The Neighbour

by Fiona Cummins

  ‘We won’t tread on anyone’s toes. We’d just be . . .’

  ‘Interfering with an investigation?’

  ‘Of course not. We’ll be discreet. We won’t get in anyone’s way. We’re only going to ask a few questions, that’s all.’ She spoke quietly. ‘I need to do this. For Adam.’

  Mac stared out across the reservoir, a muscle in his cheek twitching. He drained his drink, pushed back his chair and stood up. Pulling out his wallet, he placed a ten-pound note on the table.

  Wildeve’s stomach plunged. He was a proud man, a respected police officer with a varied and decorated career, and she had offended him.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she said, a dark hole about to swallow her up.

  ‘Can’t conduct interviews in this T-shirt,’ said Mac, holding out his hand to her and pulling her up from her seat.

  They walked back to the car park together. ‘A couple of ground rules, Wildeve. No treading on anyone’s toes. No breaking the law. No obstructing justice. We operate under the radar and we give anything we get to the team. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘And one other thing.’

  ‘Yes, guv?’

  ‘Call me Mac.’

  52

  Now

  What is the opposite of a crime of passion? A crime of apathy? Indifference? Of calm?

  My belief is that death should never be inflicted from inside the blinding mists of fury or because of a lack of control. It is much more deserving than that. Planning and preparation are required. As little mess as possible. A method that is meticulous both in execution and aftermath.

  The research was less difficult than I had anticipated.

  Three of them still lived in this town. They were easy to find, even though two of them had married. Internet searches. Public social media accounts. A list of friends and followers – husbands, brothers, sisters, mothers – helped me to identify them. It never ceases to surprise me how much of their lives people choose to give away. Photographs of their houses or new cars, children in school uniforms, detailed plans for the evening, a window into their lives for a motivated stranger.

  One lived in London but made regular visits home.

  It was easy.

  If I was forced to make a guess, I would say the sirens will be passing Mayflower Road in approximately one minute. My suitcase is packed, the keys are in my pocket. I could run. I could go now and they would not find me.

  Stop and smell the roses.

  A favourite phrase of Birdie’s. I have tried to live by that adage, to fill my home and my heart with the scent of flowers. To sweeten the bitterness of what I have lost.

  It is fitting that Natalie Tiernan was the first. First through the shop door. First to find Birdie. First to die.

  Little Tallie. Except she was not so little anymore. Thirty-eight years old, a mother and a wife.

  As I brushed her hair in the shadow of the trees, the cursing of the birds filling the silence, I smiled at the sight of the silken strands, as golden as her five-year-old self.

  53

  Tuesday, 31 July 2018

  18 The Avenue – 1.15 p.m.

  Four porcelain dolls were hanging upside down by their pretty ankles from a light fitting inside Trefor Lovell’s workroom at the back of the shop.

  He liked to test his craftsmanship in this way, to make sure the hair he had glued to their heads was unlikely to detach. They watched him, long strands waterfalling beneath them. Lovell did not use synthetic hair. Mohair was expensive, and his second choice. Human hair, his favourite.

  Lovell spread out a square of plastic sheeting across the concrete floor and placed an old tin bath on top of it. Next, he carried through several cans of paint, a sheathed blade inside his boot.

  He fiddled with a piece of wire, and laid out several batteries on his worktop. The chemicals he had bought from the internet had done their job, and the pellets had dried nicely. The shotgun was waiting, propped against the wall.

  From the street outside he heard the lift of teenage voices, and the sound of his own name.

  Lovell drew the knife from his boot and drove its tip beneath the lid of the first can to loosen it. Paint sprayed across his shirt like warm blood.

  Then he picked up the gun and went outside.

  54

  Tuesday, 31 July 2018

  25 The Avenue – 1.17 p.m.

  As soon as Aster heard the voices under her window, she slicked on some lip gloss and flew down the stairs.

  ‘Back in ten minutes,’ she called out to Evan, who was sitting on his bedroom floor with the tape and Walkman.

  ‘But you’ve only just got back,’ he protested. ‘You promised you’d help me with this.’

  She tuned out his whine and ignored a stab of guilt. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘As soon as I get home.’

  ‘What about Dad?’ he said as the front door slammed. ‘And lunch.’

  The sun was so bright it turned everything into a washed-out white and she blinked as she stepped outside, struggling to adjust to the switch from the gloom to this unforgiving glare.

  Three boys around her age were standing near a house at the bottom of The Avenue. They all had bikes with them, and one was holding a carrier bag. She’d seen them outside the newsagent’s earlier. One had nodded to her, said, ‘All right?’ She had smiled brightly. ‘Great, thanks.’ She had spent the walk home groaning inwardly at how gawky she had sounded.

  She hovered on her front step, not quite brazen enough to walk over to the boys. But the one from earlier – tall and blond – beckoned to her and she flushed, managing to refrain from pointing at herself in a cartoonish Who, me? fashion.

  ‘You new, then?’

  ‘Yes, we moved in a couple of days ago.’ She didn’t know where to put her hands so she ran one through her hair.

  ‘Sweet.’ He dragged out his vowels. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Aster.’

  ‘Has-ter-be what?’ said another of the boys and they all laughed.

  She rolled her eyes and pretended to inspect her nails, even though her heart was pounding, embarrassment burning through her veins. ‘Like I haven’t heard that before.’

  The blond boy looked sheepish. ‘Just messin’. I’m Bailey, this is Charlie and Marco.’

  ‘Hi.’ Aster’s greeting was cool. ‘So, what you doing?’

  The trio exchanged looks and Bailey shrugged, appeared to think for a moment and then nodded to his friends.

  ‘See that house over there,’ said the boy called Marco, pointing to a run-down property with a butterfly pinned to the brick. ‘The guy that lives there murdered his wife.’

  Aster’s eyes widened. ‘No way.’

  Charlie grinned. ‘He’s a fucking weirdo. Always staring out the window and working on his creepy dolls, the goddamned freak. He doesn’t bother to wash or anything. His shoes have got holes in them.’ He laughed as if this was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

  ‘We think he’s behind all these killings,’ said Bailey. ‘And he deserves to be punished for his crimes.’

  ‘But surely the police . . .’ Aster didn’t want to say it aloud, to undo the fragile peace, but the boys frightened her with their cavalier attitude to justice.

  ‘. . . are doing fuck all.’ Bailey grinned around the group. ‘So we’re going to do it for them.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ She flicked a wary look at her own front door. She didn’t want Evan to be privy to this.

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ grinned Bailey and they laughed again, but there was a cruel edge to it. ‘Come on.’

  The boys began to wheel their bikes up the path of the house. Aster hovered uncertainly behind them. Charlie unhooked the carrier bag from his handlebars. A fly buzzed around the opening and the boy swatted it away.

  Aster felt sick. She sensed something bad was coming, but she lacked the strength to walk away.

  ‘There,’ said Bailey and pointed to a trailing rose growing around
a wooden stake in the old man’s front garden. He loped onto the lawn, grabbed the stem of the plant and yanked it free. ‘Shit,’ he said, sucking the bloom of blood from the bulb of his thumb. ‘It’s stuck.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Aster. Her fingers closed around Bailey’s warm palm. A thorn was embedded in his skin. She pulled at it gently and it came free, leaving a streak of blood on its barb.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Bailey, and winked at her. Aster’s insides liquefied.

  ‘Hurry up,’ said Marco, throwing a glance up the street, ‘before someone comes.’

  Bailey flung the ruined rose onto the grass. ‘Come on, Charlie. You’re up.’

  Charlie swaggered onto the lawn and stuck two fingers up at the window. The carrier bag was swinging from his other arm and Aster caught a stink of iron earth and death.

  She put her hand over her mouth.

  None of them noticed the old man standing at the top of The Avenue, too intent on watching Charlie, a butcher’s son, plunge his hand into the bag and pull out a pig’s head.

  Aster took one look at the snout, the closed eyes, the rough tufts of hair and gagged. Charlie waggled it at them, and Bailey and Marco nudged and pushed each other towards it, swearing and laughing, full of boyish bravado, but desperate not to touch its leathered skin.

  Charlie glanced at Lovell’s front door and, with as much strength as he could muster, drove the pig’s head into the top of the stake.

  The butcher’s carcass swung lopsidedly, as if the pig was still alive, dancing at its own funeral.

  Several things happened at once.

  Aster screamed.

  Charlie wiped his fingers frantically against his shorts.

  And the old man appeared on the pavement behind the teenagers and pointed a shotgun at Aster’s head.

  55

  Now

  What is it about the inanimate that frightens us so much? Is it fear that the shuttered face of a doll might open up as we turn away, that skin-crawl sensation of being watched? Do we suspect their eyes will blink, heads twist, a grin twitching into life, laughing at our trust?

  Or is it that these dolls, and the puppets we use our hands to move, to bring to life, represent our most primal hopes of raising the dead?

  I do not have the answers to these questions. I try not to think on them too long. I have no desire to bring anyone back. Except you.

  Some days, though, when I am going about the business of living, I am reminded that most of us discard the identities we once inhabited.

  The cruelty of the children we were. The shy lover we pretended to be. The manic depressive who was once the class clown.

  Perhaps this is why the inanimate frighten us so. Because the faces we turn to the world are ever-changing while they are condemned to never grow old.

  56

  Tuesday, 31 July 2018

  26 The Avenue – 1.21 p.m.

  When Dessie Benedict had completed a three-mile run, finished cleaning the house she had owned for eleven years, hung out two loads of laundry and eaten lunch, she stretched out on the sun lounger in her back garden.

  This glorious weather was all well and good, but it wasn’t the same as being on holiday. Her make-up artist friend Alexis had just got back from a month-long road trip in the southern US – Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans. Dessie longed for an adventure of her own, but Fletcher seemed reluctant.

  Maybe he was going off her. They hadn’t been living together for that long – only a few months – but sometimes he seemed distant. A secret part of her couldn’t help thinking he had landed on his feet with the peppercorn rent he paid her. He’d be a fool to leave.

  Dessie closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth on her skin. Perhaps it was about the money and he was too embarrassed to tell her. Pharmacy dispensers didn’t earn much.

  She sat up, sunglasses sliding down her nose. That had to be it. His budget wouldn’t stretch to the kind of holidays she could afford with her extensive list of well-connected and lucrative clients.

  A seed of an idea began to flower.

  She would surprise him with a holiday. Book it. Pay for it. Surely he couldn’t refuse such a generous gift.

  Excited by her plan, Dessie ran through a list of possible destinations and dates. The Amalfi coast in late September. Or autumnal New England with its spectacular display of colour. Perhaps, if she could bear to hold on a few months, they could take a springtime trip to Japan, and see the float and drift of its cherry blossom. She’d always wanted to do that.

  During awards season, her career as a make-up artist had seen her flown into some of the world’s most exclusive hotels. She didn’t stay there, of course, but the ‘talent’ did. Still, she might be able to hunt down a deal. She’d need to book flights too, and for that, she’d need their passports.

  Passports.

  A bud of doubt.

  If Fletcher’s had expired, she assumed he’d had one once, though she couldn’t remember seeing it. They’d been away for weekends together, but never abroad.

  She slipped on her flip-flops and went inside. When he’d moved in, she’d noticed he kept his important documents in a large box file. Perhaps it was in there and she could secretly renew it for him.

  An hour later, Dessie was still looking. She’d checked the spare room, the space above the wardrobes, under the bed and in the attic. The only place she hadn’t tried was the garage.

  She unlocked the side door and walked into a mouthful of cobwebs.

  He better bloody appreciate this effort.

  She peered around, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. The skeleton of her old bike. A Black + Decker Workmate. Some half-used tins of paint and crusted brushes.

  And there it was, sitting on a shelf.

  With a sense of triumph, she edged her way through the assorted detritus of her life and lifted down the box.

  A stash of A4 plastic folders was crammed into the space. Each was neatly labelled. Bank Statements. NHS Card. National Insurance. Certificate of Immunizations. Birth Certificate. Passport.

  A grin split her face. She flicked through the passport’s pages and there he was, sober-faced, but still handsome. A quick check of the expiry date confirmed he’d renewed it last year, a couple of months before they’d met. Excellent. This was going to be fun. She slipped it into the pocket of her shorts.

  But as she tried to lift the box back onto the shelf, her ankle bone grazed the pedal of her bike. The flash of pain tipped her off balance and the box slid from her hands, spilling the slippery plastic folders across the garage floor.

  ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘That hurt.’

  And then laughed because she was talking to herself.

  Dessie crouched down to gather them up. One or two of the folders had lost their contents and she picked up the papers, trying to match them to their rightful homes.

  Most of them she recognized, but one official-looking document was unfamiliar to her, typed, signed and witnessed, a large red stamp on the bottom corner. She wasn’t one to pry, but curiosity won its battle over decency and she began to read.

  CHANGE OF NAME DEED

  I, the undersigned Benjamin Turner of 14 Deepdale Road, Lincs, now lately called Fletcher Parnell a Citizen of the United Kingdom by birth do hereby . . .

  Dessie reread the words until the letters jumped about in front of her eyes. She was trying to find her way through the language, to untangle the truth of what she was reading. Her eyes strayed to the date at the bottom of the signature. Last spring. Three months before they met, four weeks before the date on his passport renewal.

  Her hands were shaking so much that she dropped the piece of paper and it fluttered to the floor, taking her hopes for the future with it.

  She drew in a breath – Calm down, Dessie – and forced herself to think it through.

  At once, the rational part of her began to justify her discovery, to consider all the possible reasons why her live-in boyfriend – the man she loved – might have such a document in his po
ssession. Fletch was a good man. He treated her with kindness and compassion. He wasn’t a liar. She would ask him and he would explain. Simple. But the ringing of the death knell drowned out every one of the excuses she made for him. Cut through the legalese and what was left? His name was not Fletcher Parnell. Or rather, it was, but only because he had officially changed it by deed poll.

  The blood thundered through her veins as she tried to organize how she felt about this and what it meant.

  Technically, he had told her the truth. In the eyes of the law, his name was Fletcher Parnell. So why did it feel like a lie? Surely, there had to be a reasonable explanation.

  Dessie crouched down to retrieve the piece of paper that had blown a hole into her ordered existence. All her life, fate had smiled on her. Exam results, job interviews, relationships, even the process of buying this house – success had been an easy road, smoothed by invested parents and the gift of emotional and financial support.

  But this was the equivalent of a tyre blow-out on the motorway, spinning her off in a terrifying and wholly unexpected direction.

  On autopilot, she eased the document back into its plastic wallet, sealed the box and placed it back where she had found it.

  As she stepped out of the shadows of the garage and into the blinding light of a summer afternoon, only two questions were on her mind.

  Why had Fletcher – she could not think of him in any other way – gone to the trouble of changing his name?

  And who the hell was Benjamin Turner?

  57

  Tuesday, 31 July 2018

  32 The Avenue – 1.24 p.m.

  If she lifted her head, Aster would be looking down the twin barrels of a shotgun. As it was, she stared at the cracked soil of his undernourished garden and prayed that whatever he was planning would be over soon.

  Mummy.

  A longing so intense filled her up. She hadn’t called Olivia that for years and years. But all the anger, all the hurt was stripped away in a moment, and she wanted the warmth of her mother’s arms, her calm, reassuring voice.