Skin

50

Katherine Oscar stood on the back doorstep, hand raised ready to knock again.

‘For Christ’s sake.’ Flea let the sword clatter down and leant back against the wall, her hand to her forehead. ‘Christ’s sake. Don’t do that again.’

Katherine examined Flea’s worn face. The way her hair hung in a shambles all over her shoulders. ‘Good heavens. What’s the matter?’

‘I’m tired.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s been a long day.’

Katherine answered with a brief, efficient smile, as if she hadn’t heard. She seemed to enjoy catching Flea at her worst, stealing little victories from her every day: unwashed hair, out-of-date coats, no invitations to Ascot or Cheltenham. These were Katherine’s scoring points. ‘How are you, Phoebe? How is that bloody awful job treating you?’

Not waiting for an answer she stepped forward, craning her neck to peer round the front door and into the hallway. Flea took an answering step sideways to block her view. Katherine was always trying to edge her way into the house and get a glimpse of the antique hoard she’d convinced herself the Marleys had amassed during their trips. There were a few things lying around in the upstairs rooms – African masks and Russian dolls and boxes of shells her father had pulled to the surface in Palau, the sword cane. But otherwise, Katherine was wrong: there was nothing of any real value.

There was a moment’s silence. Then what Flea was doing seemed to sink in and Katherine took a step back. ‘I’m sooo sorry. So sorry – I’m so rude. My mother always said I’ve got no manners.’

‘How long have you been outside?’

‘How long? Only a minute. Why?’

‘You sure you haven’t been looking through my window?’

‘What a stupid idea. Of course I haven’t.’

‘Well, then.’ Flea put her hand on the door, indicating the end of the conversation. ‘I’ll say goodnight.’

‘The electricity-meter man was here today,’ Katherine said. ‘I showed him where yours is.’

Flea frowned. It was in the shed at the top of the driveway. ‘You went into my shed?’

‘Yes.’

‘I never said you could go in there.’

‘You weren’t here. The poor man was ringing the doorbell for ages.’

‘I could have phoned in the reading myself.’

‘I was only trying to help.’

‘Next time just leave it. I’ll deal with it.’ She inclined her head politely, and began to close the door. ‘Goodnight, Katherine.’

‘He was amazed when he read the meter. Said it was sky high.’

‘Goodnight, Katherine.’

‘He said you must have got lots of things running off the power. More things than usual.’

Flea stopped, the door half closed. Katherine’s sculpted face was made into concentric circles by the half-glazed glass door. There was a moment or two’s silence. Then she opened the door again. She knew her face had frozen. She could feel the blood stop under the skin, stop and go blue from cold. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He says…’ Katherine glanced over her shoulder at the empty gravel drive, at the ornamental shrubs casting their shaggy shadows on the grass, as if she, too, suspected them of being watched. ‘He says something in your house is eating electricity. He says he’s never seen anything like it.’ She let her gaze wander to the garage with the brown paper in the windows. ‘He says you should have it checked out.’

Flea closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. The cold tick of fear was back. Somewhere down in her bowels. ‘What are you implying?’ she said slowly.

‘Nothing. I only came over to tell you what had happened. And to ask if you’ve thought any more about-’

‘No,’ Flea said coldly. ‘I haven’t. My mind hasn’t changed and it won’t change. Now, goodnight.’

Katherine took a breath to reply, but apparently thought better of it. She shrugged, turned on one foot and walked sweetly away, a little hand held up, the fingers wriggling.

Flea stood on the doorstep and watched until she turned the corner. Then she slammed the door, locked it and went into the garage. Everything was as she’d left it, nothing out of place. She checked the paper in the windows and that the bolts were run on the garage doors. She checked Misty’s corpse hadn’t been touched. When she was sure no one could have been in there or seen inside, she went back into the house and locked the inner door.

In the living room she took a decanter from her father’s old oak bureau and uncorked it. This port had been open five years. It was crusted with sugar around the top and when the stopper came out the rich Christmas scent nearly floored her, with all the memories it brought of her dad, home from university in his outdoor coat and smelling of rain and cigarette smoke from the station platform, tipsy in a party hat on Boxing Day, sitting on the sofa asleep and smiling. Or standing in the study on a dry Saturday morning, his old Oxford shirt on, his glasses at the end of his nose, ponderously picking through the stones, occasionally calling into the kitchen, ‘Jill, the granite – is this from the karst window in Telford or is it from Castleton?’

She found a crystal glass and filled it to the top, knocking back the liquid in one. She refilled it and drank again. Sat on the floor, her arms around herself.

If she was someone like Caffery’s Tanzanian, Amos Chipeta, she wouldn’t be shaken by Misty’s body in the garage. She’d know what to do with it – it would be commonplace to her. But this situation wasn’t commonplace. And she couldn’t be controlled or sensible or easy about it. Not any longer. Not since Thom had betrayed her.

She looked at the clock. Eleven p.m. In thirteen hours she’d have the money. She’d have the photo of Thom.

And what she did then was anyone’s guess.