any less appealing. And that shocks me. I’m so nervous I’m letting him convince me.

  “This is a really good date,” he says. “It probably should have been this all along.” He gives a small grimace, then a sideways glance at the window, letting me know that he knows he fucked this up a bit.

  Am I any wiser about how I feel about him? No. I need to banish my nerves. I order a glass of wine, but don’t give in to his hectoring. I need to be able to drive away at a moment’s notice.

  “Have you heard anything about Will?” he says.

  “No, I try not to think about it.”

  “The guy I’ve been speaking to, he basically admitted, after I’d kept him talking a while, that the consensus is there are suspicious things about the suicides that were overlooked by the various departments, but I got the feeling no one wants to reopen old wounds for the sake of something they can’t take to trial.”

  “So they can’t convict him posthumously?”

  “Maybe it’s for the best.” He looks out of the window.

  “You think?”

  “What will the families gain in reality? You know, in the cold light of day. It won’t bring their daughters back. And if they’re happy with the story as it is, why bother? Those girls were suicidal, after all.”

  “What about truth and justice and all that?”

  “I’m sure there are more easy and productive avenues to bring those things about if that’s what you believe in. Maybe that sounds a bit cold, a bit Rupesh, but I suppose my job has sort of made me hone my idealism a bit.”

  “Yeah, it does sound cold. I mean, my mum still might die. She might come out of her coma a fucking vegetable, Steve.”

  “Sorry, Adeline,” he says, wide-eyed with shock. “I just… You know, I didn’t even think. Just, I thought you hated her. But of course, she’s your mum.”

  I don’t know what to say. What am I doing here with him?

  “No, seriously, sorry,” he says again, gazing down at the table. “I’m a bit nervous and I’m fucking everything up tonight. I’m actually a little distracted that the others didn’t come, a bit sad.”

  I don’t have it in me to just walk away. This is Steve Litt. I have to see it through to the very end.

  Steve, 1998

  From his dad’s window he watched the arrival of the fire engines and the slow emergence of Elm Close’s residents from their slumber, out onto the streets. Just like the gang had come out after hours to witness his first strike against Mr. Strachan, now most of Blythe was here to see his final strike. The one that Strachan would remember.

  If Will told he would bring him down with him. He’d watched him run from the property long after he’d made it through the fields and home. Long after Strachan’s lights had all come on. No doubt he was found at the scene.

  Even if he did tell, it would be easy to get out of. His dad would lie for him when it came down to it. Would say that he’d been with him all night. Sure, he’d be angry at Steve for being involved. Might even believe he’d done it. But ultimately, with them moving, he wouldn’t want the hassle.

  No one could really do anything to him any more. Nothing at all. He’d found a place within himself tonight into which self-doubt could be crammed and sealed. It meant it didn’t matter if others didn’t understand that he knew best. They didn’t have to. What mattered was that the things he was certain about came to pass, that no one stood in his way. He could see balance and harmony the way bats could sense cave walls—a new sense that others didn’t have. He’d brought about the magic of this summer, had known just what to do. And now he knew how it had to end.

  The more he watched the chaos on the street below, the more convinced he was that Will wouldn’t tell. He felt powerful. A bit godlike, if he was honest. And if Strachan caught Will, he was sure he wouldn’t come for him either. His only concern was the dog. He knew it was in there, but he worried Will might have got it out in time. The dog needed to burn. An eye for an eye.

  He saw Adeline out on her drive with her dad. He wanted to meet up with her right now. Wanted them to finally make love—not fuck—was ready to let it happen. But he couldn’t with everyone around. He could wait, though. The important thing was ready finally. Everything felt perfectly balanced.

  New Year, 2016

  We are on his driveway. He asks me in. Having not brought it up himself, I force the issue.

  “I’d love to but I do have to work tomorrow, and, you know?”

  “What?”

  “What are we doing here, Steve? I mean, really? I’m fucking clueless, I’ll be honest. One second we’re on a date, the next you want the whole gang together and I’m just part of that for you. One minute we’re sleeping together, the next we’re apart for weeks. Then you’re saying weird things and lying about Will, and you don’t even bring it up like it’s important.”

  “Adeline, I thought I’d explained all that. Forget the others, you’re right, it’s always been about you. For me, without you there is no gang.”

  “You see—” I want to say, What the hell does that mean? That’s what I would say with any other man. But. But. Still I’m standing there staring at his lovely face.

  “Why don’t you write something?” those message-board haters always said. It’s easy to criticise. Well, here is my chance; write my ending. Write the ending that I want to see, the one where the main character isn’t some useless idiot who can’t walk away from a man who is seriously fucking weird.

  “I can explain again,” he says. “If it will help. Just come inside.”

  And the horrifying thing is I wanted to come here and be convinced. I understand that now. That’s why I can’t leave yet.

  “I’ll just have a cup of tea,” I say.

  “Brilliant,” he says, and even though I made it sound like I was in charge, it doesn’t feel that way.

  Inside it’s cold and damp. The ceilings are high, and when he shows me into the lounge we pass through a tall archway in the wall. He turns on the light and gestures for me to sit on one of the sofas positioned around a television in the corner. Magazines and old newspapers lie in cluttered heaps around the room. Nice of him to make an effort. As a boy he’d been so neat. What has happened to him?

  “Sorry, it’s a bit messy. I’ll just go and put the kettle on.”

  He leaves me staring at this monument to Steve Litt’s adult life. It is hard not to take in the walls with a mixture of amusement and genuine shock. I walk past a frame in which nearly fifty gig tickets are assembled into a collage. Names like Green Day, PJ Harvey, Garbage all jump out. I am hard-pressed to find any artists who weren’t also playing gigs during the 1990s, even though the ticket dates are all from 2000 onwards. He is a man of great consistency, that is certain. Next to this are framed movie posters: Stand By Me, The Goonies and The Usual Suspects. Along the back wall are vinyl records, postcard collages and even more posters. On the shelves are more movie and music paraphernalia, mugs and models, books and CDs. Even a selection of tapes. There is a dog collar on the wall, one I think might belong to his childhood dog. It was on his wall back in the day, as was The Nag’s Head matchbook next
to it, pinned to the wall in the middle exposing a mostly full set with three matches missing.

  This is how his bedroom used to be. He’d been so secretive about that room, had even said something about it being an insight into who he really was. Which was why even though they had free rein of that farmhouse all summer long, even his dad’s bedroom, none of them were allowed into Steve’s room. Then, when I finally saw it, just the once before he went to London, the insight wasn’t particularly insightful after all. So what, he liked films and music?

  But now there is insight. Insight into who he has become and how that compared with the boy from my childhood. Is there even a difference?

  I can’t imagine a date returning to this place and not being a little thrown. Is this why he’s still single?

  Enough, what does it matter that he hasn’t changed? Adulthood is a social construct, right? In a way it’s surely sweet. The part of me that always felt a little tenderly towards Steve, had felt sorry for him tonight even, cries out in protest as I judge him. Jon and Xan’s places are both just like this. And my own place has one or two movie- and music-related bits and pieces on the walls. Just because I can make that connection between then and now doesn’t mean there hasn’t been growth. That inside his soul he hasn’t refined the décor. No danger in a little bit of nostalgia, you’d be an idiot if you didn’t take some things with you from the past—the best bits.

  I move to sit on the sofa, but the cushions are cluttered with printouts and magazines. One is a healthcare journal called Health Psychology International.

  “So your job,” I say. “Can you explain it to me properly now?”

  “It’s a real yawn.” His voice floats in from another room.

  “Yeah, so you’ve said. Still. Bore me.”

  “Do you want any kind of special tea? I’ve got Earl Grey or herbal—”

  “Normal breakfast will do. And your job?”

  “Okay, so I specialised in a relatively new field called behavioural economics after I got my first degree. I worked in public sector commissioning for a while, then did a Masters and started a one-man consultancy to advise on how to better create interventions for chronic diseases using knowledge of human psychology. So you know, I design a lot of choice architecture stuff, make sure it’s easier to make healthy decisions. Like hiding impulse items from the checkout, and putting fruit and veg there instead, that kind of stuff.”