Was Nikki. Oh, God.
Nikki dried up, a Nikki made of leather. Her flaming red hair still recognisable, but brushed out, sprayed and curled in a grim, hard facsimile of an Oscar-night ‘do’. She’s Nikki, but crossed with a Galapagos tortoise, all hard and gnarly and thin, thin, thin. False fingernails, filed sharp and painted scarlet, stuck on to bony fingers, cheekbones to die for. A green shift dress, and feet and ankles, tendons standing out like guy ropes, each bone delineated by the thin, hard skin that adheres to it, all crammed into over-tight, film-star stilettos with winkle-picker toes.
She finds her breath, gulps in acrid air and turns to run for the door.
Thomas stands outside the bathroom, blocking her exit. He’s dressed like a surgeon, in a white plastic pinny that’s smeared with brown, and holding a small circular saw.
Chapter Forty-Eight
She doesn’t hesitate. Throws, because she has nothing else to throw, the cat at him, bolts inside the bedroom and slams the door.
A smaller room, one side cut off to make space for the bathroom next door. Cher leans against the door and holds the handle, looks wildly round for something that will help her, a weapon, something to stop him getting in. There’s nothing. A horrid, bare, dry little room with a divan bed and a chest of drawers against the far wall, an eaves cupboard, a miserable flat-pack wardrobe. He’s coming. Oh, myGod, he’s coming!
Nikki grins at her mirthlessly from her chair. It’s only after a couple of seconds that she notices that she has a second companion. Up against the wall next to her, thrown face down on the floor like a doll whose owner has moved on to the next piece of plastic. Dark hair, faded bluish, brittle, the scalp showing through, the skin gone grey and beginning to flake off from the frame. Arms bent as though they’ve been designed to hold on to the arms of a throne, the fingers clawed. Cher can see up the skirt, see dainty underwear hanging off shrivelled buttocks. She looks like she doesn’t weigh a pound, but she’s the only thing within reach.
Cher braces her foot against the bottom of the door and stretches. Gets a handhold round the ankle and starts to pull the body towards her. The skin is oily under the touch, not dry, as she’d been expecting. It slips through her grasp and the dry clutching fingers catch on the carpet, hold her there. Cher drops to her haunches, grips the ankle with both hands and hauls, lets out a shriek of effort. Something in the fingers snaps and the body flies free. Lands on top of her dry, dry hair in her open mouth. She throws it against the door and scoots backwards on her bottom, howls out her disgust.
Outside, ‘More Than A Woman’ starts up on the record player. She barks out a laugh. Did he put this on purposely? Is this his special music for doing whatever he was doing in that bathroom? Is this why those drains got blocked up? He’s probably been putting stuff down the bog for months, flushing away the stuff he’s taken out of these women, clogging up… oh, God, Roy Preece drowned in Nikki.
The door handle turns and he pushes against it. She sees the door crack open, catch on the corpse behind it. It won’t hold for any time at all. He’s already bracing, jiggling it back and forth, and she’s jumping on the floor.
Cher jumps on to the bed and dives through the open window.
She hits the tiles, and finds herself sliding. Four floors up, and she’s heading down, at speed. Months of dust and pollen and traffic smuts that have settled on surfaces in the dry heat have formed a slick in the rain, a slick as unpredictable as ice, and just as deadly. Her cheap flip-flops skate over the surface, her legs wheeling as she hunts for traction. Her right hand, flat on the roof, catches on something that drives itself deep into her palm. She shrieks in pain as she jerks to a halt, feels something snap at the base of her neck, rolls on to her face and digs her knees in to the tiles.
She’s two feet from the edge. A mass of blackened leaves in the gutter, and beyond that, somewhere far away, the pavement. Her hand is snagged on a naiclass="underline" three inches of rusty iron between herself and the long drop. She can hear him in the bedroom, now. Has no idea where she’s going to go from here. But she pulls her knees in underneath her and worms her way upwards until her hand is no longer taking her weight. Something’s happened to her arm. It seems to have lost all its strength, and there’s a grinding, searing pain at the top of her chest, as though two snapped ends of something are rubbing together. A wave of giddiness breaks over her. She shakes her soaking rat-tail hair like a dog and the screech of protest that shoots through her body brings her back to the world.
The nail is deeply embedded in her heartline. Cher kneels up, stares at the ragged tear that starts at her wrist and runs the length of her palm, where it dragged through and formed a brake. It’s missed the big vein in her wrist by nothing more than a miracle. There’s blood spreading over the lichen on the tiles, but it’s spreading, not pumping.
A sound at the window, five feet from her face. She jerks her head up and sees Thomas, leaning on the windowsill, blinking from behind his tinted specs.
‘Oh, Cher,’ he says.
‘Keep the fuck away from me,’ she says.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.
She doesn’t know how to answer. The question is so unexpected, his benign smile so calm, that she’s completely thrown. She looks down at her hand again. Can’t stay like this, whatever I do, she thinks. Takes hold of the hand with her left, grits her teeth, counts to three and yanks it upwards before she can lose her nerve. Feels the world swim away from her, gasps, and is free.
She starts to edge away from the window. Her flip-flops slip and slick on the rain, throw her feet out in front of her, and she flails, slides, sees the gutter heading fast towards her, gasps again at the pain. A tile snaps and breaks free, skitters downwards, over the edge. Cher freezes. Counts one, two, three before she hears it shatter on the concrete below.
‘You should come in from there,’ says Thomas. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘Fuck off!’ she snaps. Remembers that she’s in the middle of a city, in the late afternoon. Starts yelling. ‘Help! Somebody! Help me!’
Come on. Come on. Somebody’s got to hear me.
Another tile breaks off. The roof is old and decrepit, like everything else about this house.
Thomas puts a finger to his mouth and hushes her. What is wrong with this man? He seems to think this is some kind of party game. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Come inside.’
Yeah, right. So you can turn me into a stick doll. ‘Help!’ she shouts again. ‘Christ, please! Somebody help me!’
Thomas shrugs and puts his hands on the windowsill. He’s coming out after her.
She kicks off her useless flip-flops and scrambles upwards, tiles flying out from beneath her grip. It’s hard going, one-handed, the injured arm flopping like someone’s cut its strings, but desperation lends her strength. If he gets to me, I don’t stand a chance. He’s twice my size, and this hand is useless. Where is everybody? Where are they? They can’t all be taking a nap and sleeping. Not through this.
She reaches the ridge and straddles it. Peers down into the street, looking for a sign that someone, anyone, has heard her. The Poshes’ SUV is gone from the driveway, and all the kids’ toys have been taken inside. Don’t say they’ve gone away. That bloody woman.
From up here, Northbourne looks beautifuclass="underline" all tiles and treetops, elegant chimneys whose brickwork embellishments you never see in among the riot of plastic fascias and sandwich boards. Nothing moves in the street below. She can see the roof of the station, but if there’s anyone there they’re under cover, waiting out the rain. In the far distance, between the tree trunks, she can see a few lonely figures walking on the common. They’ll never hear her. And if they look up, all they’ll see is leaves.