The Killer Next Door

Chapter Fifty

They stand over the body, silent in the rain.

‘We don’t have a choice,’ says Vesta.

‘No,’ says Hossein.

Thomas has landed head first. Vesta imagines him, sliding down the roof like a thrill-seeker in a water park, his hands star-fished out before him in a hopeless bid to slow himself, his mouth wide in a silent scream. And then the long dive through sodden air; the drawn-out second as the crazy paving rushed up to meet him, and then the blackness. Do you feel these things? Her experience of fear has always been that it lasted for ever. That every microsecond drew itself out, each sensation, movement, sight, smell, and sound was etched on her consciousness in a way that she never experienced in any other state. Is there a moment when you feel your skull shatter? she wonders.

‘No,’ says Vesta. ‘I don’t know what made us think we’d get away with it the first time.’

‘Maybe they’ll think it was him who killed Preece,’ says Hossein. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘They wouldn’t be that stupid. Surely?’

Hossein gives her a look that tells her all she needs to know of what he thinks of police intelligence. ‘There are three dead women upstairs,’ he says.

She nods, taking his point, then shakes her head, sorrowfully, and stares down at the broken head. Thomas’s skull hasn’t simply split; it’s shattered. The crazy paving is one vast bibimbap of brains and blood and bone and hair. ‘That’s one big mess,’ she says. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll ever come out. It looks like someone’s dropped an ostrich egg.’

Hossein looks at her, surprised. ‘You’re taking this very well,’ he says.

She puffs her cheeks and blows out through the sides of her mouth. ‘You know what? I think you run out of reactions, after a while. I don’t think you could let a bomb off behind me and make me jump.’

Hossein glances at her sideways.

‘Don’t do the Auntie Vesta needs a lie-down look,’ she says. ‘I’m old enough to have changed your nappies, and I’m certainly old enough to give you a clout round the ear. Besides. I’m not seeing you having the vapours.’

‘I don’t have anything left to throw up,’ says Hossein. ‘After what I found in that bathroom.’

‘How did he always seem so cheerful?’ she asks. ‘I mean. Wouldn’t you, you know, be gibbering if you had a flat full of dead people?’

‘I guess that’s why none of us do,’ says Hossein. ‘You have to be a particular sort of person, I guess.’

She turns and retreats into her flat, runs the hot water to wash her hands. ‘Check your shoes,’ she calls. ‘I don’t want you treading any of that stuff into the carpet.’

They go up to Cher’s room together. Music still pours out from behind Gerard Bright’s door. He’s not heard a thing, thinks Vesta. He probably avoids us because he thinks we’re common. Thinks we’ll bore him. Boy, is he going to hit a learning curve.

The door is open. They all know there will be no more locking of doors in this house. Cher lies on the bed, the green back in her face, Collette sitting beside her, mopping her brow with a damp flannel.

‘How is she?’ asks Hossein.

‘Thank God for tramadol,’ she says. ‘I gave her two. I don’t know if it’s killing the pain, but at least it’s making her care less.’

‘Do you think that was wise?’ asks Vesta.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, what if it… if they want to give her something else in the hospital?’

‘No!’ croaks Cher. ‘No fucking hospital.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ says Vesta, ‘look at you. Of course you’re going to hospital.’

‘Don’t fucking talk to me like I’m a kid!’ she says as snappishly as she can.

‘Well, don’t behave like one, then.’

The girl’s eyes fill with tears. ‘Please don’t,’ she says. ‘I can’t go back.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Vesta says, more gently. ‘But look at you, Cher. You’re broken. This isn’t something we can mend with hooky antibiotics and painkillers.’

‘It’s just a collarbone,’ she says, and bites back a squeal of pain as its ends rub together inside. God, the kid’s got guts, thinks Hossein. You’ve got to give her that. But no one whose hand is going that shade of blue is staying out of hospital. Not if they want to live.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Vesta. ‘Really I am, Cher. You gave it the best go you could. We’ll do the best we can for you.’

Cher starts to sob.

Hossein touches Collette on the shoulder. She’s been silent since they came in, her face hidden by her hair. ‘You need to get going if you want to be gone,’ he says. ‘We need to call sooner than later.’

Collette looks up at them, and they’re all surprised to see that her face is as calm as the face of the Madonna. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says.