I crept further on towards the front door. I could focus more easily now, could see the tangle of jackets half-pulled from the hooks on one wall. There seemed to be debris scattered all over the floor, coats, a strange trilby-type hat, pairs of battered slippers and a single training shoe.
It slowly dawned on me as my eyes scanned the objects that there was something different about that trainer. It seemed to take an awfully long time for me to realise what was wrong.
There was a foot in it.
Not just a disconnected foot, but an ankle as well, leading into a leg. I could see about to mid-calf, before the rest disappeared round the bottom of the staircase. It had to be Terry's foot. He usually wore designer trainers, but he walked with his feet turned in, pigeon-toed, and he always seemed to wear his shoes down at an extraordinary and uneven rate. After a month on his feet a pair of top of the line sports shoes looked like something he'd bought from a market trader.
For a few moments I just stood and stared at the foot, as though expecting it to move. It didn't. Then I realised I could see his other leg. It was stretched out along the bottom of the front door, like a rather ineffective draught-stop. A tumble of mail from the letterbox had fallen on top of it.
I think it was only then I started to realise that this was looking very, very bad. The letters meant he'd been there all day, at least. It could only mean he was badly injured. Or dead.
My heart had the right idea. It was doing its best to make a break for it through the front of my ribcage. I only recognised I was holding my breath when I started going dizzy. I forced myself to relax enough to gulp in some air.
As soon as I began breathing again, the smell hit me. The same smell as a piece of meat that's fallen out of the rubbish bag and been lurking in the bottom of the kitchen bin for a week or so, right next to a radiator.
My feet were taking me forward, but the rest of my mind and body didn't really want to go. I shuffled on until the rest of Terry's body came into view. I was moving a millimetre at a time like someone balanced on the edge of a cliff. This was going to be bad news, I just knew it.
Even so, it was worse than I was expecting.
I never thought of myself as being a particularly hairy person. As soon as I saw Terry, all the hairs on my arms and neck stood bolt upright. I almost jumped backwards away from the sight of him, going, “Oh shit, oh shit.” My voice was a subdued wail.
Terry had always been sensitive about his appearance, but he wasn't in any state to be offended. He wasn't in any state to be anything, come to that, apart from very, very dead.
Unless you go in for the particularly gory sort of horror films, which I don't, most portrayals of dead bodies are pretty tidy, really. They might be liberally sprinkled with fake blood. They might have wide open, staring eyes, but they're usually all together, in one piece.
Terry was only just together, only just in one piece. The same knife that had made light work of his sofa had made light work of Terry as well. He had been wearing a pale T-shirt, but this was almost totally soaked through with blood. His hands were across his stomach, the arms drenched up to the elbows. His forearms were covered with slits and minor wounds. One thumb had been sliced through to the point where it was nearly completely severed.
At first I thought he had something on top of his stomach, a weird blueish, greyish mass of bundled twisted cloth, smeared with blood. It took a few horrible, horrifying moments for me to realise that it probably was Terry's stomach.
He'd been split open right across his gut and the contents had spilled out in a tumbled heap. He must have tried to fight off his attacker in the lounge, then staggered through here in search of help. The telephone sat unmarked on the window ledge above his head.
I glanced at his face. He'd been cut there as well, the skin peeling back raggedly to reveal the white-ish gristle of his nose. His dull, flattened eyes seemed to be looking straight at me, accusingly.
I couldn't hold it any longer. My stomach revolted. I turned away, stumbling, and retched in long, convulsive heaves on the hall carpet until there was nothing left in my system to chuck. What a hell of a way to diet.
For a minute or so afterwards I stayed clinging weakly to the bannisters. Then I pushed myself away and started to think. Did I call the police from here? In which case they were going to ask an awful lot of questions I didn't want to have to cope with. Like why did I call round to see him? And what about this computer which I'd accepted from him, in the full knowledge that it might be stolen? Oh yeah, I'm sure everyone says they were just trying to return it to its rightful owner . . .
Or I could do what I should have done as soon as I saw that handprint on the wall. I could make a fast exit and ring the police from a call box as far away from home as possible. I looked at the disgusting calling card I'd just left on Terry's floor. That couldn't be helped. I was just thankful I'd kept my gloves on.
Turning my back on Terry was one of the most frightening things. As though he was suddenly going to sit up and reach for me. Too many films, too much imagination. I don't know why, but I wasn't afraid that whoever had rearranged Terry's features was still going to be in the house. He'd obviously been dead too long for that.
I retraced my steps through into the lounge and out into the garden, sliding the patio doors shut behind me. They seemed to close with a terrifyingly loud thunk. I ducked into the shadows by the garage and waited, heart thudding, listening for the sounds of alarm, pursuit.
None came.
I moved down past the side of the garage and along the path, walking back along the street as quickly as possible, trying hard not to break into a run. My back was tense. I expected any minute a voice to shout, “Oi you, stop – murderer!”
It never happened, of course, but I was never so glad as to see the bike sitting waiting for me, like the hero's faithful steed in an old black and white western. Shame I couldn't whistle and have the Suzuki start up and meet me halfway. I dare say if there was the demand the manufacturers would work on it.
I couldn't decide if it would look more suspicious to push the bike quietly out of the road or start it up there as normal. I plumped for the latter, but made sure my helmet was on before I kicked the two-stroke motor into life. It sounded raucously loud. I didn't look, but I could just feel all the curtains twitching in the surrounding houses.
Without waiting for the bike to warm up, I did a wobbly U-turn in the road, abandoning my dignity and paddling it round, feet down. I felt an awful lot better once I was on the move. The solidity of the bike was comforting. I leaned down and patted the bulge of its tank. A ridiculous action, but it made me feel more secure.
Part of the road leading away from Terry's place wasn't streetlit. The cone of illumination thrown out by the bike's dipped headlight seemed pitiably feeble. My eyes were constantly at its outer limit, waiting for the mad-eyed murderer with the bloodied knife, or the accusing policeman, to suddenly step into my path.
The streets of Lancaster were quiet, which was probably a good thing, because I was riding like a first-day learner, fluffing my gear changes and over-revving the engine, riding corners jerkily upright, too tense to be anything like smooth. The Suzuki's gearbox had never sounded so clunky, nor the motor so harsh.
I reached home in only a few minutes and left the bike parked up in the road outside. I ran up the steps, ignoring the dissent from half a dozen different muscle groups. I was panting as though I'd run a marathon.