I mean, how gullible are you?
Read my lips: I made it up.
She buzzes him in.
Remarkably, given all that has passed today, she experiences a sensation close to relish when she sees the astonishment on his face as he approaches the open door and catches sight of her waiting inside.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I told you I was coming here. This is the only home I have, remember?’ Her tone is as abrasive as she can muster, but nothing she has to say can wound him. He sees her only as an obstacle to be kicked aside. ‘I’m looking for Bram,’ she adds. ‘Same as you, I assume, since you clearly haven’t returned to propose marriage to me.’
Have you, Mike?
He curls his lip with contempt. ‘Where is he?’
‘He just texted me, said he’d be here in ten minutes.’
It strikes her that she hasn’t muted Bram’s phone, concealed under her bag on the worktop, right next to the knife she’s taken from the kitchen drawer just in case. Just in case this bastard tries to hurt her.
But she can’t reach for the phone with him standing here.
‘He told me he was already here,’ Toby says. Mike says.
‘He must have texted us en route. He’ll be using public transport, remember.’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ His fuse already blown, he looks about him for something to hurt. ‘Well, you’re going to have to wait till I’ve finished with him. Catch up on your way to A & E, eh?’
How could she ever have found this man attractive? He is a brute, a vile, ugly monster. ‘I’ve got all the time in the world. Take a seat.’ She gestures to the armchairs, side by side in their sad, makeshift lounge. ‘Drink?’ she offers, gripping the bottle of red wine she’s already begun.
‘Got any vodka?’
‘I’ve only got this.’
‘Fine.’
Hers is already poured and she fills a new glass, passes it to him. She can’t connect this act of hospitality to the dozens like it when he visited her here during their relationship. The conversation and the flirtation and the sex: that was with a different man. A man who’d pitted himself as the uncomplicated and restrained challenger to a famously uncontrolled ex. Was it the reined-in aggression that she’d sensed and responded to? How does he behave with women when he has no ulterior motive, no agenda that relies on his gaining trust? Unpleasantly, she suspects. Forcefully.
He swallows the wine in impatient gulps, complains it tastes like shit, but continues drinking. She pours him a second glass and a third, while continuing to sip her own.
‘It’s been way longer than ten minutes,’ he grumbles, then suddenly sparks. ‘What did you mean “en route”? Where was he coming from?’
Fi shrugs. She is not scared of him now. ‘I don’t know, he didn’t say in his message, but he’s obviously hit a delay.’
‘Show me the message he sent you.’ He rises, stumbling slightly, and she leaps to her feet, blocks his passage past her to her bag.
‘Don’t you come near me.’
He regards her with contempt, before reaching for his coat and trawling through the pockets for his own phone. As he stabs at the keypad, she is just deft enough to locate and turn off Bram’s phone before he eyes her once more. A fraction slower and it would have given her away.
‘He’s turned it off,’ he mutters. ‘Don’t know what the hell he thinks he’s playing at.’
‘He’ll be here.’
‘You’re suddenly very trusting,’ he mocks. ‘Have you forgotten he’s just shafted you for every penny you’ve got?’
She holds his eye, her expression so hostile, so sour, her face doesn’t feel like her own. ‘Look, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk any more until he comes.’
He scowls, reclaims his glass, helps himself to the last of the wine. ‘You’d be doing me a favour. You bore my tits off, if you must know. Fat old Mrs Holier-than-thou, I don’t know how Bram stood it all those years. No wonder he played away. I would have done the same. With that foxy neighbour of yours, for starters, what was her name?’ He takes one of the chairs, angles it towards its mate as if inviting her to sit and subject herself to more abuse.
I hate you, she thinks. I can’t be near you for another second.
‘I’m going to the loo,’ she says. ‘I’ll wait there.’
She locks the bathroom door behind her and slides to the floor, sits with her chin on her knees. She is shaking so badly her teeth chatter and she clenches her jaw to stop the sound of it.
Instinct stops her from finding her own phone and checking her messages. Instead, she reaches to pull the light cord, puts her fingers in her ears and closes her eyes.
Lyon, after midnight
The second time he wakes up, it is Mike he sees, just as it is Mike who will wake him most often during the next few weeks. If he has learned anything from his own demise it is that he must not underestimate this man. He has, after all, seen him at his best, in command, flying. How will he behave when he learns he’s been deceived? Will he try to harm Fi? She will suffer. Will he kidnap Leo or Harry and issue a message on YouTube like some hooded radical? Pay me my money and I’ll let him go. A knife held to the precious boy’s throat.
No, he has to have faith in the police. The moment the property scam came to light Fi would have been in touch with them, and now she’ll have access to their protection. Mike wouldn’t take the risk.
In any case, he is a chancer, a bounder. He’ll kick a wall or two and then he’ll move on to the next opportunity, hardly limping.
52
Saturday, 14 January 2017
London, 3 a.m.
Though her ears ache, her fingers no longer seal them shut and she can hear awful grinding sounds on the other side of the wall. It’s a monster clearing its throat and preparing to devour her! No, that’s just one of the kids’ stories, the one Harry likes with the greedy sheep that swallows the world.
‘I’m still hungry!’
She struggles at first to understand the stiffness in her body, its proneness on a cold hard surface. Has she been dozing? Her hand moves across tile, probing, and reaches a wall of smooth plastic: a shower screen. She is on the bathroom floor, in the flat.
No, not a story.
She heaves herself into sitting position, back against the screen. Light-headed, she counts to ten, twenty, fifty, before attempting to stand. Her legs are dead, buckling under her weight, and she grips the door handle for support. At last, she finds the light cord and pulls – the dazzle makes her flinch – before unlocking the door and opening it as noiselessly as she can.
It is silent in the main room. As she creeps between the cliffs of boxes, particles of light overtake her, flowing from the bathroom towards the kitchen area. On the worktop, she can make out her handbag, a bottle with the residue of red wine; a sheet of yellow paper; a little blue exercise book.
At the mouth of the passageway, she sees him. He is still seated, his legs outstretched, but his head is tipped right back, his face pitched skyward. She takes a step towards him. His eyes are closed. The skull bones are sharp beneath the skin and there’s blunt stubble on his face and throat. There is a crust of vomit on his chin and part of his neck, dirty pink drops of it congealing on the chair. The noises she heard were of him choking, presumably in his sleep, unable to gain consciousness, for there is no evidence that he has woken and done anything to try to save himself.
Nor did she do anything.
He is dead, surely, but she can’t bring herself to touch him.