And it was me who moved the body, dragging it from the cottage to his house, blood dripping and smearing all the way. And I wonder how I would talk my way out of that. They will ask, if it had been an accident, why would I move the body?
The fact is, I will go to prison if I call the police. But if I do what I am doing now, moving Andrew and getting on with my life, I may just get away with it. So I lift him up by his shoulders again and drag-stop-drag, drag-stop-drag him through into his house.
She and I may still have a future together, starting over from this.
But somehow, I have my doubts.
I do not think this will have a happy ending. Not now.
I am back at the cottage, having left him in the same swastika shape at the bottom of his stairs.
I will go back in the morning, in daylight, to loosen the carpet, double-check everything, and cover my tracks.
I suddenly realise how cold and wet I am. And covered in blood. Adrenaline, fear too, has kept me going on automatic this far.
I move through the hallway and into the living room. Stoke the fire back into life, watching the flames flicker and flash. I take off most of my clothes and put them on to burn. I stand there in just my boxer shorts, as close to the fire as I can get for warmth, thinking things over.
I then reach for a blanket and wrap it across my shoulders. I sit in front of the fire, facing forward, on my knees as I use the fireside poker to push the pyjamas back and forth in the flames. The trousers are soaked in blood, across the thighs and knees, and I can smell the bloodied cloth burning. Like a barbecue. It might be my imagination. I have always been a sensitive man, oversensitive, even.
I wait for Rosie to come to me. To see me sitting there. To maybe join me. Console me in some way. At least to talk through what has happened. What we have agreed. What we have done. Together. But there is no sign of her; I believe she has gone back to bed. I am not sure if that angers or disappoints me. Both, I think. And Fluffy will not have moved, lying there on top of my bed, maybe even burrowing under the duvet to keep warm. I am on my own.
I have much to do in the morning. I run through everything in my mind. To make sure I remember every little thing.
The trail of blood from the cottage to the house. The pool of congealed blood on the back doorstep of the house. A trail of more blood as I dragged him through.
I think I need to do something to the carpets, the walls on the stairs, and at the floor. He would not have fallen cleanly from top to bottom. He would have hit his head on the wall on the way down. Maybe once or twice. There would be more blood at the bottom. I do not know what to do about that.
The pyjamas blacken and smoke. They eventually turn to charred remains, and then, as I press them repeatedly with the poker, to black and grey dust as the fire cools and finally goes out. I do not know how long I have been sitting here, thinking and prodding and poking and destroying the evidence. It feels like hours.
I get to my feet and move to the hallway where I last saw Rosie. I wonder for a moment whether she may have already left. A sense of panic as I consider she may have phoned the police, shouting down the phone, There’s been a murder. 3 Bluebell Lane, Felixstowe, hurry! Then packing everything useful she could find into a carrier bag from under the sink and fleeing into the night, never to be seen again.
Leaving me to it. Abandoning me to my fate.
To my trial. And prison.
I would rather take my own life.
I move quickly to the nookery door, which is shut but not locked. I go in, moving through, flicking lights on and off. It is so cold. She is not here. Nor in the kitchenette or bathroom. Back and to the stairs and up to my daughter’s bedroom door. Shut. I put my ear to it and listen. I cannot hear anything. I turn on the light on the landing, my feet in the same place where I killed Andrew Lumb. I turn the door handle and go in, standing in the doorway.
“What do you want?” she says in a neutral voice, lying there underneath the duvet, just her head showing. It is turned away from me, so I cannot see her face in the half-light.
“I’ve moved him. Andrew. Like you said to do.”
She turns her head slowly. Her face now part-visible as she looks up at the ceiling. I see her arms move under the duvet.
“What are you going to do?” she asks. I sense her tensing, awaiting my reply.
“I’m going to have a bath, wash myself down. I have a bath brush. I’m going to scrub myself clean.”
She seems to breathe out, and her hands drop back down to her side. I believe she has something under the duvet next to her. I wonder what it might be.
“I’ve cleaned the landing and the stairs and the hallway. I used bleach,” she says. “From under the kitchen sink.”
I nod, although she is not looking at me. “Thank you.”
“Do you want me to leave?” She hesitates a second or two. “In the morning?”
A moment’s silence. I want things back the way they were. I am not sure they can be. But I don’t want her to leave. I would be forever looking over my shoulder. Thing is, she cannot go. Not now. But I cannot tell her that.
“No,” I reply. “I want you to stay.”
Another silence. And I think that somehow our relationship is changing. That we are both re-evaluating, working things out, weighing and balancing.
“Good night,” she says simply, turning to look at me with that blank face of hers. No smile. Nor pained face. I can only guess at what she is thinking.
“Good night.” My echoed response. I turn and pull the door to behind me. To go for a bath before bed and another restless sleep.
Andrew Lumb’s death has changed everything between us. I sense it. And I wonder what that means for us.
15
Saturday, 30 November, 7.35 Am
We are having breakfast. Usual time. Usual place. The usual mix of cereals and drinks.
Her. Fluffy. And me.
But there is nothing else usual about it. After the sudden death of Andrew Lumb. We are both polite and mannered, but the whole thing just feels false. And forced.
The radio is turned up a little louder as we work our way through the meal. I reach out to turn it down a touch, to say something, to have a gentle conversation, to somehow return us to some sense of normality. Otherwise, we will have sat down together for fifteen to twenty minutes and barely said a word. I don’t know how long we could go on doing that. Without one of us cracking.
I turn to look out of the window to the lane. It is still a picture-postcard white on the path and across the gate and up and down the lane as far as I can see. We have not had fresh snow overnight, and although it is still bitterly cold, there is only a 50 per cent chance of further snow today according to the BBC. The snow on the ground will harden into ice before melting. But not yet. And, of course, there may be more of it on the way.
If I say something, it has to be something and nothing, inconsequential, of no importance. A comment about the weather and snow still being here. Andrew Lumb’s death looms large. As if he is standing on the other side of the dining room door. Waiting to come in. And we are both too nervous to speak of him. If we do, I fear we will go round and round. Making sense of it in our minds. Rearranging it. Explaining it. Rewriting it. The reality is I killed him, and I did not have to. And nothing will bring him back. We just have to live with that. And the consequences. Whatever they may be.
“I need to go into town this morning,” she says as she finishes her cereal and places the spoon next to her bowl. She sees me watching and seems to think twice, lifting it up and placing it in her bowl.
I nod. Not sure how to reply. I cannot refuse her. The alternative would be to say no. But I do not know what I should then do. What I would then have to do. If she persisted.
She thinks for a moment, then asks politely, “Do you have any money? Not much. A tenner.” Then adds, as if a quid pro quo, “If there’s anything you want, I can get it for you.” She looks at me, a straight and steady gaze.
I clear my throat, reach for my cup of tea. Bring it across, sip at it. All the time thinking I don’t want her to go, to leave this house. To be seen. To run away. To tell the police. If she stays here, I am safe. If she goes out and is picked up by the police, anything could happen. She could reveal everything.
I shake my head a little. Non-committal.
“I don’t think so; I can’t think of anything. I’ve got some bread in the fridge-freezer. And some soya milk in the cupboard. I think we’re okay for a few days.” I look out the window. “If you wait, I think it will have started to thaw by then. We can drive out of town. To one of the big supermarkets. You can choose what you want. We can stock up.”
She fiddles with the spoon in the bowl, clinking it back and forth: clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. She does it seven or eight times. It is an irritating noise, but I do not show my annoyance.
“I need to go to a supermarket … or a chemist today.” She says this plainly, but with each word emphasised.
I know why. And I know she is telling the truth.
She only had a few tampons left the other day.
At least it means she is not pregnant.
“Okay,” I reply, for I cannot deny her. “If you go up to my bedroom, my wallet is on the bedside table. You can take what you need from that. Take a bit more, just in case you see anything else we could do with. Maybe some fruit. Bananas.”
I catch her smiling to herself, almost as if she has scored a point over me.
I had intended to go back to Andrew Lumb’s house straight after breakfast. Sort it all out. Get it just so.
But that strange little smile unsettles me. Worries me. Makes me feel sick inside. And suspicious.
She is halfway up the lane, head down, hood up, walking slowly towards the town. Stomping step by careful step through the snow.
I fear she will turn round at any moment.
I am following her, keeping my distance, but if she even glances back, she will see me for certain. I don’t know what she would do. Nor I.
Watching her getting ready to go up the town, the top of an old hoodie of my daughter’s pulled up over her head, filled me with an increasing sense of dread. As I stood there in the hallway, seeing her off, acting as normally as possible, I could not help but think this might be the last time I would see her. I could now live with that – my mind somehow seeing things more clearly since Andrew Lumb’s death – but not with what she might do to me. As revenge for killing him. Her lover. She could tell the police what I had done and quietly disappear. The train to Ipswich, and away forever. The thought of her telling the police sickens me.
My common sense suggests my emotions are getting the better of me. She cannot simply walk into the police station in the town, up by the petrol station, and announce there’s been a murder. Despite her hair dye and make-up, they might recognise her if her details have been circulated around the country. If not, there would be questions and details taken, even if they believed her.
Scorn and ridicule would be more likely responses, however well disguised they might be in this world of rules and regulations and political correctness. They would want to know who she was anyway – and want proof, a driving licence or something – and she cannot reveal herself to them. So she would not go to the police face to face. I am sure of that.
She could put a note through the door of the police station, though. She has her drawing pad and pencils, but I am not certain how seriously the police would take a scrawled note in a childlike hand. She could telephone, but she does not have a mobile phone, and mine sits in a kitchen drawer, long since unused. And there are no public telephones up the town these days.
Even if she told the police somehow, where would she go? Off back into the cold and wet and dangerous nights, sleeping in shelters or behind bins, waiting to be discovered by thuggish young men spoiling for trouble? Some wanting and demanding sex? No, I think she has to come back. I am sure of it. And yet … I am sick with worry.
And being foolish. I think she will just go up the town. Buy what she needs from the supermarket. And return. Simple as that.
But I am not completely sure. I am scared. I may be mistaken.
That is why I am following her at a distance. If she goes anywhere else, somewhere unexpected, I will be forewarned. I will have a chance to do something. Either to stop her, or to flee before the police arrive.
I have gone by the perfect family’s house, set back a little way from the lane. And I wonder what is happening inside. His car is there. Parked up from when he came back. The wife’s car with its booster cushion and baby seat in the back has gone. He is alone there. Better than them all there, him screaming at her in this wintery lockdown and the children cowering in the corner of their bedroom.
I imagine the Man in the Suit inside the house, now alone, stewing things over. He is a dangerous man, full of anger and suppressed violence. He scares me. I do not want to see him or engage with him in any way. He is a fight waiting to happen, maybe something worse.
I am walking by Widow Woman’s bungalow. I glance across, but there are no signs of anyone there. I think the grandchildren are staying, so they will be keeping her occupied. Running about and hiding. Leaping out from behind curtains to make her jump and scream. The windows are shut and the curtains all drawn. Her silly little car is parked outside by the front window, so I know she is inside.
As I move by the bungalow, I notice that a curtain at one of the bedroom windows twitches back a little. Someone is watching me, seeing what I am doing. I ignore it and stride through the snow a little quicker. If it is Widow Woman, she will be at her door in a minute, calling after me, inviting me in for a cup of tea. I hear noise, perhaps the unlocking of the door, as I move on. But the wind is chill in my face and in my ears, and I stride beyond hearing and out of sight as the lane curves slightly to the left.
Rosie is now out of view. Some way ahead. Younger and stronger than me, when all is said and done. It is a struggle to keep up.
I do not worry. There is really only one way she can go to town. And I need to keep my distance.
The air is cold and still; even the slightest noise is magnified many times. Each crunch of a boot in the snow seems to echo.
Three, four, five minutes on, and the lane curves back. I see her again in the distance as she heads up towards the main road that will take her into town. Hunched over, walking slowly but steadily, and, I think, always that little bit faster than me. I increase my stride again. These are surreal days, with the white sky and the snow on the ground giving everything an unworldly feel. There is no one about. All the houses to either side are shut down and closed off, with curtains pulled and no signs of life. I see nobody else in the lane. Just her and me.
I do not know how I feel about her now. To begin with, because she looked something like my daughter, I was drawn to her. As I have been with other girls. But I felt this one was different. That she was one whom I could grow to love and to look after. I admit it. I am, at least was, in love with her. Or wanted to be, anyway. In some kind of way.
She is not what she seemed. I think I expected her, or wanted her, to be sweet and innocent and loving. With all that has happened to her, the death of a child, the years being locked away, now hiding from the authorities on the streets, having sex with the man-boy from next door, she cannot be. The truth is – and I see it clearly now – we cannot be what I had hoped we would be. And the thing is, I do not know what we can now be.
I go over it all in my mind time and again. The reality is that the death of Andrew Lumb has changed everything. If I had called the police immediately, I might have had a lesser sentence, but I am sure I would still have gone to prison. Now, that, and a longer sentence – one I could not cope with – would be a certainty. I cannot let her go. The thought of what that actually means in practice is starting to grow inside me. I do not wish to think about it.
In a way, I hope that she runs away and disappears, that she for
gets me and what I have done. I would have to be ready to run if I ever I saw a police car coming down the lane, but I might, over time, begin to relax and realise she had not told the police. That would be the best.
But I think she will stay, for she has nowhere to go. And, if or when she is caught, she will go back inside for breaking the terms of her release. And she might then, to barter for a deal, tell them all about me. So she will stay here, in an uneasy truce, as she will eventually realise that no one knows where she is, and that if she were to go the same way as Andrew Lumb, no one would ever miss her.
I look up from striding through the snow.
She is at the junction with the main road, where she is about to turn left towards town. She then stops, turns slightly, and seems to be looking back at me.
She suddenly turns right and disappears from sight.
I am in my bedroom, an old leather holdall on the bed.
Back and forth, I am filling it as quickly as I can with whatever I need to go on the run.
In case she has told the police and a patrol car is already on its way.
When she disappeared from sight at the top of the lane, I panicked and tried to run after her, to catch up, to stop her going wherever she was going. Not up the town, that was for sure. The opposite way. By the garden centre. On a bus, if they are running in this weather. My money, however much she took, getting her at least as far as Ipswich. To the police station there. Or the railway station. I couldn’t take that fifty-fifty chance.
But I stumbled on an icy patch, fell backwards, my feet going from beneath me, my head hitting the ground. I lay there, dazed and embarrassed, for a minute or two, then struggled up and carried on my way, my head and back hurting. By the time I got to the top of the lane, at the junction with the main road, she was nowhere to be seen. I dry heaved by the side of the road.
The Girl Downstairs Page 19