I go to the fridge and the larder, and in and out of various cupboards, back and forth, putting the ingredients in a pile on the table. All I want to do is to go and leave her to it, but I know I will need to explain what needs to be done, and in what order, and that I shall scream inside with frustration at every stage. As if any of this nonsense matters when Andrew Lumb lies dead next door and may be discovered at any moment. If the boy knocks to see the football shirt sometime soon and peers through the glass of the front door. My nerves are all on edge.
I explain to her what to do. She then shoos me away. Wants to be left alone to do it.
A sense of something close to delight. Excitement, at least.
As though we have moved on from what happened. She has. I haven’t. I don’t think I ever will. Killing someone is not something you forget.
I sit by the fireplace in the living room. Fluffy comes across, and I help him up onto the sofa. He lies beside me, the length of his body against my right thigh. For warmth, not affection. I am not naïve when it comes to dogs. But I love him nonetheless. I suspect it is one-sided, really. I stroke his soft right ear. I read somewhere once that dogs find that soothing. It soothes me a little. I can barely sit still.
It has occurred to me that, when I go back to the house and loosen the carpet and rearrange the body, I must be very careful. When he fell down the cottage stairs, he hit his head hard on the right wall and then landed on his forehead on the stone floor in the hallway. Two blows. Two marks. One on the right wall. One on the stone floor. There is blood on the floor of the Lumb house, but not on the wall.
Another thing: My staircase has walls both sides. The Lumbs’ has a wall one side and a wooden handrail and balusters to the other. The wall is to the left. The handrail and balusters to the right. Andrew Lumb hit the side of his head to the right, and I wonder whether, had he fallen in his own house, he might have just broken balusters and survived.
The Lumbs’ hallway, at the bottom of the stairs, is carpeted. It is, I think, quite thick, and again, that sets me thinking. If he had landed on his forehead on thick carpet rather than stone, he might have lived. And if he were bleeding, as he was at the bottom of my cottage stairs, would that blood not, in the Lumbs’ house, have soaked through the carpet into the underlay beneath? Maybe I think too much. But a sharp-eyed, keen young policeman will notice all of these things, for sure.
She calls out. Says I forgot the carrots.
I’m sure I didn’t.
I go into the kitchen to speak to her.
I hate the smell of burning meat. Rosie stands there, at the oven, pushing the mince backwards and forwards. Turning it over. Pushing it back again. She looks up at me. “I’ve got everything,” she says, “but carrots. You forgot the carrots.” I check the table. They are not there. I go into the larder. There is half a bagful on a shelf. I thought there were more. I suspect I did get some, but then put them down somewhere. No doubt I will discover them later.
I take a few out and put them on the kitchen table. “Here they are,” I tell her and then ask, “Do you want me to chop them up?” She shakes her head and turns away, still cooking the mince. I hope she does it properly. I want to talk to her about Andrew Lumb and what I have been thinking. But she is so engrossed in what she is doing, so focused, that I leave her be.
My mind goes over everything. I do not know if the trail of blood and hair and flakes of skin from him and me from my cottage and across his patio and through the kitchen to the staircase can be completely removed or whether, on careful scrutiny, traces – traces of evidence – will remain.
I do not think it matters. I do not know whether the carpet could be loosened without seeming odd. Anyway, I think, given the straightness of his staircase compared to my twisty one, he would have fallen straight down. And survived the fall onto soft carpet. Obvious to anyone, really.
I slump back down next to Fluffy, who jumps, sits up and looks towards me.
I am in torment.
Everything I did is lying there next door. Clue after clue after clue, all of them pointing to me.
I usually cut up a plateful of spaghetti and eat a forkful of small pieces under some bolognese, one careful mouthful at a time.
But she rolls the spaghetti round and round her fork and tips her head back theatrically. Some of it goes in. Much of it doesn’t.
I join in reluctantly. Inside, I am torturing myself. She has put it all behind her. I am not sure how I feel about that. I don’t understand how she can do it.
“I’ve been thinking,” I say as I reach across the table to unwrap a kitchen roll. I tear off the cellophane and take a sheet from the roll to dab at my chin.
She points her knife towards the wrapper, taps on the letters of the name, wanting me to read it out to her.
“Regina Blitz,” I say. “Re … gi … na. Blitz. B … litz. L-I-T-Z.”
“Vagina tits,” she replies, laughing.
I smile. But it is more of a rictus grin, really. I am so worried. And I don’t think she’s cooked this meat properly. It tastes funny.
“I’ve been thinking about Andrew Lumb,” I say and look at her suddenly serious face. She does not want to talk about it, I can tell.
She puts her head down and focuses on her plate, mixing the bolognese and spaghetti together and continuing to eat. It’s as if she is ignoring me.
So much to say, so many points, so many mistakes that I want to talk through with her. For her to consider. And reassure me. But I don’t think she wants to know.
“I don’t think he would have died from a fall downstairs next door. The staircase is mostly wood, and there’s carpet at the bottom.”
She sits for a moment as she sucks up a single strand of spaghetti through pursed lips. The last bit whips into her mouth, and she laughs. Then shrugs in a so what? kind of way.
I sit back, silent for a moment.
I am frightened, if I am honest. And angry, maybe more frustrated, with her.
For her, everything is as it was. For me, everything has changed.
“No one will find him for ages,” she replies finally, through a mouthful of food. As if that explains everything. Then adds, “Not until spring. Or the summer … if it’s really hot.” She laughs. It sounds raucous.
I take in the comment, the implication that the heat of summer and a decomposing corpse will create an unmistakable stench when someone knocks on the door. The postman, whoever. I note the callous laugh. I find it disturbing.
“He’s dead at the bottom of the stairs. They will just think he fell. That’s all.” Her simple summary.
She glances at me and looks away. And I notice, at least realise, for the first time, that she never looks directly at me for more than a second or two. Her eyes are forever here, there and everywhere. They never really linger. I wonder if she might be autistic.
I nod, as if I agree with what she is saying. And take a mouthful of food. She may be correct. If a postman sees the body through the glass of the front door any time soon. Breaks in, tramples over everything, moves the body to see if Andrew Lumb is still alive. Calls 999, and the ambulance men trample some more.
Then a doctor. And an undertaker. A whole queue of so-called professionals, who won’t give a second thought about what they see. What is in front of them is a dead body. A loose carpet on the landing. A long staircase. That’s it. But the police would know. A half-decent detective would see things as they really are.
I nod again. I have a thought, but I do not share it with her. It’s something I don’t want her to know. This little chick who’s turning into a cuckoo in the nest.
Instead, I just say I’ll go back this afternoon and sort out the patio and the kitchen and the staircase. And Andrew Lumb. As she says. As we have agreed.
And I think my thought. And what I will do. And what it might mean moving forward.
I check the alleyway between the cottage and the house is all clear. That the boy is not around. Nor anyone else. Who might see me. And
remember. Wait two, three, four minutes to be sure.
I take my spade and bucket and bleach and cloths and other cleaning equipment across with me. Hurry. Look back. Nobody to be seen out there in the snow.
See more trails and spatters of blood across the snow covering his patio. I shovel it up. Use my bucket. Back and forth to the tap by the kitchen window of the cottage. Then level the snow on his patio.
And into his kitchen, where there is more blood. So much of it. I would not have thought it was possible. It looks as though someone has tipped a stream of gravy from a saucepan from the back door, right across the linoleum, and out onto the hallway carpet. I scrub it away with bleach on a cloth and use water from the taps at the sink, again and again, to wash the whole floor. It is filthy, each long swipe of my arm blackening the cloth in my hand.
I dab, with a fresh cloth and squirts of washing-up liquid from a bottle by the sink, the carpet from the kitchen to the hallway and the bottom of the stairs. I cannot look at Andrew Lumb. His face. His body. His long and awkward arms and legs. I hold my breath as I rub time and again at the bloodstains on the carpet. I rinse the cloth and wring it out at the sink and flush everything away with the hot tap turned on fully. I do this five, six, seven times until the blood seems to have gone. But the places I have rubbed seem cleaner than the carpet around them.
I stand, finally, at the bottom of the stairs, my hands wet and soaked with water and bleach. I think, once everything has dried, it will pass a cursory glance, but not an examination. It does not matter. I look up the stairs and at the carpet and the wall and the balustrade and the body at the bottom. And I know in my heart that this death simply does not look right. It will not stand up to close scrutiny. I stand there, thinking. What I have to do.
And I suddenly hear the sounds of footsteps outside, trudging up the snow-covered, gravel driveway to the house.
I freeze. Dare not turn round. The movement of my body will be seen through the frosted glass of the front door.
I wait. Not sure what to expect. There is a clattering through the letterbox. Something falls through. There is a loud and cheery “Thank you.”
I wait. Do not move. A moment’s silence. Then another. And one more. I am tense. Holding my breath. The thought, the expectation, that I am meant to shout back Thank you! That they, whoever they are, are standing and waiting for my reply. Andrew Lumb’s reply. “Thanks,” I croak, the word sticking in my throat.
I hear the footsteps again, trudging back across the driveway. I stand there, drenched in sweat, waiting for the sound of footsteps to disappear, off the driveway and back onto the path of Bluebell Lane and away. I turn and see the letters on the doormat. The postman. He must have seen me. My back, anyway. A shape through the frosted glass. That’s why he called out.
That decides it for me. As I cross to pick up the letters from the doormat. Something from the NHS. A circular from a local wine merchant. I pocket them to put on the fire in my living room at the cottage. I have to move Andrew Lumb’s body. Putting it here was a mistake. Someone, sometime soon, maybe the postman tomorrow, will look through and see the body. Things will then start to unravel fast.
I will come back tonight and move him. Clean the bottom of the stairs. Drag him out and through and down to the cellar in the cottage.
When she is asleep and will not know. For some reason, I want this to be a secret. I do not know why.
And I will move him and bury him deep in the heart of Rendlesham Forest once the snow has cleared. Somewhere he will never be found.
I am back at the cottage, have packed my spade and bucket and cleaning equipment away, and washed my face and hands. And have knocked on my daughter’s bedroom door.
She wants to play games this afternoon rather than reading and writing. “Boring!” she says emphatically. She seems full of childish silliness.
I follow her down to the dining room, where she rummages through the pile of board games in the dining room cupboard. Fluffy is by my feet, hoping for a titbit to eat.
She chooses Ker-Plunk. A game I have not played for many years. I remember playing it with Lucy on Sunday afternoons when she was small. Taking it in turns to pull out the plastic rods that held all the marbles at the top of the tube. Lucy’s squeals of delight when she took out a rod and no marbles fell through the mass of rods that remained. Louder squeals when I pulled out a rod and one or two marbles trickled through into my tray below.
I remember the excitement on her little face when I “accidentally” tugged at a rod that held most of the remaining marbles in place, and they all tumbled into my tray. She would lift her hands up in triumph. Most often, we did not need to count the number of marbles we each had at the end of the game. I would have most or all of them. When we did have similar numbers, I would count so that she would win. On the odd occasion she obviously lost, she would want to have another game immediately until she won. And we could pack the game away until next time.
My wife would never join in. She did not like “loud games”, as she called them, and would retreat to another room to read a magazine. In fact, thinking about it, I do not recall my wife ever playing games, loud or quiet, with Lucy and me. Of course, these Sunday afternoons of games were early on, when she was oh so small, before the drink had me in its grip. I do not remember when nor how we stopped playing. Nor whether my wife took over from me or if Lucy never played board games at home ever again.
I put my hand on the lid that she takes off the box. Staring into space.
Thoughts of Lucy and how her little hands would have been on this once.
But she is already putting everything together. I rally from my thoughts.
“You have to push all these rods through these holes in the middle of the tube,” I say. “And pour those marbles through that hole in the top, so they sit on the rods.”
“Duh,” she says under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear. She stands the tube upright and pushes the rods through the hole in the middle.
“We take it in turns to pull out one rod each. Until all the marbles have fallen through. The winner is the one with the fewest marbles in their tray.”
“I know,” she says, and there is a flash of irritation in her voice. “I’m not stupid. I used to play it with my dad all the time.”
There is a sudden sullenness in the way she speaks. I do not know why, but it angers me. More than I would have thought. The ungratefulness of it all.
“Your dad will be long dead. You do know that, don’t you?” I say it suddenly, instinctively, really. My voice is hard and cutting. I know it. I am saying it in retaliation for the way she is speaking, and to hurt her. My quick temper again.
A moment’s pause, and I wonder whether she is going to sweep the game from the table and storm off. In a way, I would like that. To see she has normal feelings and reactions.
Then she shrugs, says, “Maybe,” and carries on putting the rods into the Ker-Plunk tube. Quite calmly. It is as if she does not want to talk about him nor recognise the reality of the situation.
She picks up a handful of marbles and tips them into the top of the tube, so that they settle on the criss-cross of rods. Then another. One more handful and all the marbles are in place; we are ready to play.
She is quiet now, subdued. I can feel the tension between us. She has come out of her shell since Andrew Lumb died, and I have had a sense of what she is really like. My statement about her father has knocked her back. I am on edge.
We play in silence. She takes a rod. No marbles fall. I take a rod. No marbles fall. She takes another. I do, too. The marbles stay in place. She is not playing properly, looking at each rod, checking it from different angles, to see if marbles will slip and fall if she pulls it out. Instead, she just pulls one at random in a couldn’t-care-less kind of way. No marbles fall.
I pull out a rod at random, and three marbles roll into my tray.
“Ha, ha,” she says mirthlessly. Then tugs at a rod that is clearly holding half a dozen ma
rbles in place. They tumble into her tray. “Oh dear,” she adds, but does not mean it.
I jerk a rod out at random. No marbles fall. I somehow wish they had.
“Loser,” she says. I think it is meant to be jokey. But it does not sound like it. This time, she looks at the rods carefully. Puts her hand on a rod that seems to be holding most of the remaining rods in place.
“Don’t be stu–” I start to say, but she has yanked at it, and all the marbles but one fall down with a clatter into her tray.
I lean forward and shake the tube so the last one falls out, too.
She stands up and walks off.
I sit there and am not sure how I feel. I reach out and stroke Fluffy. His eyes flicker towards me; then he sinks back into sleep, indifferent to it all.
She has spent the rest of the afternoon in my daughter’s bedroom. Radio 1 blaring out louder than it should be. Various knocks and loud bangs now and then, possibly to gain my attention. I ignored them.
I pottered about, cleaning and tidying, but mostly thinking about Andrew Lumb.
What I am going to do. And when. And how. So that she does not see nor hear anything.
I walked Fluffy over the fields and back and round, a longer route than usual. Thinking things over. Playing devil’s advocate. I looked at No. 1 as I passed by both ways, and all seemed just as it was.
When I got back, she was in the kitchen. Busying about. A sense of cheerfulness again. She swings back and forth.
Cooking a curry. Chicken from the fridge. A jar of curry sauce from the back of a cupboard. Simple as that.
She looked at me standing there watching her, and smiled. A placatory smile. I smiled back. I am not sure either smile was genuine.
The Girl Downstairs Page 21