Not Dead Yet

69

Cleo found a parking space two streets away from her home, shortly after 5 p.m. on Friday evening. The rain had stopped and the sky was brightening. As she climbed out of her little Audi she felt leadenly tired, but happy. So incredibly happy, and with the weekend to look forward to ahead. As if responding to her mood, the baby kicked inside her.

‘You happy too, Bump?’

She lifted her handbag off the passenger seat, locked the car and started walking home, totally unaware of the two pairs of eyes watching her from behind the windscreen of the rented Volkswagen that had been following her from the mortuary.

‘Warum starrst du die dicke Frau an?’ the boy asked.

In German, she replied, ‘She’s not fat, my love. She’s carrying a baby.’

In German, he asked, ‘Whose baby?’

She did not reply. With hatred in her eyes she watched the woman.

‘Whose baby, Mama?’

For some moments she said nothing, feeling deep turmoil inside her. ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right back.’

She left the car and walked up the street for some yards past the Audi. Trying to appear nonchalant, and not to draw any attention to herself, she turned around until she could see the front of Cleo’s car.

There was a patina of dust on the bonnet, and several spatterings of seagull droppings, one lying on the duct-tape repair to the roof. But the wording she had carved was still there, clearly visible.

COPPERS TART. UR BABY IS NEXT.