Dead Like You

59

Monday 12 January

Sussex Square was one of the jewels in Brighton’s architectural crown. Comprising one straight row and two magnificent crescents of Regency houses, each with views across five acres of private gardens and the English Channel beyond, the square had originally been built to provide weekend seaside homes for fashionable, rich Victorians. Now most of the buildings were divided up into apartments, but none of their grandeur had been lost in the process.

He drove the van slowly, passing the tall, imposing façades that were all painted a uniform white, checking out the numbers. Looking for no. 53.

He knew that it was still a single-dwelling home on five floors, with servants’ quarters at the top. A fine residence, he thought, to reflect the status of a man like Rudy Burchmore, the Vice-President, Europe, of American & Oriental Banking, and of his socialite wife, Dee. A perfect home for entertaining in style. For impressing people. For wearing expensive shoes in.

He drove around the square again, quivering and clammy with excitement, and this time stopped short of the house, pulling into a gap on the garden side of the road. This was a good place to stop. He could see her car and he could see her front door, but she wouldn’t notice him, regardless of whether she was looking out of her window or coming out of her front door.

He was invisible!

He had learned that certain things were invisible to the inhabitants of the affluent world. There were invisible people, like road sweepers and office cleaners and navvies. And there were invisible vehicles, like milk floats and white vans and taxis. Drug dealers used taxis a lot, because they never aroused suspicion driving around late at night. But the van suited his purposes better than a taxi at the moment.

He smiled, increasingly aroused, his breathing quickening. He could still smell her Armani Code fragrance. He could smell it so strongly, as if his whole van was filled with it now.

Oh yes, you bitch! he thought. Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!

He would enjoy breathing that in while he made her do things to herself with those shoes, and then when he did things to her too. Fear would make her perspire and her perspiration would make the scent even stronger.

He could imagine her coming out of her front door wearing those blue Manolos and smelling of Armani Code. He could imagine her sliding into the driving seat of her car. Then parking somewhere safe, like she had done on Saturday, in an underground car park.

He knew exactly when she would be wearing those shoes. He’d heard her in the shop on Saturday when she bought them. For an important speech, she’d told the assistant. The after-lunch thing for which she had bought a divine blue dress and now had the shoes to match.

It would be nice if Dee Burchmore came out of her front door now, he thought, except she would not be wearing those new blue Manolos today.

Very conveniently, she had a section on her website for all her social engagements. In addition, she had a Facebook site where she announced them. And she told the world her movements, sometimes hour by hour, on Twitter. She was so helpful to him!

She had confirmed on her website and on Facebook that her next big social engagement was on Thursday, when she was giving a speech at a luncheon in aid of the local hospice, the Martlets. She had already started Tweeting it. The great and the good of the city of Brighton and Hove’s female society would be attending. One of the guests of honour would be the wife of the current Lord Lieutenant of Sussex.

The luncheon was being held at the Grand Hotel, which had a big car park behind it.

That really could not be more convenient!