by C. J. Skuse
I’d killed Derek Scudd because he’d attacked those two girls.
There was a reason for all of them. But Joseph had run into a main road to retrieve his football and Parsons was running late. He’d served twelve full years for going thirty-six in a thirty zone and taking one too many decongestants. Pretty face like his, he’d probably been butt-fucked in his cell every night. And now he was working three jobs. It was an accident. Killing him wasn’t like a credit note to get Joseph back – he was dead, mouldering in his coffin at St Mark’s. That was fucking that. There was no reason to do this. And every likelihood that I’d get caught this time. We were in a city centre. There was more CCTV cameras than people.
And if I got caught, that meant I would have to stop.
Craig was already showing signs of sleepiness halfway into his pint.
‘Come on, it’s been a long day. Let’s go to bed.’
*
By the time we got into the lifts, Craig was at the leaning-against-the-nearest-wall-and-closing-his-eyes stage. I can resist when I need to. I’m not a complete psychopath. Fuck you, BuzzFeed. At least 8 per cent of my brain is good. Rational. Normal. I did not see this coming.
*
Craig flopped down on the bed next to me, fully clothed and completely comatose. I was nowhere near sleepy. I sat up watching Newsnight but I couldn’t take any of it in. His phone pinged in his pocket. I pulled it out, slowly as not to wake him, and read the message. Lana. Thinking of you. Missing you lots – L xxxxx.
I text her back: Missing you too Baby. We’ll be together soon, I promise. I love you – C xxxxx
I went into the bathroom and splashed my face. ‘I don’t know this city,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t know where the quiet streets and alleyways are. Someone will see. Someone will hear. He doesn’t deserve it. I don’t care. I don’t care. I DON’T CARE!’
Even with my shouting, Craig was still sound.
I needed it tonight. I needed someone, anyone else. Some backstreet bastard waiting for a drunken woman alone stumbling back from the clubs. The odds are higher here. Bigger city. More bastards. I had to find one.
So I went out. A woman alone. In a little black dress. Black boots. Full red lipstick. Long hair. A woman like this would be vulnerable on the streets of Birmingham tonight. That’s what I’ve always been told. Don’t dress provocatively. Don’t ask for trouble.
Maybe trouble shouldn’t ask for me.
I walked past the pub. And I kept on walking. Through piles of litter, past clumps of moving sleeping bags in shop doorways. Past the shopping centre and away from the main clutch of shops where the streets opened up and more alleyways presented themselves. Side streets with no lighting. Industrial estates. Blocks of lock-up garages. Men out alone. A few called out – I didn’t hear what, there was water in my ears. I had to lure them. Away from others. Away from the main streets. Come with me. Come with me. Follow me. Try to grab me. Please try to grab me.
I passed a brightly lit kebab shop, an all-night chemist and a pub who’s last orders bell was being rung.
And I kept on walking. I didn’t know where I was going and I became lost and panic started to set in, tempered only slightly by the earlier vodka at the pub. My knife was in my pocket and my hand was on the black handle the whole time. I was safe as long as I had it. I was safe and I was calm. But I was growing desperate. Simmering. Any attempt made to jump me now, any shadowy lurker out for an easy lay would get it both barrels. I’d tear him limb from fucking him.
The streets were all but empty but for the odd car or van. The odd man walking alone. The odd prostitute, tapping her stilettos. The odd dog bark in the distance; the odd car speeding, packed with groups of young men. Too many to handle at once. Too many to take. Someone called out from a passing car. I heard it.
How much for a jump, love?
Gissa suck, prozzie.
Maybe I was in the red-light district.
But nobody approached me. Nobody crept up behind and put his big rough hands over my mouth, or forced them up my dress and yanked my knickers past my knees. Nothing.
A group of Asian men smoking on a corner outside a pub called The Bull called out to me. I didn’t hear them; I just saw the ends of their cigarettes blazing in the darkness of the street. One of them crossed the road. I couldn’t even make out what shapes his lips were making until he was right up close. Too many witnesses.
‘Are you all right, love?’ he said. ‘Are you lost?’
‘Yes,’ I said and carried on walking. None of them followed, or tried to touch me. They were just laughing. I heard the word ‘wasted’.
I passed a garage and a private car park with overflowing skips. Everything looked the same. Streets were bathed in shadow and the only sounds were the distant hum of motorway traffic and cats or rats dislodging empty bottles from low-lying walls. Smashing noises – ringing out across the night sky as clear as church bells. I walked away from them. Somehow I ended up at the coach station. A line of taxis queued up outside.
‘Where to, darling?’ said a forty-something guy with brown shaggy hair behind the wheel of the first cab. He folded his paper and placed it on the passenger seat.
‘Town centre, please. Glass Pub. Glass Tree Pub.’
‘Yeah I know the one,’ he said as I clambered in the back.
His voice wasn’t Brummie – he sounded Mancunian. The route he took me on wasn’t the route I had taken but a more residential one. He tried to make small talk. Asked where I’d been. If anyone was looking after me.
‘I don’t need looking after,’ I told him.
‘Shouldn’t be out at this time, love. Bad streets at night for a woman alone.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You been to Beyoncé?’ he said, noting my I SLAY T-shirt that Craig had bought me at the arena merch stall. ‘Done quite a few runs from there tonight.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘The wife likes her. She tried to teach the kids that song of hers. What’s it called? The ring one.’
‘“Single Ladies”,’ I said.
‘That’s it,’ he said, patting the picture on his dashboard. It was a small mounted picture frame – three young boys sitting in a pit on a beach, dabs of suncream on their noses. Surrounded by little castles. ‘She does it to wind me up. The littl’un, Anthony, he tries to outdo his brothers, doing all the actions, you know—
‘Pull over, I’m going to be sick.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ said the guy, ‘hang on then.’ He swerved into the nearest car park, pulling the handbrake on beside a large bunch of weeds and a vandalised phone box.
I opened the back door as quick as I could and pretended to throw up in the shadows behind the phone box. The engine was still running. He leant out the window as I started coughing.
‘I think the last place you need to go to is a pub, darlin’, don’t you think? Why don’t I take you home, eh? What’s your address?’
‘I don’t want to go home,’ I said. ‘Take me back to yours and fuck me.’
He laughed. ‘Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea, darlin’, do you?’
‘I want you to. I’m ready for you. I’ll go down on you. Make me get down on all fours like a dog. Fuck me here, in the car park.’
He laughed again; the way Craig laughs. The way Gavin White would laugh.
The way a bad man laughs.
‘Sorry, love, I’m spoken for.’
‘So?’
‘Come on, get back in and I’ll take you home. Now we’re not going to have any trouble, are we? I don’t want to leave you out here.’
I took the knife out and walked over to the driver’s window and, before he could see it coming, I stabbed him once in the throat. In, then out. And again. And out. And in and in and in and in and in – a breathless, starving frenzy. When he’d stopped wriggling, I reached over him and switched off the engine. I opened his driver’s door and unclicked his belt and pulled him onto the ground and stabbed him harder and again as he lay
there, gasping, a pulpy red mass where a man used to be.
I stood over him and watched his last breaths. Gazing into his eyes. It was just him and me, in the moment. At once, I felt my knickers moisten and my balance restore. I bunned up my hair. I wiped my face and my knife on the hoody and washed my hands over his head with the bottle of water wedged into his footwell pocket. I could see the Odeon lights on the horizon and I knew the hotel was near that.
‘Oi! Oi, you! Come back here!’
I posted the wipes and the water bottle and Craig’s hoody into various bins along the way. Then me and Beyoncé, fresh from our slaying, walked home, unaided, sucking the blood from our fingertips.
I didn’t hear the sirens until I was back outside the hotel. It only dawned on me then that someone, the man who’d called out, had seen me.
Thursday, 30 May
1.The inventor of headphones packaging
2.Sandra Huggins
3.Smokers – having a crippling addiction to nicotine not only permits them ten minutes away from work every hour, but also an aroma of old man’s pocket.
4.Daily Mail articles on side boob, underboob, overboob
5.People who bang on and on about carbs being evil – normally sanctimonious gym bunnies like Cleo, and Paul in the office. Because body shaming isn’t body shaming when you’re trying to save someone’s life. Apparently
Craig didn’t move all night – he slept in his clothes diagonally across the bed and I took the sofa bed. After my shower, I had slept soundly too. But I didn’t have time to enjoy the moment or feel balanced or happy about it because as soon as my feet hit the bedside carpet, my head began to swim. Another dizzy spell. I sat on the edge of the bed. God, I wanted to die. I could still taste the taxi driver’s blood in my mouth. Then the rivers of spit began to flow into my cheeks. Iron in my spit. I ran to the bathroom and threw up everything I’d eaten in the past week.
It was as I was sitting beside the toilet bowl on the freezing white tiles, resting from my fourth major upchuck, that it occurred to me why I could be vomitous.
Womb invader.
I went out as soon as the shops were open and bought another pregnancy test from Boots. All quiet on the Western Front. No police around the front entrance, no police on the main street. No ‘Have you seen this woman?’ posters up yet.
I did the test. Two lines in the little window.
I immediately went back out to Boots and bought two more tests, one of which was based on pink spots. One spot = not preggo; two spots = preggo.
I did the test. I got two pink spots.
I gulped down another bottle of water from the minibar and tried the third test, which denoted clearly whether you were Pregnant or Not Pregnant – designed for the more promiscuous moron.
Mine. Said. Pregnant. 3–4 weeks.
It might as well have added, What are you, blind or something? You’re pregnant, bitch, DEAL WITH IT.
‘Holy mothering bollocky shitting hell,’ I gasped, sitting down hard on the toilet seat. ‘But I haven’t missed a Pill…’
I couldn’t finish the sentence because I had missed one. The morning after I slept with AJ for the first time. It just totally went out of my head so I took it later in the day. I didn’t think it would matter. Oh my God, I thought. I’m pregnant with AJ’s baby. And I only slept with him to keep his mouth shut about the major boo-boo. Now we were having an even majorer boo-boo. He’s only a baby himself. He rides a skateboard to work for fuck’s sake!
Now, I’m not stupid. It may look as though I’ve been a silly girl, going around having sex with all (Craig) and sundry (AJ) and not thinking twice about STDs or accidental womb invaders, but I had given it some thought. I knew that if this unfortunate little by-product did occur, I would be able to deal with it the same way I dealt with all uninvited guests. I’d kill it.
Jesus Christ, I’ve killed five men and two women, haven’t I? I can certainly deal with a mass of cells in my abdomen. I put a reminder to ‘Call Dr McGreasy’ on my phone.
I ordered breakfast to the room and ate it in silence, thinking about my mass of cells. Bloody hell. AJ had got me pregnant. I’d only slept with him so he wouldn’t tell anyone about me pulling the knife on him.
The local news came on while Craig was in the shower:
Police have launched an appeal after a taxi driver was stabbed to death last night near the centre of town.
Officers were called to Lombard Street, just before 1 a.m. this morning where emergency services found a man in his early forties and pronounced him dead at the scene. A cordon was placed around the area and forensic officers are carrying out tests. The man has not yet been named.
One local resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said the attack has shook her to the core.
‘I looked out the window at about two and saw an ambulance and lots of police cars. All the police had guns. There must have been about thirty police vehicles there.’
[Another local pipes up, a toothless man called Brian.] ‘We don’t know what’s happening. The first thing you think is terrorism. I think that’s why all the armed police have come.’
Detective Superintendent David Fry popped up. ‘I’d urge anyone in the area last night to get in touch. If anyone has any information at all about what took place here, please call 101 and ask for me.’
‘What’s this?’ said Craig, coming out of the bathroom towel-drying his hair.
‘Terrorist attack, City Centre,’ I said, then looked down at his hand. He wasn’t talking about the stabbing – he was talking about the small white stick he was holding. I’d disposed of the others carefully underneath rolls of tissue in the bin but I’d forgotten the first one and left it on the side of the bath.
I turned the telly off. ‘Uh – yeah. Shit. I bought a pregnancy test.’
‘You’ve already done it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What do two lines mean?’ His eyebrows rose. His jaw went slack. He looked up at me. His eyes filled with tears. ‘What do two lines mean, Rhiannon?’
‘They mean… that you’re going to be a daddy.’
Saturday, 1 June
Since Thursday, Craig’s talked about nothing else. He hasn’t picked up his PlayStation controller once, nor has he seen Lana. He’s also cried at a Huggies commercial and panic-bought a baby monitor he saw on special offer in Sainsbury’s. Every single sentence he’s uttered has been baby-related in some way.
‘We’ll have to clear out that spare room. What do you fancy in there – paint or wallpaper?’
‘My mum’ll want to start knitting straight away. Dad’ll make us set up an ISA for it.’
‘What size is it now?’
‘Are you gonna have drugs when you’re in labour? Can I have some?’
‘I’ll take some money out of my savings – pay myself some paternity leave. I wanna be around. My dad wasn’t. He was always working. He regrets it now.’
‘Ooh, Look Who’s Talking Too is on Sky in a minute.’
Alternatively, he’ll sit there beside me on the sofa, stroking my stomach, which irritates the Golden Shred out of me. Last night he talked to it.
‘You do realise you’re talking to a lamb pasanda and half a naan bread,’ I informed him.
‘No, I’m not, I’m talking to my little boy. Or girl.’
‘It’s not even a baby yet.’
‘What is it then?’
‘A blob.’
‘No it ain’t. By this stage, its sex has already been decided.’
‘Could be gender fluid. Might not have a sex.’
‘. . . and all his organs are starting to grow. Can we work out your due date?’
‘Craig, why are you being such a woman?’
‘I’m excited, aren’t I?’ he said, reaching for his phone. He’d downloaded a pregnancy app. Aren’t you excited?’
‘Yeah, of course. I’m just a bit freaked out by it all, you know?’
When he went to the loo, I saw twenty-eight missed calls fr
om Lana on his phone over the past four days. He hadn’t responded to any of them.
Monday, 3 June
Two more agent rejections in the post, though one of them – a company called Hampton & Peverill said they ‘thought it showed promise but needed work on characterisation’. Assholes. I’ve Unfollowed them on Instagram.
Booked my doc’s appointment – Wednesday 3 p.m. Time to get the little sucker out before Craig starts booking Lamaze classes and whittling a cot.
Linus Sixgill has been diagnosed with intraocular cancer – eye cancer, caught during a routine sight test. Must be why he’s been so quiet lately. He’s been signed off work pending further tests. I have to organise the Thinking of You card and present, of course. Christ, if he dies, he’s going to be a martyr. And my Riot Lovers picture will go on his damn epitaph:
Here Lieth Linus Sixgill – Journalist, Riot Photographer Extraordinaire, Husband to an Editor’s Daughter, Father to a Something Else, and Colleague to the finest Serial Killing Editorial Assistant the World Has Ever Known.
AJ and I went to our usual spot in the dark woods at lunchtime. He plays dead very well. I wonder how he would look if I whited him out a bit, perhaps blue-tinged his lips with Linus’s joke lip balm. AJ would make a truly stunning corpse.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ I said, holding him against me when we were both sticky and satisfied and awash with languor on the forest floor.
He lifted his head up from my breast. ‘Come with me.’
‘What?’
‘Come with me when I go travelling. We don’t have to stay in the UK, we can go anywhere. My visa doesn’t run out till December. You could get one too.’ He licked down the centre of my breasts, right down to my belly button.
‘Um… no.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Craig?’
He hitched up my knees and put his head between my thighs. ‘Leave him. You’re always moaning about him anyway.’
I squeezed his head with my thighs like he was a little walnut. ‘Because job?’
He prised his head out and laughed. ‘You hate your job. You say it bores the tits off you.’ He came back up to my chest. ‘Which would be an awful shame if it were true.’ He started suckling on my left one. ‘God, how does your skin taste so good?’
