A Killer Came Knocking

by S. B. Caves

  A look of cold, hard anger touched his face like a passing shadow. Then he gave her a sheepish, apologetic grin.

  ‘This is a stressful time, I know,’ he began to say, each word like an obstacle course for him. He was struggling to catch his breath, and his forehead shone with sweat. ‘A lot has happened in the last few days and we wouldn’t be human if we weren’t a bit on edge. I’m sorry.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Look, I’m close to getting the truth out of him, I know it. I just need a bit more time and then we can be rid of him forever. We can wash our hands of the whole thing.’

  He tried to reach out for her hand. She pulled it away before he could touch her.

  ‘Just give me one more day with him,’ Jack said, his face strained. ‘One more day and I’ll know why he did it. And then we can bury him and the past with him. What do you say?’

  She bit her bottom lip, chewing it white. ‘We could let him go,’ she whispered.

  She saw that shadow pass across his face again. He blinked rapidly and sputtered, ‘W-what?’

  ‘Hold your horses. I can see you’re already getting angry.’

  ‘I just want to make absolutely sure of what I’m hearing,’ he said.

  ‘We dump him somewhere. The police pick him up or somebody else does; either way he’s out of our hair and he goes to jail or he gets killed.’ The more she spoke, the better the plan sounded. ‘It takes the onus off us to deal with his body. And this way, if the police get him, he goes down for a long time.’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Don’t you even want to think about it? This gets us off the hook, Jack.’

  ‘This isn’t about him going to prison and it isn’t about someone else killing him. This is about our revenge, not his punishment.’

  She saw that he had turned into a brick wall and would not budge. She opened her mouth to say more, but by now, every word was a workout. She opened the door of the warehouse and stepped out.

  ‘Do you want a lift?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and almost laughed at the absurdity of his offer. She thought about the hotel she had checked herself into and the dent it was putting in her credit card. Maybe if she called her boss and grovelled, explained that she’d had a family tragedy, then she’d be able to go back to work next week. She was about to walk off when she said, ‘Will you at least do me one favour?’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Don’t hurt him any more.’ Even in the darkness, she could see his mouth opening to object, but she steamrollered ahead. ‘I know you’re trying to get a confession, but will you just wait until I get back here?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I think there’s more than one way to skin a cat and it doesn’t include mutilating him. He’s already in a bad way. You do anything more to him and he’s going to shut down completely, maybe go into shock. He could have a heart attack or something.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll just get him a nice fluffy pillow, make him some bacon and eggs and see if he’s feeling better. How about that?’

  ‘I’m not telling you to pamper him,’ she said flatly. ‘I just think we need to try another tactic. Beating him with hammers and scalding him with boiling water hasn’t done much to change his tune, so maybe we can think of something better.’

  ‘I’m not going to have him trying to confuse me,’ Jack said indignantly. ‘I don’t care what he says, this time I know it’s him for sure.’

  This time?

  Before she could ask for clarification, knowing it would spark off another argument that would frustrate Jack, he said, ‘Your wish is my command. I won’t touch him. I won’t speak to him. After all, I think it’s important that you’re here when he confesses. I wouldn’t want to rob you of that. Maybe when he gives up his reason, we’ll both stop having nightmares about her.’

  She could just about make out his impish grin. It was as though he had reached into the memory well at the back of her mind and stirred the pool with his finger. A collection of snapshots made a mosaic: Kate trying to stop a mouthful of tea from spilling out of her mouth while laughing at a rude joke; Kate’s red face and frizzy hair as they argued about a ripped T-shirt that Emily had borrowed; Kate driving down the motorway singing along with a Cher song; Kate sitting at her breakfast table with a bloody scarf knotted around her neck…

  Emily hoped he could keep his hands to himself until she got back.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The warehouse sounds spooked Craig.

  One of the few secrets he had left that he would, it seemed, take to the grave with him, was that he was ever so slightly afraid of the dark. The origin of that fear started from a young age, and while most children would have shrugged it off by the time they reached their adolescent years, it had always stayed with him. At night, he would curl into a tight ball in bed with the quilt covering every inch of him, burning up all the oxygen with steady, measured breaths. With his eyes tightly closed, a fork of tension would twist through his forehead, and as his skin grew hotter, an acute sense of claustrophobia would set in. He would always be tempted to throw the quilt back and gasp for air, emerging from his swaddling like a person who has just surfaced after nearly drowning. That was how he had fallen asleep most nights as a child: his whole body clenched like a fist, suffocating on his own breath, too petrified to move a muscle in case the bed springs whined and broke the silence.

  He was not afraid of ghosts or goblins knocking around the house. He wasn’t even bothered by the story he’d heard at school of the pigeon lady that sits on the end of boys’ beds with an awful smile on her face (although it had creeped him out well enough). He knew that all these things were myths and vapours. However, he also understood that if he were to pull back the quilt and peek out into the darkness of his room, there was a chance he would see his brother standing there with that terrible, dead look on his face.

  Maurice liked to creep around the house at night. He didn’t sleep very well, and whether that was down to the noises in his pillow or a side effect of the medication he was taking, Craig never knew. Yet Maurice’s wanderings would usually end with him standing next to Craig’s bed, staring at him, whispering in a low voice, ‘I’ve got to give you something.’ More often than not, Maurice would have some obscure gift for him that never made much sense, but was always of the utmost importance to Maurice: a fuzzy keychain with goggle eyes that he had found at the side of the road; a book about Osama bin Laden; a pill bottle filled with ball bearings.

  Other times, Maurice would just talk. He would enter Craig’s room so silently that Craig wouldn’t even know he was there until he heard the breathy incantations emanating from the corner. The conversations that Maurice conducted with himself always sounded like nonsense to Craig. Yet sometimes there would be a startling clarity in his voice that almost made him think Maurice was pulling some sort of joke on them all, that he was in fact just a regular guy with some irregular ideas.

  He tried not to think about his brother so much because dredging up those memories made him cringe and run cold all over. He could be at a traffic light or withdrawing money from a cashpoint and Maurice’s strange, flat voice would creep into his mind, pebbling his cheeks with goosebumps. Whenever that happened, Craig would scrunch his eyes closed until the breeze blew out of his system, weathering the chill as best he could.

  Beyond the door, Craig could hear the heavy thump-drag of Jack’s pacing. He was muttering to himself, and sometimes the muttering would grow louder and more intelligible as he neared the oiling room door. It seemed to Craig that Jack had been walking around for hours. He was agitated. Craig could hear it in the cadence and rhythm of Jack’s speech, the way certain words would leap out of the darkness and ring through the warehouse.

  He’s going to kill me soon, he realised with a finality that was as close to peaceful as he could hope for. There was no way out of the ropes. He had resigned himself to death, welcoming the idea as the only reprieve he was likely to receive against
the ungodly agony he had endured. He had hoped that the pain in his head would have killed him. He would have welcomed a death like that if it meant he robbed Jack of the opportunity to do it himself.

  He listened to the pipe gurgling behind him and the echoes of Jack’s footfall. He had neither the strength nor the enthusiasm to sit up. Even if, by some miracle, the ropes loosened and the door creaked open, Craig didn’t think he would be physically capable of leaving. The pain owned him completely. Even breathing was an exercise in torture, each inhalation setting off a bomb in the minefield of his skull.

  The door opened and Jack’s silhouette filled the threshold, his frame haloed by the milky white warehouse lights. His shoulders heaved as though he had just finished jogging and was still trying to catch his breath.

  ‘It’s time now,’ Jack said, steam rising from his mouth as he spoke.

  ‘Just kill me,’ Craig mewled.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’m here to do.’ He stepped into the room. In one hand he held a plastic bag, in the other a meat cleaver.

  Craig’s eyes met the gleam of the cleaver. Warm sweat dribbled over his cold skin and he shivered. The pain in his body was still enormous, but now it registered as some undefinable anomaly. He was floating, detached from himself, but the cleaver pulled him right back.

  ‘I want to end your misery in a humane way,’ Jack said tonelessly, standing like a monolith before Craig’s broken and blistered body. ‘Will you at least let me do that for you?’

  ‘I just want to die,’ Craig croaked. Every swallow was like a mouthful of sand forced down his throat. ‘Just let me die. Please.’

  ‘I can do that for you. I can give you a quick death.’ Jack pulled a face and eased himself down onto one knee. ‘I can make all your pain go away. Or, if you want to drag this out, I can suffocate you slowly, take you to the brink of death and pull you back again. But I don’t want to do that.’ He reached out and stroked Craig’s knotted hair, one calloused thumb brushing his sweat-beaded nose. ‘Confess to me.’

  Craig gave him the slightest nod, his rough tongue probing the blisters that clustered his lips. ‘I will.’ He felt the warm breeze of Jack’s breath on his face. ‘Throat… dry… water?’

  ‘You promise to confess your sins?’

  ‘Yes,’ he coughed out painfully.

  ‘All right then.’ Jack vanished and came back with a cup of lukewarm water. He placed the cup at Craig’s lips. ‘Open your mouth,’ he said, and delicately poured the water into his mouth. ‘Is that better?’ Jack asked. Craig sighed. ‘You know, Craig, I almost admire your spirit. I don’t know how you held off for as long as you did, but now you can give it all up and go with God. Does that sound good?’

  ‘Yes,’ Craig said and smiled, involuntarily causing the corners of his mouth to split and bleed.

  ‘Then tell me.’

  ‘Will you do it quickly?’

  ‘If you tell me the truth, then you have my word. If you lie, you get the bag.’

  ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you why I did it.’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  It was time to go. She could feel the walls closing in, and speaking to Morley had set off a siren in her brain, shrilling for her to get out, get moving. She had to put as much distance between her and that warehouse as possible, erase all memory of what she had helped to do. Morley was right, she was a coward. She could not be there for the slaughter, but she knew it was close. She could sense Jack’s lust for it increasing when they last spoke, and the more she questioned Morley’s guilt, the more incensed he became. Jack was desperate for his blood.

  The adrenaline boiled in Emily’s veins, dissolving away her lethargy. Her body had been like a sandbag and now, as she jogged down the street, she was barely aware of any heaviness at all. She was in cruise control, all her muscles operating on memory, her feet slapping the pavement so fast she thought she might trip over. It was as though the wind were pushing her along, carrying her. Her mind was a crowded room, full of conversation. Through it she could hear snippets of thoughts, fragmented ideas, all of it lost beneath a haze of fear.

  She had been running almost full speed since the train station, her lungs burning with every laboured breath. As she skidded up the path to her house and stopped at the front door, she became light-headed.

  Roger opened the door, his face shuffling through expressions, unsure of how to look. ‘Emily,’ he said, his lips working overtime to find the right words. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘My stuff,’ she said, combing her sweat-greasy hair away from her blotchy face. ‘I need the rest of my stuff.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, and his current expression seemed to collapse with disappointment. ‘Um, sure.’ He stepped back and held the door wider, allowing her passage.

  She moved past him and into the silent house. ‘I need to go to the shed and get the big suitcase.’

  ‘The one with the broken wheels?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She nodded.

  ‘That’s my suitcase.’

  She blinked, felt sweat sting her eyes. ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘Yes it is. I got it from TK Maxx before we went to Morocco.’

  She cast her mind back, searching for the memory. In her head, she pushed through the crowded room, came to a jittery black-and-white TV screen and tried to tune the aerial. She remembered both of them being in TK Maxx that day, but couldn’t recall who had paid for it.

  ‘Look, either you let me have that suitcase or I’ll have to make two or three trips to get all my stuff.’

  ‘Or you could just buy another one,’ he said with a shrug. He was back to being a petulant little boy.

  ‘You know what? Fine. Keep the suitcase. I’m going to take a few of my things and you can do whatever you want with the rest of it. Take my clothes and burn them on the lawn if you want to. I don’t give a shit any more.’

  She charged up the stairs and headed to the bedroom. Upon opening the door, she was met with the pungent odour of food – what smelled like Pot Noodle and Chinese takeaway – and recoiled ever so slightly. It smelled like the room of a man who’d been holed up for days, bingeing miserably.

  She opened the sock drawer and rifled through it until she found her passport. Then, with that safely tucked away in her pocket, she rooted through the dressing table, scooping up all her jewellery – tangled necklaces, rings, earrings, bangles. None of it was worth very much but the accumulation might fetch a few pounds if she found herself in a pinch. That thought almost made her laugh, because boy, oh boy, was she in a pinch now.

  What else? She thought about whether it was worth taking any shoes, but decided against it. Her shoes were generally cheap and most of them needed resoling. Underwear? She could pick up some cheap items from Primark. She scanned the room frantically, knowing that she was forgetting something, but not quite sure what. Then she saw a photo of Kate wedged into the mirror and remembered the shoebox. Her old photos were the most precious things she owned, and there she was worrying about knickers and scuffed old shoes.

  On all fours, she reached under the bed, shifting Roger’s junk around in an effort to locate the shoebox. She moved the bag that contained his archery set – one of his expensive fads that had fizzled out almost as quickly as it had arrived – and brushed aside loose free weights and boxing gloves that had never been used.

  The old shoebox wasn’t where it should have been. Her first thought was that he had thrown them out in an effort to spite her, and a new wave of panic welled up. She reared back under the bed, bonking her head hard against the wooden slats, and shuffled out. She could hear him coming up the stairs. She stormed across the room to meet him on the landing.

  ‘Roger? Where are my photos?’ She flung the door back. It bounced off the wall and echoed through the house. She saw that he was carrying the broken-wheeled suitcase up the stairs for her. It was wrapped in a ragged bin bag that was covered in a coat of dust and probably housing a thousand spiders.

  ‘I got the cas
e,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Where are the photos?’

  ‘What photos?’

  ‘You know what photos. The ones of my sister. Where are they?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They were under the bed! Don’t tell me you don’t know when they’ve always been under the bed.’

  ‘I haven’t touched them. Did you look properly?’

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped.

  ‘I bet you didn’t,’ he grumbled, and got down on all fours to investigate. Grunting and shifting, he reappeared a moment later with an old Adidas shoebox. Emily exhaled and pressed a hand against her forehead. She fought the tears through a rolling tide of relief.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and carefully relieved him of the shoebox as though it might disintegrate at her touch. Like the bin bag covering the suitcase, the shoebox was coated with dust. When had been the last time she had looked at these photos? A year? Two years? More? She felt the strength disappear from her legs and sat down on the bed, cradling the box like a baby. Eventually she said, ‘I’m sorry, Roger.’

  ‘Don’t apologise.’ He sat down beside her, giving her about a foot of personal space.

  Emily opened the box and selected a photo from the mound. It was a picture of her and Kate at Disneyland with matching Minnie Mouse ears on.

  ‘God, you look young there,’ Roger said gently.

  ‘Yeah.’ Emily cleared her throat and put the lid back on the box. ‘Think we were eleven in that picture.’

  ‘You look like you’re having fun.’

  ‘We were,’ she said, and met his eyes. ‘Thanks for bringing the suitcase up. If you really want it, I’ll drop it back once I’m settled.’

  ‘No, I don’t want it back,’ he said. ‘I just wish you didn’t have to go.’

  ‘Well, I do.’ She stood up and pulled the bin bag off the suitcase, coughing as the dust tickled her throat. She unzipped and opened it. Inside, there was a tag from a swimming costume she had worn on their last holiday together.