He stayed on the dual carriageway to the Hollingbury turn-off at the northern extremity of the city. Then he drove round a long crescent, past a parade of shops — a newsagent, an off-licence, a community centre — and up a hill.
He knew were Lorna lived, he’d been there a few times in their early days, when they had first met. It was before they’d got the flat, and had risky lunchtime meetings here while her husband was at work, and on a couple of occasions in the evening, when Corin had been away on business. But that had been a while ago and he sometimes lost his bearings in this complex network of streets.
Each of the houses he passed had rubbish bins pushed out to the front, many of them bulging, their lids partially raised. Good. Very good. That meant, to his relief, that the bin men had not been today. Tomorrow probably. Perfect timing. Please.
Then he recognized exactly where he was. The house was to his right, set back from the road behind two brick pillars, each topped with a stone ball, giving it the pretentious grandeur of a miniature faux-stately home. It used to make him smile, it looked so ridiculous. Lorna told him the pillars embarrassed her but Corin had insisted on them.
Their bin had, dutifully, been put out.
Good girl! Or perhaps, Good, diligent Corin!
He drove a short distance on, pulled into a space between a plumber’s van and an elderly Shogun, switched off the engine and killed the lights. He sat in silence for some moments, checking all around him. It was completely dark now, and there was no sign of anyone. He raised his hand and deactivated the dome light, pulled on a pair of gloves, then opened the door and climbed out.
His sodden shirt, under his coat, felt cold on his skin and he shivered as he looked around. Closed curtains. Flickers of televisions behind some. He strode quickly back towards Lorna’s house and stopped when he reached the bin. Again he looked all around him, furtively, then he switched on the torch on his phone, opened up the lid of the stuffed bin and shone the light in. Thinking. Thinking. What would fool the police?
Sitting on the top was a copy of yesterday’s Sun newspaper. Beneath was what appeared to be a tiny printed circuit board from the inside of an electronic device. Perfect. From out of his pocket he tugged an empty plastic bin bag he’d taken from the flat, shook it open and dropped in the newspaper and the circuit board.
Underneath that the bin was rammed with empty tins of dog food, cartons of fish food and oxygenating tablets. Chinese takeaway cartons. He rummaged through them and came across a set of hair curling tongs.
He glanced around again, checking the coast was still clear, then delved further. The stench was vile. Fish bones. Prawn shells. The rotting remnants of a chicken. An empty tin of Brasso. What else?
He found a scooped-out tin of tuna but ignored it. Then, nestling in what looked like vacuum cleaner fluff, near the bottom, he saw an empty cigarette pack, and dropped that in the bag. Rummaging further, he found an assortment of cigarette butts and two Carlsberg beer cans. They went in as well.
Continuing to look around vigilantly, he reached right down, checking all the items in the bin. But he decided he had enough now.
He walked swiftly back to his car, climbed in and drove away.
It was going to be fine, he thought. Fine. Everything was going to be fine.
It had to be. Nothing else was an option. It was all going to fall into his lap. He’d get through this. Think; plan; one step at a time. Just keep calm. And right now, that’s how he felt. Calm.
It would be fine.
Really.
He headed off to his next destination, continuing to watch his speed like a hawk. Killers often got caught by the most stupid mistakes. Panic clouded their brains. Red mist. He wasn’t panicking any more. He was thinking clearly, perhaps more clearly than ever before in his life.
Maybe that was because he had more at stake than ever before.
But that was fine.
He knew how to handle this.
He really did. And, just possibly, Lady Luck might hitch a ride alongside with him.
19
Wednesday 20 April
The sign on the green machine read: BRIGHTON AND HOVE COUNCIL. PAY & DISPLAY PARKING. CONTROLLED PARKING 9 A.M. — 8 P.M. ALL DAYS.
It was now 10.23 p.m. A heavy shower was coming down. Good. Another sign that Lady Luck was with him. And a further sign was that he still had his golf bag in the boot of his car, from his regular game on Sunday. He tugged out the old black umbrella with one broken spoke, the one that lived in the golf bag, and put that up.
Keeping the umbrella down low over his head, clutching the bin bag, he hurried from the side street where he had parked, headed down to the seafront, turned left and made his way along to the apartment block. He let himself in through the side entrance on Vallance Street, listened carefully for any of the other occupants, then closed the umbrella, sprinted up the three flights of stairs, unlocked the front door of the flat and stepped into the semi-darkness.
And stood still, listening. Shaking and sweating heavily again. What if—?
Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no way she has got out of that bathtub.
Even so, it took some moments before he dared step forward and switch on the torch again. Swallowing hard, he walked up to the bathroom door and stopped, scared to go inside. He inched forward, shuffling, then took a bold step and shone the beam straight at her. And froze.
She was staring back at him.
‘Shit!’
He dropped the phone onto the linoleum floor and backed out of the room, colliding clumsily and painfully with the door. His heart was jumping all over the place.
Surely her eyes had been shut when he’d left her?
Calm down, calm down.
He knelt and picked up the phone and saw to his relief the screen wasn’t broken, then pointed the beam back at her. She lay in the position he had left her. But had her eyes been open? He tried to remember, to think back.
They must have been open.
Must have been.
No way could she have opened them after—
No way.
He went back out into the living room. Get a grip. He went over to the table where the ashtray was. With trembling, gloved fingers, he opened the bin bag, then tipped the butts out into the ashtray. Lorna did not smoke, she had given up some years ago, but told him that Corin was a heavy smoker. He mashed each of the butts in turn into the ashtray, making it look as if they’d been stubbed out there. Then he realized there was no ash.
He lit a cigarette and smoked it hard and fast, tipping off the ash after each long drag. He stubbed it out and put it in his pocket. He lit another and smoked that too, and again put the stub in his pocket.
Next, he tipped the contents of the ashtray into a carrier bag he found in a kitchen drawer. Then, with his gloved hands, he pulled out the two beer cans and also placed them in the carrier bag.
Come on, think clearly! Focus!
He put the printed circuit board on the floor just under the bed, out of sight.
He peered back into the bathroom. Shone the beam across Lorna one more time. Then at the cable from the plug socket into the bath. Then at Lorna again.
How had this happened?
He perched on a chair, thinking again. Trying to wind the clock back.
Please could he wake up tomorrow and find this had all been just a terrible dream? He would give anything, anything in the world, for that to happen. But it wasn’t going to happen. He was going to wake up tomorrow — if he could even sleep a wink tonight — and nothing was going to be changed.