The Magpies A Psychological Thriller

Two


The city opened up before them. From the top of the hill Jamie could see for miles: clusters of tower blocks standing up like chipped stalagmites; patches of parkland and the curve of the Thames; flyovers and bridges and dirt-streaked trains.

A song came on the radio that reminded Jamie of his first summer in London, after leaving uni. During those heady days – days when the sun’s heat seemed to last all night – Jamie had thought the possibilities that lay before him were infinite. It was almost too overwhelming. He could do anything, be anyone. He was going to make loads of money and become famous, just as soon as he put that brilliant idea for a website into action. In the meantime, life was good. Too good to worry about actually going out and trying to achieve his admittedly-vague ambitions.

That summer had ended and Jamie had taken a job as a trainee computer technician with ETN. Systems. It would pay the rent on his little flat until he found out what he really wanted to do. He wanted to start his own business or maybe write a screenplay that would transform the British film industry. Now, five years later, he was still working for ETN, but he had been promoted and was earning okay money. The job was boring sometimes, but hey, things could be a lot worse.

He was twenty-nine years old and he felt like, at last, he was entering the adult world. He was a property owner. There was rumour of a further promotion at work. He and Kirsty had talked about getting married and starting a family, and he could see that happening in the not-too-distant future, when the time was right. The thought of it made him feel light-headed, but it was a welcome sensation. Kirsty wanted the same. She loved children – why else would she work in the children’s ward of a hospital? Some days she would come home in fits of giggles over something one of the children had done or said; sometimes there would be tears. Jamie would hold her while she recounted whatever story she had to tell. Some of the tales were so terribly sad. Jamie, who had never met the children involved or their families, would get upset too. Sometimes, now, Jamie would find himself looking at Kirsty and thinking to himself: she’ll make a great mum. She thought that when he looked at her all he thought about was sex. But half the time he was actually thinking about getting her pregnant.

Now, he put his arm out of the open window of Paul’s van and tapped along to the music on the radio. His hangover had gone, blown away by the fresh breeze that blew in through the window. The sky was Bondi-blue. The people they passed wore T-shirts and shorts or little summer dresses. There was something about England in the summer – the way its inhabitants seemed to wake up, cast off their frowns and complaints. He couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else. And when he thought about Kirsty, he couldn’t imagine wanting to be with anyone else.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Paul asked. ‘You’ve got the stupidest grin on your face.’

‘Oh, I was just thinking about…stuff.’

Paul smiled and shook his head. ‘Soppy bloody git.’

After picking up the furniture from Jamie’s they drove back across the city and parked outside the new flat.

Paul, who had been Jamie’s best mate since he’d moved to London, opened up the back of the van and began stacking boxes on the pavement while Jamie jogged up to the front door and unlocked it. He wedged a piece of cardboard beneath it to hold it open.

‘God, look at all this junk!’ Paul held a battered tennis racquet with broken strings in one hand and a moth-munched giant stuffed rabbit in the other. ‘Why don’t you chuck all this stuff out?’

Jamie took the rabbit from his friend. ‘This is Kirsty’s.’

‘Then what’s it doing in your stuff?’

He shrugged.

Paul reached out and tweaked the rabbit’s ear. ‘I bet it’s not really Kirsty’s. I bet you’ve had it since you were four and it’s called something like Mr Bun-Bun, and apart from Kirsty it’s the love of your life.’

‘No Paul – you’re the other love of my life.’

Paul lifted a red plastic crate out of the van. It was full of seven-inch singles. He took out a handful and studied them. ‘F*ck, how old are these? Madness, The Specials. Did you inherit these off your grandad?’

‘Those are classics.’

Paul rolled his eyes. ‘You’re a hoarder, mate. You’ll probably end up like one of those old blokes who can’t bear to throw anything away, living in a flat surrounded by yellow newspapers and empty baked bean tins. Kirsty will have got fed up with you and run off with a bloke who’s into Japanese minimalism. ‘

‘Has today suddenly turned into Slag Off Jamie day?’

‘I’m only teasing. Come on, we’d better get the rest of this stuff into the flat.’

Paul went to pick up the box containing the tennis racquet and some folders full of training notes from when Jamie joined ETN, but Jamie stopped him.

‘Leave it.’

‘Eh?’

‘I saw a skip on the way here. When we’ve unloaded the rest of the gear we’ll take this junk there and dump it.’

Paul raised his eyebrows.

‘And before you ask, yes I am sure.’

They picked up a crate of records each and began the process of transferring the favoured boxes and binbags into the flat. The sun beat down on them and they sweated their T-shirts a darker shade.

‘Almost finished,’ Jamie said, a while later. ‘Just the chest of drawers.’

It was an old chest of drawers that Jamie had bought at an antiques auction. It was made of dark, heavy oak, and Jamie grunted a little as he and Paul lifted it. Paul, who was marginally stronger, went backwards up the path, holding his end up firmly but not being able to see where he was going. Just before Paul reached the front door, Jamie started to say, ‘Look out,’ but it was too late. A woman had come up the concrete steps from the basement flat, and as she reached the path – not really looking where she was going – Paul bumped into her, dropping the chest of drawers and swearing loudly.

The woman stared at him for a second, her expression grim – and then she smiled. Jamie would never forget that sudden change in expression. He had never seen anything like it – not in real life anyway. It was more suited to a cartoon. She smiled, her face relaxed, her brow uncreased. Jamie stared at her for a second, wondering how she had transformed her features from Gorgon to Angel so quickly, then he remembered how to speak.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, then, rather obviously, ‘We’re moving in.’

She looked at Jamie then at Paul.

‘Not me,’ Paul said.

‘No, my girlfriend and me. I’m Jamie. You must be Lucy?’

She was in her early- to mid-thirties and had blonde hair scraped back and fastened by a grip. Her skin was very pale and smooth; she had no laughter lines around her eyes, even when she smiled like she was smiling now. She was as tall as Jamie – five foot eleven – and broad-shouldered. If Jamie had had to pick one word to describe her it would have been ‘Amazonian’.

‘Lucy Newton. I live in the garden flat with my husband, Chris.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You know?’ For a fraction of a second her beatific expression flickered.

‘Brian upstairs told me.’

‘Of course.’ The smile returned. ‘Well, this is a very nice collection of flats we have here. I’m sure you and your girlfriend will like it here.’

‘Yes, I hope so. Actually, I’m certain we will.’ The sun was in his eyes and he found himself squinting at her. ‘I hope you weren’t disturbed too much by our party last night. We did put an invite through your door.’

‘Yes. We would have liked to come but Chris wasn’t feeling too well. He had an early night.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. All the noise…’

She waved his anxiety away. ‘No, don’t worry. When Chris is asleep nothing can wake him. There could be an earthquake or a herd of dinosaurs thundering down the road and he wouldn’t stir. Shame he wasn’t well though. It sounded like a good party. Maybe we’ll come to your next one…if you have one.’

She smiled.

Paul looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get on, Jamie.’

‘Hmm.’ He addressed Lucy: ‘We’ve got to go and pick up Kirsty’s belongings now.’

Lucy looked at the front window of the flat. ‘Where is she?’

‘At work. She’s a nurse.’

‘Really? Which hospital?’

‘St Thomas’s. In the children’s ward.’

‘How lovely. I’m a nurse too. But I work at the other end of the scale. I work in a nursing home. Orchard House.’

‘Jamie…’

He looked at Paul, who was keen to get on. He had a date later in the day – a girl he had met at the party, who had been dressed as Wonderwoman – and he didn’t want to be late.

‘I’d better get on myself,’ Lucy said. ‘Shopping, you know.’

‘It was nice to meet you.’

‘Likewise.’

She walked off and they watched her go down the road.

‘Look at it all,’ said Kirsty, when she arrived home from work. Paul had gone off to meet Wonderwoman, leaving Jamie surrounded by his and Kirsty’s belongings.

‘I met the woman downstairs earlier,’ Jamie said now, bringing Kirsty a cup of Earl Grey tea as she changed out of her uniform.

She ripped open a couple of binbags in her search for the outfit she wanted. ‘Really? What was she like?’

‘She seemed nice. She wasn’t at all pissed off with us about the party, which was a relief. I was quite worried about it.’

‘The considerate neighbour, that’s you. Did you meet her husband?’

‘No. He’s not very well, apparently.’

Kirsty sipped her tea. She always left the teabag in the cup while she drank it, a habit Jamie couldn’t understand but nevertheless found endearing. He didn’t drink tea himself – he was a coffee man – but he liked the taste of it on Kirsty’s lips. He sat beside her and kissed her now.

She broke away gently. ‘We’ve got to get on with the unpacking, Jamie.’

‘I guess so.’

‘What do you want to do about dinner? We’ve got no food in. Let’s get a pizza delivered.’

‘Good idea. And there’s some wine left from last night.’

Kirsty pulled on the black, sloppy jumper she had been searching for and stood up. She prowled around the flat, just looking at it, marvelling at every empty cupboard, at the Victorian fireplace, the intricate ceiling rose, the taps in the bath, the grain in the floorboards.

‘I still can’t believe that it’s ours,’ she said. ‘I was convinced that something would go wrong before we moved in. I thought we would get gazumped, or the owners would decide they didn’t want to sell after all. Even today, at work, I was stressed out, thinking that the phone was going to ring any minute and it would be you, telling me that the flat had burned down taking all our possessions with it.’

She came to a halt before the bedroom window and Jamie came up behind her and put his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder. They looked down at the garden. It was very neatly kept, with a large square of lawn surrounded by flower beds, the flora in full bloom. There was a little shed at the back of the garden. Only the occupants of the basement flat had access to the garden, although as this block of flats had once been a single house (only converted into flats earlier in the century) it was physically possible for the occupants of the ground floor flat to get down there. A set of concrete steps led from the bathroom balcony down into the garden. Kirsty planned to set a washing line up on this balcony. It was tiny and not at all private so it would have little other use.

‘You smell really sweaty,’ she said as Jamie kissed her cheek, wrinkling her nose.

‘That’s because I’ve been labouring hard all day – sweating under the hot sun.’

Their first task was to put up the curtains in the bedroom. That morning, they had been woken up at five a.m. by the blazing sunlight that filled the room. With last night’s alcohol still circulating through their veins, they had both winced and groaned and tried to hide under the quilt. It was no good, though. They couldn’t sleep, and Jamie had pulled on his jockey shorts and padded into the kitchen to make coffee. There was a strange man asleep on the floor, dressed as a cowboy with his stetson over his face. He opened one eye, said, ‘Morning,’ then got up and let himself out. Then, while most of their new neighbours slept, Jamie and Kirsty cleared up the mess from the night before.

‘I’ll put the hooks up and then you can hang them,’ said Kirsty. ‘You order the pizza while I make a start.’

Jamie phoned the pizza place, then fetched the iPod dock, finding an acoustic playlist.

As he was attaching the curtains to the rail, standing on a wobbly chair with Kirsty holding onto his leg, there was a knock on the door.

Kirsty raised her eyebrows. ‘That was quick.’

Jamie clambered down from the chair. ‘That was the inner door, so unless someone left the front door open it can’t be the pizza guy.’

He opened the door to the flat and found himself looking at a large man with a crew cut. As Jamie had expected, the man wasn’t holding a pizza.

‘Hello. Can I help you?’

The man looked him up and down, then said in a quiet voice that clashed with his bulky physique, ‘I’m Chris Newton. I live…’

‘Downstairs! Hi.’ Jamie stuck out his hand. ‘I met your wife earlier. Are you feeling better now?’

‘Oh, yes. I’m fine. I thought it would be a good idea to come up and introduce myself.’

Kirsty came up behind Jamie and looked over his shoulder.

Chris smiled at her. ‘You must be…’

‘Kirsty. Pleased to meet you.’

‘And you.’

There was an awkward silence, during which Jamie quickly appraised Chris in his mind. He was very fit and muscular. He looked a little like a nightclub bouncer or a security guard. But there was a gleam in his eyes that spoke of a sharp intelligence. Jamie also noticed that Chris was carrying a bunch of keys in his left hand; he clearly had a key to the front door. Jamie wasn’t worried by this. The four sets of neighbours paid service charges for the upkeep of the whole building, and therefore they all had every right to access the halls and stairways that they shared. They were equally responsible for keeping the building clean and in good condition.

‘I noticed the front door was sticking a bit and squeaking nastily,’ Chris said, as if reading Jamie’s mind. ‘I might have a look at it over the weekend.’

‘OK.’

Chris nodded and ran the palm of his hand over the soft bristles on his scalp. ‘Well, I hope you both settle in alright. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.’ He turned to go. ‘Oh, by the way, would you mind turning the music down a bit? Only, Lucy’s in bed. It would help if you could move your dock into the living room as well.’

‘Oh…sure.’

At that moment the front doorbell rang. It was the pizza courier, standing there with the visor of his crash helmet pushed up, revealing a look of impatience, and a twelve-inch pizza held out before him.

‘Smells good,’ said Chris, winking at Kirsty, then walking off, brushing past the pizza courier.

Jamie paid for the pizza and carried it inside.

He knelt by the dock and turned the volume down a notch. He couldn’t believe anyone could be disturbed by the music. It was at a very low volume, and it was hardly heavy metal. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s only eight o’clock. He did say Lucy was in bed, didn’t he, or was I hearing things?’

Jamie pulled a face. ‘Maybe she’s ill.’

‘I thought you said he was the one who was ill.’

‘That’s what she said.’

Kirsty shrugged. ‘Maybe she’s caught it now.’

They went into the kitchen and Kirsty uncorked the wine.

‘She seemed fine this afternoon,’ Jamie said, thinking about Lucy. ‘And the music was so soft. How could it have disturbed her?’

‘Like I said, she must have caught whatever Chris had. And I suppose sound must carry down through the floorboards where there’s no carpet. We’ll have to be careful whenever we play music. We don’t want to antagonise anyone.’

They perched on the edge of a wooden crate and bit into their pizza. By the time they’d finished their food and drunk their wine, their conversation had moved on to other things. But when the playlist ran out, they didn’t put another one on.