A streak of silver lit the darkness. It burst through the skyscape, the briefest waterfall of light. Reminding him that he was a dot on the earth, that the world would still turn when he was dead and buried.
Fletcher recorded his observations in his notepad, taking his time, trying to rein in the gallop of his heart, but it was no use. He could sense the flutter of rising panic. During the day, he could button it up and hold it in. But in the small hours, when the world softened and held its breath, their faces taunted him.
He lifted his telescope and stared up at the sky.
The wisps of beauty anchored him. Layers of bright hope in the darkness, the highest clouds in the earth’s atmosphere. When he was logging his findings, he went to great pains to use the correct scientific terminology. He liked things done properly. But he made an exception for this particular type of cloud phenomena because he loved it so much.
Night shining clouds.
His gaze stretched to the street. It was quiet and dark, save for the ugly glow of the streetlamps. So intrusive. He hated the way they polluted his nightscape, had even considered throwing a rock and smashing the bulb. He’d have done it too, if he wasn’t so worried about drawing attention to himself.
He scanned the hulking shapes of the cars on their driveways. The indistinct masses of bushes and trees. The sheer ordinariness of the street. But a light burned inside him. Waiting, that’s what it felt like. For something to happen.
He turned his attention back to the telescope. The stars were clear and watchful. They did not judge. They did not point and laugh and accuse. They just were.
Time flowed into itself when he was studying the sky in all her glory, great chunks of it passed without his knowledge. That often happened to him. Sometimes, he would come to, and find that he couldn’t remember what he’d been doing. It was a worry.
The hoot of an owl distracted him, dragged his gaze from the sky to the street. A movement caught his attention. He leaned forward, trying to get a better look.
Blood thundered in his veins.
The new woman from across the road was standing on her driveway by her car.
His brow furrowed. It was late, gone 3 a.m. He peered through his telescope. She was wearing a long T-shirt and a silky dressing gown with poppies on it that had fallen open at the front. One of its pockets was hanging low, as if it held something heavy. He focused his telescope. Small and rectangular, most likely a mobile phone. In her right hand, she carried a set of car keys. It looked like she was crying. He dithered for a split second, uncertain what to do.
He mustn’t.
The woman was opening the passenger door and he watched her bend over and reach for something, her legs long and tanned. She straightened up, holding a Kindle. He heard the thud of the door closing and watched her turn her back to him. As she walked towards the side gate that led to her back garden, the belt of her dressing gown snagged on a bush and his eyes followed the vivid slash of red. All at once, he longed to feel the silk against his skin.
He mustn’t.
But a compulsion as powerful as the gravity that weighted his feet to the ground yanked at him, hard and unforgiving.
And Fletcher Parnell moved silently down the stairs and made the second biggest mistake of his life.
40
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
18 The Avenue – 3.15 a.m.
Trefor Lovell was awake too.
He was in his workshop, sorting through a box containing dozens of sets of glass eyes, seeking out a particular colour.
When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, a sense of nausea settled on him.
He swore, rose from his chair and headed to the back of the Doll & Fancy Dress Emporium. He ran through his checklist again. A galvanized tin bath, a small bladed knife and six tins of red paint. Powdered chemicals. Sodium chlorate and sulphur. For his latest project. The internet was truly an Aladdin’s cave of treasures. A crude handmade shotgun leaned against the wall of the shop.
It was going to be spectacular.
His knees were aching but the pull of the kettle was stronger. Hot chocolate made with water. Never mind the weather. Warm drinks cooled him down.
The dolls’ heads lined up across the shelves of his workroom watched him move about the place. He mock bowed to them as he waited for the kettle to boil.
Pitiful. That’s how he would describe today’s efforts, too distracted by those feral children to focus on what he was supposed to be doing, which was completing the orders he needed to ship.
Thanks to them, he’d been working most of the night.
He picked up the telephone, dialled the number he knew by heart, but no one answered. That unsettled him.
He spread out several sheets of that evening’s newspaper across his bench, the headlines full of the latest murder. The glass eyes. The unsullied body. The flawless painted face.
Trefor dipped the tip of his brush into the water to clean it, and the colour swirled like blood. But it was too late. He couldn’t concentrate now.
Leaving the lights on, he slipped out into the heat of the night.
41
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
25 The Avenue – 3.17 a.m.
Olivia was walking through the side gate that led from the front driveway back into her garden when she heard a low cough and caught the scent of tobacco smoke.
She froze, keys dangling from the end of her finger, Kindle in hand. She turned around to look behind her but the street appeared empty. A convoy of ants crawled across the back of her neck. She pulled the gate closed, but the latch was stiff and didn’t catch properly.
Olivia wandered over to the patio table and put down her things. She drained the rest of the grapefruit juice, but did not sit, her eyes scanning the night garden. The tiny hairs on her arms stood upright, despite the heat. Something felt off.
She wandered further down the lawn until she was about halfway between the house and the fence at the bottom of her garden. The fence had its own gate into the copse beyond their boundary, with public access from an entrance on the north-west side. It was one of the things that had attracted them to 25 The Avenue, but now it felt like a threat.
She stood still and listened.
There was a light wind, a drift of breeze that exhaled softly through the trees. But she could hear twigs breaking, the crackle of dry leaves underfoot. Something – or someone – was in the undergrowth.
She walked nervously towards the gate. The sounds were coming from beyond it. It was probably the badger again, but then she remembered the cough. Olivia hesitated, tempted to run back to the house and wake Garrick. But if she was going to leave him, she would need to learn to be strong on her own terms.
Entering the copse was like plunging into darkness. No glow from the patio, just a sliver of hope from the moon. The noises were louder here, and coming from somewhere to her right. The breeze was picking up and it nudged the gate shut behind her. Through the lines of trees, she saw a pinprick of light that bounced wildly. A torch.
She fumbled in her dressing-gown pocket for her phone, ignoring the low battery warning and intending to switch on its flashlight. But it was too dark and she couldn’t see properly, and as Olivia stumbled forwards, thorns catching against her dressing gown and scratching her bare legs, her head exploded in pain, and her world tipped and turned off.
42
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
The Avenue – 4.01 a.m.
The postman walked down The Avenue and back to his van, his flashlight safely in his pocket. The houses were cloaked in silence. He breathed in the warm air. He felt at home in the night.
There was no one about, which was a very good sign. He shouldn’t be here, but he couldn’t keep away. He mustn’t stay much longer, though. What if somebody saw him? And if he didn’t leave now, if he didn’t try to grab an hour’s sleep, at least, he’d never get up in the morning, which would bring disaster of a different kind down on his head.
He unlo
cked the driver’s door and climbed in.
She was sitting in the passenger seat, brown hair spilling down her back. Her skin was grey, her lips colourless. The duct tape was gone, but there was a hunting knife sticking out of her chest, pinning her in place. Her head turned towards him and she mouthed these words. You promised.
The postman reached for the knife, his fingers closing around its handle, but before he could pull it free it dissolved into dust, and the passenger seat was empty again.
He was still crying as he started the engine and drove home, the dawn marking the beginning of another lonely day.
43
Now
For months, the police have been visiting every house in The Avenue, each fresh killing sparking a flurry of activity.
Did you see anyone suspicious at the mouth of Blatches Woods? An unusual car in the street? A stranger? Please, try to think. Are you sure?
I have grown accustomed to it. A formality. I say the right things. I do not lie. I have learned that most officers cannot recognize the truth even when one draws back the curtain and offers them a glimpse. That the threads of a police investigation are far more tangled and messier than they would have us believe.
But when Detective Inspector Adam Stanton came calling, I knew that steps would need to be taken before matters went too far.
He was friendly, at first. Interested and chatty. He talked about the weather and his job. Pretended to drink his tea. Asked to look around the house. The garden.
And then he brought up the shop. Enquired about Birdie. About you.
The roof of my mouth feels dry. A breeze is nudging the leaves. I hear the chimes of the ice-cream van, and beneath that, the sirens. The police are at the bottom of Rushmore Lane now. Two minutes, I’d guess. Perhaps more. I wonder if Olivia Lockwood hears them too.
Detective Inspector Adam Stanton was shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he said. ‘Help me to understand.’
He showed me an article from our local weekly newspaper dated Thursday, 25 July 1985, five days after the Grand Reopening. He pointed to each of the faces of the children in the photograph: two boys and two girls. And a fifth child.
He looked me in the eye and asked me a question that no one had ever asked me before. I told him the truth.
And then I killed him.
44
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
18 The Avenue – 9.21 a.m.
DC French was hungover.
His breath smelled of stale alcohol, he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday and he hadn’t shaved. He grunted a greeting. ‘Stayed at a friend’s.’ But there was no hint of embarrassment, no sense of apology. ‘Missed the alarm.’
‘Clearly,’ said Wildeve, who had been waiting for twenty minutes in a heat so intense she’d developed circles of sweat beneath her arms.
She, on the other hand, had been up since dawn. She had finally fallen asleep on the pile of documents she had found amongst Adam’s things at around 2 a.m. When she had turned over, they had rustled and woken her up. The sun had been shining and the pain in her head had eased. For two and a half seconds it was a promising start to the day.
And then.
Adam is gone.
She had drawn her knees into herself and listened to the birds outside her window. No tears. But a space as desolate as a desert plain.
Five minutes. Ten. An hour. And then she had crawled out of bed, put on her clothes and forced herself to drive to work.
Five decades after the police statements about Bridget Sawyer’s disappearance had been taken, the Doll & Fancy Dress Emporium was still standing on the corner of The Avenue. Built at the start of the post-war economic boom, its signage was now faded, the paint flaking and cracked.
Wildeve didn’t trust French with Adam’s secrets, but she owed him some explanation, and offered the scantest of details about the shop owner who had gone missing fifty-two years earlier.
‘Bridget Sawyer. Known as Birdie. Forty-six. One day she was there, eating breakfast, drinking coffee, the next she had vanished into thin air. Her purse and keys were gone. She left behind a teenager, a home, a business.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Clutching at straws, though, isn’t it?’ But he hadn’t challenged her.
It was gone nine, but there was no sign of life and the shop was shut up. She pushed gently against the door but it was locked, so she knocked on the glass.
French watched her, swigging from a bottle of Lucozade. ‘Not in,’ he said.
‘Wow, thanks. I’d never have guessed.’
She surveyed the street. The early-morning commuters had long gone, and it was quiet, families enjoying a lie-in during the summer holidays or away on their annual break. All except the postman, who was walking up the road towards them.
‘Doesn’t open until twelve, sometimes later,’ he said. He smiled at her, but it lacked commitment. She looked away, wrong-footed although she couldn’t explain why.
‘Funny sort of a business,’ said French. ‘Missing half the day’s trade.’
The postman shifted the bag to his other shoulder. ‘Most of his business is online, I gather,’ he said. ‘Shop’s just a base for him, I reckon. He’s an old guy. Has the occasional customer, but not so you’d notice.’
‘It’s Trefor Lovell’s place, right?’ said Wildeve.
The postman waved a couple of letters at her. ‘One and the same.’ He leaned forward and posted them through the shop’s letterbox, then raised a hand in farewell. ‘Good luck.’
Wildeve and French exchanged a glance.
‘It’s a bit of coincidence, don’t you think?’ said Wildeve. ‘That a woman who owned this shop went missing, and now one of our early suspects runs his doll-making business from the same shop. The same man that Adam told Cooper Clifton he intended to go and see next.’
French shrugged. ‘Life is full of coincidences. It doesn’t have to mean something. Sometimes it just is. And he has an alibi, remember.’
‘Alibis don’t always stand up to scrutiny. You know that as well as I do. I think it’s time for us to pay Trefor Lovell another visit, don’t you?’
DC French held up his hand to stop her. He sagged against a garden wall, empty Lucozade bottle in his hand, face the colour of curdled cream.
‘I feel sick,’ he said.
Wildeve stared down at this crumpled excuse of a human being. An intense longing for Adam claimed her. ‘For pity’s sake, Bernie, pull yourself together.’ She marched off down the street and didn’t look back.
Trefor Lovell’s house was at the end of The Avenue, as tired-looking as the old man himself. The roof had a couple of tiles missing and the gaps were like broken teeth.
The grass was brown and thirsty. High up, beneath the top left window, was an oversized plastic butterfly fixed to the wall. Its yellow and blue markings were not quite garish enough to offset the ugliness of the house’s pebble-dashed exterior.
The building wore an air of sadness, and reminded Wildeve of a place that she and Adam had once viewed, belonging to an elderly widower moving into residential care. Not quite clean, vaguely unkempt. The old man had shuffled about in too-loose trousers, sorrow scratched into the lines of his face, the absence of his wife more powerful than her presence had ever been.
Wildeve swallowed down the lump of grief in her throat and pressed the doorbell.
No answer. She pressed again. Nothing. French bent down and lifted up the letterbox.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, staggering upwards, his hand over his mouth.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Hangover taken a turn for the worse?’
French retched, and the rough sound of it made Wild- eve gag too. He jerked his head from side to side, a violent gesture.
She remembered the postman’s words. He’s an old guy. This heat was punishing. Autolysis, the first stage of decomposition when enzymes consume the body’s cells from the inside out, wouldn’t take long.
‘Oh, fuck,’ she said. ‘Yo
u don’t think he’s dead?’
‘Who’s dead?’ said a thin voice behind them. ‘And who are you?’
Both police officers turned around.
An older man blocked the path. He was average height, hair the colour of dirty grouting. Despite the weather he was wearing a coat, over a pair of faded shorts. Even from a couple of feet away, Wildeve could smell his unwashed clothing. He was holding a carrier bag with vertical blue and white stripes. Through the stretched plastic, she could see a loaf of bread and a tin of soup.
‘Mr Lovell?’
‘Aye,’ he said. Not Scottish, but there was a memory of an accent in there somewhere.
‘I’m DS Stanton, this is DC French, we’re—’
‘Here about that copper’s body. Aye, I know.’ He let his eyes leave her and settle on French. ‘Rough night, was it, pal?’
French’s eyes narrowed. ‘No, sir. I stumbled across a rather nasty smell.’
Lovell gave him a level stare. ‘Did you now?’
‘Aren’t you going to invite us in?’ said French.
‘Reckon not,’ said Lovell. ‘No law against that, is there?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Wildeve. Mr Lovell smiled at her with such tenderness that the grief she had swallowed down threatened to engulf her again. She cleared her throat, buying time to compose herself. Kindness, it always undid her.
‘You’ll want to know if I spoke to him,’ he said, still looking at her. ‘Word’s already flown around the street.’
‘Did you?’ said Wildeve, urgency sharpening her tone.
‘’Fraid not,’ said Lovell. But he couldn’t quite meet her gaze.
‘Yeah, right, course you bloody didn’t,’ muttered French. Wildeve glared at him, skewering his sarcasm with a stab of her eyes.
The Neighbour Page 12
