The Girl Downstairs

by Iain Maitland

  Now we are sitting at the kitchen table, eating the curry. I wonder whether I should say something about what I said. Her dead father. To clarify and soften the way I said it, which was far too sharp. But her head is down, and she is eating as she always has, arm curled protectively around the plate and as quickly as she can. I think perhaps the moment has passed. She has moved on.

  “I like your curry,” I say. “You’ve put other things in it?”

  More than just chicken and a jar of sauce, I think. I don’t like the taste, to be honest. Almonds, possibly, which I have never liked. But I do not want to upset her again. This uneasy truce.

  She looks at me and maintains eye contact and laughs. Almost to herself. “This and that,” she replies.

  She keeps glancing up at me between mouthfuls. She is about to say something. Ask me a question. I can tell. She wants something from me.

  “Um,” she says. Thinking of what to say. How to put it. Rehearsing it in her head. Get on with it, for God’s sake.

  “I’d like to go to college and do a cookery course.” She gushes her words. Then laughs, flushes a little, but seems pleased that she has said it.

  “Okay,” I reply, nodding. Whatever. Not sure what else to say. My thoughts are elsewhere.

  “Um,” she says again, obviously wanting to say more about this cookery course.

  I look at her. Distracted. On edge, too.

  “Thing is,” she says, “if I’m found, I’ll go back inside. For ages. I’ve broken my parole.”

  I look at her. Not sure how to respond.

  She goes on: “I was wondering …” She looks up at me as if she does not want to complete the sentence, or maybe she expects me to finish it for her.

  And I realise suddenly what she is going to say, to ask for. Lucy’s driving licence and passport. A similar age. An appearance that’s close enough to pass for Lucy at a glance. She could use my daughter’s ID to do just about anything other than go through passport controls.

  But the thought appals me. She’s touched a raw nerve. A gaping wound, more like.

  “No!” I laugh, more in shock than in humour. Disbelief, really.

  “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”

  I shrug. “If it’s to borrow Lucy’s driving licence or passport, then it’s no. You’ll get found out. You’ll have the police at the door.”

  She does not say anything, so I go on. I can feel my anger rising.

  “It’s not like using it for ID to get into a pub or a club, where someone just glances at the photo and date of birth,” I say. “And there would be forms to fill in at college. National insurance numbers and things. And it will be on record with all sorts of government bodies that … Lucy died.” I sound like I am ranting, but I cannot seem to stop myself. On I go.

  “You can’t just pretend to be her. It’s … madness.” I laugh again, but I’m angry, really. “I mean, seriously … People knew Lucy. She had friends here and in Ipswich. What would you do if you said to someone you were Lucy Anne Adams, and they used to be her best fr … that’s so stupid.”

  I sit back. Knowing my last comment was again too strong. Too loud. I have always overreacted when I am angry.

  We finish our meal in an increasingly strained silence. I would really like to leave half of the curry and walk away. But I don’t. It would make things worse.

  We wash and dry in silence, and she is gone again. And I know I will spend the evening alone.

  I have been here all evening, sitting quietly on the sofa by the fire in the living room, reading my Agatha Christie novel, And Then There Were None. The judge has just been pronounced dead. There is snowfall again. Unexpectedly. Enough to cover everything with an inch, maybe more.

  Fluffy is by my feet. He makes whimpering noises at odd intervals. As if dreaming bad thoughts. I push him awake with my right foot. She is upstairs in my daughter’s bedroom, and I have not heard a sound from her for ages.

  I am waiting for her to go to bed and to sleep. I will then get up and move Andrew Lumb’s body back from the hallway of his house to the cellar of the cottage. Everything is being covered with fresh snow, removing traces of my movements there and back. His body will be safe downstairs until the snow has gone, and I can move it to the forest under the cover of darkness.

  Even so, I am tense and troubled and deeply unhappy. This terrible shift in the relationship. Between her and me.

  Since he died, the relationship has turned completely.

  She and I cannot go on together. I know it. I think she does, too.

  If she stays here, she has a hold on me. She knows the truth of Andrew Lumb’s death. She will forever have that over me. Whatever she asks for – using my daughter’s ID, money, anything else – I will, eventually, have to relent and give to her. If I do not, I risk everything – her walking away and revealing my secrets to the police.

  I do not think she would walk away by choice. Back into hiding on the streets in the cold and the snow and the winter that lies ahead. The worst winter in living memory, someone predicted on Radio 4 a day or two ago. And she knows, at least believes, she is on a good thing here, perhaps for life. And I cannot ask her to leave. The risk of revelation is too great. I could not live like that every day, waiting for the knock on the door.

  But the relationship has turned, soured, changed totally. I was her benefactor, her mentor, her inspiration. I would have guided her, loved her, given her a happy life. She was grateful at first for my kindness, and thankful for all that I was offering her. Eliza Doolittle. This is not how it is now. I feel, somehow, that she has the upper hand.

  I hear movement above. Her footsteps in my daughter’s bedroom. Back and forth.

  I hear her coming downstairs. Onto the stone floor of the hallway. And into the living room behind me.

  I turn and see her walking, with some of my daughter’s clothes over her arm, towards the door to the nookery.

  “You’re moving back?” I ask, a stupid, instinctive question. I do not know what else to say. It will be cold, and she cannot use the bathroom. She knows that.

  “Yes.” She stops and answers, but does not look at me. Her eyes are all over the place. It makes her look shifty and untrustworthy.

  “Why?” I ask as neutrally as I can, although I know the reason. She is doing it to upset me, that’s why.

  “It’s …” She hesitates, and I wonder what she will say next. Further away from you. Apart from you. “I’m just moving some things across.”

  I nod. I am not sure what else to say or do.

  So I sit there without speaking as she comes back and forth, two, then three times. I am not sure how I feel. It’s another opening skirmish in what will become a war of attrition.

  “Good night,” she says on her final walk through. I am formulating my reply, but she shuts the door behind her before I can speak.

  And so, I think, our course is set. I had hoped that things might return to what they were after Andrew Lumb’s death. But it changed me. And her. And what was between us. What might have been can no longer be.

  There is only one thing it can be from now on. Hell. Complete and utter hell. For as long as it lasts. She believes she has the upper hand. That the knowledge she has about Andrew Lumb gives her power and control over me.

  What she does not seem to recognise, let alone understand, is how vulnerable she actually is. No one knows she came to Felixstowe. The authorities do not know she is in this town. Let alone this lane. This cottage. She believes I cannot go to the police because of Andrew Lumb. That she is safe. She is right about one belief, but not the other.

  No one will know if she simply disappears. Is never seen again. Just vanishes off the face of the earth.

  I think perhaps she should be told that. To know. That our relationship, such as it is, is not as one-sided as she thinks. That things are, shall we say, finely balanced. On a knife edge.

  I get up, whistling for Fluffy. It’s time to get ready and go to bed for an hour or two
before I get up to move Andrew Lumb. All sorts of thoughts are swirling round my head. They are not pleasant ones.

  I stand by the grave.

  And watch the ground.

  That shakes.

  And moves.

  And shudders.

  I want to run.

  To hide.

  To leave it all behind.

  But I have to stand.

  And wait.

  And see.

  What will happen.

  When the ground breaks open.

  I set the alarm on my bedside clock for 2.00 a.m. But, with my nightmares that come most nights to torment me, I am already awake.

  Pushing the button down three minutes before the clock starts to brrng-brrng, brrng-brrng its noise through the cottage.

  And I am dressed and downstairs, creeping by Fluffy asleep in his bed in the living room, to the nookery door, where I listen to the silence before heading to the kitchen door and away.

  A dark night, as chill as ever. A silent night.

  The snow lying crisp and white after a further light fall.

  The world is asleep as I walk slowly, carefully, towards his house.

  Every step seems to echo, to ricochet, between the buildings. The sound of my boots crunching into the snow and ice seems to be magnified so many times in the utter silence. The click and clunk of my gate. My footsteps in the alleyway. The click and clunk of his gate. My footsteps on the patio. And to the door of the kitchen. The deafening silence. My deafening noise.

  I take out the pocket torch that I slipped into my coat from my bedside table drawer. Its beam shoots up into the sky. I lower it and watch it shake and shimmer in the darkness as I aim it towards the lock of the kitchen door. And, at last, I am inside the house. I can relax for a moment. Safe from being seen or heard outside.

  I walk through the kitchen, illuminated by my torch, and into the hallway, where Andrew Lumb’s body lies in its twisted shape at the bottom of the stairs. I do not hesitate. For I fear, if I did, I would not be able to do this. I turn off the torch and slip it back into my pocket. Then turn him over. Struggling this way with him. Then that. Until I have him by the shoulders and drag him, stop-start, stop-start, stop-start, to the back door in the kitchen. Where I leave him.

  Take a cloth from my coat pocket. Rinse it in water from the cold tap.

  Double back to the bottom of the stairs. Torch on. Wiping away at the blood in the carpet.

  To and fro five, six times. I doubt it is enough. But it will have to do. I will check it again in the morning.

  I open the back door of the kitchen. Step outside. All is still and quiet and peaceful, and everything I do, each bump and knock, every footstep, the long dragging of his body, will be a cacophony of noise. To be heard by her. And by anyone else who is awake. The Man in the Suit. Someone walking a dog. Widow Woman. To be heard and remembered. Recalled when interviewed by the police later on.

  And I pull Andrew Lumb’s body, drag-stop, drag-stop, drag-stop, to his back gate. Lay him down. Retrace my footsteps. Lock the door. Sweep the snow on the patio with my left boot so that it looks even. Open the back gate. Check the alleyway. It is dark, but I do not want to shine a torch up and down to make sure there is no one there. All is clear. So far as I can see.

  I drag him through into the alleyway. Lift the latch and push open my gate. Drag him inside. Lay him down again. I go back and shut his gate. Kick the snow this way and that in the alleyway, evening it out. Pull my gate to, waiting for the click as the latch falls back into place. But I am distracted as I step back inside my garden. My eyes are suddenly on the nookery. A noise, possibly. I wait to see a movement at the window. A light going on. Her face appearing at the window. Rubbing the pane with the side of her fist. Looking out. Seeing me.

  I walk quickly to the back of the nookery. Lean my head towards the window. Listening in. Ready to duck down if I hear her coming towards the door.

  And then I hear it. High up above. Clear and unmistakable. The sound of the helicopter. Back again.

  I cannot see lights. It must be too high. But I panic as I imagine the pilots looking down. Using some sort of equipment. To see me in the garden. Andrew Lumb by my back door.

  I have no choice but to act fast. I open the back door into my kitchen. Turn round and drag Andrew Lumb’s body up and over the ledge and onto the kitchen floor. I stop and listen. The helicopter sounds as though it is coming in closer. I wonder if it has seen me. It is flying lower to take a look.

  I drag Andrew Lumb into the hallway. Stop to gather my breath. No noise from within the cottage. Fluffy will be lying in his bed by the fireplace. She will be fast asleep in the nookery. Wrapped up deep beneath a warm duvet.

  I open the cellar door. Walk backwards down the steps, dragging him along with me. There is a moment when I think I may lose my balance with the weight of the body. Tumbling back with his body falling onto me, both of us landing with a loud thud at the bottom. But I take an extra step back to keep Andrew Lumb’s body at a distance, and we are finally in the cellar. I cover him with a tarpaulin and put him in the corner. I hurry back upstairs and lock the cellar door behind me, slipping the key into my pocket. Then I hear a sudden noise, something like a click.

  I stand in the hallway and listen. And wait, my nerves on edge. But all is quiet inside the cottage.

  I step quickly into the kitchen to see if I can hear the helicopter. I cannot. It has gone.

  I smile to myself and laugh. A sudden sense of release. I have got away with it. It is time for bed.

  17

  Saturday, 30 November, 7.33 Am

  Just gone half-past seven. I have been sitting quietly by the kitchen window, nursing a mug of tea for forty minutes or so. I have my binoculars by my side, hoping to see the robin in my garden. I have forgotten to watch for it for a while, what with one thing and another. I do so now, as I am struggling to keep calm.

  I do not know what today will bring for what is becoming an increasingly strained relationship. I cannot walk away from it. I wish I could. Neither can she walk away. At least, I cannot let her do so. We are locked together – and we are doomed.

  I am waiting to hear the creaking of the nookery door and for Fluffy to come clippety-clopping out, ready for his walk. Even in the deep snow and the cold wind, I enjoy walking. It gives me the chance to think things through. To try to settle myself.

  7.38 a.m. 7.42 a.m. I am starting to get edgier. I can feel it. The medications I have stopped taking work both ways, of course. I know that. When I was taking them, they kept me balanced and in check. They dulled my senses so that I could cope with things, life, really.

  I came off medication so that I could feel the highs more. Meeting her. Being with her. Creating a new and happy life together. I would not want to have had that joy muted by medication. Off tablets, I seem to have less patience. I can also sense my anger down below. It bubbles away. Never far from the surface.

  I am angry now. I have a schedule. Through the day. Things I do at certain times. I have relaxed my breakfast routine since she arrived. We eat forty-five minutes to an hour later. But I still like to have a structure to my day. I have a need to keep busy.

  Fluffy is still wrapped up beneath Rosie’s duvet, no doubt making that snuffling, snorty noise he does when he is asleep. He has put my schedule and everything else out.

  Gone 7.50 a.m. now. Almost 7.55 a.m. I finish my mug of cold tea. Put it in the sink. I am dressed and ready to go. Warm hat and coat. Gloves. Wellington boots. I pick up the lead and poo bags on the side. And his little tartan coat. My little McFluffy.

  I am at the nookery door. I listen. All silent. No sound of movement. I tap on the door. And again. A little louder. I bang on it. Much louder than I need to.

  I hear an “uh” as my banging wakens her. I imagine her sitting up in bed, confused for a moment. I bang again to get her attention. I know it sounds urgent, more important than it really is, as I bang once more. Then stop as I hear her footsteps pit-pat
ting on the floor.

  She opens the door. Hair astray. Eyes sticky. Tee shirt. She has the duvet wrapped tight around her. It is as cold in there as it is out here. She looks at me with her blank face.

  “Fluffy,” I say in a raised voice. I know I sound angry. I lower my voice and slow my words. “I just want to get him walked. It’s almost eight.” It sounds accusing. The last sentence. I smile. More of a grimace.

  She yawns, not taking it in. Then turns back towards the bedroom. “He’s not here,” she says. “I thought he was with you.”

  Her nonchalance panics me. I had assumed he had scratched at the nookery door some time in the night to be let into her bedroom. I shout at her to check for Fluffy in her room. Bathroom. Kitchenette. “Now!” She jumps, startled.

  I turn and hurry towards the kitchen and the back door, trying to remember what I did after I left Andrew Lumb’s body covered by a tarpaulin in the cellar. I had assumed Fluffy was still lying in the living room. But I did not check. Instead, I listened for the helicopter at the back door of the kitchen and went straight to bed. A sense of relief overwhelming me.

  When I came down this morning, I glanced into the living room. Fluffy was not there, and I assumed he was with her. Never gave it a thought. I then went into the kitchen and noted the back door was slightly open. I just pushed it shut without thinking. The latch is loose. If it is not locked, the door sometimes blows open in a strong wind.

  I think Fluffy must have followed me out when I went to the Lumbs’ house. I pull the door open, expecting to see Fluffy out there dead by the step. But he is nowhere to be seen. The snow around the step and into the garden has been brushed even, but I can still see my trodden-in footprints to and from the gate. The back gate is slightly open. Enough for Fluffy to have gone off in search of shelter and warmth.

  I lurch desperately into the garden.

  A sudden intake of breath as my body chills, and I feel the wind on my face. And something else.