The Killer Next Door

Chapter Eleven

‘Hola, chica.’

Oh, Christ, he thinks he’s so witty. When she had a French SIM, it was ‘bonjour, chérie’, in Italy ‘ciao, bella’, Switzerland ‘grüss Gott’. Everywhere she hides, they find her, and every time he does, he announces himself in the local language.

But at least he doesn’t know where I’ve gone to, yet, she thinks, not if he’s still saying hello in Spanish, reminding herself to buy a British SIM.

‘Carrer de la Ciutat,’ he says. ‘Nice. Classy. Glad to know you’re still in the money, anyway. Shame it’s my money.’

Collette doesn’t speak. She always hopes, somehow, that if he doesn’t hear her voice he’ll think he’s mistaken. She’s cleared out just in time. That clearly was Burim she saw in the street, not a figment of her imagination. Six whole months she managed in Barcelona. One of her better runs. She wonders if she’s brushed up against whoever it was who tracked her down as she walked down the street, as she locked and unlocked the flats’ front door, sat at a table in Catedral. It’s the worst thing about her situation: that every stranger on every corner could be the man who’s watching out for her.

Tony waits for her to speak. Cat and mouse: a game that’s been going on for three years. Collette hiding away, scrabbling herself into dark corners, and Tony toying, pretending to have turned his back and lost interest, letting her think she might, this time, have escaped, and all the time ready to pounce the moment she allows herself to breathe.

How is he getting my numbers? How? They’re pay as you go, for God’s sake. I buy them in station booths.

‘Nice flat, too,’ he says. ‘Shady. I like that. It can get hot, at this time of year. Burim says he liked your décor, by the way. Very Mediterranean, he said. All that turquoise.’

There’s sweat trickling between her breasts. She’s had the window shut all night, after that doomsayer Thomas cursed her sleep with it open, and the room is like a sauna. In Barcelona, even away from the front where she lived, there was always a movement of air off the sea, and shutters that kept the light and burglars out but let through the sea breeze. This room is close and smelly. Sometimes she thinks that the smell is coming in through the airbrick where the fireplace used to be, but it’s just as likely that her predecessor’s hygiene skills were not of the best, and she’s not got round to buying new bedclothes, despite her resolve on the day she arrived.

Ah, Tony, if you could see me now, she thinks. You’d probably walk straight past me in the street without blinking.

‘So isn’t it about time you gave it up?’ he asks. ‘Haven’t you had enough, yet? We only want to talk to you, you know.’