by Anne Billson
There was a flash of dazzling white incisor, and a grinding, followed by a crisp snapping sound, like a ginger biscuit being broken in half.
I managed to pull away, or she let me go - I'm not sure which. For a fraction of a second, it didn't hurt at all. I opened my mouth to say something, and then the pain reared up and hit me. For a moment, there was so much pain, I didn't know who I was, or where I was coming from, or what I'd been doing there. It came from my shoulder, my elbow, my hand, all down my left side, all at the same time. The first wave ebbed, but my gasp of relief was cut short when it came roaring back, worse than ever.
I looked at my hand, then away. Then back again. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The little fingernail had gone. My little fingernail had gone. All that was left was a raw stub, and a flappy bit of skin, and something knobbly and white which I didn't want to examine too closely. But it wasn't white for long because while I watched, the whole area filled up with red which spilled over and began to trickle down my wrist. I stared and stared, not wanting to admit that the reason the nail was missing was because the entire top joint of the finger had been bitten off.
It looked painful, but I couldn't quite connect it to the pain I was feeling. After what seemed like an age, I managed to croak, 'My finger.' I tried to glare accusingly at Violet, who was chewing daintily.
Through the pain, I thought I could hear Duncan wailing, 'But it was going to be me.' I couldn't work out whether he was wailing at me, or at her. Surely he didn't want his finger chewed off. Either way, it didn't matter - I knew I was going to bleed to death, or die from shock, or both. Blood was now dribbling through my fingers, down my arm, and dripping on to the sofa. I knew I had to keep the hand pointing upwards - that way it wouldn't bleed so much - and I had to find something to staunch the flow. With my other hand, I fished around in my bag, only to find I'd used up all my Kleenex on the crying jag.
'Uh, the bathroom,' I mumbled. 'Gotta get some-thing.' It was an effort to form words, and I wasn't sure I was saying them loud enough for anyone to hear, but I managed to totter to my feet.
Violet was twice as quick, and standing in front of me again. 'You are going nowhere,' she said. She was still smiling, but she'd given up pretending to be nice. 'You know too much, but you know nothing.' She stretched her arms out wide, like a miniature basketball player blocking my route to goal. If I'd been quicker off the mark, I could have dodged around her, but I was thinking and moving in slow motion.
'Here you all are,' she said, 'and you might as well not be there. You are just objects and shadows.' Now she was ranting. She said something else in a language I couldn't even identify, let alone translate. I was in too much pain to care.
'Oh, for God's sake,' said Duncan.
'Help,' I said weakly, but he wasn't even looking at me. My finger was gone and the bastard wasn't even looking.
He said, 'Oh, hell.'
Violet seemed to have lost interest in me too. 'Remember what I told you,' she said to him. 'Do it.'
'I can't.' His voice was much too loud. 'Not now.'
'Excuse me,' I whispered, 'I think I'm bleeding to death.'
'Remember what we talked about.' An edge of impatience had crept into Violet's even tone. 'Do it.'
'I remember, for God's sake. Stop treating me like a child.'
'So go ahead,' she said. 'What's your problem?'
I thought he had calmed down, but I was wrong. He suddenly bunched up his fists and started yelling again. He was yelling so hard the veins stood up on his forehead. I couldn't make it all out, but I caught the last part: 'You never told me. You never told me you were fucking dykes. Both of you.'
This was too much. I wanted to tell him no, he was wrong, I had never liked women, and it had been Violet's fault, not mine, and anyway he'd got it all back to front, because after all she hadn't been seducing me, she'd gone and bitten off my finger, for Christ's sake, and that wasn't my idea of foreplay, not at all, and now look at me, I was bleeding to death. I wanted to say all this, but I could barely string two words together.
And then I forgot all about it anyhow, because she laughed at him, and he immediately clouted her hard, across the face.
Time stood still. I even forgot the pain for a second. I held my breath, waiting for her to lunge back at him and take his head off. She could have done it with a single swipe. But she didn't. Her gaze never left his as she slowly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes were glittering dangerously as she said, 'Or maybe you're not up to it, eh?'
'Bitch,' said Duncan, and hit her again. There was a soft scrunch as his fist connected with the bones in her nose. She stepped back in surprise, and her hands flew up to her face. Blood was gushing from her nostrils. Her fingers pushed and probed, as if to inspect the damage. When the gloves came away soaking wet, she studied them calmly for a moment. Then she turned back to Duncan, and smiled and said in a voice that was now slightly nasal, 'You guys, you're all alike.'
When he whacked her again she stumbled, and then he kicked her legs away from under her, and she went down, and there was a loud crack as her head struck the floor, and he immediately started kicking her in the face and stomach, but she kept on laughing and rolling around, as though he were tickling her, as though this were the most fun she'd ever had in her life - which just seemed to make him kick all the harder.
If she'd been human, I might have asked him to stop what he was doing, but it wasn't as though she were one of us. She wasn't human at all, so it didn't count. And besides, she'd eaten my little finger and now my hand was hurting like hell, so she deserved everything she was getting. But I didn't care for the expression on Duncan's face. It was an expression I'd never seen before - not on anyone. Under any other circumstances, it would have made me feel uneasy. I tried to work out what it was, but my finger was hurting so much, I couldn't think straight, so I sat down and stared. The whole thing was unreal. It was like watching a movie.
Eventually, when her face had been reduced to a bloody pulp, the swelling made it almost impossible for her to laugh. But one of her eyes was swollen shut, so that she seemed instead to be tipping the wink at some huge arid incomprehensible joke. Duncan stood over her, only slightly out of breath, and every time she made a noise, he kicked her again. 'You'll have to speak up,' he said with exaggerated clarity, like someone talking to his deaf grandma. 'We can't understand it when you mumble.'
She made another noise. Bubbles of blood came out of her mouth and the remains of her nose. To my horror, I realized she was singing. Something from La Boheme. It was a thick liquid sound, like someone warbling through an ocean of treacle.
My wounded hand was tucked beneath my right armpit. I had discovered that, if I squeezed hard enough, at the same time rocking back and forth and making small whimpering sounds, I could damp the pain down to an acute throb. But the singing was setting it off again. I wanted to block my ears, but I couldn't - not with only one hand operational. 'Make her stop,' I begged.
Duncan was staring down at the body, muttering, 'Shit, I really killed her.'
'No you didn't,' I gasped, between throbs. 'She's a vampire... she was dead already... and they call her Mimi...'
Duncan appeared to notice me for the first time. 'Dora,' he said. 'You all right?'
'Oh, I'm fine,' I said through gritted teeth. 'I'm only bleeding to death... For God's sake, get me something to wrap this in.'
He went out of the room, and I wished he hadn't left me alone with her. She was staring at me through that one eye, staring at me as though the appetizer had been so finger-lickin' good that she'd developed a taste for the rest of me. I half expected her to fly across the room and fasten her teeth in my throat. I knew I would never feel safe, not ever again. Not unless someone put her completely out of commission.
Duncan came back and wrapped my hand in a dirty teatowel, which he fixed in position with masking tape. It didn't look too hygienic, but the wrapped hand fitted under my armpit even more snugly than before. I we
nt back to my rocking and whimpering routine, pretending not to notice the grubby linen was already turning red.
There was a burbling noise from the bundle on the floor.
I said, 'You've got to... finish her off... you know.'
Duncan gazed at me through red-rimmed eyes and asked, rather sarcastically, 'So what do you suggest?'
'Stake,' I said in what I hoped was a matter-of-fact tone, though it was undermined by a nervous tremor. 'Through the heart.'
He groaned, and it was then I knew he was going to co-operate. 'Stake through the heart. Of course.'
Violet made wet chuckling sounds. It was like listening to someone with a serious speech impediment, but I knew exactly what she was trying to say. She was trying to say we'd gone too far. It was too late for us to turn back now. If we didn't go all the way, we would wind up even deader than she was.
He'd spread newspapers on the floor and rolled her on to them, but the carpet was still getting soaked. What with the both of us bleeding, the room was beginning to look like an abattoir. She lay there winking at him while he wrestled with the cocoon in which she had wrapped herself - layers of leather and cashmere and fur, all the way down to a black silk slip edged in lace and crusted with blood. Even when he'd peeled that off, I was relieved to see there was so much blood and mottled purple bruising that she didn't look naked at all. Nakedness would have made her seem too vulnerable, but the patches of visible skin were so white they were almost luminous, and reminded me of the flesh of the crawling things you sometimes find under stones.
Still, she wasn't as badly hurt as I'd thought - the clothes had obviously absorbed a lot of the punishment.
'She's shamming,' I said.
'No she's not.'
'She is shamming. Any minute now, she'll sit up... and sink her fangs into you.'
'She wouldn't do that,' said Duncan. 'Maybe to you. Not to me.'
'You don't know that.'
'Believe me, she won't sit up. Not when I've finished with her.'
'You knew all along didn't you? That she was a vampire, I mean.'
'There's a lot I didn't know,' he said.
'Oh,' I said, 'and by the way, I am not a lesbian.'
Duncan raided his stationery cupboard. The stake wasn't really a stake but an eighteen-inch ruler whittled to a point. He positioned it over her heart and began to bash the other end with a chunky Sellotape dispenser. The point sank in very slowly. He was very calm, as though he were stretching a canvas, or tacking a sketch to the wall. She was calm too; I'd expected her to screech and clutch at her chest, at the very least, like I'd seen in the movies, but all she did was cough up a small amount of claret-coloured blood and belch. When he'd finished she lay there with the ruler sticking out of her, fixing us with her one open eye as she began to hum 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata.'
I hadn't expected this.
Duncan gawped in disbelief. 'What's wrong? Why isn't it working?'
'Mmmnnnn mmmmgggghhh,' sang Violet.
'It's not enough,' I whimpered. 'You'll have to cut her head off.' I was thinking of her as a piece of meat now. I'd gone way beyond the stage of wanting to pass out, but I tried not to look when Duncan fetched a small hacksaw and set to work with it. The teeth kept getting clogged up with bits of gristle, so after a while he switched to a serrated blade designed for carving through frozen meat. It wasn't easy for him because she kept rolling around, spluttering and giggling, while he carved, and the ruler that was sticking out of her chest kept whacking him on the chin.
The head, even when it had been separated from the neck, continued to make noises. This time, I thought I recognized the Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly. She was deliberately choosing well-known pieces to annoy me. I stepped up my whimpering, trying to drown her out.
'Oh for God's sake shut up, the both of you,' snapped Duncan.
Violet continued to hum. I rocked back and forth and tentatively suggested dismemberment.
She had been born into an age when the average human frame was smaller, and her smallness was an advantage to us now. Her ankles were no thicker than my wrists, and it didn't take long for Duncan to hack through them, even though her legs kept dancing around. He did the feet, and the arms, and the hands, and all the pieces continued to wriggle, and the head kept up a contented gurgling interspersed with snatches of melody.
Eventually, Duncan yelled at her to shut the fuck up. The walls of his flat were solid enough, but it was getting late and I didn't want the neighbours getting nosy, so, at my suggestion, he stuffed her mouth full of garlic. She kept trying to spit it out, so he tied my black chiffon scarf around her head to keep the jaw shut. Even then, she kept up an audible insect-like buzzing. Duncan finally lost patience, smothered the head in pages of the Guardian, and dropped the whole bundle into a black plastic bag, which he sealed with several yards of electrical tape.
'I've had enough,' he said, collapsing into a stained armchair and covering his face with sticky red hands.
'You haven't finished,' I objected. 'You've got to displace parts of the skeleton and pickle the major organs in holy water.'
'Oh, bugger that. Can't we just put her outside and wait for daylight?'
'Wouldn't work,' I said. 'Not if the stake didn't.' Deep down, I was realizing the books hadn't given the whole picture. Either that, or Violet had been around for so long she was no longer required to play by the rules. She was still singing, for Christ's sake. And we'd need more sunlight than we were likely to get at this time of year. Besides, wherever we dumped the body, Grauman would find it.
Grauman. I'd forgotten about Grauman. The thought of him instantly made me feel twice as sick as I'd already been feeling. This hadn't been part of Grauman's plan, not at all. When he found out what we'd done, he would kill us, no question. I retreated into my rocking, but it wasn't just the pain that was making me whimper now.
The pieces had finally stopped squirming. Duncan settled down to the task of wrapping each one separately in newspaper, and tape, and bin-bags, making a set of neat black plastic parcels. I thought he was being unnecessarily conscientious, but since he was doing all the work I didn't have the right to criticize. All I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep, but something told me that if I did that, I might never wake up again. I could have murdered a line or two, but I'd left all my drugs at Matt's. I was dying for the night to be over, but I had an uncomfortable feeling the arduous part was just beginning.
I dragged myself over to the window and peered out between the curtains. I knew what I was going to see, but I'd been hoping not to see it, just the same.
Parked just across the street was a battered Cortina. The windows were steamed up, but it didn't take a genius to work out who was inside.
'Oh God,' I groaned, collapsing back on to the sofa.
Duncan looked up sharply from his post-dismemberment cigarette. 'What's up?'
Now was the time to tell him about Grauman. But I held back. Once Duncan knew that part of the story, I might not appear quite so innocent in his eyes. In fact, my involvement with Andreas might smack of conspiracy. As though we'd meant for this to happen.
'Feeling any better?' asked Duncan. 'How's the finger?'
He was looking quite concerned about me, almost fraternal. That did it. We were partners in crime now, and I wasn't about to spoil it by telling him things he didn't need to know. With my right hand, I smoked a cigarette, wondering all the time if it was going to be my last.
Duncan sat and stared into space until I told him to take a shower and put on clean clothes. When he looked halfway presentable, I made him pour strong black coffee down his throat until his eyes lit up like a pinball machine. I needed him to drive the car.
It was while he was getting changed that I had my brilliant idea. It was so blindingly obvious I couldn't understand why I hadn't thought of it earlier. Pain had obviously dulled my intellect. Under my breath, I recited a phrase which had popped into my head: 'It is important for all the pieces to be disposed of
separately.'
It was then I remembered my Greek mythology.
It was two in the morning when we piled into the car with our baggage. We drove round in circles for about twenty minutes before I summoned the nerve to dispose of the first bag, the one containing the head. I nipped out and dropped it into some roadworks at the junction of Ladbroke Grove and Holland Park Avenue; not a crossroads, but near enough. There was no singing as I let it fall. Her battery must have finally run down.
As we drove off again, I saw the Cortina draw up at the kerb. We left it behind us, but not for long. Duncan caught me looking round. 'What's happening? Don't tell me we're being followed.'
'I think it's an unmarked police car,' I said. 'Try shaking it off.' Duncan threw a sharp left, and the Cortina carried on up the road.
Bag Number Two contained the torso. I weighted it with stones and heaved it into the canal. It sank out of sight immediately, leaving a few sluggish bubbles to float up to the surface and burst.
The Cortina rolled up again as we pulled out. Duncan was looking in the opposite direction and didn't see it, but I allowed myself to relax slightly. The water of the canal was murky and brown; Grauman would be forced to wade in and grope around. It could be hours before he struck lucky. This time, we had gained ourselves an unassailable head-start.
The West End was surprisingly busy, so we headed south to Kennington and left Bag Number Three in a communal rubbish container outside a block of council flats. Bag Number Four went into roadworks on Clapham Common. In Battersea, Duncan managed to pry open a manhole; Bag Number Five went down there.
I was still jumpy. I thought I glimpsed the Cortina again, but a long way behind us, so I made Duncan take a roundabout route into Fulham - all around the back roads and over Hammersmith Bridge. We buried Bag Number Six beneath some bushes in a small churchyard. As we scrabbled in the dirt with our makeshift spades (me one-handed with an empty yogurt carton, Duncan with a piece of broken slate), an east wind blew up and riffled the tops of some nearby poplars. I thought I saw the bag move as it lay in the hole we had made, waiting to be covered with dirt, but by now I was desperate for sleep and there was a slight rippling at the edges of my vision.