by Zoe Sharp
At first I couldn't work out what looked wrong about the way they were laid out, but then I realised there were no pavements along each side of the road. The pocket handkerchief-sized front lawns ran straight down into the gutter with only a line of edging bricks between the two.
I didn't know how long the estate had been built, but little attempt had been made by the occupants to individualise the houses. A few little stunted shrubs in the gardens, the odd neat planting of small clumps of unidentifiable greenery. In the driveways stood two- or three-year-old sensible saloon cars.
As I rounded a curve in the road I spotted Terry's house. There was nothing very different about the exterior, except for the fact it had his damn great green Merc van parked smack outside. I'd bet the residents' association – and there had to be one – loved that.
I toddled up by the side of the van to the front door, wondering how he put up with keeping it next to the house. It must block out half the light from the downstairs area. It was pretty dark down there as I rang the bell. The door was made up of wooden slats, with long thin frosted glass panes between. I peered through the glass and could see a light on, somewhere in the back.
I rang the bell again, listening carefully for the chime indoors to make sure it was working. I tapped on the glass with my keys as well, just to be certain, but there was no movement inside.
I carefully made my way round the side of the house, squeezing through the narrow alleyway between house and garage. There was a window into the garage and, instinctively nosy, I peered in through that as well. I could just make out the front wing of the Merc coupé in the gloom. If the car and the van were here, Terry surely must be, mustn't he?
Bolder now, I carried on round to the back, looking warily round the darkened fence bordering the garden. There were no lights on in the houses overlooking the rear of the property, which made me feel slightly better. If Terry wasn't in, the last thing I wanted to do was get wrestled to the ground by some rabid Neighbourhood Watch brigade as a suspected burglar.
The back garden was as featureless as the front, with a flat slabbed patio and a couple of steps leading up to a big sliding door. There was a bit of light sliding out down the steps from between partly drawn curtains and I cautiously edged my way over to it.
The first thing I saw, when I looked through, was a picture on the far wall oddly tilted to about a forty-five degree angle. The wallpaper was a horrible mixture of red, grey and silver diagonal stripes. Hmm, very eighties, Terry. I moved round slightly to get a different view, and saw a small table tipped over, with the clock and ashtray that had obviously been on its surface strewn across the carpet.
A kind of fear jerked in me then. Even for someone who was as much of a slob as Terry, this didn't look like normal living conditions. I moved further, jigging from side to side like some obscure exotic dancer to try and get a full picture through the narrow gap in the curtains.
A lampshade was awry, throwing strange long oval shadows up one wall. I caught a glimpse of a sofa, in grey velour, which had a hole in the backrest, the yellow foam puffing out of it like a dirty cloud.
I peered more intently. The place was a mess. There were dark patchy stains all over the carpet. Right at the extreme edge of my vision was the doorway leading, I assumed, out into the hall. On the wall by the door frame was a handprint. It looked as though whoever had made it had dipped their hand liberally in brown paint, there were drips running down the wallpaper. Perhaps Terry went in for finger painting. Or perhaps . . .
I shook myself, suddenly feeling cold with an unease that gripped me tightly, making it hard to breathe. Without really knowing why, I reached for the handle of the patio doors. Partly to my surprise, they moved.
I should have turned round then. I should have walked away down the side of the house and not looked back, but I didn't. And it probably wouldn't have made any difference to the final outcome, anyway. The train was already rolling down this line, and the brakes had failed.
With my heart pounding against my ribs, and my mouth dry, I slid the door open a foot and slipped through the gap into Terry's lounge.
From inside, the room looked even worse than it did from the garden. The sofa had been comprehensively slashed, the stuffing bursting out from a dozen slits in the fabric. Books, papers and a broken glass vase were scattered across the floor.
I crouched and looked more closely at one of the rusty brown stains. Was it blood? Frankly, I'd no idea. It was dried in, just a dull mark. Where the water from the vase had run across one patch, it seemed paler, but it could have been anything, including beer, or wine.
Who was I kidding? I just knew it was blood. You don't spill alcohol round the place in such a way that it sprays across a room, up the sides of the sofa, on the coffee table, even across the face of the TV.
I moved carefully over to the door and checked out that handprint. It was so detailed that the hand which made it must have been covered in blood. The lounge door, the usual flimsy internal plywood job, had a splintered fist-shaped hole at about shoulder height.
I moved cautiously through into the hallway, looking very carefully each way before I did so, like a kid on a kerb who's just had the Green Cross Code hammered into them. I felt like a character in one of those films where you sit there clenched on the sofa watching, shouting, “No, don't go in there! Get out of the house!” because you know full well the madman with the axe is lurking behind a curtain in the next room.
Damn it, why do I have to go thinking thoughts like that? I shook myself, annoyed. Just get on with it, Fox. On the other hand, technically I was breaking and entering. Legally, I didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to a right to be there. I knew I should just turn round and high-tail it out of there. I should, but I didn't.
Just plain nosy, I guess.
I edged forwards into the hallway, pausing just inside to let my eyes accustom to the gloom. Right ahead of me was the slant of the stairs. There was another brown stain round one of the bannister rails, which had dripped down onto the wallpaper beneath. A small, three-legged, triangular table was upturned against the skirting board. It was black and modern-looking, like some cast-off from a progressive milkmaid.
I crept further on towards the front door. I could focus more easily now, could see the tangle of jackets half-pulled from the hooks on one wall. There seemed to be debris scattered all over the floor, coats, a strange trilby-type hat, pairs of battered slippers and a single training shoe.
It slowly dawned on me as my eyes scanned the objects that there was something different about that trainer. It seemed to take an awfully long time for me to realise what was wrong.
There was a foot in it.
Not just a disconnected foot, but an ankle as well, leading into a leg. I could see about to mid-calf, before the rest disappeared round the bottom of the staircase. It had to be Terry's foot. He usually wore designer trainers, but he walked with his feet turned in, pigeon-toed, and he always seemed to wear his shoes down at an extraordinary and uneven rate. After a month on his feet a pair of top of the line sports shoes looked like something he'd bought from a market trader.
For a few moments I just stood and stared at the foot, as though expecting it to move. It didn't. Then I realised I could see his other leg. It was stretched out along the bottom of the front door, like a rather ineffective draught-stop. A tumble of mail from the letterbox had fallen on top of it.
I think it was only then I started to realise that this was looking very, very bad. The letters meant he'd been there all day, at least. It could only mean he was badly injured. Or dead.
My heart had the right idea. It was doing its best to make a break for it through the front of my ribcage. I only recognised I was holding my breath when I started going dizzy. I forced myself to relax enough to gulp in some air.
As soon as I began breathing again, the smell hit me. The same smell as a piece of meat that's fallen out of the rubbish bag and been lurking in the bottom of the kitchen bin for a
week or so, right next to a radiator.
My feet were taking me forward, but the rest of my mind and body didn't really want to go. I shuffled on until the rest of Terry's body came into view. I was moving a millimetre at a time like someone balanced on the edge of a cliff. This was going to be bad news, I just knew it.
Even so, it was worse than I was expecting.
I never thought of myself as being a particularly hairy person. As soon as I saw Terry, all the hairs on my arms and neck stood bolt upright. I almost jumped backwards away from the sight of him, going, “Oh shit, oh shit.” My voice was a subdued wail.
Terry had always been sensitive about his appearance, but he wasn't in any state to be offended. He wasn't in any state to be anything, come to that, apart from very, very dead.
Unless you go in for the particularly gory sort of horror films, which I don't, most portrayals of dead bodies are pretty tidy, really. They might be liberally sprinkled with fake blood. They might have wide open, staring eyes, but they're usually all together, in one piece.
Terry was only just together, only just in one piece. The same knife that had made light work of his sofa had made light work of Terry as well. He had been wearing a pale T-shirt, but this was almost totally soaked through with blood. His hands were across his stomach, the arms drenched up to the elbows. His forearms were covered with slits and minor wounds. One thumb had been sliced through to the point where it was nearly completely severed.
At first I thought he had something on top of his stomach, a weird blueish, greyish mass of bundled twisted cloth, smeared with blood. It took a few horrible, horrifying moments for me to realise that it probably was Terry's stomach.
He'd been split open right across his gut and the contents had spilled out in a tumbled heap. He must have tried to fight off his attacker in the lounge, then staggered through here in search of help. The telephone sat unmarked on the window ledge above his head.
I glanced at his face. He'd been cut there as well, the skin peeling back raggedly to reveal the white-ish gristle of his nose. His dull, flattened eyes seemed to be looking straight at me, accusingly.
I couldn't hold it any longer. My stomach revolted. I turned away, stumbling, and retched in long, convulsive heaves on the hall carpet until there was nothing left in my system to chuck. What a hell of a way to diet.
For a minute or so afterwards I stayed clinging weakly to the bannisters. Then I pushed myself away and started to think. Did I call the police from here? In which case they were going to ask an awful lot of questions I didn't want to have to cope with. Like why did I call round to see him? And what about this computer which I'd accepted from him, in the full knowledge that it might be stolen? Oh yeah, I'm sure everyone says they were just trying to return it to its rightful owner . . .
Or I could do what I should have done as soon as I saw that handprint on the wall. I could make a fast exit and ring the police from a call box as far away from home as possible. I looked at the disgusting calling card I'd just left on Terry's floor. That couldn't be helped. I was just thankful I'd kept my gloves on.
Turning my back on Terry was one of the most frightening things. As though he was suddenly going to sit up and reach for me. Too many films, too much imagination. I don't know why, but I wasn't afraid that whoever had rearranged Terry's features was still going to be in the house. He'd obviously been dead too long for that.
I retraced my steps through into the lounge and out into the garden, sliding the patio doors shut behind me. They seemed to close with a terrifyingly loud thunk. I ducked into the shadows by the garage and waited, heart thudding, listening for the sounds of alarm, pursuit.
None came.
I moved down past the side of the garage and along the path, walking back along the street as quickly as possible, trying hard not to break into a run. My back was tense. I expected any minute a voice to shout, “Oi you, stop – murderer!”
It never happened, of course, but I was never so glad as to see the bike sitting waiting for me, like the hero's faithful steed in an old black and white western. Shame I couldn't whistle and have the Suzuki start up and meet me halfway. I dare say if there was the demand the manufacturers would work on it.
I couldn't decide if it would look more suspicious to push the bike quietly out of the road or start it up there as normal. I plumped for the latter, but made sure my helmet was on before I kicked the two-stroke motor into life. It sounded raucously loud. I didn't look, but I could just feel all the curtains twitching in the surrounding houses.
Without waiting for the bike to warm up, I did a wobbly U-turn in the road, abandoning my dignity and paddling it round, feet down. I felt an awful lot better once I was on the move. The solidity of the bike was comforting. I leaned down and patted the bulge of its tank. A ridiculous action, but it made me feel more secure.
Part of the road leading away from Terry's place wasn't streetlit. The cone of illumination thrown out by the bike's dipped headlight seemed pitiably feeble. My eyes were constantly at its outer limit, waiting for the mad-eyed murderer with the bloodied knife, or the accusing policeman, to suddenly step into my path.
The streets of Lancaster were quiet, which was probably a good thing, because I was riding like a first-day learner, fluffing my gear changes and over-revving the engine, riding corners jerkily upright, too tense to be anything like smooth. The Suzuki's gearbox had never sounded so clunky, nor the motor so harsh.
I reached home in only a few minutes and left the bike parked up in the road outside. I ran up the steps, ignoring the dissent from half a dozen different muscle groups. I was panting as though I'd run a marathon.
I let myself into the flat like it was some sort of sanctuary. Well, they say an Englishman's home is his castle. Yeah, said a little voice in my head, tell that to Terry, lying slaughtered behind his own front door . . .
Fifteen
I slammed the door behind me and spent a few moments leaning back against it, eyes closed. It was only then that the full force of reaction hit me. I made a dash for the bathroom and spent the next few minutes heaving fruitlessly into the toilet bowl.
I needn't have bothered. I'd completely emptied my stomach in Terry's hallway. All I succeeded in doing was make my eyes and nose stream, and leave a vile taste in my mouth. My ribs felt as though the Scouser had been back for a rematch.
Suddenly I remembered again the words I'd half-overheard while I was lying on my lounge floor. The smoker had said, “If you've killed her the shit's really going to hit the fan after last time . . .” I'd initially thought they somehow referred to Susie's death. Now they made chilling sense.
I sat down on the toilet floor, resting my head on the seat. My skin felt cold and clammy and my hands were shaking. I knew I had to pull myself together, but it was a real case of easier said than done.
Finally, I staggered to my feet, blowing my nose on reams of loo paper. I splashed cold water on to my face, and cleaned my teeth. After that I felt almost human again.
I was going to have to call the police, but I made up my mind to do it from the anonymity of a public call box. I know you can dial 141 to stop your telephone number being registered by the person you're calling, but I'd never tried it. I didn't think this was the time to find out the police could override the system anyway.
I searched round for my voice changer device, but I hadn't yet found it among the flotsam that covered the lounge floor. I dithered over searching for it, then decided no. A good old-fashioned scarf would have to do the job of disguising my voice.
I had a complete brain dump about where the nearest phone box was. The marketplace. There were three or four phone boxes in the marketplace, near to the fountain. No, they were too public.
I racked my brains before I remembered the one on Caton Road. Not perfect, but it would do. At least you weren't likely to get loads of people hanging round it while you were trying to cryptically explain the discovery of a dead body to the desk sergeant.
By the ti
me I'd ridden the short distance and parked up at the kerb next to the phone box, I was annoyed to find my hands were shaking again, so much I could hardly get my helmet off. I spent a few minutes just sitting there, trying to relax enough to work out exactly what I was going to say.
Finally, I couldn't put it off any longer. I left my gloves on just in case and fumbled dialling the Lancaster cop-shop, wrapping my scarf firmly round the receiver as I did so. A rather bored-sounding woman answered the phone.
“Listen up,” I said, my voice echoing gruffly in my ear. “You got a pen? Then write this down.”
“Hang on – yep, go ahead,” the woman said. She sounded suddenly more interested.
“There's a body of a guy in a house on Wilmington Avenue, the one with the big van outside.”
“A body? What do you mean?”
I didn't think I could have been much clearer. “What do you mean, ‘What do I mean?’? A dead guy, he's been knifed. Just get there.”
“OK son, don't worry, we're on our way. What's your name?”