The Nightmare Place

by Mosby, Steve

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Yes, possibly. It’s a bit strange, though.’

  The girl laughed, but frowned at the same time. ‘Okay?’

  ‘It’s about something I read in the newspapers. I was wondering … well. Have you been working here long?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘A couple of months. I started in … April, it will have been. Why?’

  That meant she wouldn’t know much, if anything, about the attack.

  ‘Is there somebody else in? Someone who’s been working here a bit longer?’

  ‘Well, yes, there’s the manager. She’s been here for years, I think.’ The girl rolled her eyes a bit at that. ‘She’s in the stock room at the moment. Do you want me to see if she’s available?’

  ‘Yes, please. If you could.’

  ‘Okey-dokey.’

  She moved around to the other side of the counter, almost bouncing on her toes, heading towards a closed door behind. But as she reached it, she paused, and then turned back to look at Jane. The frown was there again.

  ‘You look familiar,’ she said. ‘Have I seen you somewhere before?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  But the girl continued to stare at her, as though Jane was a question she was determined to tease out the answer to. A moment later, her eyes went wide.

  ‘Oh God. You’re her, aren’t you? The woman in the news.’

  Jane nodded, feeling herself beginning to blush. She wanted the girl to look away, but she just kept staring.

  ‘The one that man took? Holy shit. I mean, sorry for the language, but holy shit.’ She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘That must have been so awful. I can’t imagine. It’s like my worst nightmare or something.’

  Jane nodded again. ‘It was horrible,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

  The girl still had hold of the door handle, but she let go of it now and came back to the counter.

  ‘God, yeah. I can imagine. A while back, I had this feeling someone was following me? You know, when I was walking home? And that was bad enough.’ She shook her head. ‘But you’re okay, right? He didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘I’m okay. It could have been a lot worse.’

  ‘Well, yeah. Especially with what he did to the others. I couldn’t read about it, to tell you the truth, although obviously I did. But it totally freaked me out.’ The girl’s eyes widened again. ‘Wait a minute. Are you here because of what happened to Sharon? Don’t tell me you are. Are you?’

  Sharon.

  ‘Maybe,’ Jane said. And now that it came to it, there was no point in not explaining. ‘I read something in the newspaper. It said there was an attack on a woman last year. That she worked here.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, there was. That was Sharon. I wasn’t here then, but it’s not like they don’t all still talk about it. They told me about it on a night out: first week I worked here, I think. They all made sure I got a taxi.’

  ‘Do you know what happened?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘Not really. Just that she was attacked when she got home. The creep was waiting for her.’ She realised something. ‘And they never caught him. Is that why you’re here? Do the police think it might be this guy that did it?’

  It was Jane’s turn to frown. Did the girl really think that if that was the case, the police would have sent her to make inquiries on their behalf? That was ridiculous. At the same time, maybe it would encourage her to talk.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s possible. I was just hoping to track her down, to be honest. Does she still work here?’

  ‘No, no. She quit pretty much straight afterwards.’

  Sharon.

  ‘Do you know her surname?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘No. I mean, I never met her. I don’t know anything about her really, apart from what the others told me.’

  She looked a bit miserable at that for a second, but then perked up again.

  ‘Karen will know, though. Hang on, I’ll get her. Oh – here she is now.’

  The door behind her opened just as she turned around. Jane expected to see a woman emerge, but it was a man that came out first. He was short and stocky, his leather jacket open over a black T-shirt stretched across his frame. His hair was close-cropped and the expression on his face was absolutely furious.

  ‘Come on,’ he called over his shoulder.

  As he strode around the counter, he was swinging a set of car keys. Jane took a step back, but she could feel his presence from feet away.

  A second later, a woman emerged, harried and upset, running a hand through her hair and walking a little awkwardly. She was almost beautiful, and once upon a time she might have been, but something about her seemed off to Jane. She was too skinny, too tanned. And it looked like she’d been crying. The eyeliner she was wearing had fragmented into stretches of Morse code.

  ‘Abbie,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m leaving early.’

  ‘Ah, okay. Well, listen, just quickly, this lady was wanting to talk to you about something.’

  Karen slipped on a pair of sunglasses and turned to face Jane. Immediately, with the wrinkles around her eyes obscured, she looked about ten years younger.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Abbie said. ‘She’s the woman from the newspapers. You know? The one the creeper took? She wanted to talk to you about Sharon.’

  Jane nodded. ‘Only if you’ve got time, though.’

  Karen didn’t respond. Jane looked at her stern, motionless expression, and then over at the man she was leaving with. He had stopped by the door and was staring at her. He didn’t look away when she looked back, and his gaze unnerved her.

  ‘I’m not prepared to talk about that,’ Karen said. ‘It’s nobody’s business. Certainly not yours.’

  ‘I—’

  But Karen was already moving over to join the man at the door, and Jane closed her mouth on the unspoken words. She was momentarily bewildered. After the warm welcome from Abbie, that was not the response she’d been expecting. Maybe when she’d first come in, but not now.

  The man pulled the door open as Karen reached him, holding it for her to go first. The whole time, he was still looking back at Jane. He no longer seemed quite as furious as before, but she couldn’t read the expression on his face at all. He looked utterly blank.

  ‘Please.’ She took a step towards the pair of them. ‘Can you at least tell me her surname? That way I can—’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  With that, Karen stepped outside and was gone.

  A second later, with one last glance at Jane, the man followed.

  Thirty-Nine

  The man and woman next door are arguing when they arrive home.

  Karen and Derek – Margaret can hear their raised voices from the front room. It is none of her business, of course, and anyway, it is hardly surprising. They do seem like the type of couple that fight. Over the years, she has heard people say that everyone does, and that it’s the sign of a healthy relationship, but she can’t remember ever raising her voice to Harold, or him to her, and she can hardly imagine that anything would have made them.

  Despite herself, she moves over to the window and peers cautiously through the gap in the curtains, keeping out of sight to one side.

  Derek is halfway up their front path, just standing there, looking back down the garden in the direction of the road. Karen is hovering at the gate. She is without her sunglasses right now, and appears to be crying. Her hands are pressed to her eyes, and black streaks of make-up have run down to her jawline. Her shoulders are trembling, and she is half leaning against the gatepost, as though she is about to faint.

  Her husband is red-faced and talking angrily to her. He’s no longer shouting, and Margaret can’t hear what he’s saying, but he’s speaking so deliberately quietly that it’s somehow even more threatening. There is a violence to his posture. Even from across the path, from behind the safety of her locked door, Margaret feels intimidated. She can’t imagine what Karen must be feeling, standing so
close to him. The rage beating off him must be almost as scorching as the afternoon sun.

  You horrible man, she thinks.

  You hideous little man.

  Although she can’t make out the words, his intentions certainly become clear a moment later, when he strides back down the path towards his wife and takes her by the arm. It doesn’t look like a particularly painful grip, but she cries out anyway, and he doesn’t wait for her to respond – just turns and walks towards the house with her trailing behind him. Clearly he has no expectation that she might resist, and she does not. From his manner, it is as if he’s gone back to collect something he’s dropped, rather than a human being. Rather than his wife.

  They go inside, and he slams the door behind them.

  Margaret’s heart is beating faster than it should, and she feels chilly despite the afternoon heat.

  She replays in her head what she has just seen, and, really, it is minor. But for some reason, it does not feel that way. Something about the encounter has shocked her.

  It takes her a few moments to realise that it reminds her of a holiday she took with Harold, many years ago, in a static caravan on a sprawling campsite in the south of France. The temperature was much the same as it is today, and she remembers the hot, powdery sand pushing between her toes whenever they walked on the nearby beach.

  They were sitting outside one evening when an argument broke out between a German couple two lots along. The woman was short and overweight, with hair that needed washing, while the man was tall, with long hair and a blonde goatee. It seemed to come out of nowhere. She heard sudden shouting, and looked up in time to see the man throwing the woman over one of the plastic chairs, sending her sprawling to the ground. Margaret was still trying to comprehend what was happening as the man dragged the woman into the caravan by her hair, then slammed the door shut behind them both.

  For a few moments, nobody on the campsite responded. Beside her, Harold put his newspaper down, folding it once, and stared across the path. A number of other people stopped what they were doing and gazed at the closed caravan. The sudden violence had shocked everyone into stillness and silence.

  Then Harold stood up and went over. He was the first person to do so, but others joined him immediately, hammering on the door to the caravan until the man opened it. Someone – not Harold, thank God – then pushed their way in to make sure the woman was all right. Afterwards, although she was proud of him, Margaret remonstrated with her husband for putting himself in danger like that. Harold nodded, then told her: But anything could have been happening behind that closed door, Maggie. Anything.

  And that is how she feels now, looking across at the closed door opposite. Despite not seeing anything comparable to the violence she witnessed that day, there is a similar feel to it. The sensation that anything could be happening in there.

  Should she go over?

  Perhaps even call the police?

  Margaret considers both options – but then, all she’s seen is an argument. The violence, if it can even be called that, was relatively insignificant. It would be an overreaction, she thinks, based more on her dislike for the man than any genuine need for help. Despite how she feels about him, she has never seen him be explicitly violent. Aside from her bumblebees, of course.

  Eventually, she moves away from the window. It is none of her business. Perhaps the two of them even deserve each other – although that thought is uncharitable and unkind, and she immediately regrets it. But regardless, it is not her concern.

  She heads into the kitchen. Kieran will be finishing work soon, and calling round. She should tidy up.

  The police arrive shortly after Kieran does.

  Margaret is still finishing the washing-up, while Kieran is in the front room, where he has drawn the curtains and is looking intermittently out of the window. Strange behaviour, even for him, but her mind has been elsewhere, and she hasn’t thought to ask him what he’s watching out for. Now, with her hands deep in the tepid water, she sees the police car swing up at the end of the cul-de-sac. Her initial thought is that something serious has happened next door after all – that the argument must have escalated. But then she sees Kieran smiling to himself by the front room window, and she understands that this has something to do with him.

  ‘Kieran?’

  ‘They’re here.’

  He is beaming as he walks into the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t worry, Maggie. I’ll take care of it all.’

  ‘Take care of what?’

  ‘The bumblebees. I called them about it. I’m sorry, but he can’t get away with doing that. Uh-uh. No way.’

  ‘Oh, Kieran …’

  Finally, she understands. They had this discussion yesterday, when Kieran called round: after she’d told him what the neighbour had done, he was livid on her behalf. Raging, actually. And although she was still angry herself, his intensity frightened her. He insisted that he wanted to go next door and talk to the man; she had no idea how much of that was bluster, but she still worked hard to persuade him not to. Then he mentioned going to the police. She hadn’t even considered it, and the idea made her crawl inside. Trespass, Kieran insisted. Criminal damage. Harassment, even. And maybe all that was true, but she still resisted. As hurt as she was, it was better not to cause a fuss. What could it achieve?

  And yet he went against her wishes anyway. She shakes her head now, drying her hands with a dishcloth. Two policewomen are heading up the path.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maggie,’ Kieran says again. ‘But he can’t be allowed to bully you like that. It’s totally unacceptable. I’m doing it to look after you.’

  He sounds like he means it, but she wonders whether it’s really true. He does care about her, of course, but she’s well aware that the argument about the garden began an unspoken conflict between him and the neighbour.

  ‘All right,’ she says wearily. ‘All right.’

  There is a knock at the door. As Kieran goes to answer it, Margaret heads back into the front room. Perhaps it is a good thing he’s done this, irrespective of his reasons: Derek is clearly in the wrong, and really he shouldn’t get away with what he’s done. Even so, she doesn’t want to be involved. She sits down on the settee, not listening to whatever Kieran is saying to the officers in the kitchen.

  She feels very tired.

  ‘They’re going to have a word with him,’ Kieran tells her a minute later, walking back into the front room.

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Yes, they are.’ She can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s still beaming. ‘Do you know what? I think I might go outside for a cigarette or two. Enjoy the view.’

  ‘Kieran, don’t.’

  ‘Oh come on, Maggie. I’m not going to miss this. I want to see the look on the … on his face. He’s got it coming. You have to admit.’

  She wants to stop him, but he’s already heading back into the kitchen, so she just sighs to herself. She hopes he enjoys it, for what it’s worth, because it’s her that will have to live with the effects. She’s the one who has to stay here and see the neighbours every day. As she contemplates that, she puts her head in her hands. Why can’t anything be easy?

  Why won’t people just leave me alone? she thinks.

  Then:

  I miss you, Harold. So much.

  I wish you were here to look after me.

  For a while, she’s lost in those thoughts – and loses track of time. So it might be five minutes later, or as little as one, when she hears the commotion out front. Shouting. Thudding. She turns to the window just as Kieran’s broad back slams into the glass, and then she is on her feet as he disappears from view, and all she can see is the neighbour, Derek, his face contorted with rage and hate, staring down at the ground.

  For a moment, she simply stands there.

  They’re actually fighting.

  She has no idea what has happened. How can it have escalated to this point? Regardless, she has to intervene – make them see sense. And where are the p
olice? She hurries through to the kitchen, where the door is slightly ajar.

  As she pulls it open, she hears the man next door. He is grunting and shouting.

  ‘Fucker. Die, you fucker. Die, you fucker.’

  She can’t really see Kieran. He is lying on his back in the garden, his upper body obscured by the tangle of undergrowth, his legs on the path. The neighbour has his back to her, and is stamping repeatedly down at where Kieran’s head should be.

  ‘Stop it!’ Margaret screams.

  But the man ignores her. It’s like she’s not there. He just keeps shouting – die, you fucker – as he lifts his powerful leg and drives it down. Desperately, Margaret looks around. The door opposite hangs open, but there is no sign of the police. She looks back at the fight. Kieran is not moving at all.

  He’s killing him.

  The man has become a single muscle dedicated to the task at hand. She can feel the solid strength and power of him from the doorway, and every instinct makes her want to flinch back and close the door. Instead, she looks to one side, sees the washing-up, soap suds still sliding off metal, and reaches out on instinct, picking up the heavy saucepan.

  She has never hit anybody in her life; she doesn’t really know how. But she hefts the pan as best she can. It spins round in her hand as she swings it, and she almost loses her grip, but the man is too distracted to realise that the blow is coming. The pan hits the top of his head with a heavy thonk that knocks it out of her hand. He stumbles sideways, half falling, as the pan clatters on the path.

  Margaret is trembling as he looks up at her. The expression on his face is barely even human.

  ‘I’ve called the police,’ she says – even though it’s pointless; even though the police are already here, or should be. ‘Leave him alone now. I’m warning you.’

  The man stares at her for a few more blank seconds, then his face contorts into a derisive sneer, although it goes nowhere near his eyes. A moment later, he stands up straight, turns and simply walks away down the path. He doesn’t even look back. On the concrete, Margaret can see the bloody footprints he leaves as he goes.