It was the only chair in the house, and the fire and the television were the only illumination.
The big, dim room was lined with paintings – stacked three deep around the walls. The batons burned well, and the oil in the paint helped things along, although over time it had left a brown slick in the fireplace, and a thick smell in the house that the killer didn’t notice any more. Some pictures had been in frames, but they had been the first thing to go – even before the books – and had kept him warm through two winters.
The killer sipped his tea from a cup so fine that the firelight glowed orange through its porcelain sides. It was Flora Danica, decorated with a crest and a V entwined by ornate brambles, and the family motto For every flower a thorn.
It had once been part of a huge service.
Vast.
Tureens and gravy boats and platters and chargers. Twenty place settings, with three different sizes of pudding bowl alone.
He had sold it all. Along with the rest of the fixtures and fittings.
Slowly.
Never thinking he would run out of heirlooms or equity before he ran out of life.
Irony, at least, was not dead.
But really, what did one need?
One cup, one chair.
One knife, one fork, one spoon.
Sometimes he stole. Not because he was a thief, but because there were things that he could no longer afford. Things that he couldn’t do without. He had made a hole through the wall of the rat-shitty attic to harness himself to the neighbour’s electricity supply.
And beyond that? He needed so little!
One notebook, one pen.
Bananas and chocolate.
A television …
He watched Eve Singer, and the body bag that cradled his work. They moved in perfect harmony – Eve moving aside as the bag appeared. Stepping to the left as the bag rolled to the right. Glancing over her shoulder at the camera, her dark hair swinging gently across her pale cheek …
Why had he not killed her? He watched the review again, wondering, as he imagined the dark, rubbery folds of the bag kissing the skin within. Skin he had pressed under his very own hands, as he’d moulded the girl into something beautiful – something immortal.
As he watched, his fingers picked at the edges of the thick scar that wormed down his chest.
Eve stepped to the left as the bag rolled to the right.
Step.
Roll.
Whoever the cameraman was, he had a good eye for composition, while Eve Singer had a delicious flair for language. She used words like ‘terrifying’ and ‘bloodbath’ and ‘gruesome’. Some other words he didn’t approve of, like ‘senseless’ and ‘maniac’, but he forgave her. He was a realist. He knew they had to say those things on the news. If they didn’t, then it might seem that murder was committed not only by the deranged and the drug addicted, but that just anyone might be a killer. A neighbour. The milkman. Your babysitter …
They couldn’t tell the truth on the news, or people would panic.
Ordinary people.
Again … Step to the left; roll to the right. The living and the dead, performing together as if choreographed. Eve Singer glancing at the body bag. Then turning to look coyly into his eyes …
His heart thudded in his chest and, with an echoing shout, the killer dropped to his knees, spread his arms, and gripped the corners of the TV like an angular lover.
He knew that look! Eve Singer had looked at him the same way under the silvery lights of College Road. The same tilt of the head, the same sway of the hair. The same invitation to fall into step beside her so that they could walk on …
Together.
This was why!
He stumbled to his feet, naked and shaking, heart drumming so fast he felt faint, as life spurted through his sinewy soul and out like sparks through the tips of his tingling fingers.
It smelled like infinity and fireworks!
A jagged pain shot through his chest and he clutched at his heart and cried, ‘NO!’
He could feel the stitching of his own fabric give way, like a teddy bear’s arm. He looked down in terror to watch the scar that sealed him unzip from gullet to belly, to see an alien heart pump a stranger’s blood on to the cherry-wood floor, until all that was left was an empty him, standing in a puddle of his own entrails.
Not me! Not yet! Not me!
Nothing happened.
He collapsed whimpering into his chair, trembling and foetal with fear.
Slowly the pain faded. The heart became numb once again.
The infinite luxury of time was returned to him …
He watched the report throughout the night. He wanted every detail of it imprinted on his brain. He wanted to dream of it when he slept his deep and untroubled sleep.
The killer watched until the light around him cooled to electric and his genitals were puckered blue berries.
Just before dawn, he shivered and rose, and put another painting on the fire.
8
4 December
IT WAS BITTERLY cold, and the bags from the one-stop shop at the station bit into Eve’s fingers despite her woollen gloves.
Under the silver glow of the street light, Mr Elias was shovelling snow off the pavement outside his house, and Eve slowed to a slippery dawdle.
Eve didn’t dislike Mr Elias, but she didn’t exactly like him either. He had a fishing gnome in his garden, but no pond, and a twenty-five-year-old Ford Mondeo. And he’d had a wife once, but she had died some time while Eve was in Camden. Eve couldn’t remember her name, but she’d never looked happy and barely ever spoke, which made Eve think that Mr Elias had probably bullied her – or had disappointed her in some way, at the very least.
Sometimes, when she and Stuart were kids, Mr Elias hadn’t thrown their ball back for days. He’d ranted out of all proportion when a model plane had accidentally dive-bombed his greenhouse. He’d told them to keep the noise down at completely reasonable teenage parties, and had once called the police, who had stood at the door while her school friends trooped out, which had been so embarrassing.
After that incident, she’d tried to avoid Mr Elias.
When she’d come back to live with her father, Eve had started new, more formal, more grown-up relations, and kept them to a minimum. She didn’t see him often, but when she did see him, Mr Elias usually looked at her with an odd intensity. Stared at her, really … Eve didn’t like to imagine that her lifelong neighbour was a dirty old man but she feared that might be true. Or might become true, if she were too friendly to him.
She hadn’t seen him to speak to for a couple of months – had only spotted him from the window, going out every day to clean the red phone box – but she didn’t want to get caught up in conversation now. Partly because she felt guilty that she wasn’t clearing her own bit of pavement, the way her father always used to, but mostly because she knew exactly what they’d both say.
Hello, Eve.
Hello, Mr Elias.
Cold enough for you?
Haha, yes, thank you.
She’d have to fake the laugh because it wouldn’t be funny, of course.
They say we’ll have a white Christmas.
That would be nice.
No it wouldn’t. Or it would. Eve didn’t give a shit one way or the other. The only thing she cared about was not having to make mind-numbing small talk about a white bloody Christmas.
Mr Elias straightened up and leaned on his shovel, his breath enveloping his balding head in a series of little white clouds.
He’d finished.
Eve dawdled, willing him to open his gate and disappear. Instead he bent over again and started to shovel salt out of a white plastic sack, sprinkling it on to the pavement so that ice wouldn’t form.
She thought about stopping to wait for the next plane and then hurrying past, miming hello, but before she could, Mr Elias looked up and saw her and raised a hand in greeting, so she walked on.
‘Hello, Eve.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Hello, Mr Elias.’
‘Cold enough for you?’
‘Haha, yes, thank you.’ She faked the laugh, hating her own hypocrisy.
‘They said on the radio it’s going to be a white Christmas.’
‘That would be nice.’
She felt his salt crunch under her boots, then was back on the compacted snow alongside her overbearing hedge. She slipped a little and adrenaline spurted through her like electricity.
‘Watch yourself,’ he warned. ‘It’s lethal.’
Oh shut up! she thought. But she said, ‘I will, thanks,’ and shoved her gate open, annoyed that she’d slipped and proved that he was right for clearing the pavement and she was wrong for not. Just like her hedge was a bulbous disaster, and her grass was unmown, and her flowerbeds were overgrown. She couldn’t keep on top of everything! Bloody hell, it was hard enough just paying the mortgage, and Mrs Solomon’s fees and the bills and looking after Duncan. Mr Elias didn’t have a bloody clue—
She skidded again on the dirty-iced garden path. It really was lethal.
‘Where are you?’
Eve sighed. She hadn’t even closed the door behind her and her father was off.
Like Dr Jekyll waking up after a night as Mr Hyde, she could feel herself struggling to adjust. Leaving herself at the front door and becoming another person whose only purpose was keeping her father from escaping, falling, or burning down the house.
From the front room came the beat of what sounded like a porn film. Eve knew it wasn’t porn; it was How It’s Made – a low-budget, low-key programme that showed the throbbing manufacture of a bizarrely random selection of everyday items – egg whisks and gloves and rattan stools – all accompanied by the formless beats of a Bontempi organ. She recorded every episode, and Duncan Singer never watched anything else.
‘Where are you?’ He was a broken record.
‘Here, Dad! Just hanging up my coat.’
‘Hello, dear.’ Mrs Solomon bustled into the hallway from the front room, stuffing her blue shapeless knitting into a large flabby bag.
As Eve pulled off her hat and gloves and scarf and coat, so Mrs Solomon put hers on – like a panto act changing in the wings. As she got ready, Mrs Solomon gave a monotonous commentary on the night’s highlights.
‘He wanted porridge for lunch, but I gave him cornflakes, I hope that’s OK.’
It was. Eve nodded, but didn’t answer. She’d learned that answering only prolonged the departure.
‘He took the books off the shelf, but I let him get on with that.’
He did that all the time.
Mrs Solomon sat down to pull on her boots, puffing with effort. ‘He broke the remote control.’
Shit. Duncan often broke things while he thought he was fixing them.
‘He didn’t want to go to bed.’
You had to con him. Mrs Solomon knew that but was sometimes too lazy to make the effort.
‘He likes that programme, doesn’t he? All those machines and gizmos.’
GO GO GO!
She finally went.
‘Where are you?’ said Duncan Singer.
Eve hurried into the front room. ‘Hi, Dad.’
Her father scowled at her and said, ‘Not you.’
It never failed to hurt.
‘Where’s Maggie?’ he went on.
Eve hesitated. The GP always said it was best to be honest – to keep her father grounded in reality by telling him the truth. But there were only so many times you could watch someone learn that their wife was dead before the truth lost its sheen.
‘Having a bath,’ she lied. ‘She asked me to make supper.’
They ate off cushioned trays on their laps. Fish fingers and baked beans, and canned fruit salad for pudding.
On the TV, waffle cones, shoelaces and tents all chuntered out of various machines.
‘Finished Mrs Cole’s wiring,’ Duncan said suddenly.
‘Finally!’ she said, because if she didn’t, he would.
The actual date of Mrs Cole’s rewiring was lost in the mists of time, but the job must have been epic and completing it was noteworthy.
On a regular basis.
He nodded. ‘Finally what?’
‘Mrs Cole’s wiring.’
‘Oh yes. Got that finished. Finally!’
Eve sighed. Duncan never showed any interest in her life any more. He had been a courteous, sociable man, but no longer had the capacity to care about others.
She was used to it.
No, that wasn’t right. She’d never get used to it.
They ate to the musical click of tent pegs.
‘Where are my—?’ Duncan stopped, then started again. ‘Where are my—?’ He wiggled his fingers at his feet, as if something were missing.
‘Slippers?’ she suggested.
‘No.’
‘Socks?’ He often took his socks off during the day. Eve had found them in the rubbish bin before now and once in the freezer, like argyle veal.
‘No.’ Her father glared at his shoes. ‘Things. Strings. Long strings of things in the rings.’ Her father loved words. He’d been an electrician, but had always read a lot and had a personal best at Scrabble of 576 – a Singer family record.
On TV somebody said shoelaces.
‘Shoelaces!’ he said, and pointed at his feet again. ‘Where are my shoelaces?’
Eve looked down at his feet. ‘They’re not the kind of shoes that have laces, Dad. They’re slip-ons.’
‘Slip-on. Nippon. Ripon,’ he agreed. ‘Lots of Japs up north,’ he went on. ‘And Chinese ones in Morecambe Bay.’
‘Chinese shoes?’
‘Cockle-pickers.’
Eve was confused. ‘Do you mean winkle-pickers?’
‘Not winkle-pickers. Cockle-pickers! I told you!’
‘Oh, cockle-pickers!’ Eve stood. ‘You can see them from the bedroom window.’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘Can I see?’
‘Of course.’
By the time they got all the way up the stairs, he’d have forgotten.
They went up together, he one step ahead, her one behind, with one hand in the small of his back, in case he toppled backwards. His balance was so-so but his concentration was scattergun, and they’d had several near-misses. And one complete miss about a year ago, when he had turned unexpectedly and slid downstairs using Eve as a luge.
‘Are we going to pick cockles?’ he said.
‘You don’t like cockles.’
‘Don’t I?’ He frowned. ‘I thought I did. Do I like eels?’
‘No.’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘How strange!’
Halfway up, he stopped. He said nothing, but bowed his head a little.
‘Taking a breather, Dad?’ Eve said cheerfully, and called over her shoulder, ‘Everybody take five!’
Duncan didn’t laugh, but she hadn’t expected him to.
Then a shuddering breath told her he was crying.
‘Dad?’
He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and shook his head again. Eve was stuck. She wanted to step up alongside him and comfort him. But sod’s law said he’d forget where he was and fall if she abandoned her post, so instead she stood there, one hand on the bannister, the other braced upwards against her father’s back, feeling his ribs heave through his old grey cardigan.
‘Dad? What’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he wept. ‘I don’t want to be a burden.’
‘You’re not a burden!’ she told him. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘You’re so good to me,’ he said. ‘And I’m nothing but trouble.’
He took his other hand off the bannister to wipe his eyes again, and Eve grunted as his weight shifted so that she had to strain to keep him upright, even with two hands against his back.
‘You’re no trouble, Dad. I love you and I love being here with you—’
She repositioned her feet to keep her own balance as he swayed above her.
She glanced over her shoulder as if someone might help her, but of course, there was nobody there.
‘Can you hold the bannister, Dad?’
‘Who’s Dad?’
‘Can you hold the bannister?’
‘Eh?’
‘Can you hold on to the bannister rail? And keep going up the stairs? I can’t hold you much longer.’
‘Eh?’
‘Just keep going!’ she said forcefully. ‘Keep going!’ And Duncan finally located the bannister with his hand and started a shaky new step.
Eve puffed out her cheeks in relief as they resumed their perilous ascent.
Almost at the top, he stopped again.
‘What’s up now?’ said Eve.
‘Why have we stopped?’ he said.
‘You stopped,’ said Eve, ‘not me.’
Then Duncan pointed at his feet and said, ‘Where are my shoelaces?’
9
STAN REDDY HUNCHED his shoulders against the flurries of snow whipping around the corner of the Everyman Cinema and hugged the wall to keep away from the sprays of dirty slush thrown up by passing cars.
He hoped the movie would be worth the queue, but he wasn’t sure, because he was going to see the new Liam Neeson film.
Stan was a big Liam Neeson fan, but his patience was wearing thin.
It happened to the best of actors. They burst on to the scene full of talent and balls and were hailed as the new Brando or the new De Niro. They made a handful of films that made you proud to be a man. Films where they honed their bodies, bloodied their knuckles, defended the good and sacrificed all in the pursuit of a noble ideal. Films that got you all riled up and passionate and ready to follow them into battle or anywhere else they cared to take you.
And then they got lazy.
Sooner or later all actors lost their hunger and their passion and their raw honesty, and started to do it just for the money.
Badly written blockbusters and ill-advised romances, or those movies where they made one more bid for an Oscar by playing a lunatic or a cripple, or a bloke with no skin.
Or cartoons.
That was Stan’s pet hate: grown men he’d once hero-worshipped being animated ostriches and cartoon fish.
Even De Niro wasn’t De Niro any more, with all those comedies and mugging cameos chipping away at his legacy, dismantling his own myth, role by role. And Brando hadn’t even pretended to be hungry after The Godfather. He’d just sat on his island, surrounded by dusky girls, and grown fatter and fatter and fatter …
The Beautiful Dead Page 4