She studied me — and something changed. She nodded slowly. Then she moved away, slipped the car into first and took off.
‘Liz, I just—’
‘I know.’
‘It’s not that I—’
‘I know,’ she repeated, and glanced at me. One of her eyes glistened. ‘You don’t need to explain, David. I understand.’
I looked at her, my eyes wandering down her body. You don’t have to be lonely. Her breasts. Her waist. Her legs. When I looked up again, she was staring at me.
It’s too soon.
‘I don’t know what I think,’ I said quietly.
She nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Some days…’ I paused. She turned to me again, her face partially lit in the glow from the streets. ‘Some days it’s what I want.’
She nodded again.
‘But some days…’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said gently, and her fingers touched my leg again. ‘I can help you, David.’
‘I know.’
‘When you’re ready, I can help you.’
When I got home, I took out the card Jade had left for me. Blood was spattered across it, her fingerprints marking the corners. It was headed with the Strawberry’s logo. I thought she’d taken a napkin, but she’d picked up one of the restaurant’s business cards instead.
Inside the b of the restaurant’s name was a burger; the lines of the t were fries. And in the middle, in shaky handwriting, was ‘Jade O’Connell, 1 March, Mile End’.
21
I fell asleep at three-thirty and woke again at four. The TV was on mute. An empty coffee mug sat on the floor next to the sofa, the remote control resting on top of it. I turned off the TV, picked up the mug and took it through to the kitchen.
That was when I noticed the security light was on.
I stepped up to the kitchen window and looked out into the night. Footsteps led all the way up to the house, one after another in the snow. Then up to the porch, and around to the side of the house.
None of them were mine.
I put the mug down on the counter and walked back through the house to the bedroom. The curtains weren’t quite drawn. Outside, I could see a trail of footprints right in front of the windows, running parallel to the house, and U-turning at the end and coming back on themselves.
Then: a noise.
Somewhere inside the house.
Swivelling, I looked across the darkness of the bedroom. All I could hear now was snow dripping from the gutters. I edged towards the bedroom door and along the hallway.
Click.
The same noise for a second time.
Is that the door?
I tried to remember what the front door sounded like when I opened and closed it, tried to remember anything about any of the noises the house made. But as I looked along the hallway and waited for the sound to come again, all I could hear was silence.
Maybe it’s an animal.
Liz had a cat. It set the light off all the time.
Click.
The noise again.
And this time something moved: the handle of the front door.
For a split second, it felt like the soles of my feet were glued to every fibre of the carpet. Then, as I fixed my gaze on the handle, it moved again: slowly, quietly, tilting downwards until it couldn’t go any further. The door started to come away from the frame. If I’d been asleep, I wouldn’t have heard a thing.
The door opened all the way. The security light leaked a square of yellow light across the hallway, but nothing else: no movement, no shadows, no sounds.
Then a man stepped into the house.
He was dressed head to toe in black, looking into the darkness of the living room, his back turned towards me. On the top of his head was a mask. He pulled it down over his face, felt around in his belt for something — and then turned and looked down the hallway towards me. I stepped back into the bedroom, my back against the wall.
Oh, shit.
In the light I could see he’d had a gun, silencer attached. And on his face was a plastic Hallowe’en mask. Eyeless. Mouthless. Unmoving. Staring down the hallway and looking for me in the darkness had been the devil.
I turned back to the bedroom.
Two stand-alone wardrobes, full of clothes and shoes. A bookcase. A dresser. The door into the ensuite. No hiding places. No weapons to hand. Nothing to fight back with.
Click.
A noise from the hallway.
He’s coming.
The door into the bedroom swung back into a tiny cove, about two feet deep, cut into the wall. It was my only option. I slid behind it, pulling the door as far back towards me as it would go. I could only see in two directions now: right, through the narrow gap between the door and the frame; and left, to the far edge of the bed and the dresser. I looked left.
As I turned, the sound seemed immense; every noise amplifying in my ears, every beat of my heart, every blink of my eyes. I expected to be able to hear the man as he approached, hear something, but the house was silent now. No footsteps. No creaks.
In the mirror on the dresser, I could make out all of the bedroom. The bedside cabinets. Derryn’s books. Her plant. The bath, basin, shower. The door, and beyond it into the blackness of the hallway.
Nothing moved.
Nothing made a sound.
But then, suddenly, he was there.
A flash of red plastic skin. The toes of his boots, dark but polished, shining in the glow from the security light. More of the mask emerged from the hallway, as if it were consuming the darkness. The man stopped, scanned the room, his body turning. But he made no sound at all, even as he stepped further in.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. I couldn’t risk any noise. I had nothing to compete with a gun, and only one way to protect myself: make him believe I wasn’t home.
Another step.
He brought the gun up slightly, his finger wriggling at the trigger gently. It sounded like he was breathing in. Sniffing. Like a dog trying to pick up a trail. He glanced towards the dresser, into the mirror, seeming to look right at me. And then he moved. Past the bathroom. Along the edge of the bed.
I could smell something then. A horrible, degraded odour, like decaying compost, trailing the man as he moved. I swallowed, felt like I had to, just to try to get the smell out of my throat and nose. But the stench didn’t go away. It was coming off him like flakes of skin. I swallowed again, and again, and again, but couldn’t get rid of it.
The man in the mask bent slightly and scanned under the bed, then came up again and leaned forward to look at Derryn’s bedside cabinet. I heard the gentle slide of drawers opening and closing, then another noise: a picture frame being picked up. When he turned around, his hands were down at his side again — one holding the gun, one empty — and the picture frame was gone. A photograph of Derryn and me on our last holiday together.
It took everything I had not to make a sound. Whoever was behind the mask had just crawled beneath my skin. Violated me. My wife. Our memories. A bubble of anger worked its way up through my chest, then fear cut across it as the man approached, the gun slightly raised in front of him. Faster, more determined, as if he suddenly realized where I was.
He stopped again in the doorway. Turned back. Scanned the bedroom a second time. Then he breathed in through the mask; a long, deep intake of air. As he breathed out, I could smell him again. His decay. His stink. I held my breath, desperate not to swallow. Desperate not to make a noise.