by Alison Bruce
His thoughts switched, heading off on a tangent, but always arcing back to the familiar . . . when he’d owned a dog once. And about the same time discovered Stourbridge Common.
On reflection it had been a stupid and inconvenient idea. He wasn’t a ‘dog person’, and he had neither the time nor the interest in the animal to sustain more than a few weeks of long walks and bagging up its mess.
His brief stint of dog-ownership had been about a woman. Her name was Connie, a skinny blonde with drainpipe jeans that failed to reach as high as her bony hips. She ‘fostered’ animals, and had turned her home into a small sanctuary for three dogs and four cats.
They had sex the night they met – not the cat and the dog but him and Connie. And it had been far more satisfying than the get-it-over-with shag he’d been after. He hadn’t even had the expectation of enjoying sex again – he wasn’t even sure he wanted to, at first – but Connie did.
Connie had a practical approach, thought of sex like a bag of chips or a burger on the last bus home. It was something you grabbed when you felt the urge; it didn’t need to be your whole diet and not worth beating yourself up over either.
He merely offered her a lift home but stayed for the whole weekend. Her bedroom looked out on to Stourbridge Common, and when he woke in the morning he decided it had to be the most sinister place in the whole city. The other commons like Midsummer and Newnham seemed tranquil; elsewhere in Cambridge the river-edges were moored with prettily painted narrowboats and the open areas criss-crossed by pathways that promised picnics and festivals. All these were views to stroll through or photograph. Welcome destinations. Postcards home.
Stourbridge Common, by contrast, was none of those things. Yes, there were narrowboats, but only the kind with the flaking paint and mossed-up windows hid down here. Even those that were halfway smart looked as though they’d fallen into bad company, tethered there between the abandoned and floating scrap-heaps.
He wondered why Connie bothered to foster her animals when every one of her charges seemed to have feral relatives scavenging from the narrowboats. Even the vegetation seemed stunted and twisted, the pastureland bursting with fat clumps of weed that sprouted from the cow-shit-heavy grass. Cows avoided eating it and no one had thought to introduce sheep.
Most of Cambridge didn’t unnerve him, day or night. But even in the daytime on Stourbridge Common he found it hard not to look over his shoulder.
Connie didn’t get it. She always walked the dogs last thing at night. Thought they would protect her.
They had lain in bed one afternoon and he tried to make some conversation regarding the subject.
‘What d’you know about the Common, then?’
‘What . . . like its history?’ She turned her head just enough for him to glimpse the look of distaste on her face. ‘Don’t know. We’re not here for the view, are we?’ She made coquettish eyes at him. If she’d been twenty years younger, maybe they would’ve worked, but some women’s faces were too world-weary to pull it off after the age of twenty-five, and she was undoubtedly one of them.
She read too many cheap magazines too, and her brain was filled with the idea that all any man wanted was a woman with an insatiable appetite for sex. She saw no reason to keep her past discreetly hidden from him and made love like she’d taken tips from a second-rate porn movie; she groaned, panted and said ‘yes, yes, yes’ at every orgasm.
Or every faked orgasm.
His fascination with Stourbridge Common and his interest in shagging Connie seemed inversely proportional. She had been there at the right moment to allow him to catch his emotional breath. She’d never been a keeper, more like the temporary muse whose sole purpose was to inspire his next steps.
His waning interest in her was also inversely proportional to her interest in him; she was the classic woman who argued the benefits of no-strings sex then wouldn’t let go. So they lay on the bed, her head on his chest and her hand on his thigh.
‘I started reading up on the Common,’ he told her.
‘Me too.’
‘Really?’ He felt pleased, but irritated too as though she’d stepped on to his territory somehow. ‘What did you find out?’
‘It was once where they held the largest fair in Europe.’
‘Yeah, everyone knows that.’
His response disappointed her and she fell silent for a moment or two. ‘Okay, smartarse, tell me more.’
He stretched it out, giving her the history from 1199 to the early twentieth century, when it finally ended. He deliberately missed out two things; the one she wanted to hear and the one he’d decided to keep to himself.
‘Did you read about those London Hackney Carriages?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he lied.
She sat up, a manoeuvre which involved sliding her body up his and straddling him. She didn’t have attractive breasts. They were small, which was okay but they sagged too, and the combined effect reminded him of the ears on the pigs’ heads that she bought as a treat for her dogs. The largest dog, an Alsatian cross named Myrtle, always tore them off and snapped her teeth as she tossed them around the garden.
‘The Hackney Carriages would be hired by ladies and driven around the streets.’ She made the annoying quote gesture with her fingers at the word ladies. ‘One shilling and sixpence, it cost.’
‘For her to hire the carriage or for the men to have sex?’
‘I don’t know.’ Connie scowled. ‘They were making a profit or they wouldn’t have done it.’
‘I guess so. So why do you do it?’
‘Oi! I’m not a slag.’
‘Come on, you’d have loved wearing all that finery and a queue of men to pull the petticoats over your head.’
‘Have you ever done it with two women in the same night?’
‘No. Have you – with two blokes, I mean?’
‘No.’ She went quiet, probably thinking about the opportunities missed. She’d slept with more men than he met in the course of a year. If they were ten days apart or ten minutes, what was the fucking difference?
It wasn’t exactly the moment he decided to kill her, just the moment when he realized he wouldn’t mind.
He remembered reining in his thoughts. This was the first time the two halves of his brain had recognized the other’s process of thinking.
There had only been one death so far, one which his conscious mind had written off as an act of passion. It hadn’t been a mistake though, just unplanned, and on the one or two moments when he remembered what he’d done, Nobby knew it had been something very, very risky.
But his subconscious brain was a totally different kind of thinker, remaining quiet until that very second, the moment when the last part of the plan locked into place and it could be trusted with the answer.
The answer which had blown in from Stourbridge Common.
She was still astride him, didn’t seem to care that he’d been staring blindly at the window for the last few minutes. He wondered if she had any purpose in life except getting screwed by a succession of men and nursemaiding a succession of animals.
He pushed her off him and on to the bed.
‘Don’t get like that,’ she sulked.
There was a small tub-chair in front of the window.
‘I want you to kneel in front of that.’
‘Why?’ Again the flirty, overgrown child voice.
‘You want me to tell you something to turn you on?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She gazed at him seductively. Shit, now he’d used the quote fingers. This whole situation was weak and sleazy and pathetic and he wanted out.
‘You’re going to feel how it was to be one of those Stourbridge Common ladies. Now get on your knees.’
And just like that she did. He slid into her from behind, pushing her face down on to the chair seat and thrusting hard.
He stared out of the window, determined not to listen to her fake moans, her cries of ‘yes’ and the pretence that she was too tired to carry on. The Common
was all he cared about; the sinister distortion of Cambridge didn’t intimidate him now. It had given his subconscious every answer. Even the new children’s playground down there, with its Pied Piper sparkle in the heart of this throwback corner had fed him.
He came quickly, pulling out at the last moment and letting it shoot on to the small of her back and dribble back along the channel between the flat-faced cheeks of her arse.
He kept the side of her face pressed to the seat of the chair, pushing her jawbone so it would be easier for her not to speak. If she started pushing him to tell her why he never ejaculated inside her and chipping at him with a new set of questions about upbringing, relationships, and on, and on, he thought he might lose it. Right now he needed to be alone in his head.
Her own head moved a little under his fingers, and her one visible eye was straining back to look at him. He released his grip slightly. She was nodding vigorously.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘I will, I will,’ she sobbed.
‘Will what?’
‘Be quiet and give you headspace.’
He let go entirely then and she sagged on to the carpet, head down staring at the floor. Silent now as promised.
He stopped noticing anything in the room; he only needed to look out at the Common to feel calmness. Then clarity. Then he allowed himself his second thought.
The women took the men in carriages because the fair had rules against bad behaviour. The fair was for commerce, and every trader had their set of rules. Ale had to be sold in specific quantities. Meat had to be of good quality and bread a certain weight.
These rules would be announced at the start of every fair in a proclamation called the Cry.
Okay, the history was interesting – up to a point – and he never would have found it but for the discovery of this woman and the Common she lived beside. But, in the end, it all distilled down to four words: one line proclaimed in the Cry that repeated itself constantly in Nobby’s ear. ‘Under pain of forfeiture.’
The photo, those words, the names, the playground and even Myrtle the dog locked into place.
Under pain of forfeiture.
The baker loses his stock, the butcher his meat and the potter his wares. Punishment not only to fit the crime, but punishment that cuts to the very heart of what the poor man needs in order to survive.
After a while he pulled Connie back on to the bed. She had been crying quietly but didn’t say much for a while.
He didn’t begin telling any lies, but he apologized in any case, and she thawed out quickly after that – which made him smile. She smiled back at him, the stupid cow.
‘Can I adopt Myrtle?’
Connie’s face clouded. ‘She’s my favourite. And the oldest.’
‘I like her.’
‘You know about the vet’s bills, right? You’ve been listening?’
He shot her a glance of mock warning.
‘One of the others would be easier.’
‘Myrtle,’ he said firmly. ‘Perhaps I’ll change her name.’
‘No!’
He had laughed. ‘I’m joking. And I know she’s an expensive dog to keep alive. You don’t need to worry.’
Nobby now re-rolled the photograph. His mind was filled with thoughts that flared and flickered and darted through his head. Sometimes he really struggled to keep them in check.
Both Myrtle and Connie had been dead since late in the autumn of 2007 – September, he guessed, so why think of them now?
He pulled himself up short.
Only two more deaths and he’d be done.
Libby, Declan – then he could rest. To kill Libby right away didn’t trouble him, but Declan wasn’t due for another three years, and that made him uncomfortable. Nobby had only to turn his face towards the city centre to feel that change was in the air. And that meant time was running short. It was adjustments and compromises that had kept him ahead throughout. Forget the old plan then; their time had come now.
FORTY-FIVE
Libby’s Facebook page popped up to show that she had one new message. She’d never been a huge Facebook user, not one of those collectors of a thousand or more ‘friends’, none of whom they actually knew. She had seventeen – classmates in the main. Jamie-Lee had defriended her yesterday: that was okay, she understood. Meg’s page had been turned into a wall of condolence and was packed with messages like Miss you babes from a bunch of other students. Mostly strangers. It prompted Libby to defriend Meg.
She was still friends with Matt and Charlotte, of course, and assumed the new message would either be from one of them or else an invitation to a gig from someone else.
She saw Zoe’s photo appear first, and had to force herself to stop staring at the image and actually click open the message.
Talk to me Libby, was all it said.
She released the mouse but kept staring at the screen, imagining for one moment that more words were about to appear. ‘Oh shit,’ she mumbled.
Unless it was a joke. Like a practical joke. Obviously not a funny one.
No, that didn’t make sense. Who would know that she’d been sending messages to Zoe? Who else even knew who Zoe was?
Libby’s heart began to thump, because any one of her friends could see her other friends. Charlotte would have seen Zoe at school, and if she’d seen the photo she would have recognized the tragic meningitis victim from the year above. In being clever, Libby had overlooked the obvious. She scanned her list of friends again; only Matt and Charlotte had been to the Manor School. Zoe’s profile was closed; no one except Zoe’s friends could see her friends and Zoe’s friends totalled exactly one. On top of that, no one would know about the messages. Unless they’d logged on as Zoe.
‘Oh shit,’ she muttered again.
Libby’s mobile was next to her keyboard. She could ring Matt and ask him whether . . . whether what? Hi, Matt, I’ve set up a Facebook account in the name of a dead girl my sister knew. I did it so I could talk to her, because I don’t feel able to bother you or my mum and dad. Why not? Because you’re all too screwed up and I need to stop myself going mad.
She rested her fingers on her phone in any case, wondering who else might have been able to access her laptop and Facebook account. With her laptop it was easy: her usernames and passwords all auto-filled. Even without her laptop it wouldn’t be so hard. Her password for everything except her online banking was RosieB1.
She opened her bedroom door and called downstairs. ‘Mum? Have you been on my laptop?’ She waited for a reply. ‘Mum? Mum!’
She went and found a note on the kitchen table. Gone to Dr’s.
Libby turned her mobile over in her fingers. She was tempted to ring her mum and ask why she didn’t even communicate when they were living under the same roof. She guessed she’d first be diverted to voicemail.
Her mum had swung from the over-anxious parent to the frequently detached one. Overall, Libby preferred to stand clear in case there was going to be a major swing back again.
She pulled a can of Pepsi from the fridge, opened it, then left it on the kitchen table untouched. She was already dialling Matt’s mobile and had made it halfway up the stairs by the time he answered.
‘Are you okay?’ It was always the first thing he said.
‘Yeah, fine. I just wondered whether you used my laptop when I was staying over at yours?’
‘Might have, I suppose. Could’ve checked emails or something.’
‘Oh.’
‘Isn’t it working?’
‘No, no, it’s fine.’
‘What, then?’
‘It’s like someone’s been into my Facebook page. D’you think Charlotte . . . ?’ She let the sentence fade away as soon as she realized how stupid it sounded. ‘I mean, if she’d wanted to access Facebook, I’m not saying she’d snoop into my account or anything.’
‘Why would she even go on your laptop when she’s got her own? What’s going on, Libby?’
Behind her was her open bedroom
door, and from beyond that she could hear the familiar plinking of an incoming chat message. Then another, and another.
‘Are you messaging me, Matt?’
‘No.’
‘Someone’s just sent me three or four.’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t know. I’m not in my room, I can just hear the messages coming in.’
She moved quietly to the top of the stairs and across the landing.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
She stopped at the doorway so Matt wouldn’t hear that she was close enough to see her laptop. But even from there she recognized Zoe’s profile picture. ‘Look, Matt, I need to go.’
She crossed her room and was in front of the screen as another message appeared. Each was one character in length and the message feed filled the right-hand side of her profile page. She scrolled to the top, and down again.
H
E
L
L
O
L
I
B
B
Y
:-)
S
P
E
A
K
T
O
M
E
She replied, Hi.
‘Libby?’
Yes, who is this?
‘Zoe.’
Okay, no point in asking that again. What do you want?
‘Just to chat. I read the messages you sent me.’
And?
‘I feel really sorry for you. I know how much it hurts.’
I can’t keep talking to you when I don’t know who you are.
‘You were happy talking to Zoe, so why not to me?’
The replies stopped, then the silence in the room was broken only by the sound of her own breathing. It was heavy – almost panting – and when she looked at her fingers still poised over the keyboard, the tips were visibly shaking.
Zoe’s status changed to no longer online.
In one of the gardens nearby, a lawnmower was running, and further away still, the sound of the main road hummed constantly. Inside this house nothing moved. The air stagnated around her and even Libby’s college life seemed too distant to belong to her.