The woman was lying there, rough strips of duct tape silencing her mouth and binding her ankles, her eyes wide and terrified. They spoke to him, those eyes. Pleading, asking for his help.
He stared at her, willing himself to lock the door and make a start on delivering his letters, but his trainers were stuck to the road, as if the asphalt had melted and was holding him hostage.
The woman’s eyes were brown and ordinary, and they were fixed on him.
He shut his own, squeezing out the glare of the daylight and the weight of her accusation. When he opened them again, she was gone, and all that remained was a stain on the floor of the van.
The postman hadn’t seen them bring out Adam Stanton’s body. Sunday was supposed to be his day off and it would have looked weird – suspicious, even – if he’d been hanging around. But he had heard about it. Everyone had. What a grade-A fuck-up.
Now he wasn’t sure how to feel. A seagull shrieked overhead, bringing with it a flavour of the coast. Southend-on-Sea was eight miles away. On a morning like this, it would quickly fill with day trippers, sunlight scattering glitter across the waves, the smells of hot fat and Hawaiian Tropic. But this street, with its squashed-up houses and barely-room-to-pass pavements, dog dirt and prison-gate walls of laurel and yew, was a world away, and beginning to give him the creeps. He examined this unfamiliar sensation. He wasn’t one to scare easily.
This was a new job for him. Only a few weeks old and he’d given it everything so far, but it wasn’t working out in the way he had hoped. Still, the residents were friendly enough and that had made it easier.
He pushed the earlier unpleasantness to the back of his mind and began to walk, his trainers playing a rhythm on the heat-baked pavement, light dripping through the gaps in the leaves.
Shifting his mail pouch into a more comfortable position, he lifted a hand to the mother from number thirty, who was struggling down her path with a double buggy. Grinned and raised his eyebrows at the suit running to the station. Offered up a good morning to Mrs Clifton from number twenty-seven, who was putting out her rubbish.
‘Any chance of a cuppa?’ he said, a grin on his face, one of the lads.
It had become a standing joke. He said it every time he saw her, and every few days she relented and went inside to boil the kettle. Then they’d stand at the top of her drive and chat for ten minutes or so.
She smiled at him, an indulgent, motherly look. ‘Go on, then, you cheeky beggar.’
The tea was stewed – too bitter for his taste – but she’d brought him a slice of home-made ginger cake, and he nibbled its edges.
‘How have you been, Mrs C?’
‘Mustn’t grumble.’ She sipped her own tea, hands trembling slightly. The beginnings of Parkinson’s, he wondered. Or just old age. Her front door was half open, and he glimpsed the shadow of her wheelchair in the hallway.
‘Terrible business, isn’t it?’ He tipped his head in the direction of the woods before taking another mouthful, crumbs spilling down his shirt.
She nodded, but her grey curls did not move, set solidly in place with hairspray. The spider-web cracks on her face deepened. ‘Awful.’
‘Do you think they’ll catch him?’
‘They’re taking their time about it.’ She glanced across the street to the officer standing by the police cordon. ‘Look at him, poor devil. He must be parched. I think I’ll make him a cup of tea too.’
When the postman had finished his cake, he tipped his too-strong tea into the bushes and watched her limp across the road with a tray of hot drinks for them all. Such decency was a breath of fresh air. It cost nothing to be kind.
Plenty weren’t. He’d seen it all over the years. And, even in the short time he had worked here, he’d become far more intimate with the residents of The Avenue than they might have been comfortable with.
He knew who had received a court summons, who paid child maintenance and who was in trouble with the bank.
He knew who got up early and who slept in late, who had children and who did not. He knew one householder had moved in his girlfriend while his wife was overseas, tending to her sick mother.
He knew that new people had moved into number twenty-five.
He knew all their secrets.
And like so many of the residents of The Avenue, he had one of his own.
16
Now
On the day we moved into The Avenue, we celebrated with cherryade from the Corona man and gammon and pineapple with boiled potatoes.
Birdie was giddy with excitement. The flat had been cramped and the smell of dirty knickers had seeped up through the floorboards from the fishmongers below.
But the house represented the pinnacle of every one of Birdie’s dreams of success – three bedrooms, two toilets and a patio. Even the rats that migrated from the copse that ran along the bottom of the garden were only a minor irritation, exterminated with pellets of Rodine that came in a red box Birdie kept in the pantry. All life sucked from their stiff little bodies.
The shop was doing well and our circumstances had changed. Lots to eat. A lady who came in to clean. But Birdie still made me earn my keep by working the till at the weekends and after school.
‘I don’t want any Tom, Dick or Harry robbing me blind,’ she said. ‘Let’s keep it in the family.’
But I missed the flat.
The house was too big. A place to lose oneself, to lose sight of oneself. Just Birdie and me. I was the only child on the street and had no one to play with. My bike was new but it wasn’t the same on my own. I wanted a rope swing or a treehouse, but Birdie said no. It didn’t take me long to find my way to Blatches Woods.
In amongst the trees, I could hide, pressing myself against the bark, enclosed in the embrace of the branches, no gaps to fill, no empty spaces, squeezed in, safe and protected.
As soon as the shop shut, I ran straight there, building insect houses and a den for myself, listening to the songbirds and scattering seeds for them, feeling the sun and the wind and the rain.
The first one was the starling. Autumn, when the leaves had started to turn. Its beak was wide open, claws curled into its breast. I dug a hole in the earth with a stick and covered it in dirt.
The next afternoon, I found two more of them. A magpie on the footpath into the woods and, next to the rotted tree stump, a bird with pink and blue feathers my book told me was a jay.
The jay’s eyes were open, a black hole set in a circle of brown.
I climbed up two or three branches, to survey a wider distance. I saw another jay, two speckled thrushes and a robin with its distinctive orange-red breast lying on the ground. By the fallen trunk of the oak, I saw the mottled markings and curved beak of a tawny owl. I collected them up and laid them in a row, a rushing sound in my ears.
You were always the animal lover, not me.
I was eleven then. I did not think of myself as cruel, merely curious. An experiment, of sorts. I had mixed Birdie’s rat poison with their seeds and carried it in a margarine tub to the woods because I wanted to see what would happen.
That day was hazy-gold, a late September heatwave lighting the country, our town, this street, my own patch of shadow amongst the trees.
I sat on a log, listening to the rustle of the leaves and licking sherbet from my fingers, and thought about what I had discovered.
The glory of power over living things.
17
Monday, 30 July 2018
25 The Avenue – 9.21 a.m.
Evan Lockwood wore his football kit every day even when he wasn’t playing football.
The sun seeping through the window was already heating up his bedroom, making it impossible for him to sleep. He pulled on yesterday’s socks and flicked through his collection of Panini stickers. Tried a couple of tricks with his diabolo. Cocked his head and listened.
The house was quiet. He guessed his father had left for his meeting at the bank and his mother was working in the study. His dumb idiot of a siste
r would still be in bed.
He picked up his Magic 8 Ball and gave it a shake. Do my parents love me? He peered at the answer, which appeared faintly in the window. Don’t count on it. He threw it across the room.
Evan’s bedroom was at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. Aster was angry with their mother for forcing them to move, but he didn’t feel the same way. It meant he never had to see Lucas Naylor again, who was twice his size with a mouth to match, or worry about who to play with at lunchtime. Yes, he’d be on his own when he started at his new school, but he could handle that. Much worse to have had a gang of friends who, thanks to Lucas, were too scared to play with him than to have none at all.
The early-morning sun was chasing shadows from the grass. When he was younger, Evan had believed his shadow was his soul, and the darker it was, the naughtier he’d been. Now he was nine, he knew better. Although sometimes he checked, just to be sure.
Birdsong drifted in through the open window. A bank of roses, all pale yellows and pinks, edged the lawn, which was narrow but long. At the far end of the garden, leaning against the plums and polished leaves, was a treehouse, windows black with shadow, wood bleached and cracked by the sun.
It looked old and rickety and full of secrets.
Evan itched to scramble up the ladder and explore, but his mother had forbidden him. His thoughts strayed back to last night’s conversation, as he’d got himself ready for bed.
‘Can I climb the treehouse, Mum?’
‘Not now, love. It’s bedtime.’
Evan had stopped brushing, his mouth full of toothpaste. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Dad’s worried about the ladder being rotten. And the rope. We’ll sort it out at the weekend.’
Evan had rinsed out his mouth and laid his toothbrush carefully on the enamel sink. In their old house, they’d had a toothbrush holder. It was a small thing, but he’d felt a longing for the familiar.
‘Maybe I could climb the tree instead. I’m good at climbing trees.’
‘I don’t think so, love. It’s pretty high. And a heck of a way to fall.’
‘Can you lift me up then?’ He’d shrugged on his vest, too hot for pyjamas. ‘You could watch me.’
‘Not now, Evan,’ she’d said, drawing the sheet over him, impatience colouring her tone. ‘Let’s leave it until the weekend, OK?’
And then she had kissed his forehead and gone downstairs.
She was always looking for excuses, his mother. Excuses not to play football or cards or climb a plum tree. But that was last night. And this was a new day.
Evan leaned his forehead against the glass, his eyes fixed on the treehouse at the end of the garden, bracketed by bushes and overlooking the murk of a copse.
The ladder didn’t look rotten, just old.
In truth, the whole structure looked old. A crooked roof, four windows smudged with dirt, a door that didn’t fit and a rope that hung down like a snake.
But Evan didn’t care. It was the best treehouse he had ever seen.
The desire to explore edged out the instinct to obey his mother.
He crept down the stairs, wincing at the yelp from a floorboard he would have to figure out how to avoid. He held himself still, half expecting his mother to appear in the door of the study, his opportunity lost. But the house stayed hushed. He unlocked the back door and stepped into paradise.
The morning sun warmed his face, the fresh-grass smell of summer as powerful as his mother’s perfume. A bee drunk on pollen bumped into his arm and righted itself, droning drowsily. A bird, startled by Evan’s appearance on the patio, darted across the lawn. The sky was holiday-blue.
The kind of day where nothing goes wrong.
Evan pelted down the garden, a smile splitting open his face, the untasted joy of defiance on his lips.
Up close, the treehouse was much bigger than it seemed from his bedroom window, the copse rising behind it like a sinister presence.
A gate was set into the fence at the bottom of the garden, allowing access to the thicket and the playground of trees beyond. It was much smaller than Blatches Woods, but this tangle of woodland was still big enough to get lost in.
A few metres beyond that was a narrow but deep ditch, filled with dead leaves, sticks and the memory of water. It was overgrown with weeds and long grasses, and its high bank and the fence disguised it from the house, but Evan barely gave it a second glance. His interests lay elsewhere.
The trunk of the plum tree was like a ship’s mast, pushing up through the centre of the treehouse walls, which were haphazard but sturdy. The floor was made from imperfect wooden boards with a hole cut in the middle to allow for the trunk. Nailed into its bark was a rope that dangled below, an invitation. Evan tugged on it and several strands of nylon fibre came off in his hands. He turned to the ladder, which rested against the bottom of the tree, and pressed one foot on the first rung. It wobbled, but held.
The boy, who was light and fleet, scrambled up. He was an adventurer. An explorer. Climbing into a new world. Leaves tickled his face. The sweet scent of ripening fruit filled his nose and mouth. Excitement filled him up. He did not notice the wasps crawling over the skin of the plums, or the indignant croak of a crow as it flapped its wings on a branch and lifted skywards.
The door, it turned out, wasn’t functional, but nailed into place. Entry was by pulling himself up onto the floorboards through a narrow gap by the trunk. Not safe. But fun.
The roof was high enough for him to stand up, so Evan, brave but wary, leaned against the trunk and drank in his surroundings.
Despite the rising heat of the morning, the treehouse was cool and shadowed, protected by the shallow coppice beyond the garden fence. A couple of cushions filled with dust and memories lay on the floor, their covers the vivid, geometric designs from a time long before Evan. One had a faded, rusty patch.
And it was dry. No damp wood, just a smell like the banned creosote his father kept in the garage.
The second thing he noticed was the dead bugs. Everywhere. Dried husks of flies and woodlice wrapped in the sticky strings of the thick webs that decorated every corner.
He wondered which children had played here before him and where they were now.
A long, low call disturbed the peace. The boy started. His mother’s voice sounded far away, but he could still detect her irritated tone as she shouted his name.
He peered out of one of the windows. It was smeared with dust and dirt, but he could see enough to know that she was standing by the back door, calling for him. ‘Evan. Evan.’ Sharper that time. She looked straight at the treehouse.
He crouched down, biting his lip and stifling an urge to giggle. Grabbing one of the cushions, he lay down on the filthy floor, staring up at the corrugated iron roof and marvelling at the way the metal moved in waves.
In the distance, the back door slammed. He wondered if his mother was right that minute making her way down the garden, readying herself to shout at him. He hated it when she did that, twisting her face into someone he didn’t recognize.
He listened to the sounds of the garden waking up. The rustle of an animal in the undergrowth. A chorus of crickets. The low thrum of a plane far above, packed with holidaymakers.
He stretched out his legs and buried the back of his head more comfortably into the cushion. A spark of pain made him sit up again.
Evan ran his fingers along the faded fabric. There it was. Something hard and square inside the lining, its sharp corner had poked him in the neck. He undid the zip and felt around.
His fingers closed on a box.
Evan pulled it free and stared at it. He had no idea what it was. He had never seen anything like it before.
It was transparent, smaller and flatter than one of those boxes of cereal from a variety pack, and lined with a cardboard insert marked by a reddish-brown thumbprint. He fiddled with it until it opened.
Inside was a black rectangle with two holes in the middle and a spool of what looked like dark, thin
Sellotape. The words ‘TDK’ and ‘D-60’ were printed on it. On one side was the letter A. He flipped it over to find a B on the other side.
Evan held it up to his eyes and peered through the holes like they were binoculars. He tapped the plastic casing. His finger stroked the shiny blackness of the – what? To him, it looked like ribbon or the decorative trimmings his mother sometimes wrapped around presents. He wanted to slip his nail under it and pull it free, but some instinct stopped him.
Evan examined it again. Across the top of the flat rectangle was a yellowing sticker. He peered closer. Words in pencil. The handwriting was oversized, a little clunky. Much like his own.
Play Me.
He turned it over and over in his hands, wondering what it meant. Should he play with it? But it didn’t say that, and anyway, he didn’t know how to. In his head, he drew up a list of things that could be played. DVDs. Instruments. Music. He picked at the graze on his elbow. That thought wouldn’t go away.
Music.
He knew it wasn’t a CD because he’d got his own player for Christmas when he was seven, and he knew it wasn’t a record because it was nothing like the round, crackling discs his father played on his turntable.
He flipped it over and inspected the other side. Another yellowing sticker. And the faint remnants of the same childish handwriting, although smaller this time, more cramped.
The boy could just about make out half a sentence.
Don’t ever
Frustratingly, the rest of the words were too faded to read, as if the graphite had been smudged in haste or rubbed out.
‘I knew you couldn’t keep away, you naughty boy.’
Evan’s mother’s voice drifted up into the treehouse. He leaned over the hole where the trunk stood, and looked down. She was gazing up at him, hands on her hips, and she wasn’t smiling. ‘Get down now.’
Evan slipped his find down the elastic of his football shorts. He didn’t know what he’d discovered and why it had been hidden, but he was going to find out.
The Neighbour Page 5
