by Kris Langman
The Danger Next Door
Kris Langman
Post Hoc Publishing
Boston, Massachusetts USA
The Danger Next Door
Copyright © 2011 by Kris Langman
ISBN: 978-0-9820927-2-9
Post Hoc Publishing
Boston, MA 02116
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.posthocpub.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without permission of the author except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Chapter One
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Anne groaned and squashed her pillow up against her ears.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Rolling over, she squinted at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock: 4:05 a.m. She slid reluctantly out of bed, yanking down her ‘Programmers Do It In Code’ T-shirt. As she stumbled out into the living room she heard yelling coming from the other side of her front door.
“Let me in, you bastard!” It was a man’s voice, completely sloshed.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Anne paused, listening. He wasn’t pounding on her door. The commotion seemed to be directed at the apartment next to hers.
Bang. Bang . . . her neighbor’s door creaked open.
“Yes?” The voice was unemotional, precise. Drunken visitors at 4:00 a.m. did not disturb it in the least.
“Finally. Christ, Davidson. Do you sleep with your head up your ass?”
“As a rule, no.” The voice hovered between mild amusement and contempt. “What do you want, Jimmy?”
“Let me in, give me a drink, and I’ll tell you. Or I could just stand here in the hall and announce to all your lovely neighbors that I’m cutting off your money supply.”
A long pause. Anne held her breath, afraid they could hear her through the door.
“Come in,” she heard her neighbor say calmly, and then the door shut.
* * * *
Three hours later Anne groaned again. The alarm clock was beeping insistently. She sighed and pulled the duvet over her head, then quickly threw it off again. It smelled like last week’s pizza. With anchovies. Laundry day was definitely overdue. She stretched down to the end of the bed for her pink terrycloth bathrobe, giving it a sniff as she pulled it on. Not too bad. A hint of last night’s chicken tikka masala, but she could live with it for another week.
She yawned and trudged into the kitchen to forage for breakfast. The cupboards were discouragingly empty. She’d have to stop at Sainsburys after work. She tried the fridge. Cold pizza. And one last Diet Coke. The breakfast of champions. She tucked the Diet Coke can into a pocket of her robe and took a quick peek out the sliding glass door which led to her terrace. Concrete tubs of geraniums shared the small balcony with rusting patio furniture. The tubs overflowed with rainwater, delighting the local sparrows. They splashed and fluttered in the muddy water like college freshman in a hot tub on Spring Break. It was Jacuzzis, skinny-dipping, and sleazy sparrow pickup lines.
Anne took her pizza and coke into the bedroom and flopped onto the bed for some channel surfing. Her tiny TV was perched precariously atop a steamer trunk at the end of the bed. She had rented the flat furnished, and the trunk was symptomatic of the landlord’s decorating style – trying too hard to impress. The trunk was huge, with copper rivets and an embossed leather top. It looked like something a Vanderbilt would have taken on the Titanic. The Chagall print on the wall opposite the bed was there to show that the flat’s owner had a cultural side, but it was obvious that the large blue goat leering from the center of the painting preferred the crude to the cultured.
After five minutes of the news on BBC1 – another Tube strike -– Anne switched over to GMTV. One of the Spice Girls – who knew which one (the ability to name all of the group’s members was strictly a British talent) – was discussing her love life in earnest tones. Anne gulped the last of the Diet Coke and pushed herself reluctantly off the bed.
Ten minutes later her get-ready-for-work routine was finished. Brush teeth. Wash face. Pee. Put on underwear, jeans, T-shirt, and Nikes. Check all of the above for holes, mud, and ink spots. Ignore any holes, mud, or ink spots found.
Anne ran a comb through her straight dark hair, wincing as two long silvery strands glinted in the harsh bathroom light. She grabbed a pair of tweezers and yanked the offenders out. Thirty-three was way too young to be going gray. It was early February, and the gray days of her first winter in London had her pale skin looking even whiter than usual. She slapped herself on each cheek to get the blood flowing. Her large green eyes had dark circles under them, the result of last night’s disturbed slumber. A stop at Starbucks for an extra-large vanilla latte was in order.
She wandered into the living room in search of her parka. It wasn’t in its usual heap on the sofa. Nope, not under the kitchen table. It couldn’t possibly be . . . she went back into the bedroom and opened the closet. Amazing. She shrugged the jacket on and grabbed her purse off the night table next to her bed. She swung it over her shoulder and then paused, pressing her ear against the front door.
She strained her ears for any hint of noise in the hallway, in particular the ponderous tread of Mrs. Emily Watson. Mrs. Watson was seventy-two and lived two doors down. Anne had to pass her door if she wanted to take the lift, which was why she generally took the stairs. Mrs. Watson had an uncanny ability to pick up the sound of any hapless soul passing by her door, no matter how stealthy their tread. Her bait was freshly baked cinnamon scones. The prey would innocently reach for a scone and a cuppa, and the trap was sprung. Hours would pass before they escaped, writhing in torment at the graphic details of Georgie’s last poo. Georgie being Mrs. Watson’s three-year-old grandson, recently potty trained.
Anne eased open the door and poked her head out. A quick look left and right. All clear. She set off along the carpeted hallway at a brisk pace, heading for the stairs, but was brought to a limping halt by her left knee, which had locked up. It was an old injury from her college days on the UCLA cross-country team. The extra mile she had jogged on her lunch hour yesterday must have aggravated it. Anne shook her leg to loosen the joint, but it was no use. The pain was persistent. She sighed and reversed course, heading for the lift. The lifts at the Barbican were small and cramped. Mrs. Watson avoidance wasn’t the only reason she didn’t use them. Her building, Andrewes House, was not one of the Barbican’s giant tower blocks, but its population was big enough to cause occasional rush-hour squish in the lifts.
Today she was in luck. Only one person waited in the lobby. Her next door neighbor, Dr. Danielson, Dr. Davidson, Dr. Something. The sight of him reminded Anne of last night’s disturbance. He nodded to her briefly as she approached and then turned away. He wasn’t the friendliest of neighbors, but then neither was she. Anne preferred his reserve to the hook ‘em and reel ‘em in approach of Mrs. Watson.
She studied him surreptitiously, wondering who last night’s drunken visitor had been. Possibly a patient. Dr. Daniel . . . no, she was pretty sure it was Davidson. Dr. Davidson. He was a psychiatrist, or a psychologist. She could never remember what the difference was. She had only met him once before, three months ago, when she had just moved in. They had arrived at the floor’s trash chute at the same time and he had offered a perfunctory handshake. He had manicured nails and unusually soft hands for a man. His transparent blue eyes and white-blond hair gave him a Swedish appearance. His clothes were always tailored and expensive looking. Today he had on an immaculate gray suit, powder blue shirt, and pale blue silk tie. His sartorial perfection made Anne uncomfortably aware of the large blackberry jam stain on t
he sleeve of her jacket. As an elbow rest, toast with jam was comfortable but decidedly messy.
The ping of an electronic bell bounced off the marble floor of the lobby. The lift had arrived. Anne followed Dr. Davidson in and stood stiffly in front of him, facing the doors. A scratched safety placard pasted on the door informed her that taking the stairs when the building was on fire would be to her benefit. This point was driven home by a stick figure standing in a box (the doomed lift, presumably). Flames shot out of the figure’s head. Apparently the Barbican’s lifts were prone to re-enacting biblical scenes of the damned.
Anne disliked lifts, even when they weren’t on fire. It was weird being in such a confined space with strangers. No way out until the doors opened. Anything could happen. Things like . . . out of the corner of her eye Anne saw a gray pin-striped arm reach out and push the emergency stop button. Things like that, for instance.
The lift shuddered to a halt, creaking in protest at the interruption. Anne turned around, taking an involuntary step backward. Dr. Davidson was watching her, one pale hand adjusting the Rolex Oyster on his left wrist. His fingers were completely hairless, as if he’d waxed them.
“I hope we didn’t disturb you last night,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“My inebriated guest last night. All the yelling. He must have woken you up.”
“No, not at all. I mean, if he did I don’t remember.” She nodded in what she hoped was a casual manner at the lift buttons. “I think we should get going again, don’t you?” When he didn’t respond Anne reached a hand out toward the buttons.
“Not yet.”
Anne froze. She forced herself to look him in the eye. She had to look up. He was five foot ten or eleven to her five foot five. At least he was under six feet. For some reason this felt important, as if one or two inches meant the difference between safety and danger.
He took a step toward her and leaned in. Anne fought the impulse to move away and stood her ground. She was darn proud of herself. Dr. Davidson smiled slightly at her efforts.
“I just want to make it clear that I value my privacy,” he said quietly. His aftershave smelled like ice. “It would upset me if I found out that people in this building were gossiping about my personal affairs.”
Anne bristled. As if. She had better things to do with her time than to stand around gossiping about her neighbors. She glared at him.
“I have no intention of doing any such thing,” she said. “Your affairs are not that interesting.”
Dr. Davidson smiled briefly. “Good,” he said. He stepped away from her and pressed the button for the ground floor. The lift jolted into motion. When they reached the bottom and the doors opened Anne jumped out like a racehorse from the starting gate. She darted away, not looking back. Pushing through the lobby doors she emerged into the cold, rainy London morning and let out her breath in a whoosh. Her shoulders were up to her ears with tension. She did a little dance on the sidewalk, jogging in place and shaking her shoulders. It had always helped to calm her nerves before a big race, and it helped now. She set off for work with only a tiny trickle of anxiety slithering down her back.
It was only a ten-minute walk from Anne’s flat in the Barbican to her office in Finsbury Circus, but the rain was heavy enough to soak through her parka. The unpleasant encounter in the lift had been on continuous replay in her head, her collapsible umbrella forgotten at the bottom of her purse. By the time she dashed past the Moorgate tube station and into the lane leading to Finsbury Circus she was soaked through.
Dodging a kamikaze bike messenger barreling along the sidewalk, Anne dashed up a broad flight of stone steps and into the marble lobby of Britannic House. Dominating the north side of Finsbury Circus, Britannic House was a listed building -- which meant that a committee of nameless bureaucrats had deemed it chock full of historical and architectural worthiness. Its white stone façade had recently been steam-cleaned, and the whole building shone like a backlit milk bottle. Anne swerved around the potted palms in the lobby and ran up the wide central staircase in an effort to warm herself up, gritting her teeth at the sharp pain in her knee. One of these days she was going to get it fixed. Of course, that day would only come when her fear of doctors was less than the pain in her knee.
She slowed to a walk on the third-floor landing and shook out her knee. The company she worked for, The Franklin Group, had a small suite of offices at the end of the landing. They did contract software design for banks and insurance companies in the financial district of London, known as the City. The company employed eight programmers and several support staff. Anne was one of their senior programmers, with ten years of experience.
It was only 8:00 a.m. when she entered the company’s reception area, but receptionist Lindsey Maxwell was already at her post. If Meet and Greet were an Olympic sport, Lindsey would own the gold. She was always immaculately dressed and made up, every long tawny hair in place. In Lindsey’s presence Anne invariably felt like a hedgehog with a bad haircut (the SuperCuts version). To be fair, Lindsey was always perfectly polite to her, though Anne had noticed a few pitying glances thrown her way. Usually on days when she was wearing something inside out. Lindsey was wise to the ‘it’s a fashion statement’ excuse.
“Good morning, Anne. A bit wet out isn’t it?”
“Just a bit,” acknowledged Anne, wringing a small waterfall out of the sleeve of her jacket.
“I keep a blow dryer here for emergencies,” said Lindsey, pulling a large and scary looking appliance out of her desk drawer. “It’s 2000 watts. It’ll dry out your clothes in minutes.” She handed it to Anne.
“Thanks, Lindsey. I’ll bring it right back.”
“Oh, no hurry.”
Now heavily armed, Anne made herself a cup of tea with sugar to replace the forgotten Starbucks latte and took it into her small office. The tiny room had a mildew smell coming from the carpet and an ill-conceived skylight which leaked when it rained, but every time she entered she was reminded of her good fortune. Most offices in the City were ghastly open-plan affairs, noisy and crowded, with dozens of desks crammed together in rows. No privacy, and no escape from your neighbor’s intimate phone conversations with their girlfriend/boyfriend/psychic/urologist. Her own office was an oasis of peace by comparison. Its best feature was the large window which looked down onto the square below. Two desks faced each other next to the window.
Anne had to share the room with only one other person, Nick Cooper, programmer extraordinaire. At least he liked to think so. He wasn’t as good as he thought he was, but he wasn’t bad. Just a little too cocky, as only a twenty-three-year-old boy could be. They got along okay now, though at first Anne had mistaken him for another employee’s teenage son. With his skinny frame and floppy blond hair he looked six years younger than he was. He was also prone to a bastardized version of Valley Speak (‘dude’ was his favorite word), which Anne found more than a little ironic. She had been born and raised in the Valley itself (San Fernando, the one and only), while she knew for a fact that Nick was a product of Basingstoke, a very un-California-like city in the southeast of England.
She set the tea down on her desk and turned on the blow dryer. When she aimed the blast of hot air at her face its force nearly gave her whiplash. Drying out took only ten minutes from top to toe. Even her jeans were warm and toasty. She returned the dryer to Lindsey and returned to her desk for her morning ritual of tea drinking and staring out the window. She had a bird’s eye view of the bowling green in the center of Finsbury Circus, a circle-shaped park surrounded by both modern and nineteenth-century office buildings. No one ever seemed to use the bowling green, despite the existence of a small building in front of the green called the Finsbury Circus Bowling Club, with rows of metal Bocci-type balls lined up in readiness. The park around the green was bare now, its large maples leafless, its flowerbeds muddy plots of turned-over earth, but in the spring the London Parks department bedded out masses of orange tulips and pink cyclamen. Anne had ad
mired them last year on her first business trip to London. She’d been working in the Franklin Group’s Los Angeles headquarters, and when a chance to transfer to the London office had come up she’d jumped at it. The company was paying half of the rent for her flat in the Barbican, an arrangement for which she was extremely grateful. A bit of flat-hunting when she’d first arrived in London had nearly caused her to pass out from sticker shock. An entire house – with pool – in LA could be had for the same price as a one-room London studio.
“Hey, dudette.” Nick rushed in and threw his backpack on his desk then flopped into his long-suffering chair. It groaned in protest.
Anne turned away from the window. “Good Morning.”
“Oh man, what a weekend. The curls at Newquay were like three feet high. Rad.” He stretched both scrawny arms over his head to illustrate the giant waves which had crashed over him.
Anne smiled indulgently. She was no surfer, but she was pretty sure that three feet didn’t constitute major wave action. Well, anywhere in the world other than Cornwall. And when had ‘rad’ come back into fashion?
“Should I release version two of that app for Barclays today?” asked Nick, running a hand through his blond hair in a vain attempt to get it out of his eyes. He had recently started putting some kind of gel in it, and pieces stuck up like new-mown hay.
“Not yet,” replied Anne. “Two of the asset allocation functions have bugs in them. I should have them fixed by the end of today.”
“Okay. I’ll create some test data, and maybe work on the install program. Hey, check out my new duds.”
Nick launched himself off his chair and bounded over to Anne’s desk. He pulled at the sides of a pair of extremely baggy surfers shorts, which boasted a pattern of fat red pineapples. The shorts fell to an unfortunate length just past Nick’s non-existent calf-muscles, exposing two shins so white and scrawny they looked like peeled leeks.