As far as days to die were concerned, the longest day of the year was as good a day as any.
Naomi Bennett lay with her eyes open at the bottom of a ditch while the blood that had kept her alive for all of her twenty-four years pulsed away into the grit and rubble beneath her.
As she drifted in and out of awareness, she contemplated the irony of it all: how she was going to die now—having survived so much, and thinking that freedom was so close—at the hands of the only man who had ever really loved her and shown her kindness. He stood at the edge of the ditch above her, his face in shadow as the sun shone through the bright green leaves and cast dappled light over him, his hair halo-bright. Waiting.
The blood filled her lungs and she coughed, blowing scarlet bubbles that foamed over her chin.
He stood motionless, one hand on the shovel, watching the blood flow out of her and marveling at its glorious color, a liquid jewel, and at how even at the moment of death she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Once the flow slowed to a mere trickle he turned away, casting a glance across the derelict no-man’s-land between the back of the industrial park and the beginnings of farmland. Nobody came here, not even dog walkers; the ground was rough and scarred with manufacturing refuse accumulated over decades, weeds growing through empty cable reels, brown fluid leaking out of rusted oil drums, and at the edge, beneath a long row of lime trees, a six-foot ditch that accumulated dirty water when it rained, draining a mile away into the river.
Several minutes passed.
She was dead.
The wind had started to pick up and he looked up through the canopy of leaves to the clouds chasing one another across the sky.
He scrambled carefully down the rough slope into the bottom of the ditch, using the shovel for support, and then without hesitation drove it into her skull, bouncing roughly off the first time, then with a dull crack breaking the bone and splintering it into her flesh. Again and again, gasping with the effort, smashing her face away, breaking teeth, bone and flesh into one ghastly mixture.
After that, she wasn’t his Naomi anymore.
He used the knife again to slice away at each of her fingers in turn, her palms, until nothing identifiable was left.
Finally, he used the bloody shovel to cover her over with the rubble, sand and trash that had collected in the ditch. It wasn’t a very good job. The blood was everywhere.
But as he finished—wiping away the tears that he’d been shedding from the moment she’d said his name in surprise, just as he’d sliced her throat—the first spots of rain fell from the darkening sky.
Erin had been standing in the doorway for almost a minute; I could see her reflection in the darkened window. I continued scrolling through the spreadsheet on the screen, wondering how it could be that it was dark when I left for work this morning and now it was dark again already.
“Cathy?”
I turned my head. “Sorry,” I said, “I was miles away. What?”
She leaned against the door, one hand on a hip, her long russet hair wound back into a bun. “I said, are you nearly finished?”
“Not quite. Why?”
“Don’t forget it’s Emily’s going-away party tonight. You are coming, aren’t you?”
I turned back to the screen. “I’m not sure, to be honest—I need to get this finished. You go on ahead. I’ll try and get there later if I can.”
“All right,” she said at last. She made a show of stomping off, although she didn’t make much noise in those pumps.
Not tonight, I thought. Especially not tonight. It was all I could manage to agree to go to the damn Christmas party, let alone a night out to celebrate someone’s departure, someone I scarcely know. They’d been planning the Christmas bash since August; as far as I’m concerned the end of November is too bloody early for a Christmas night out, but it’s the date they all chose. They’re all partying from then on, right up to Christmas. Early or not, I was going to have to go, otherwise I could see comments being made about me not being a “team player,” and God knows I need this job.
As soon as the last person left the office, I closed down the spreadsheet and turned off the computer.
Friday night, Halloween, and the bars in town were all full to the cauldron’s brim.
In the Cheshire Arms I’d drunk cider and vodka and somehow lost Sylvia and Louise and Claire, and gained a new friend called Kelly. Kelly had been to the same school as me, although I didn’t remember her. That didn’t matter to either of us; Kelly was dressed as a witch without a broomstick, all stripy orange tights and black nylon wig, me like the bride of Satan in a fitted red satin dress and cherry-red silk shoes that had cost more than the dress. I’d already been groped a few times.
By one, most people were heading for the night bus, or the taxi stand, or staggering away from the town center into the freezing night. Kelly and I headed for the River bar, since it was the only place likely still to let us in.
“You are
so
going to hook up wearing that dress, Catherine,” Kelly said, her teeth chattering.
“I fucking hope so, it cost me enough.”
“Do you think there will be anything decent in there?” she said, peering hopefully at the bedraggled line.
“I doubt it. Anyway, I thought you said that you were off men?”
“I said I’ve given up on relationships. Doesn’t mean I’m off sex.”
It was bitterly cold and starting to drizzle, the wind whipping the smells of a Friday night around me, blowing up my skirt. I pulled my jacket tighter around me and crossed my arms over it.
We headed for the VIP entrance. I remember wondering if this was a good idea, whether it might not be better to call it a night, when I realized Kelly had been let in already and I went to follow her. I was blocked by a wall of charcoal-gray suit.
I looked up to see a pair of incredible blue eyes, short blond hair. Not someone you’d want to have an argument with.
“Hold up,” said the voice, and I looked up at the doorman. He wasn’t massive like the other two, but still taller than me. He had a very appealing smile.
“Hello,” I said. “Am I allowed to go in with my friend?”
He paused for a moment and looked at me just a fraction longer than was seemly. “Yes,” he said at last. “Of course. Just . . .”
I waited for him to continue. “Just what?”
He glanced across to where the other door staff were chatting up some teenagers who were busy trying their hardest to get in.
“Just couldn’t believe my luck for a moment, that’s all.”
I laughed at his cheek. “Not been a good night, then?”
“I have a thing for red dresses,” he said.
“I don’t think this one would fit you.”
He laughed and held the velvet rope to one side to let me in. I felt him watching me as I handed my jacket in to the cloakroom; stole a glance back at the door and saw him again, just watching me. I gave him a smile and went up the steps to the bar.
All I could think of that night was dancing until I was numb, smiling and laughing at people with my new best friend, dancing in that red dress until I caught the eye of someone, anyone, and best of all finding some dark corner of the club and being fucked against a wall.
It took me a long, long time to get out of the flat this morning. It wasn’t the cold, although the heating in the flat seems to take an age to have any effect. Nor was it the dark. I’m up every day before five; it’s been dark at that time since September.
Getting up isn’t my problem, getting out of the house is. Once I’m showered and dressed, have had something to eat, I start the process of checking that the flat is secure before I go to work. It’s like a reverse of the process I go through in the evening, but worse somehow, because I know that time is against me. I can spend all night checking if I want to, but I know I have to get to work, so in the mornings I can only do it so many times. I have to leave the curtains in the lounge and in the dining room, by the balcony, open to exactly the right width every day or I can’t come back in the flat again. There are sixteen panes in each of the patio doors; the curtains have to be open so that I can see just eight panes of each door if I look up to the flat from the path at the back of the house. If I can see a sliver of the dining room through the other panes, or if the curtains aren’t hanging straight, then I’ll have to go back up to the flat and start again.
I’ve gotten quite good at getting this right, but it still takes a long time. The more thorough I am, the less likely I’ll find myself on the path behind the house cursing my carelessness and checking my watch.
The door is particularly bad. At least in the last place, that poky basement in Kilburn, I had my own front door. Here I have to check and recheck the flat door properly six or twelve times, and then the communal front door as well.
The flat in Kilburn did have a front door but nothing at all at the back, no back door, no windows. It was like living in a cave. I didn’t have an escape route, which meant that I never felt really safe in there. Here, things are much better: I have French doors that lead onto a small balcony. Just below that is the roof of the shed that is shared with the other flats, although I don’t know if anyone else uses it. I can get out of the French doors, jump down to the shed roof, and from there down onto the grass. Through the yard and out the gate into the alleyway at the back. I can do it in less than half a minute.
Sometimes I have to go back and check the flat door again. If one of the other tenants has left the front door unlocked again I definitely have to check the flat door. Anyone could have been in.
This morning, for example, was one of the worst.
Not only was the front door unlocked, it was actually slightly ajar. As I reached for it, a man in a suit pushed it open toward me, which made me jump. Behind him, another man, younger, tall, wearing jeans and a hooded top. Dark hair cropped close to his head, unshaven, tired green eyes. He gave me a smile, and mouthed “Sorry,” which helped.
Suits still freak me out. I tried not to look at the suit at all, but I heard it say as it went up the stairs, “. . . this one’s only just become available, you’ll have to move fast if you want it.”
A rental agent, then.
The Chinese students who’d been on the top floor must have finally decided to move on. They weren’t students anymore, they graduated in the summer—the party they’d had had gone on all night, while I lay in my bed underneath listening to the sound of feet marching up and down the stairs. The front door had been unlocked all night. I’d barricaded myself in by pushing the dining table against the flat door, but the noise had kept me awake and anxious.
I watched the second man following the suit up the stairs.
To my horror the man in jeans turned halfway up the first flight and gave me another smile, a rueful one this time, raising his eyes as if he was already sick of the rental agent’s voice. I felt myself blushing furiously. It’s been a long time since I made eye contact with a stranger.
I listened to the footsteps heading up to the top floor, meaning they’d gone past my flat door. I checked my watch—a quarter past eight already! I couldn’t just go and leave them inside the house.
I shut the front door firmly and turned the lock, checking that the bolt had shot home by rattling the door a few times. With my fingertips I traced around the edge of the doorframe, feeling that the door was flush with the frame. I turned the doorknob six times, to make sure it was properly closed. One, two, three, four, five, six. Then the doorframe again. Then the doorknob, six times. One, two, three, four, five, six. Then the lock. Once, and again. Then the doorframe. Lastly the knob, six times. I felt the relief that comes when I manage to do this properly.
Then I marched back up to the flat, fuming that these two idiots were going to make me late.
I sat on the edge of my bed for a while with my eyes lifted to the ceiling, as if I could see them through the plaster and the rafters. All the time I was fighting the urge to start checking the window locks again.
I concentrated on my breathing, my eyes closed, trying to calm my racing heart. They won’t be long, I told myself. He’s only looking. They won’t be long. Everything is fine. The flat is safe. I’m safe. I did it properly before. The front door is shut. Everything is fine.
Every so often a small sound made me jump, even though it seemed to come from a long way away. A cabinet door banging? Maybe. What if they’d opened a window up there? I could hear a vague murmur, far too far away to make out words. I wondered what price they were asking for it—it might be nicer to be higher up. But then I wouldn’t have the balcony. As much as I love being out of reach, having an escape route is just as important.
I checked my watch—nearly a quarter to nine. What the fuck were they doing up there? I made the mistake of glancing at the bedroom window, and then of course I had to check it. And that started me off, so I had to start again at the door, and I was on my second round, standing on the lid of the toilet, feeling my way with my fingertips around the edge of the frosted window that doesn’t even open, when I heard the door shutting upstairs and the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside.
“. . . nice safe area, at least. Never need to worry about leaving your car outside.”
“Yeah, well, I’d probably get the bus. Or I might use my bike.”
“I think there’s a communal shed in the backyard; I’ll check when we get back to the office.”
“Thanks. I’d probably leave it in the hallway.”
Leave it in the hallway? It was untidy enough as it was. But then, maybe someone other than me would make a point of locking the front door.
I finished off the check, and then did the flat door. Not too bad. I waited for it, the anxiety, the need to go around and start again, but it was okay. I’d done it right, and only two times. The house was silent, which made things easier. Best of all, this time the front door was firmly fastened, indicating that the man in jeans had shut it properly behind him. Maybe he wouldn’t be a bad tenant after all.
It was nearly nine-thirty by the time I finally got to the Tube.