The Crowlands

by T M Creedy

  ‘That’s not good security.’ I admonish her. ‘Anyone could guess that.’

  ‘Look, it’s just going to be me and two spoilt cats living in the ass-end of nowhere for the next year. I doubt there will be anyone hacking into my account, not that there’s much in there to find.’

  I leave her to whatever it is she felt she needed to hide in the wardrobe from me, and go back to trying to connect to the upstairs neighbour’s network. She’s right though, and I have no luck. For some reason her laptop just won’t find the available open networks and the neighbours one doesn’t even show up. I’m twitchy, thinking about the games I am missing and the money I could be winning, but Sara has paid me too much of her own money. I don’t feel I can ask for my laptop back tonight. I just hope whatever she’s doing on it, she gets done by tonight, and I can have it back tomorrow.

  I’m at work the following day, loving that fact that it’s Saturday and I have two days off now. Someone calls in sick though and the manager asks me to work through my lunchbreak today as overtime, so I can’t nip to the bookies then either. I can’t believe this will be day three of no gambling. That’s the longest I’ve gone for years. It’s not like I haven’t wanted to, I just haven’t had the opportunity, what with running around after Sara and working extra time. It’s weird though, when I check my bank balance and it’s still the same as it was yesterday, I’m not used to having any money.

  Mr Benny’s rent is still in the envelope, tucked under the plant pot on top of my fridge. He will be round first thing in the morning, knocking on all the doors of the flats and bellowing for his cash. It will be a great pleasure to shove the envelope at him; it’s just a pity I can’t shove it directly into his fat mouth and kick him in the balls at the same time.

  Sara is bouncing about the flat when I get home with the frozen lasagne she has requested this evening. She’s getting excited – only two more sleeps and she’ll be on the plane to Melbourne, she tells me.

  ‘I never get tired of new places.’ She jumps up and down happily. ‘The house looks amazing. I didn’t realise it’s one of the oldest private houses in the state. I’m supposed to Skype the people I’ll be housesitting for tonight so we can go through the details. We’ve just been communicating by email so far but they’ve sent me loads of pictures of their place today. It’s mega! All red brick and white painted verandahs, and there’s this big old tree in front of it, it looks like something out of a period drama. And there’s nothing else for miles, just land and sky. All I know at the moment is that when I land at Melbourne, I’ll have to get a train to somewhere called Ararat. Sound’s Arabic almost, doesn’t it?’ She was bubbling over with excitement. ‘It’s okay if I Skype them from your laptop isn’t it?’ She doesn’t wait for my reply. ‘This is going to be one of the easiest placements I’ve ever done, I mean, two cats aren’t hard work are they?’

  I busy myself by microwaving dinner, listening while she babbles on about the weather in Melbourne at this time of year, and how she finally might have time to write that book she keeps meaning to start. I’m happy for her. She lives an enviable life, much better than mine.

  My mobile starts ringing and this is odd, as no one ever calls me. It’s my manager from the shop. The person who went sick today is still sick so would I be able to work tomorrow? It’s a Sunday and I don’t usually work but he is desperate. I’m the only one of his staff who doesn’t have to do the family thing on Sundays apparently so I am his only hope. He promises to pay me double time, and I weigh up the balance between the extra money and a lie-in in bed. Seeing as Sara seems firmly attached to my laptop it seems doubtful I’ll be able to use it at all tomorrow so I might as well earn some more cash.

  We eat the hot lasagne out of the container, taking turns to dip our forks in. I wish I had thought to get some garlic bread too, I’m still hungry when we scrape the last bits of crispy cheese from the side of the dish.

  ‘I might go to the shop. Want anything?’

  Sara shakes her head.

  ‘Fancy coming with me? You haven’t left the place since you arrived.’

  A shadow crosses Sara’s face and she shakes her head again.

  ‘I told you, I don’t want to go out until it’s time for me to leave for the airport on Monday.’ She sounds forceful, a bit shitty with me. She sounds scared.

  ‘OK. No worries mate.’ I say in a bad approximation of an Aussie accent, and she forces out a half smile.

  I might try Skyping Margie and Mac while you’re out.’ She tells me.

  ‘Are they the people in Melbourne?’

  ‘Yeah. They sound like nice people. Farmers. I think they’re quite old though.’

  When I get back from the corner shop with my bag of Doritos the bedroom door is closed again, and it stays that way for the rest of the night, until, as I’m rolling out my sleeping bag on the couch again Sara sticks her head out and hands me my laptop in its black bag.

  ‘Finished!’ She says brightly. ‘Sorry to hog yours for so long but it’s been a great help, thanks.’

  I take the bag and put it in its usual place, leaning up against the couch.

  ‘I’ll be gone before you get up in the morning, so text me at work if you need anything again. It’s your last night so we should do something special. Let me know if you have any ideas.’

  ‘I’m just going to finish packing and hang around here until you get home.’ She is dressed in an oversized t-shirt, her hair hanging loose down her back and she looks about twelve. ‘You’re right. We should have a bit of a party. Not too much though, I don’t want to be hungover on the plane on Monday!’ She grins at me. ‘Well, night.’

  ‘Night.’

  I raise my hand in a wave. Another night on the couch is going to kill me.

  I can’t sleep. The sleeping bag is too hot but when I stick my arms out, I’m too cold. I don’t understand why Sara is so scared of going outside. She has barely mentioned anything about her life other than her housesitting jobs. I have no idea if she has a boyfriend, or where her family live. I don’t know where she went to school or if she has any brothers and sisters. After tomorrow she will gone and I know next to nothing about her.

  I’m groggy with lack of sleep in the morning. It’s so dark outside and I can hear the rain pouring down through the broken gutters onto the ground. For some reason it feels ten times worse, getting up early on a Sunday, and I’m not with it as I poke around the flat getting dressed and grabbing a cereal bar for breakfast. As usual, there is no sign of Sara this early. As I’m about to leave I grab my laptop bag, might as well take advantage of the shop’s internet connection and play a few games during my break today. I don’t own a raincoat so I struggle out into the deluge struggling to keep hold of both my handbag and my laptop bag, and hold an umbrella over me and my stuff. The laptop bag isn’t waterproof and I can’t risk getting it wet.

  Even though it’s a crappy day, the shop is quite busy and it’s two o’clock before I get a chance to take five minutes in the tiny staffroom. It’s not really a staffroom, just an area on the landing where we keep the kettle and the cleaning equipment, but the Wi-Fi signal from the café next door is strong so I pull up a chair and unzip the laptop bag. Something’s not right. This isn’t my laptop. Mine has a silver cover, and is scuffed from where I threw it against the wall in a temper once when I was losing badly on the slots. This laptop is black, and looks newer than mine. I open the cover and press the ‘On’ button. When the password screen appears it is not the same image that I usually see. Mine is just a generic flower chosen at random from stored images when I first bought my laptop and went through the setting up process. This is a photo, more personal, of a black Labrador dog by the beach somewhere. Its tongue is hanging out and it looks for all the world like it’s smiling and having the time of its life.

  I try my password anyway and, as I suspect, it tells me I’m wrong. I think I know what’s happened now. In the semi-darkness of the flat this morning I have picked up Sara’s la
ptop bag by mistake. It was right next to mine by the couch, and I picked it up by touch rather than by looking. Quickly I fire off a text to Sara.

  Really sorry but I think I picked up your laptop by mistake this morning. Hope you don’t need it urgently. I’ll bring it back with me later. Use mine if you need to.

  There’s no reply from her straight away, which is strange. If she’s in the flat she would have heard her phone go. I hope she’s not mad at me. The password screen is still sitting there, waiting for the magic word. Hesitantly I type in ‘Sara123’ and I’m in. Her desktop is there before me and I wonder if I can risk having a quick bet, if I deleted the browsing history afterwards. I’ve almost convinced myself to give it a try when Sofia’s voice comes floating up from downstairs. Sofia is the only other person working with me today and she is whining about taking her break now, so I need to get back on the shop floor. Closing down the computer, I put it carefully back in its bag. There’s still no reply to my text from Sara so I try again.

  Any ideas for dinner tonight??

  Sofia is still whining so I put everything away in my locker and get back to work.

  There are still no texts from Sara by the time I finish and I’m a bit worried now. Bypassing the tempting warmth of the bookies I head for home as soon as I can leave the shop. There must be a simple explanation. She might not have any credit, it would be a waste to buy anymore before she gets to Australia and organises a local SIM card for her phone. I can always nip out again and get us another takeaway later, once I’ve been home and checked everything’s OK. As I turn into my street I look for the now familiar light in my lounge window. It’s nice having someone there when I come home, the flat already warm from the heating, and the lights beckoning a welcome from the cold, dark street. There’s no light on that I can see, but she could be in the bedroom at the back of the house.

  I trudge up our scrap of front garden, the smell from the bins more overpowering than usual. The front door is slightly ajar and I only need to push it slightly and it swings open. Mr Benny hates anyone leaving the door open. There are badly spelled, hand-written signs all over the hallway reminding us all to make sure we close the door after us. He makes out like he’s worried for our security but it’s more likely he’s shitting himself that the council will turn up for a surprise inspection, and he’ll be forced to spend some of his precious income on making the house safe. The hallway is dark, darker than usual. It is on one of those timer lights where you push the button on the wall downstairs to make the light come on, the kind where the light cuts out on you before you’ve even made it to the first floor landing. Tonight, however, the light won’t come on at all when I push the button so I use the light from my phone screen to negotiate a safe path past all the debris to the stairs.

  I can hear someone moving about upstairs, near the landing by my front door.

  ‘Hello?’ I shout. ‘Sara?’

  It goes quiet and I keep moving up the darkened stairs. When I am almost at the second floor there is a sudden movement and a stocky figure barrels down the stairs, knocking me sideways so I have to cling to the rickety bannister to stop myself falling. The figure doesn’t stop, and he continues running past me, pausing only a fraction when he bangs into the laptop bag I am carrying. It is just enough time for us to lock eyes. I can see him do a double take, which would be almost comical if it wasn’t for the fact that his eyes are the coldest, deadest looking eyes I’ve ever seen. In that split second I’m certain of two things.

  This man thinks he knows me.

  This man is capable of killing me.

  He can’t tear his gaze from mine, and I see his eyes narrow. He is wearing all black, even a black beanie hat, and this makes him seem larger somehow. He is a big man anyway, not especially tall, but built like a bulldog. His right hand starts to raise and he looks like he’s going to hit me. I can do nothing but cower before him. Where is my survival instinct? Where is my fight or flight gut reaction? It’s his eyes. They hold me in a paralysed thrall, like I’m a small animal with a cobra about to strike.

  In that second I hear the front door open again downstairs and there’s a loud cry of ‘Fuck!’ as someone trips over the tangle of bicycles that lean up against the hallway walls. There are further exclamations in an Eastern European language and it’s clear there are several people coming into the house. The man is distracted and leans over the bannisters to see but the hall stays resolutely dark.

  ‘Help.’ My voice comes out as a whispery croak and the man turns back to me, grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls my head back sharply, exposing my throat. I find my voice this time and I scream loudly. In an instant there is the sound of running boots clattering up the first flight of stairs. The man has no choice but to let me go and he is gone in a second, taking the Romanian lads on the stairs by surprise and pushing nimbly past them. The front door slams and for a long moment we all stand there looking at each other in shock, the three Romanians and me. I don’t realise I was crying until one of the men hands me a tissue from a pack in his pocket and mimes wiping his eyes.

  ‘You know him?’ he asks in heavily accented English.

  ‘No. I don’t know who he is.’ I manage to stutter. ‘I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘You OK now?’ Another one says. ‘He is gone. The door is locked so he not come back. You, go inside. Lock you door too.’

  I nod, sniffing and gasping for breath. My head is stinging where he pulled a lump of hair out after he grabbed me.

  ‘You want us call police?’ The third lad asks me, and he is immediately subjected to a stream of angry invectives by the other two.

  ‘Bez policji! Nie!’ It is clear that the other two aren’t big fans of this idea. Fair enough. We all have something to hide.

  ‘No. Thanks though. I’ll be fine now.’ I need to get inside my flat and see Sara. At least I won’t be on my own tonight. She must be freaking out at all the noise on the stairs. I wonder if the man in black was just an opportunist thief, or if he was targeting someone in particular. A bit peculiar to choose this house of all places, there’s nothing about it which would indicate there was anything worth stealing inside. That’s Peckham for you though, there are thieves and muggers on every street.

  The Romanians clomp back down the stairs and I am alone again. The timer light on this floor is not working either, and I can barely make out the door to my flat. Using the light from my phone I rummage in my coat pocket for my keys and find the right one, aiming for the Yale lock halfway up the door. There’s something odd about the lock. There are scratches, the wood is splintered around it and the lock mechanism no longer sits flush against the door frame. Turning the key in it is useless and I shove my shoulder against the wooden panel. It gives easily, too easily.

  ‘Sara?’ I call into the darkness. There is no sound from inside the flat. The television sits dark and silent in the corner, there are no sounds emanating from the bedroom, although that door is firmly closed. I try the light switch and to my relief the tiny hallway is flooded with harsh brightness from the strip light on the ceiling.

  ‘Sara?’ I call again but I am met with complete silence, which seems louder than the loudest scream. I cannot shake the feeling that there is something terribly wrong here. The flat doesn’t just feel empty; it feels………dead. I close the door behind me as best I can but with the broken lock it is useless and I am frightened that the strange man will come back for me. Casting around for something to prop up against it I drag one of the heavy bar-type stools from the kitchen and lean the chair against the remains of the door, so that the top of the seat is wedged underneath the inner door handle. Anyone who tries to open the door from the outside will find it firmly shut, the angle of the stool stopping the door from swinging inwards.

  Dropping the laptop bag and my own bag on the kitchen floor I creep to the bedroom door and lay my ear against the wood. Silence. I knock gently.

  ‘Sara? It’s only me. Are you OK?’ She probably heard the fuss on t
he stairs and is hiding, under the bed or inside the wardrobe. There is no reply and no sound from within.

  ‘Sara? I’m coming in OK?’ Easing the handle down I open the door a fraction and peek in. At once I am assaulted by a thick, viscous stench which pours into my nose and down my throat. Gagging, I try to open the door further but it is stuck on something just inside it and it takes all my strength to squeeze the door open far enough for me poke my head around.

  I wish I hadn’t. I wish to God I could unsee the scene before me. The door is stuck on one of Sara’s legs, which is stretched out straight, the other leg is curled beneath her. She is half-on, half-off the bed with her face buried in the fabric of the bunched-up duvet. The smell is even worse inside the room, a mixture of sweat, shit and blood. So much blood. It pools in sticky puddles under Sara’s body and there is blood sprayed across the bed and on the floor. There are even droplets of blood on the opposite wall, along with great bloody smears as if someone has been finger-painting in the stuff. Sara’s hair is matted with dark red and she is so still. One of her hands is gripping the edge of the bedcover, knuckles white like she is clinging on to the edge of life itself.

  I don’t even have it in me to call her name again. I just stare and stare, my mind refusing to believe what it is seeing. I know I should go over to her and see if I can find a pulse but the sheer amount of blood that covers her body and the carpet tells me there would be no point. No one can lose that much blood and still be alive. Sara is dead. And she was murdered. In my flat. Fuck.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I don’t know how long I stand just inside that room and stare. It could be minutes; it could be hours. My brain joins the dots and tells me that the person who did this was the same man I saw on the stairs. He broke in, killed her, and we caught him in the act of leaving the murder scene. No wonder he looked at me so menacingly, I will be able to identify him when I call the police. The police. Of course, yes, I should call the police. And an ambulance. Not that there is anything they can do to help Sara now. Something snaps inside me and I am finally able to move from my frozen position, the spectator at an arena of death. I know I shouldn’t touch anything but I can’t help myself as I bend down and gently move Sara’s foot, the one wedged up against the door. It is covered in a grey sock printed with tiny red foxes and seems so small, like a child’s, but I am able to open the door a few more inches and I can squeeze the rest of me through the space and into the room completely. I am detached, like I’m viewing the scene from above or watching it on a screen from the comfort of a cinema chair. If it wasn’t for the dreadful smell I could almost believe this is a joke, that Sara is playing a trick and when I get closer to her she will jump up and shout ‘RRRAAAWWWRRRR’ at me, laughing hysterically at my shocked face. I reach out a shaking hand towards her, wincing at the globs of concealed, blackish blood that coat her beautiful blonde tresses, and carefully brush back her hair from her face. Her eyes are half closed and her mouth wide open, as if with her last breath she tried to call for help. She doesn’t look peaceful. Her small delicate features are contorted with pain and horror and she looks as if she died screaming. She no longer looks like Sara at all.