He turns, and my heart jumps into my throat. But he hasn’t seen me. He’s looking down at something in his hands.
Abe’s pea coat.
He must be going through the pockets.
I can hear his stertorous breathing from here—presumably from the stair climb, which means he can’t be that fit. I am, or at least was, before I came here and hit the bottle. I might have a chance. Without taking my eyes off him, I feel my way along the edge of the kitchen countertop, racking my brain to remember which is the knife drawer.
He takes something out of Abe’s pocket—his wallet.
The guy is big. Not just big—muscular. His torso is a black triangle against the fluorescent sky: broad shoulders, narrow waist, thick neck.
It’s not worth the risk. I’ve seen the youths who hang around this area. They’ve got nothing to lose. He has the wallet—maybe he’ll be happy with that. I should just creep back to bed, call the police once he’s gone.
But as I back away, my hand brushes the champagne bottle I left on the counter, making it rock.
Clunk, clunk.
His head turns.
I drop to the floor, just in time—I hope—and crouch there on my haunches. The open hall door is blocking my view of the left side of the room, while the kitchen counter blocks the right-hand view. Is he creeping behind the sofa, about to leap out at me from behind the worktop? But now I hear his quiet footsteps moving around the table. If I try to make it to the hall, he’ll certainly see me. My only option is to hide in the bedroom.
The snick of my bare feet on the kitchen linoleum makes me wince as I retreat back the way I have come.
I spend fruitless seconds trying to squeeze myself under the bed as, all the while, the soft footsteps come closer and closer. Then they pause. Has he gone into the kitchen? I have a moment. Should I hide in the wardrobe? No, it’s too full. There’s nothing for it but to slither under the covers, lie as flat as possible, and hope he’s already got what he came for. Unless he actually wants to rape or kill someone, there’s no reason for him to come in here.
I lie in the darkness, panting.
Where is he?
Standing in the doorway, looking down at my curled body?
My head is at the bottom of the bed, and if I lift the duvet slightly, I will be able to see the doorway.
I raise it. Through this tiny sliver, I can make out the dark oblong of the doorway.
All my senses are on high alert. I can hear the hum of the fridge and a pigeon cooing up on the roof, smell the musty damp blooming on the wall above me.
Little lights are exploding in my strained vision. My heart’s pumping so hard, my whole body trembles.
Maybe he’ll think the noise was just pigeons. Maybe he’s already gone.
It’s too stifling to breathe, and my left leg is buzzing with pins and needles. Can I come out yet? I pull the cover back a little to let in some air.
And then the darkness solidifies, and he’s there, in the doorway.
Dropping the duvet, I press deeper into the mattress, trying to make myself completely flat. But it’s no good: he knows I’m here. I can tell by his ragged breaths—not exertion as I had first thought, but arousal.
He’s going to rape me.
Should have gone for the knife. Should have gone for the fucking knife.
Will he kill me afterward?
As my mind contracts to a single point of terror, I realize that I will do anything to stay alive. I will let him do whatever he wants to me. I will beg. I want more life. I’m only half done.
He’s coming into the room.
I hold my breath, wide-eyed in the blackness, waiting for the duvet to be flung back.
I hear him walk up to the side of the bed then stop.
My heart jumps with hope. Maybe he’ll just check the drawers and wardrobe and go. I risk lifting the side of the duvet and see a sliver of pale hand. He’s not wearing gloves. Not a professional, then. An amateur. In law school, they teach you that amateurs are the most dangerous. They’re scared, and fear makes them irrational, prone to violence.
Should I scream?
But before I can suck in enough air, he sits down on the bed.
I freeze, my heart throwing itself against my rib cage.
Is he going to lie down? Is he high and just looking for a place to sleep? Did he think this place was unoccupied?
His back touches my leg.
We both cry out, and he springs to his feet.
Throwing back the duvet, I scramble off the other side of the bed, snatching up a glass bottle of aftershave from the shelf. But before I can hurl it, he shouts something incomprehensible and stumbles from the room. A moment later, I hear footsteps retreating down the hallway, followed by the surprisingly quiet snick of the front door, as if, even after all that, he’s trying not to be heard.
He’s gone.
As I stand there, panting, the glass bottle still raised above my head, I think of everything I could have lost in that moment: my successful life in Vegas, a life of professional and material satisfaction, of clever friends, expensive clothes, fine dining. And suddenly, it doesn’t seem so much.
Could it be that Jody and Abe, in this shabby little apartment in this grubby city, had something more than me?
When I’ve recovered enough to move, I climb over the bed and wobble to the door. The room beyond is silent, the shadows still. I make my way past the kitchen, turning on the lights as I go, and check the bathroom—empty—then the hallway. Abe’s pea coat hangs on the back of the chair. I check the pockets and frown. The wallet has been replaced. I check the front door: closed firmly. No signs of forced entry. Did he have a skeleton key?
Then it occurs to me.
The building manager. José Ribeira.
He offered to get keys cut for me, so he must have a master set. I couldn’t understand what the guy shouted as he jumped up from the bed—could it have been Portuguese?
I call the police, but even though I’m alone in the house and whoever it was clearly had a key, they won’t come over until the morning. When I protest that I may well be in imminent danger, they say that it’s unlikely that the person will return, but if I’m worried, perhaps I could spend the rest of the night with a friend or neighbor.
I’m tempted to tell them where to stick their advice, but it’s not a good idea to get on the wrong side of the British police, so I thank them and hang up.
The sofa legs make a horrible screeching noise that must echo through the whole church as I drag it across the floor and force it through the hall door, grunting with effort. It’s almost the same width as the corridor, and once I’ve wedged it up against the wall at the end, the door won’t open more than a centimeter. Afterward, I sit at the table, huddled under Abe’s blanket, drinking strong coffee until the flat light of dawn filters through the stained glass.
But as the tumbler’s translucent shadow stretches across the table, I notice something strange.
The white flowers are gone.
13.
Jody
I can’t sleep. Why is she asking all these questions? Is she trying to catch me out? Are the police in on it too? Will she tell them everything I said? They always wanted to punish me for what happened before.
No no no no no no no no.
Nothing happened before.
Don’t think about it.
Think about us.
Our first kiss.
Do you remember?
I’ve never been much of a cook. At Abbott’s Manor, all the meals were prepared for you, and in the rooming house. I didn’t even have a microwave. Besides frozen meals, the only things I can really do are Spanish omelets, which I learned from Jeanie, and lemon drizzle cake, which Helen taught me. But that evening, because my appetite had been so good, I decided to cook myself a treat—sausa
ges and mashed potatoes. I bought the potatoes ready-made in a plastic dish to microwave, but when it came to the sausages, I decided to broil them. The pack said to prick them to let the fat out, but I didn’t want it going all over the broiler pan, which is hard to clean as the bottom is all black and lumpy, so I put some foil down on the metal rungs, then closed the oven door and went to read my book for ten minutes, which is how long the packet said to leave them before turning them over.
I’d finished the new book and gone back to one I’d read two or three times before. It was one of those perfect ones you can’t put down. The heroine filled with fears and insecurities. Not loads of sex. The path to love strewn with difficulty so that at the end, when they finally get together, you feel like your heart will burst out of your chest and fly up into the sky.
I was so engrossed, it took me ages to realize something was wrong. The battery in my smoke alarm’s dead, so when the landing one started going off, I didn’t realize it was anything to do with me. Then I saw the black smoke pouring out of the oven.
I know now what happened. Because the fat couldn’t drain away into the bottom of the broiler pan, it was too close to the heat, and in the end, it just caught fire.
The oven door was so hot, I burned my hand trying to open it.
You must have heard my scream because a minute later, you were banging on my door, asking if I was all right. I was in so much pain, I could barely speak. When I didn’t reply, you started throwing yourself at the door, trying to break it down. That’s why the lock’s still broken now. I managed to tell you to stop and hobbled over to let you in, still clutching my hand, which had started to blister.
You burst in, wild-eyed. “What’s happened?”
You must have seen the flames licking from the oven, but you seemed more concerned with my hand. Pulling me to the sink, you turned on the cold tap and held my palm under the flow.
“Hold it there,” you said sternly.
Then you went to the oven. The flames were licking almost to the ceiling, and in a minute, the polystyrene tiles would start to melt. Using the oven glove, you managed to pull the broiler pan out onto the open door, but the fire didn’t go out.
“Tea towel?” you shouted.
“I’ll get one.”
“No! Keep your hand under the tap.” Then you started taking off your shirt. “Wet this for me!” You tossed it to me, and I caught the manly scent of fresh perspiration and your flowery deodorant that I liked so much.
I did as I was told.
Grabbing the wet shirt back, you threw it over the broiler pan, and the flames went out at once. You went to the window and opened it, and the air started to clear. The smoke alarm stopped, its last ring echoing down through the stairwell.
We looked at each other, and then we both laughed.
“Well, that was exciting,” you said.
“I’m so sorry. You’ve ruined your shirt.”
“Shirts are two a penny. Hands aren’t. Let me see.” You came over to the sink, where the water still gushed over my palm. It was the right thing to do. The redness was already going down.
“I’ve got a burn spray in my flat.”
But you didn’t move.
I tried not to look down at your bare chest. There was a tiny speck of soot in one of the narrow shadows made by your rib cage. I couldn’t help myself. I licked my finger and wiped it away. I could feel your eyes on mine, your breathing slow and deep. My own heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wings.
I tried to keep my voice steady, to talk about something mundane.
“Do you think I should tell José?”
“There’s been no damage, so only if you want to.”
“I don’t want to,” I said.
And then I kissed you.
14.
Mags
First thing in the morning, I call Peter Selby’s office and arrange to have the locks changed.
It’s half past ten when a bored and very young-looking police constable arrives to take my statement. She doesn’t dust for fingerprints or footprints and doesn’t even bother to write down the fact that the flowers are missing.
“So, that’s it, then?” I say as she gets up to leave. “You’re not actually going to do anything, are you?”
“As nothing was actually taken…”
“Except the flowers.”
“…you weren’t assaulted, and you’ve arranged to have the locks changed, we can hope this was an isolated incident. Make sure your door is secure at night, and call us if you experience any more trouble. We’ll let you know if we get any leads.”
“Of course you will.”
She’s too thick or uninterested to pick up on the sarcasm.
Half an hour later, there is a knock at my door. A Brazilian guy with neck tattoos introduces himself as José Ribeira. He’s wiry and muscular around the shoulders but, I think, shorter than the intruder, plus he smells very pungently of aftershave, which the intruder didn’t.
I talk him through what happened, and he purses his shapely lips and says I must have been very frightened. When I say not particularly, he gives a gold-incisored grin and says he likes a girl with cojones. Despite the weather, he is wearing a baggy tank, which shows off his sleek black armpit hair and ripped lats. He reminds me of the pimps who patrol the Strip back home, which makes me like him.
He waits with me until the locksmiths arrive, drinking black coffee and telling me about his cousin who lives in Sacramento, then he gives me his number and makes me promise to call if I ever need anything.
The locksmiths leave me two sets of keys. Apparently, this is standard for every flat in the block. It occurs to me that, since I’ve got Jody’s set and I haven’t found any others in the flat, someone else has a set of my brother’s keys. I suppose it doesn’t matter now that the locks have been changed.
I wonder if Jody’s heard the men working. If so, she should have gotten them to fix her door too. Maybe I should have asked her. I feel guilty enough about it that I don’t fancy popping over to ask for Abe’s doctor’s contact details, so I set about calling the local doctors’ offices.
Abe’s not registered with any of them.
A search of the flat unearths a cardboard box full of papers: bank statements and gas bills and salary slips. From these, I get the name of the company he worked for—Sunnydale—and a number.
The call handler laughs in my face when I ask if the firm runs a healthcare scheme. I ask to speak to Abe’s boss and am put through to a very guarded woman who expresses dry condolences as if she’s asking the time of the next bus.
“Was Abe happy in his work?” I say.
“I believe so.”
“Because his fiancée has said that he felt overwhelmed by the workload, to the extent that it brought on depression. Did he mention to you that he was struggling?”
There is a long pause, and when she speaks again, her tone is even more careful. “Sunnydale treats staff and patient well-being as its highest priority. Abe made no complaints to us, either verbally or in writing, that he felt stressed or overworked. The caregiving profession is a challenging one, of course, but whenever he had cause to speak to us, it was with a specific, unexpected problem—turning up to find a client had had a fall and having to cancel his next client to wait for an ambulance. That sort of thing.”
I stop myself from saying that I thought UK caregiving company policy for this sort of contingency was to leave them exactly where they landed.
“I must tell you,” I say, “that if we decide to pursue a court case for, let’s say, corporate manslaughter…”
She inhales.
“…you will be required by law to reveal any correspondence you had with Abe. And there are, of course, ways of retrieving information that has been deleted.”
“I…” she stammers. “We…Sunnydale…”
She knows full well that I won’t, of course, and I wait for her brain to whir. Sure enough, she decides to tell the truth—at least, it sounds like the truth, and I’m usually a pretty good judge.
“I promise you,” she says, more human now. “I’m his line manager, and he never said to me that he was struggling. We would laugh about it sometimes, how crazy it was—I did his job until a couple of years ago—but I really think he liked it. Yes, I really do. Some of his clients were friends.”
I thank her and hang up, then go back to the box in the cupboard and sift through the papers. They don’t seem to be in any particular order. His mind was as chaotic as mine when it comes to nonwork stuff.
Eventually, I find a letter from a John Hatfield Clinic in Camden.
Dear Mr. Mackenzie,
Your appointment is now booked as per the details below.
Please arrive ten minutes before the scheduled time. The test will take fifteen to twenty minutes. You do not need to fast beforehand.
The appointment date was three weeks ago. I sift through the remaining papers looking for the results, but there’s nothing.
The letter itself gives little away, just an address, a date, and a cc’d signature from a Dr. Indoe.
So Abe was having tests for something. Was it something serious?
Suddenly, I think of the graveyard in our hometown. Full of Mackenzies who’d died young, in their fifties and sixties, some younger. The usual Scottish maladies of heart disease and cancer. At least two aunts died from breast cancer when I was in my teens and an uncle from bowel cancer. Consequently, I’ve always been paranoid, paying through the nose every year for the West Coast’s best oncologist to check me over, then ignoring all his advice about cutting down on the booze and upping my fiber. I’ve been lucky so far, but what if Abe wasn’t? What if that was what the Christmas card was all about? Maybe he got cancer and has been keeping it from Jody to protect her.
The Girlfriend Page 10