by M K Farrar
“Kyle?”
She kept the sheets around her, pinned under her armpits and across her chest. Even though they’d had sex, she wasn’t confident or comfortable with him enough yet to wander around naked.
Kyle appeared in the doorway, propping himself up against the frame as he regarded her. “Hey. You’re awake.”
He was already fully dressed and looked like he’d been up for hours.
“Yes, I am. Have you been up for a while?”
“I had work to do. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Work!
Her heartrate jumped. “Shit. What time is it?”
“Almost eleven.”
“I have to call in and let my boss know I’m not coming in today. Bloody hell. He’s going to complain that I haven’t left him enough time to get someone else to cover my shift.”
Kyle frowned. “Nat, you found your neighbours brutally murdered last night. I think worrying about a shift cover should be the last thing on your mind.”
“That’s easy for you to say, but you don’t know Phil. He’s not exactly the understanding type.”
“Tough. He’ll have to be on this occasion. You still need to go down to the police station and give your statement.”
She’d forgotten about that.
She let out a groan and covered her face with her hands. “Oh God, the last thing I want is to have to relive it all over again.”
“You’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”
“You will?”
“Of course.” He nodded. “I’ll drive you down. I’m not going to let you go through all of this on your own.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Hey.” He crossed the room and sat on the bed beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t want to see you crying.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just so grateful to have you here. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.” She sniffed and wiped her face. “I do need to call my boss, though.”
“TELL HIM YOU QUIT.”
She widened her eyes. “What? I can’t do that. I need the money.”
“You can’t go back to your flat, Natalie. Not after what happened. I have plenty of space here, and you don’t need to worry about money.”
“Are you talking about for a few days until the police are done, or permanently?”
He grinned. “Permanently.”
She reared back in shock. “I can’t move in here.”
Kyle shrugged. “Of course you can. People move in with each other all the time.”
“Not after a couple of weeks they don’t.”
“Bullshit. People get married after only a few weeks.” He must have seen her expression as he laughed. “Don’t panic, I’m not suggesting we get married. I just think it makes sense. You can’t go back to a flat where people were murdered.”
“They weren’t actually murdered in my flat,” she pointed out.
“Maybe not, but it was the same building. And who’s to say that the killer won’t come back? It’s not as though they’ve caught the guy.”
He was right. She knew she’d never be able to sleep in that flat again. She’d be lying in bed, picturing the bodies of Mina and Sajad above her head, and the amount of blood that had soaked through the floor. She already had a damp problem and now she’d imagine seeing the mould as patches of dried blood instead. Finding somewhere new to rent wasn’t going to be easy. She wondered if she’d get her deposit back since she was breaking her contract early. She’d struggle to find a new deposit and another month’s rent from anywhere. She lived month to month and didn’t have anything that looked like savings. In fact, she tended to live in her overdraft, though she had no intention of letting anyone else know that.
“I can’t promise permanently, okay?” she said, hesitantly, still unsure if she was doing the right thing. “But I would appreciate somewhere to stay for the time being.”
A smile broke across his face. “That’s good enough for me.” He leaned in and kissed her. “I’ll let you get ready, and then we can go down to the police station and get this next part done. After that, you can put this whole horrible mess behind you.”
She wasn’t sure she was ever going to forget what she’d seen, but she appreciated his kindness.
He left her alone, and she changed into the one set of clothes she’d brought from the flat, and then splashed some water on her face and brushed her teeth. She felt better for it, though she was still exhausted from the broken night’s sleep.
Kyle was waiting for her when she got downstairs, and he pushed a cup of tea and a plate of toast towards her. “I thought you might need these.”
“You’re an angel, thank you.” She took a sip of the tea, which was already at a drinkable temperature.
“Did you get around to calling into work?”
Her stomach dropped. “Shit! No, I completely forgot again. I don’t know where my head is at right now.”
She went to her handbag. Her phone was dead, and she hadn’t thought to pick up her charger.
“Can I use your phone?” she asked Kyle. “Phil is going to be having kittens by now.”
“Of course.” He handed it to her. “Knock yourself out.”
Phil wasn’t going to be happy about her not only being late for her shift, but also finding out that she wasn’t planning on coming in at all that day. She’d preferred not to be within Kyle’s earshot if she was going to end up having an argument with her boss and she shot him a look.
“I’ll be in my office,” he told her.
She gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
She called the number for the pub.
Phil answered. “You’ve reached the Wellington Inn.”
“Phil, it’s Natalie.”
His tone instantly changed. “Natalie! Where the fuck are you? Your shift started an hour ago.”
She sucked in a breath. “You must have heard what happened? It’s been all over the news.”
“You mean that immigrant couple? Yeah, that was a shitshow, but I don’t see what that has to do with you missing your shift.”
“Are you kidding? I was the one who found them, Phil.”
“Yeah, I worked out that was you. But still, you need to be in work.”
“I’m in shock. I’ve barely slept. I’ve got to go down to the police station to give a statement. You can’t actually expect me to stand behind the bar and pull pints.”
He exhaled an overexaggerated sigh. “Fine. Take a couple of days off, but I’m going to expect you to make up the hours.”
“You really are a bleeding heart, aren’t you, Phil? Did it even cross your mind to ask if I was okay?”
“Why wouldn’t you be? You weren’t the one murdered, were you?”
She huffed out a frustrated puff of air. “Oh, for goodness’ sake!”
“I’ll see you when you get back,” he said.
“Fine.”
She ended the call.
She turned to find Kyle propped in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest and one eyebrow raised. “Went well then?”
She rolled her eyes. “Much as expected. Phil is an arsehole.”
“You could always not go back, you know? It’s only a pub job, after all.”
She sighed and sat back in the chair. “I get why you’re saying that, but I need to work.”
He crossed the room to sit at the table opposite her. “You’ve been through a shock, Nat. Maybe it would be better if you took a break for a while.”
“I can’t afford to take a break.”
He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Yes, you can. End the lease on the flat and you won’t have any more rent to pay, and just stay here for a while. I can cover the other bills and I think I’ve already shown you that I can keep you well fed.”
She shook her head. “I really can’t make that kind of imposition on you.”
“It’s not an imposition at all. I want you here.”
“But...” Her mind
was spinning. “What am I supposed to do all day?”
He yanked her across the table towards him and kissed her. “Take care of me, of course.”
She laughed. “This is crazy. You know that, don’t you?”
“Love can make you do crazy things.”
Love? That was the first time love had been mentioned. She didn’t know what to think. He’d flustered her. Did she love him? She’d never been in love with anyone before—in fact, she’d never been this serious with anyone before. Had never brought a man home to meet her parents and certainly had never considered the possibility of moving in with someone.
He must have realised he was pushing her. “Hey, no pressure. Let’s just see how it goes, okay?”
Maybe it was time she took a risk in her life. She’d been playing it safe for so long, just keeping her head down and hoping she could somehow go unnoticed in the world, that she’d never really achieved anything. She’d never made any best friends, or had a good career, or completed any of her studies. She knew only too well how fragile life was—just look at poor Mina and Sajad—and perhaps it was about time she started living hers.
“How about a compromise,” she suggested. “I’ll come and stay here, but I’ll keep working at the pub.”
“How are you going to get back here every night, after you finish? The pub is right across the other side of the city.”
“It’s fine. I can drive.”
“At that time of night? After what happened? It’s really not safe, Natalie.”
“I normally walk home when I finish, so I’m sure I’ll be fine in the car.”
A slow smile broke across his face, and he nodded. “Okay, that sounds like a good compromise to me.”
A bloom of happiness rose inside her. “That’s a deal then.”
He pulled her in for another kiss.
Chapter Twelve
Kyle drove her down to the police station.
The interview room was nothing like the modern, slightly glamorous rooms she’d seen on television. This room was poky, with a couple of mismatched chairs set around a table that had been pushed into the corner. There was, however, what she assumed was one of those two-way mirrors on the opposite wall.
DI Kilman had greeted her when she’d entered, and Natalie wondered if the other woman had managed to get any sleep herself, or if she’d been working the case since the early hours.
She gestured for Natalie to take a seat. “Can I get you anything to drink?” she offered. “Tea or coffee.”
Natalie shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”
She’d left Kyle sitting out in reception and hoped she wouldn’t be keeping him too long. She already felt as though he was doing far too much for her. She’d suggested that he just drop her off and she’d catch the bus back, or even call him when she was done, but he’d insisted on waiting.
“I understand this is traumatic for you,” DI Kilman said, “but I need to ask you some questions about last night, and then I’ll get a written statement from you, which I’ll need you to sign. Then we’ll take your fingerprints, if that’s okay?”
“Of course, that’s why I’m here.”
“Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation.”
“I want you to find whoever did that to—” Natalie’s voice broke, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to hold back a bark of a sob.
“Would you like some water?”
“No, I’m fine. Please, let’s just get this done.”
“Okay.”
“What time did you get back to the flat last night?” she asked.
“It was about quarter past one in the morning.”
“Exactly quarter past?”
“No, I’m not sure. I hadn’t checked the time or anything, but that’s when I normally get back when I finish my shift.”
The DI glanced down at her notes. “And that was a shift at the Wellington Inn pub.”
“That’s right.”
“How long have you been working there?”
Natalie thought back. “A little over six months.”
DI Kilman scribbled something down and glanced back up. “When you got back, did you see anyone hanging around the street who wouldn’t normally be there? In particular, a man in a hoody?”
“No, there was no one around.”
“Okay, thanks. And when you opened the front door, what made you go upstairs instead of straight to your flat?”
Natalie let out a sigh. “I did go over all this when I first spoke to you.”
“I know and I’m sorry, but we have to make sure everything you said was correct. Things may look different to you now.”
Natalie nodded to show she understood, and continued, “The front door was already open. That’s what made me feel like something was wrong. Mina and Sajad had never left it open before. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
“And so you went upstairs?”
“Yes. Of course, I had no idea what I was going to find, or I would have taken my handbag with me, but I dropped it beside my front door.”
“And then?”
Natalie went over what had happened next, stuttering her way through, trying to remember the order in which she’d done everything and what she’d seen. It wasn’t easy, though, and there were parts her mind seemed to have blurred out or repositioned in different orders. She hated when she had to correct herself, her cheeks heating, embarrassment and guilt sweeping over her. Even though none of what had happened was her fault, when she got things wrong, it made her feel as though she was lying.
You feel like you’re lying because it reminds you of lying to the police after Anthony died.
When they were done, Natalie signed her statement.
DI Kilman handed over her card. “If you think of anything else, you can call me, okay?”
“Okay, thank you.” She hesitated and then asked, “Have you got any idea who might be behind their deaths?”
“Not yet, though we have a couple of leads. We can’t ignore the possibility that it was a racially motivated attack. Apparently, another neighbour had seen the couple having a confrontation with a white male earlier that day, and some comments along the lines of ‘go back to where you came from’ were thrown about, but they couldn’t give any more details than that.”
“That’s why you asked me about seeing anyone hanging around on the street before?”
DI Kilman nodded. “That’s right.”
Sheer hatred and violence had got Mina and Sajad killed, most likely simply because of where they were from and the colour of their skin.
You bastard, she thought about a faceless man she didn’t even know. You utter, utter bastard.
Chapter Thirteen
Kyle drove them back to the house.
She was drained after taking part in the interview and feeling the result of only a few hours of sleep. She wished everything could go back to normal. She wanted her own bed, and her own belongings around her. As lovely as Kyle’s place was, it didn’t feel like home.
“I don’t have any other clean clothes with me,” she realised. “I only packed one change last night. Do you think the police will let me go back into the flat to pick up some stuff? Damn. I should have asked while I was at the station, but my head was so full of everything else.”
Kyle frowned. “You don’t want to go back there, surely?”
“No, I don’t, but I can’t just leave everything there. At the very least, I need a change of clothes.”
“Leave that with me, okay?” He squeezed her hand. “You’ve had a shock, and I don’t think going back to the flat right now is going to do you any good.”
He was right. She didn’t want to go back there—not yet, anyway. Not until the memory of her toe nudging Sajad’s body faded from her mind, and she was able to close her eyes and not see Mina’s body splayed out across the bed. Sweet, smiling, happy Mina. What kind of sick bastard did something like that to an innocent couple?
How could hatred of another person
run so deep that murdering them in the middle of the night was something they’d actually do.
You should know. You hated someone badly enough to murder them.
Her heart stuttered, missing a beat, and her breath grew short. She didn’t want to have a panic attack. She’d suffered badly with them over the years, but she’d thought she’d got herself to a place where she could control them.
Kyle frowned down at her in concern. “You need to rest. You must have barely slept last night. Let me go out and buy you some new clothes so you won’t have to go back to the flat anytime soon.”
He was right, she hadn’t slept. She’d managed to catch a couple of hours after they’d had sex, but that was all. It must have been four in the morning before she’d eventually given in to sleep, and even then, she hadn’t slept well. It was hardly surprising, considering everything she’d been through.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay to do that? I mean, it’s not easy for a man to buy clothes for a woman.”
“Are you doubting my sense of style?” he teased.
“No, not at all.” She didn’t—he dressed far better than her.
“I can tell just by looking at you that you’re a size ten. Am I right?”
She nodded reluctantly. “Yes, you’re right.”
“Well, then. How hard can it be?”
She gave in. “Okay, thank you. At least keep the receipts so I can pay you back for whatever you buy.” She didn’t have any money to buy new clothes, but she wasn’t going to let him foot the bill. He was already letting her stay under his roof free of charge, and feeding her, too. She didn’t want him to think she was sponging off him.
“Natalie, just stop. I’m not going to take money off you. Got it?”
She wanted to argue with him, but something in his eyes told her not to, and besides, she didn’t have any money to pay him, and she worried he’d go to high-brand shops and she wouldn’t be able to afford them anyway.
