by Emmy Ellis
Let him see me in all my manky glory.
She was done—absolutely done—and it no longer mattered what anyone thought of her, not even him.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“The milk. It’s…it’s still there.”
“Shit. Pack some things. You’re coming with me.” Kane rose and held out a hand.
She took it, drawn to her feet, her body thankfully filling with everything that had seemed missing before. “What about Jez?”
He’s going to find me. Kill me.
He stared at her. “I came here to interview you, and you found a letter, didn’t you.”
“What?” She blinked, her stabbed eye stinging.
“And the letter, it was intimidating, right? Said you’d be next.” He squeezed her hand. “Didn’t. It.”
Realisation gently crept inside her head, and she nodded. “So, what now?”
“You need to be kept safe. You can leave Jez a note, tell him you’ve been taken to a secure place until the murderer is caught.” He winced. “Oh fuck.”
“Murderer? What bloody murderer?” Her body threatened to do what it had before and leave her limp, and she fought against it, taking deep breaths, concentrating on the fact that Kane still held her hand, his skin warm, fingers curled, thumb circling.
“I’ve put my foot in it, so… Mrs Smithson. She didn’t kill herself.”
What? What? “Oh God. No. No, no, no.” She slumped back down onto the seat, Kane’s hand slipping away, and memories of what Jez had said about Mrs Smithson and her bonfires streaked through her mind—memories of his face every time he’d said he’d clobber her if she lit another bonny. Was it him? Jez? Had he killed her?
Charlotte wouldn’t have a clue, she hadn’t bloody been here, had she. Of all the nights she had to go out, selfishly doing something for herself for once instead of being here where she’d know if Jez had gone round the back and done something to that old lady… Charlotte always watched him through the window whenever he left the house, so she’d have seen where he’d gone. The whole time she’d been drinking with Kane and moaning about Jez, shagging Kane then worrying about being caught when she got home—and all along Mrs Smithson was being offed.
“It’s okay,” Kane said. “We’ll work this out.”
“It was him,” she said, her voice quiet. “I think Jez did it.”
Kane widened his eyes and again took her hand, pulling her standing. “You don’t know that—unless there’s something you haven’t told me?”
“No, no, I just…it had to be him, didn’t it?”
SIX
I stub out my ciggie in an alley that looks out onto Jude Street, the tall buildings either side of me a women’s clothes shop—used to be Woolworths until the business went to shit—the other selling expensive shoes. Clarks. There are a few ladies across the street—using the term loosely there, and loose is right; it’s like throwing a sausage up the high street shagging any of them. They’re dressed for their job—stockings, short skirts, tits spilling out of too-tight bras. Some even strut about in those bloody nasty tracksuits, the velvet kind, pale pink or purple, can’t tell in this light. Whatever they’re wearing, they’re out on the prowl for punters, and their coven will be one short by the end of the night.
I slip my hood over my head, enough so the front hangs low over my eyes. Can’t be having anyone seeing me enough to identify me, can we?
Then I’m walking over the road, heading for the one who looks just like young Debbie. Same hair, same slender build, although this one’s a few years older. Still, I can always pretend she hasn’t got crows’ feet when I’m doing her, can’t I. That’s what shutting your eyes is for. You can pretend, then, that you’re fucking someone else. A bit like the old joke about not looking at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire.
Handy that.
Debbie Version Two glances over, and she’s on me like bird shit on a windscreen, as if I’m something sweet she wants to lick, except there’s nothing sweet about me, not tonight. I’m dogged off about Mrs Smithson and Charlotte—don’t get me started about her—plus the real Debbie sucking at her hair and ruining everything.
“What are you after?” the prosser asks.
I don’t like it when they speak first. “I’m not after anything, not from you.”
I brush past her, heading for one of the more dolled-up birds. She’s a druggy. See enough of them, and you can tell. Seems like she’s been on blow or something already, and maybe she needs it to get through the night. Perhaps she even chases the dragon, too, so she can forget why she’s here.
I’ll make her permanently forget.
I nod at her, and she tries to walk—I say tries, because she’s lurching a bit there—and eventually comes to a stop in front of me, her blue eyes bordering on the lightest grey, a dilated black dot in each centre.
Dilated. Yeah, she’s on something.
I don’t need to say anything else, not to this one. She’s made my acquaintance before, which is good for me now. She trusts me.
Bonus.
I was nice to her last time, wasn’t I. Gave her an extra wedge of dope as a tip. Money and extras talk and all that. Good job I’ve got plenty of it then, isn’t it?
I lead the way through the alley, the pinging sounds from her high heels telling me she’s not far behind. At the end are a few warehouses, some in use, some abandoned, and I head towards an empty one, where windows have been removed, leaving rectangular black spaces. The building’s brown bricks, mossed up from years of being in the elements, the pointing dark instead of the pale grey when they’d first been laid, is crumbling. It’s a crying shame when a big place like this gets left to its own devices, to rot, when it could be used for something worthwhile.
It’s handy for me, though.
I step inside, shoes scuffing over the grit and various oddments where a carpet has obviously been pulled up. A bit of foam backing bumbles off, a tumbleweed, farther into the depths until I can’t see it anymore because it’s too dark.
Up some stairs, no risers, mind you don’t slip through the gaps, then we’re on the next level, her skittering along beside me, a chastened dog, albeit without a tail between her legs. Maybe she’s remembering what we did last time. She didn’t like it but did it anyway.
I much prefer it when women do as they’re told.
Unlike Charlotte, supposedly going out for milk, when I know damn well she didn’t, not dressed up like that. Not with that amount of makeup on, for fuck’s sake, and her hair brushed all nicely, although it made a change to see her looking good for once, like she used to all those years ago.
There’s a room just here, which, unlike the others, has a door and no windows, perhaps formerly an office. Whatever it was, it suits my purposes. Her squeals won’t float outside through any rectangular, dark spaces, and she can’t get away when I shift that big hunk of cement and prop it against the door, though why that’s in here I’ll never know.
She goes and stands by the wall opposite and waits while I secure the door. I did it last time, too, so she won’t think anything of it. I’d let her out on that occasion, so there’s no reason for her to think I won’t do the same tonight.
I move a few steps towards her and decide what I’ll take home with me after. Perhaps that strange little bracelet she’s got on. Seems to me it has blue plastic dolphins hanging off it. It’s childish, and I don’t like it, and every time I look at it, I’ll remember her with hate.
Hate enlivens me, gets the blood pumping, and not just through my veins either.
“On your knees,” I say.
She complies immediately—that’s what I like to see—probably thinking she’ll get another wedge as well as her payment, and I wonder whether she’s smoked all that weed I gave her since then. She didn’t ask for anything harder, and if she had, I wouldn’t have indulged her no matter how good she is at sucking.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
She’s doing her th
ing now, what she’s paid to do, and instead of concentrating on what she’s at, I’m off in my head, thinking about the things I’ve yet to do, the women I’ve got to teach. My dad once told me you can never trust a woman, that they’ll wrench your heart out at some point and drag it behind them as they’re walking out of your life, taking your home and everything you’ve earned with them.
Glad I never married. Don’t intend to either.
I think of Debbie, and Charlotte, and I’m floating away, content in the knowledge I’ll be sorting them soon. I’m drawn out of bliss by another kind, and my world tilts, her down there giving it all she’s got. She’s choking—get a grip on yourself, will you, love?—but I hold her head in place and do the business before she has a chance to get away.
Then I shove her off, and she falls backwards onto her skinny arse, hands flat on the floor beside her, lips plump.
Dirty little cow.
She isn’t the woman I want staring back at me like that.
The rage descends then, the mist that clouds everything rational. Illogicality takes its place, and I’m down there on the floor with her, punching her face until blood spurts from her nose. She claws at me, nails gouging my cheek, my wrist, the soft inner side, and I lean down to bite her earlobe and fucking well rip it off.
Swallow.
She screams, as I knew she would, and I press my hand over her mouth and nose. She kicks and writhes, legs and arms all over the place, waving, stalks of corn in the wind, rustling against the floor. And her eyes, they bulge, and she raises her back, me kneeling beside her, clamping my second hand over my other. Pressing, pressing, pressing her head into the floor, knowing it will hurt the little lump sticking out at the base of her skull.
This goes on for a while, too long if I’m honest, then she stills, body mid-arch, fingers like those graspers in the grabby machines at arcades when you can try to win a cuddly toy. She goes limp, back thudding on the floor, but I hold my hands in place for some time after, studying her eyes, not a smidgen of life left in them, the whites marred with red veins resembling cracked windowpanes.
And that’s poignant, that is, because eyes are, after all, windows to the soul.
No soul to see here, though.
Before I leave, I pull out my handy tool.
Snip off the ends of the fingers and thumb she scratched me with.
Any of my DNA under those nails is coming with me.
SEVEN
Debbie couldn’t wait until the following evening. She had a thing about him for some reason. Mum and Dad would be gutted—they’d say he was too old for her—but she didn’t see it that way. She’d heard older men knew what they were doing in the sack, and if the fumbles with the lads at school were anything to go by, she needed someone who’d been around the block a bit. Someone to give her lessons, show her how it ought to be done.
The thing was, if she managed to get him to go out with her, you know, be her boyfriend, they’d have to keep it under wraps, what with her age and everything. But she’d be sixteen soon, not long to wait now, and she could do whatever the hell she liked. It didn’t matter that every time she’d spoken to him in the past he’d talked about Charlotte—well, not tonight he hadn’t, but there was always a first time for everything, wasn’t there.
She’d had a serious think and had decided to definitely keep it quiet where she was going when she visited his place. Say she was off to her mate’s house or something, perhaps mention she was hanging out at the park where she usually went. The group of kids she met with normally sat beneath the slide on the benches, where it kind of had a log roof to keep them dry if it pissed down.
Yeah, that would do. And she’d be back at ten like always.
She got up off her bed, her iPod earbud lead snagging on her sociology revision book. At the window, she gazed out. Not many left on the path now it was getting late, just a few stragglers, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight. Then he appeared as if she’d conjured him, walking up the street and going towards his house on the opposite side of the road. He stopped to talk to a neighbour still out on the pavement. He went out most nights—she’d been keeping tabs on him since she was thirteen—and she longed to find out where he went and what he did. If it was to the pub, he might take her with him one day. She looked older with makeup on, and if she styled her hair just right, that would add a few years.
She smiled, excitement building in her belly. She couldn’t believe he’d actually agreed to her visiting him, and he was buying her some Belgian buns, and Coke, too. What if Charlotte was there, though? And if she wasn’t and he talked about her, she didn’t know what she’d do or say. Then again, it might be the opening she needed, to find out what was going on between them, see if she could step in and take her place in his affections.
EIGHT
The chat with Kane in the garden had taken a chunk of time, and Charlotte was conscious Jez might be back soon. It was coming up to last orders in the pubs, and although more often than not he stayed for a lock-in, seeing as he’d broken his usual routine and had already nipped back home tonight, she didn’t want to take any chances. She’d risked so much already this evening.
She shoved clothes into a black wheelie suitcase, uncaring whether they crinkled from being squashed in there. Best she get away fast than worry about something an iron could fix later.
Tossing in her washbag, containing her toothbrush, toiletries, favourite perfume, hairbrush, makeup, and straightening iron, she was good to go. She zipped up the bag then quickly slung on jeans, a long-sleeved red top, and her comfy boots, sans heels—she couldn’t be doing with those again tonight.
Leaving her Take That T-shirt and lounge pants on the floor to piss Jez off one last time, she wheeled the case out onto the landing, recalling the note she’d written to him prior to packing. He’d hit the bloody roof when he read it, but she wouldn’t be there to witness it, so thank God for small mercies.
Kane stood at the bottom of the stairs, and he turned to race up and collect the luggage for her. She followed him down, the suitcase bumping on each step, and gave the lower floor a once-over, then met him at the front door.
“Let’s go,” she said, eager to leave now, to start a new life with Jez behind bars, unable to get to her. As a final touch, she placed the ring he’d bought her—‘No, it’s not an engagement ring, you silly cow, it’s just a ring. Wear it on a different finger, else people will start talking.’—on the hallway table. It looked lost on the surface with only the landline phone in its cradle for company.
She switched the outside light on via another electric panel so they could see where they were going and wouldn’t trip on any of those stupid decorative stone balls Jez had dotted beside the garden path.
Kane opened the door, and Charlotte was about to tell him to make it quick getting to the car, but he stood there, Jez, his face pale beneath his hood, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows as though he’d been in a fight. He lifted one hand to point a finger at her, his eye contact scoring into her soul, her knees jolting so she almost sank to the floor. His wrist had scratch marks, probably where some woman had clung on for dear life while he’d shoved into her, and her stomach roiled, bile burning up her windpipe.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he said, eyeing the case at Kane’s feet. “And with a copper and all. I thought better of you, Char, fraternising with a pig like this.”
He was calm, considering. Probably because a DI stood beside her, the pair of them wedged together, bookends without any books in between. Her heart thundered, and she wished she were anywhere but here, dealing with this, with him.
“I…I left you a—”
“She has to come with me, Pickins,” Kane said. “She’s had a bit of a nasty shock tonight.”
“What, the old dear dying? You were all right earlier, weren’t you, Char?” Jez glared at her, his usual tactic of willing her to say yes, to agree with everything he said.
Not anymore. Not now she’d gone this far.
Not now Kane was helping her.
“No, it wasn’t just Mrs Smithson,” she said, “I…I…”
“She received a letter.” Kane clutched the suitcase’s extended handle, the skin on his fingers stretching white.
“A letter? What sort of letter?” Jez frowned. “Don’t fucking tell me you’ve racked that card of yours up again, and they’re sending the bloody bailiffs round. What did you buy this time, eh? More clothes you don’t even wear?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but Kane knocked her foot with his.
“Not that sort of letter,” Kane said. “She’s had a threatening one, implying she’s next—that she’s going to be killed. So, if you’ll excuse us, I need to get her to a safe house.”
Jez snatched his hood off. Dried blood speckled his temple, a hair’s-breadth away from the sideburns that joined his beard. Had that been there earlier? If it had, she wouldn’t have seen it anyway, would she, because the house had been in darkness apart from the living room. What had he been up to? She’d thought a couple of minutes ago he’d been in a fight, and perhaps she’d been right. When was he going to grow up?
“As you can understand,” Kane went on, “we have to keep her safe. She can come home once things settle down.”
She hitched in a breath at that, telling herself he didn’t mean it, coming back home, that she’d start life somewhere else, maybe Scotland, or even Ireland would be better. Jez would never find her there with a new name.
Jez didn’t take any notice of Kane, staring at her instead. A breeze lifted a fleck of blood, carrying it up to dance beneath the outside Victorian lantern light then dropping it on one of the lion’s heads. It settled in a groove carved into its stone mane. “Show me the letter.”