The Killer Next Door

Chapter Two

He’s a magnificent cat. Rangy and black and swaggering, with great vampire incisors that extend most of the way to his jawline. Green eyes and a kinked tail that speak of oriental blood, and a scarred left ear that shows that he’s not afraid to fight.

Today he is asserting his mastery of his territory by visiting. He’s been attached to the house for so long that no one remembers who originally brought him here, or if, indeed, anybody did. Some tenants shoo him away with angry hisses, afraid of his panther grace and unblinking stare, some sweep him into their arms with coos and growls of admiration, give him a warm place to sleep, and weep when they, as they all do, have to leave him behind. Twenty-six tenants have passed through the house on Beulah Grove since he took up residence, and he has never gone hungry enough to move on himself. He has had many names and for now it’s Psycho.

He stands in the window – The Lover has thrown it open because the heat inside is so stifling he’s afraid he’ll make the air damp with his sweat – and surveys the space, then leaps on to the back of the chair where the girl sits. He leans forward and sniffs her ginger hair, touches an ear with his fine damp nose. Affronted by her failure to respond he raises his face and looks up at the man. Blinks.

The Lover is weeping. He sits in a folding chair against the far wall, his face buried in his hands, and rocks. The tears come more quickly every time. He used to have a few hours – even a day or two – in which to savour the company, enjoy the romance, before the despair overtook him; to hold the hand and stroke the cheek and take pleasure in togetherness. But each event seems less delightful than the last, seems to pass so quickly that, almost as soon as it’s done, the yearning begins again, the loneliness breaking over his head like a wave.

He’s apologising, as he always does. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and the words catch, salty, in his throat. ‘Oh, Nikki, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

She doesn’t reply. Stares, vacant, past his shoulder, her mouth half open, surprised.

‘You just…’ he says. ‘I was afraid you were going to go away again. I can’t bear it, you see. Can’t bear it. I’m so alone.’

He continues to weep. He’s consumed with self-pity, eaten up with the emptiness of his existence. My life is full of busy-work, he thinks. I do and I act and I help and I organise, and at the end of the day it’s always the same. Just me. Me, alone, and the world going on as though I had never existed. They wouldn’t notice – none of them – for months, if I disappeared. Families like mine, no money, fractured marriages, siblings only half-related and homes already full to bursting, we drift apart when someone goes away. I don’t speak to my half-brother or sisters from one year’s end to the next, just bump into them sometimes when I make the trip back at Christmas. Worst of all, my mother always sounds surprised to hear my voice on the phone, though she hears it, regular as clockwork, first Sunday of every month, while Songs of Praise is on. They wouldn’t notice. Nobody would notice. I would vanish in a puff of smoke and make a nasty clearing-up job for someone further down the line.

He raises his eyes and looks at Nikki, the source of his suffering. A pretty girl. Not spectacular, not anything that anyone would say was out of his league, though he supposes that eyebrows might be raised at the difference in their ages. It was all I ever wanted, he thinks. A nice girl. No great ambition, no overwhelming passion like they play out in the movies, no champagne and roses. Just someone to stay with me, someone who wouldn’t go away.

The cat is standing by the wardrobe now, sniffing at the crack between the doors. The Lover leaps to his feet and shoos it off, claps his hands and hisses so that it tenses; then, with a baleful yowl, it jumps on to the bed and out of the window. He considers closing it to keep the cat out, but in this heat his dwelling space has become stifling, overwhelming, and he’s afraid that the smells it draws out will spread through the house. He wipes his salty face on his sleeve and tries to pull himself together. We can have a nice evening, at least, he thinks, as he looks back at his silent companion. I’ll have a glass of wine, hold her hand. Maybe she’d like to watch a film with me, before we begin.

Her right hand, knocked by the cat’s passing, slips suddenly from the arm of the chair and hangs in mid-air, still and soft. Such a pretty hand, he thinks, the nails always clean and scrupulously shaped. I noticed that about her the first time I saw her; always wanted to take that hand in my own, to press its smooth skin between my palms.

No time like the present. He fetches the fold-up chair and plants it beside the armchair. Funny, he thinks. She looks smaller than she used to. More fragile, more frail. More like someone who needs my protection. He puts the forearm back, along the chair’s arm, and goes to the kitchen drawer to fetch the scissors. Cuts, very slowly, very carefully, through the duck tape around her neck, then lifts the plastic bag it holds there – thick, heavy, transparent from her head, carefully, so as not to mess up her lovely hair. He’ll give her a bath, later. Strip off her stained clothing and run it through the washing machine, shampoo her sweaty locks and comb them down, dust her with baby powder. In heat like this, it’ll all be dry in no time.

‘There,’ he says kindly and plants a loving kiss on her temple, where no pulse beats any more. He takes his seat and lifts the hand, just briefly, to his lips. ‘There,’ he says again, and enfolds it between his own, larger, rougher palms, as he has always imagined.

‘This is nice, isn’t it?’ he asks, rhetorically.