by Paul Finch
She moved to the window.
It was now dark outside. All she could see were the boles of the nearest trees, and drifts of fallen leaves between them. Beyond those, thanks to the garden wall, there was only blackness, though one or two twinkles of yellow streetlight showed over the top. She closed the curtain, not wanting anyone to see that a lone woman was peeking out.
Something rattled in the hall.
At first Berni thought nothing of it, but then she froze. It had sounded like the front door. Had someone just tried to get in? She listened intently, but heard nothing else. Most likely it had been a gust of wind.
Except that she couldn’t leave it at that.
She walked into the hall. The front door was only ten feet away, but suddenly that didn’t feel far enough. Was it possible, she wondered – was someone on the other side, his ear pressed against the wood. She advanced warily. The door’s lock engaged automatically when the door closed, so it should be secure, though she noticed that the safety chain was hanging loose. That was the solution. All she had to do was fix the chain, open the door a crack and glance out. And yet how many horror movies had she seen where that had never been enough, where at the first chink of light the powerhouse maniac had forced his way through?
“Un-bloody-believable!” came a loud voice behind her.
Berni twirled around, her heart skipping a beat.
Don was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, holding a plastic carrier bag stuffed with paper parcels; there was a sudden aroma of vinegar.
“You’d think folk’d be too scared to go out,” he said. “But there must have been twenty in that queue.”
“Please tell me you just tried the front door.”
He looked nonplussed. “Why would I? I haven’t got a key for it.”
“Someone just has.”
Don hurried to the door and yanked it open. There was no-one outside, but the breeze was stiffening. Curled leaves danced through the darkness. He pointed this out. It made sense, though Berni was still grateful when the door was closed again. She led the way through to the kitchen, where the plates and cutlery were waiting.
“Mum not down yet?” Don asked.
“I doubt she’s coming down,” Berni said, dishing up. “She took one look at me and decided she didn’t have an appetite.”
Don nodded as if this, while not understandable, was at least forgivable – a mute acquiescence to his parent’s unreasonable attitude, which exasperated Berni more than she could say.
“You know, Don … this is not an easy thing you’ve asked me to do.”
“I know that.”
“It might have been more helpful if you’d taken a few days off work, instead of me.”
“I’ve tried to explain that the short notice thing wasn’t possible with our rosters.”
“Maybe you should explain it to your mum when you go back up. She wants another word.”
He nodded resignedly. “Okay. I’ll not be long.”
“You reckon?”
Of course, Don was quite some time upstairs. Berni found a tray, and ate her fish and chips from her knee in the lounge, the TV news at last having given way to The Simpsons, though in reality she was listening to the raised voices upstairs, or rather the raised voice. No doubt, Don would be offering the same solutions to their usual intractable problem, and Miriam would be rebuffing them in the same old way. If they sold their respective homes, he’d be arguing, they could pool their resources and buy a house together. Miriam wouldn’t hear of it (and thank God for that, Berni thought). Well, why didn’t Miriam sell up and move into sheltered accommodation? She wouldn’t be alone and would have good security. Again, Miriam would refuse, saying that this was her home and that she would never abandon it to the forces of chaos outside. But if she was frightened, Don would protest … Anyone would be frightened, Miriam would reply. But she was made of sterner stuff.
When he finally came downstairs, he looked even more chastened than before.
“Yours has gone cold,” Berni said. “I’d stick it in the microwave, but your mum doesn’t have one.”
“It’s alright.”
“I can put the oven on, but it’ll take a while.”
“I haven’t got time for that.”
“You’re going to work already?”
“Well, it’s an extra forty minutes from here, isn’t it?”
Berni glanced at her watch: it was just past six. “Are the coppers still outside?”
“They’re all over the estate.”
That wasn’t really answering the question. Though Berni knew that even if a police car was parked up on the other side of the garden wall, it wouldn’t stay there all night.
“I’ve put the bags in the third bedroom,” he said. “Want to come and check we’ve got everything?”
They went upstairs together. The landing, like the staircase, was dark and creaky. The only light up there filtered around the door from Miriam’s bedroom. Berni wondered what it was like inside: no doubt ornate though again faded and filmed with dust; Miriam would be laid out in the midst of it like some aged, ailing movie star.
Their own room was more basic. It contained all the necessaries: a wardrobe, a side-table with a nightlight on it, and of course a double-bed made up with clean bedding. Berni peeked around the curtain. From up here, she could look down through largely leafless branches, and was able to see over the perimeter wall. She surveyed the neighbourhood. It was a little cluttered maybe, but it was firmly middle-class compared to the housing estate she’d grown up on in Liverpool. The houses were tidy – some were semis, some were detached. They all had gardens, and cars or caravans on their drives. There wasn’t as much police activity as there had been, though a patrol car was parked on the adjacent road. Its driver was talking to a helmeted foot-patrol, who, shortly afterwards, moved away, saying something into his radio before vanishing around a corner. She glanced further afield, trying not to notice the shadowed passages between vehicles and houses, or the black spots behind bushes where someone could be lurking.
“What time will you be back?” she asked, as Don buttoned up his grey uniform.
“Same as usual. Sevenish.”
“It won’t be the same as usual, will it? You’re forty minutes further away.”
“Okay, seven-forty-ish. What does it matter? You’ll still be in bed.” He zipped his windbreaker, then grabbed his shoulder bag and torch, leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m off.”
They went downstairs together.
“Just out of interest,” Berni said as they passed the curtained alcove, “have you seen the vile thing your mum keeps behind there?”
“Oh that, yeah.” Don chuckled. “Tok.”
“I’m not surprised she has problems living here with that thing.”
“You must be joking. Tok’s her best mate. She wouldn’t be without him.”
“Weird bloody name.”
They reached the bottom, where Don pulled his gloves on. “Apparently, it’s short for Tokoloshe. I don’t know what that is. Some kind of good luck charm. You know Mum’s dad was a diplomat in Southern Rhodesia. Well, when she was a kid there she had a Zulu nurse called Jana, who doted on her. Later, when my granddad was transferred to Kenya, Jana was broken-hearted. She gave Tok to Mum as a goodbye present. During the Mau Mau rebellion – that’s when my grandparents were murdered, and Mum was taken hostage – she kept it with her all the time. I suppose it was the only friend she had. When British troops rescued her, she wouldn’t give it up for love nor money. Kept it ever since.”
“It’s still hideous.”
He chuckled again. “It’s a doll. There must be scabby old dolls folk are sentimental about all over the country. Anyway …” He leaned down and kissed her one last time.
Berni resisted the urge to grab him and hug him. He had to go to work; there was no choice in the matter. She closed the door, and listened as the crunch of his boots on the gravel faded. A few moments later, she heard
the engine at the side of the house. Then that too faded. She went back into the lounge, glancing at her watch. It would be nine hours before he was back. On the TV, The Simpsons had finished and a news update was again discussing the murders. A noted crime writer had now arrived in the studio.
“Despite there not being a home defence industry in the UK, house invasion murders of this sort are quite rare,” he said. “Of course, we’re not sure how the killer entered these three premises – the police haven’t told us yet – but it’s a bit worrying given that most householders these days are sensible about security …”
Berni wondered if Don had locked the back door when he’d come in earlier. She dashed through to the kitchen, and found the door closed but unlocked.
“Bloody security guards,” she said, turning the key.
From somewhere outside there was a metallic clatter. It sounded like the dustbins.
She tried to peer through the glass panel, but it was frosted and revealed nothing. There was no safety chain on the back door, so when she opened it, she positioned her body behind it in order to throw her full weight against it should she need to.
There was nobody out there. The dustbins stood where they had before, in a row on the other side of the parking space, the emptiness of which only served to remind Berni that Don had gone. One of the dustbin lids appeared to have fallen off. Beyond the bins, leaves swirled through the darkness. The wind was picking up steadily. It might be sufficient to have dislodged the lid.
Berni closed the door and locked it again, before going back into the lounge. She turned the volume down on the television, took her mobile from her pocket and punched in the number of her best friend, Laura.
“Hi babes,” Laura said. “Is it absolutely awful?”
“Not absolutely,” Berni replied, curling up on the sofa. “Miriam’s her usual self. The only good thing I can say is that she’s gone to bed early.”
“They’re saying on the news that he’s deranged.”
“They wouldn’t have to be experts to work that out, would they?”
“No, there’s a difference.” Laura, though a hairdresser by trade, was married to a chap called Neil, who was a forklift truck driver but also an amateur ghost-watcher. The pair of them had what some might call an abnormal interest in the odd and ghoulish, and were mines of useless if creepy information. “If you’re officially deranged, it means you’ve got no self-control. That’s different from your traditional sex killers, who hunt for victims carefully. If you’re deranged …” – she enunciated the word lovingly, “it’s like you see in the movies, where you just go from house to house, knocking everyone off.”
“Love, I don’t suppose we can talk about something else?”
“Oh sorry, babes.”
Soon they were nattering contentedly – about old friends, about new friends, about work prospects, about social events they wanted to organise, and so on. It was almost nine before Berni noticed the battery light flashing.
“Gotta go, darling,” she said. “Wish I could stay on longer.”
“Understand. Night, babes.”
Once she’d cut the call, Berni plugged the phone into a socket, and stood in front of the TV. There was still no volume, which made the house seem even quieter than before. Perhaps this was why the long, low creak she suddenly heard overhead made her jump.
She went to the bottom of the stairs and paused to listen – nothing.
Ascending, she stopped every few treads, but still heard nothing else. When she reached the top landing, she glanced from one open doorway to the next. All were in darkness, except for Miriam’s; her door was still closed and spilling lamplight around its edges. It seemed certain that what Berni had just heard was her mother-in-law pottering around, but the silence from that bedroom now was unnerving.
“Hello?” Berni said, tapping on the door. There was no response. She glanced again at the other darkened doorways. “Miriam … it’s me. Can I come in?”
Again there was no reply, so Berni pushed the door gently. It swung open, and she peeked around. The bedroom was much as she’d imagined: a remnant of something once grand. There were even oil paintings in there, and fine brocade: but all of it had seen better days. The carpet was worn; the room’s high corners were furred with dust. Piles of unwashed clothes lay everywhere, even across the foot of the bed, where there was also a sewing box, which had shed several needles, pins and a large pair of shears. A sideboard was jumbled with medicines and bottles of tablets. Miriam was asleep – but not reclined on some four-poster with faded film star elegance; instead, she was curled beneath a thin, patched eiderdown, breathing softly but regularly, her ratty grey hair strewn over a pillow that was stained yellow.
Berni retreated again and closed the door. It was difficult to imagine that Miriam had been walking around in the last few minutes. In which case, what had she heard up here? A floorboard? Sure. But floorboards didn’t creak on their own. She pivoted around, watching the other doorways, her hand reaching for the landing light switch. When her phone suddenly trilled downstairs, she almost shouted.
“What’ve you been doing?” Don said when she answered. “I’ve been trying to get you all evening.”
“Talking to Laura.”
“I thought it would be something stupid like that.”
“Hey … I’m sorry it was inconvenient. But I’m here on my own, remember? Or I might as well be. Why didn’t you try the landline?”
“I didn’t want to disturb Mum.”
“That figures.”
“Listen Bern … I think I may have left the back door unlocked.”
“You did. I’ve sorted it.”
“Thank God. Check everywhere else is locked as well. I mean everywhere.” He sounded more anxious than he had done earlier. “I’m going to try and get tomorrow night off after all. And the night after that, if possible.”
“Why? What’s changed?”
He hesitated, before saying, “I was driving off the estate earlier, and who should I see talking to a couple of uniforms but Les McAllister.”
“Weren’t you in the job with him?”
“Yeah, he’s still in. He’s in CID now. I stopped and had a chat. I told him my mum lived here and that you were babysitting, and he said, ‘Rather you than me, mate.’ Berni … these murders, they’re not just bad, they’re seriously weird.”
“Why?” Berni was almost afraid to ask, but suddenly she had to know more.
“According to Les, they don’t even know how he’s getting into the houses. There’ve been no broken locks or anything like that. There’s also no sign that he was let in. The murders happened late at night, when everyone was in bed.”
“Maybe he was in already – you know, hiding?”
“They’ve considered that, but they don’t think so. There’s some evidence … I mean, it sounds crazy.”
“Go on,” she said nervously.
“At one house, an upper window panel was open.”
“Well obviously that’s how he got in.”
“If he did, he’d have to have been some kind of circus rubber man. Or extremely small.”
“Small?”
“The gap was tiny. There were similar things at the other two houses – a cat flap jammed open, a skylight no bigger than a shoebox. But listen, in this case small doesn’t mean weak. Berni, he made a hell of a mess of these women. There were no sexual assaults, but they were brutally strangled, their necks totally busted. And he didn’t half pulverize their faces trying to get their teeth out.”
“Their teeth?”
“He’s collecting trophies.”
Clammy hands were all over Berni’s skin. “Their teeth?”
“He pounded their jaws to pieces. I hope to heaven it was post-mortem.”
“Oh my God …”
“I know.” Don clearly assumed the horror he could detect in his wife’s voice was a natural reaction to such terrible revelations. “And he’s efficient too. I mean, there were other
people in the houses. The old dear had two of her daughters living with her, and a couple of her grandkids. None of them heard anything. The thirty-year-old’s husband was away, but her three kids were in the next room and they weren’t disturbed. The nineteen-year-old was a single mum of two, but they were in …”
“Don, just shut up!”
“What?”
“It’s ridiculous …”
“I agree.” They were still talking at cross-purposes. “I’m sorry I’ve put you in this predicament, love. I can’t leave now though. I’m the only man on site, but I’m definitely putting in for some emergency leave tomorrow …”
“Don, listen to me …”
“Sorry, love, I’ve got to go. There’s a lorry at the gate.” He hung up.
Berni went back up the stairs slowly, with a sense of the unreal. When she reached the first landing, she hardly dared pull the curtain aside.
When she finally found the courage, the Tokoloshe gazed malignly at her with its rotted, empty pits. She presumed it was her imagination that it had changed position. Previously, its arms had been by its sides. Now they seemed to have been raised a little. Even in the darkness she was better able to see its hands, which were disproportionately large and had long, crooked fingers with black hooks for nails. The temptation was to prod it, to try and discover what it was made from. It was only a doll, she assured herself, but she didn’t even want to get close to it, much less reach out and touch the necklace of teeth to find out if the dark stains at their jagged bases might actually be blood.
“Babes!” she shouted into her phone when she got back downstairs. “Tell me everything you know about the Tokoloshe.”
“What?” Laura sounded half-asleep.
“Neil must have books or files, or something.”
“Berni, what’s this about?”
Berni didn’t want to tell them the whole story. Even Neil and Laura would think her a lunatic, so she invented a tale about reading a novel and being puzzled by a reference to a mysterious African creature called the Tokoloshe.
