by Emmy Ellis
He stood beside the stall of fruit and vegetables that partially covered the wide pavement in front of Good Groceries. The red-and-white-striped awning protecting the merchandise hung low at the sides, obscuring him from anyone farther along the street in the direction of the launderette. He could peek out and observe from here without feeling as though he was being observed. He liked to watch people without them knowing he was there. It made him feel like a spy or a sleuth—that inspector he’d watched on the telly at Gran’s with name that sounded like Pwarow. Something foreign anyway. He had slicked-back hair and a swirly moustache, if Gordon recalled correctly.
I miss you, Gran.
Mr Ustav appeared in the launderette doorway, his slight frame hunched, as if the man had a great burden sitting at the base of his neck. Saying that, Mr Ustav always appeared bowed and weighed down. It came with age, didn’t it? Must do, because Gran had got a hunched back a couple of years before she’d died. Perhaps with Gordon being off work the old fella was finding the extra chores harder than they’d been in the past. Gordon wanted to go over there and help him out, but something was holding him back. William, that was it. Until Gordon spotted him, got a bead on what his father wanted, it was best he remained where he was.
Was it just a coincidence that the Ford was there? William might have only come here to do a bit of shopping. Now Gordon had seen his father leaving Beautiful Lady’s house, he cottoned on that he’d seen him so many times in the past when bringing in his dry cleaning, through the little square of glass in the backroom door.
Had his mind blocked out who William was?
Gordon took a moment to study the vehicle in its current location. Yes, he’d seen it there at other times. When he’d peered out from the back of the shop and into the front over the past three or so years, the Ford had been parked in the exact same spot. All those times and he’d never known his father had been around, still alive—he hadn’t known the car even belonged to him.
Now he did. Now he knew William still lived with Beautiful Lady—he’d seen them himself, in the flesh, hadn’t he—and he wondered if the man who’d been with William earlier was a work colleague from the shiny offices. Gordon was glad he didn’t hang around with his work colleague, his boss, Mr Ustav. Mixing business and pleasure wasn’t such a good thing. He’d read as much on one of those memes.
He longed to access Facebook now, to read some more life-affirming poems or phrases that would further make him feel perfect inside. The Man Point Three’s death had done the trick, and everything in Gordon’s world was right again. Now all he needed to do was decide whether he wanted to get to know William or not. Gordon had managed okay in life without him up until now, so a part of him felt he could finish the rest of his life without him in it, too. On the other hand, wouldn’t it help him gain access to Beautiful Lady’s house? Gain access to the woman herself? The one who’d sent him away, unwilling to save him from her?
Those mean feelings about Beautiful Lady had festered on his walk back from the canal. He hadn’t liked the turn in his mood those thoughts had created so he’d shut them off before they’d had a chance to take root and grow. He didn’t need another kill to solve his contentment issue because he was as content as he’d been when he’d killed her and The Man the first time.
It’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Gran used to say that. Was that the stance she’d employed with regards to Gordon’s life? Leave the situation alone and hope it got better? It had got better when Gordon had visited Gran, but he’d always had to return to her house, where bad things happened and stirred up the angry hornets inside him. Hornets he’d allowed to sting him over and over without so much as a peep of objection coming out of his mouth.
Too much noise isn’t good. It brings trouble. Smacks and punishments.
No. I don’t need to think of those things now.
Stop it. Stop it.
What he needed was to go into his flat, bring Facebook up on his phone, and make himself feel even better by reading all the good things going on. About to do just that, he paused. A police car slid along the street then turned into the space on the pavement between Good Groceries and the launderette. Had they come back to do some more searching in the alley? He might ask them if they hung around for too long, but it was getting cold, and Gordon was tired, in need of a reviving nap.
William appeared, coming out of Gordon’s flat.
What?
William talked to four policemen in uniform, who stood on the pavement now, nodding and looking serious. Then William’s friend joined them, and William spoke at length, although Gordon couldn’t catch what was being said. All six of them went into Gordon’s flat, and he wondered what they were doing in there. He hoped they weren’t touching his spider quilt. Those were his friends, no one else’s. Had William called around after all these years, to speak with Gordon, wanting to get to know him, found his flat empty, and had become worried?
That would be nice, to have someone who worried about him again. Like Gran had. He missed her concern, her smile, her warm cuddles. Her smell. Her wise words.
Her death of a heart attack had stunned him. He hadn’t expected it—and neither had she. In the hospital, before the angels had taken her, she’d told Gordon that she must have indulged in too much butter throughout her life or something and her heart hadn’t taken kindly to it. She’d also said that the past always caught up with you at some point and he should be careful.
Gordon’s eyes glazed.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “That thing you said about the past?”
“I know all about it, Gordy.”
“About what?”
“About what you did. To them.” She sighed.
“But it couldn’t have been me, Gran. I was at your house those nights, remember?” He didn’t want her thinking badly of him. She needed to see him as a good boy, a decent boy, not the ugly little fucker he really was. Someone in this world had to view him with kind eyes instead of harsh, spiteful ones.
“Yes, you were there, but not all the time,” she whispered.
Gordon looked at her, trying to see if she was guessing or if she knew for sure. Her eyes had never lied to him, and in them he saw that yes, she knew for sure. And she’d kept it quiet? The fact that he’d killed her daughter—she hadn’t told anyone about it?
“I know why you did it, Gordy. I must say”—she winced, resting a palm on her chest—“that I was tempted to do it myself many a time.”
Gordon was shocked. Gran? Kill someone? It wasn’t possible.
“I heard you going out,” she said. “She was my child, but she wasn’t a good person. I wanted you living with me, but time and again she said no. I even rang Social Services on her, but nothing came of it.”
Gran seemed to gag on her own voice, and the monitor beside the bed let out a wretched scream. Nurses came, surrounding her, one of them drawing Gordon away then snapping the curtains closed around the bed, shutting him out.
He listened to the commotion, only able to imagine what was going on behind those strangely wafting curtains. The weird whine of some machine or other. A thud. Nurses saying “Clear!” The whine. The thud again.
Time of death was pronounced, and Gordon had never been as crushed in his whole life. He had been crushed as a kid, as a teenager, but never like this.
Never.
He shuddered, as though someone had walked over his grave, and looked around to orient himself. Mr Ustav was still in front of the launderette doorway and glanced at where half of Gordon’s face was on show, his gaze drifting past him then darting back again, the old man peering as if convincing himself it was Gordon he was staring at. Gordon remained where he was, easing his face behind the awning side, waiting a few heartbeats then sticking his face out again.
Mr Ustav was gone.
Not ready to meet William just yet, and wanting to rid himself of the awful memory that had come from nowhere, Gordon crossed the road and entered the pub, one cal
led Squatter’s Rights, which was a little weird for a pub name but who was Gordon to question it? At the bar, he ordered a large pot of tea plus a pie and chips. He might as well eat out, a celebration that his mission had had a satisfactory conclusion.
He picked a table by the window so he could see his flat door from there and settled himself down in readiness to browse Facebook on his phone. It seemed such a long time since he’d done that. It would be nice to get things back to normal.
He took his beanie and coat off, then placed the beanie on the table and draped his coat over the back of the chair. He took his phone from his pocket and tapped the Facebook icon. His newsfeed came up, then an alert asking if he wanted to switch on his location. Yes, he could do that now he’d completed his mission.
Then he selected his favourite page, seeing many memes there that he hadn’t read yet and some he’d seen before.
Each stepping stone forwards is valid, and although you might slip from time to time, pick yourself up and start again. We can but continue our journeys despite the odds stacked against us. Those who push forwards and create harmony within themselves are the greatest achievers.
That was a good one. And yes, he had to agree with that. Gordon was one of life’s greatest achievers. Look at what he’d overcome. All right, it had taken drastic measures, but it had been worth it to feel as he did now.
He went to the search function and got on with typing in Anita’s name. It brought her up before he’d even got to the T—she was, after all, his only friend—and he clicked, being taken to her page. There were many people leaving condolences, so word had got out that she was dead. That was a shame, but sometimes in order to be happy in life you had to upset someone else. It appeared that Gordon had upset hundreds of people in order to be infused with wellbeing, but again, that was a shame.
He thought of the spiders, the moths, Anita, the men—all of them had had their turn in the spotlight, which was more than he’d ever had. Unless he counted being under her or The Man’s spotlight when their hateful attention had been turned on him. But the recent people’s spotlight time… Was what he’d done a way to not only gain contentment, but also to show the world what had happened to him, how he’d been treated and forgotten, left to the mercy of a woman who hadn’t given a shit about him? Did he want someone to catch him so he could tell them everything? Get some sympathy? Find someone who cared?
I don’t know. Really, I don’t.
Anita’s timeline came back into focus. Bored with reading how wonderful Anita had been—and she had been, he just didn’t need to be told that several hundred times—he reverted to his favourite page, in need of some more memes.
When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you.
That one was unsettling. Gordon wasn’t sure why he didn’t like it, but he didn’t have time to work it out. A waitress was coming towards him with his plate of pie and chips in one hand and his tea on a tray in the other. He waited while she placed it all in front of him and walked off, then he got up to collect a knife and fork wrapped in a white paper napkin that was in a grey cutlery tub on a trolley beside the bar. He picked up a salt shaker and selected a sachet of tomato ketchup—a little ‘fuck you’ to her, who hadn’t liked him eating red sauce as a child—plus a sachet of vinegar, then returned to his seat.
He glanced out of the window. The police car was still there, as was William’s Ford, but no one stood on the pavement. His flat door was ajar, which bothered him somewhat as heating was expensive and all the cold would be creeping up the stairs by now.
Gordon tucked into his dinner, the pie reminiscent of the homemade ones Gran used to bake. Since she’d gone, he’d found it difficult to enjoy his food. Nothing ever came close to hers. He’d tried to replicate her meals from a notebook he’d found amongst her things after her death, recipes she’d filled out by hand in her getting-older-by-the-day scrawl. Maybe his oven, which was electric, didn’t cook things as well as her gas one had. Or maybe he just wasn’t a chef and never would be. But this pie—yes, it was fitting that it tasted like Gran’s. Fitting that she was here with him in some form, especially today.
Gran would have understood why more people had to die. She’d have known why he’d done it. And if Gran would have approved, Gordon had nothing to feel guilty about.
Gran was good. She was kind.
And she’d loved him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Burgess widened his eyes at a row of school exercise books that stood side by side on the shelf of a somewhat outdated teak cabinet. The furniture was odd, out of place in this decade—even the last three decades—and he made a mental note to ask Mr Ustav if he’d furnished the place or whether Gordon had brought it all with him. The items fitted Mr Ustav’s age during the time these things would have been in fashion.
Now, though, they resembled something found in an older person’s home—someone who hadn’t moved with the times and had been unable to let their ancient possessions go. For a young man to own the beige velvet wingback chairs, the matching sofa, all with elaborate Edwardian-style wooden legs, was strange. Burgess had expected something modern—leather sofas, glass shelving, or white IKEA pieces—not this stroll back down memory lane.
His mother had owned similar furniture back in the day, but she’d kept up with the trends and updated her home to suit each new fad that had come along. Burgess recalled his nan having this type of stuff, too, from the two-tiered, oval teak coffee table to the revolting Chinese rug beneath it, the cream-coloured tassels of which were frayed, some missing. An old electrical fire complete with seriously fake coals moulded from a piece of plastic stood inside a wooden surround that tried to emulate a posh mantel but failed miserably. The tiles on it were mustard, and the electrical cord was black-and-white-striped material, not the usual white or black flex of today.
He’d walked into a time warp.
But the school books, they were what captivated him the most. Written on the slim rounded spines in tiny, childish handwriting were years, starting from around the time Burgess had first joined the force. Curiously, but further adding to the mounting evidence, there was a gap of sixteen years between two of the books, and he pulled out the most recent, dreading what he’d find inside.
She’s back. In my head. The bitch is back.
BITCH.
FUC NG BI CH!
Fucking bitch, he presumed, although why it hadn’t been fully spelt out was a mystery. What had been written didn’t startle Burgess so much as the way the pen had been used. The words had been dug into the paper, sort of carved out, by either a heavy-handed person or someone with severe anger issues. Parts of the page were torn from the vigour with which the writer had wielded the pen.
A drawing beneath the words, of a woman who appeared to be snarling, had each line thickened by several passes with the ink. Spittle came from the sides of her black-toothed mouth, her eyes coloured in with red. She had a generous pair of tits on her, spilling out of a low-necked top, so Burgess surmised that Fuc ng Bi ch was a fully grown woman.
More words sat beneath the picture.
GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
Burgess’ mind had a tendency to be fanciful at times, but even if it hadn’t, he had no trouble joining the dots here. This had to be a reference to killing Anita—and the mention of ‘again’ meant Gordon Varley had more than possibly committed the murders of Emily and Thomas Hornton. Maybe even someone else, too. If Burgess was wrong, so be it, but his gut told a different story. His instinct was to believe it.
He turned the page and jumped, almost throwing the book. This time a crude drawing of a spider—fuck me sideways, that’s ugly—filled the top half of the page, and words, written by a seemingly calmer hand, sat below in a neat paragraph.
She is poison, so I must get poison. What she spewed out at me in life will be inside her in death. I will make sure she goes knowing that her mouth, which was so stuffed with that poison, will be
stuffed with it again. She’ll be unable to spit it out at me, those horrible words, because she won’t be able to talk. Once she’s gone again, I’ll be safe. Happy. Why have her words come back inside my mind after all this time? Why couldn’t she just go the first time and leave me alone? Don’t I deserve happiness? Was she right all those years? That I didn’t deserve a good life because I’d ruined hers? I could have ruined it even more by telling her secret, but I kept it. Kept it all to myself. Didn’t want the smacks that would come with me letting anyone know. And she would have smacked.
The thing—it had venom in it. So had the moth from this morning been venomous, too? Or did the creatures mean something else entirely? And had anyone from the team found out anything about that sodding moth and where it had come from yet? He needed to check with them about that.
His phone rang, and he placed the book back in the slot on the shelf then took off his latex glove in order to swipe his phone screen.
“Burgess.”
“You said not to bother you unless it was something that couldn’t wait,” Denton said. “But there’s another body, sir.”
“What?” Shit. “Are you sure it’s related to our case? I don’t want to leave here unless it’s absolutely vital.” There shouldn’t be another one. Only two if he’s following the same pattern.
“Yes, sir. Moth in the mouth. Another male. Found by a dog walker at a different part of the canal.”
“Fucking hell. Where exactly?” He waited while Denton gave directions. “On my way. Any news with the witness from Wingman Street?”
“Just about to start interviewing him now, sir, but—”
“What about news from the zoo? The moth?”
“Um, hang on a second.” Papers rustled. “It’s an Oak moth. Poisonous fur or whatever it’s covered in, but it says here that’s more likely on the caterpillar. But, sir—”
