When the plans have been turned to cinders I pick up my beloved Moleskine and hold it for a while. All those words! Precious, priceless words: letters and punctuation and sentences and paragraphs and pages of irreplaceable markings.
I feel like Abraham in Genesis, offering up my child to be burnt as a sacrifice. Or an island savage, keen to appease the gods, strong-arming a virgin into the liquid blaze of a volcano. Not wanting to, God knows, but knowing what has to be done.
I strip the cover off the book and throw it in, then tear the pages in half down the spine and throw those in too. Then I add extra lighter fluid and there is a woof of flames. Unable to stand there and watch it burn, I walk away.
I recheck my study for anything else that could possibly tie me to Eve’s murder but think I found everything the first time round. I switch on my laptop, find my word document that I started yesterday (ten thousand really good words) and trash it. Then I empty my trash. The crumple sound-effect hurts.
The last thing I have to do is make the knife disappear. I look in the drawer of neglected kitchen utensils, but it’s not there. I think I must have moved it when I was planning and writing. Caught in a thought, I could have absent-mindedly put it somewhere else. Methodically, I start going through one drawer at a time, until I know for certain it’s not in any drawer then I start on the cupboards. Nothing. I start on the drawers again but this time I empty all their contents onto the floor. I switch on every light in the house. I go from room to room. After an hour of frantic searching I feel acid rising in my throat. It has disappeared: the knife is no longer in my house.
In a flash of crimson dread I remember the day I had lunch with Eve in her studio and how I went into her room and touched her things. My fingerprints must be all over the place. Jesus Christ. My stalker episode couldn’t have had worse timing. My heart raps against my ribs. With shaking hands I pour myself a glass of water. I have to get rid of those damn prints. I’m sure that her place is overrun with cops at the moment but I’ll have to get in somehow. Without a sip I grab my car keys and head out of the door, into the dark.
There is a police guard outside Eve’s front door, as if to protect her memory because it is too late to protect her. I have to wait for almost two hours before he abandons his post for some kind of break. I move as quickly and quietly as possible and find myself standing in the lounge, gloved hands by my sides, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
Eve’s flat is an uproar of yellow and black crime tape.
I go straight to her bedroom. The other prints can be explained but not the ones on her headboard, mirror, perfume. I start looking around to see if they have dusted for prints already but don’t see any powder residue. Perhaps that’s why they have the guard at the door: they haven’t completed the processing of the crime scene yet. I use a bandanna I bought on the way here to wipe everything I remember touching. The whole exercise, while peculiar, is therapeutic. Eve’s room doesn’t look very different from how it looked a week ago when she was still breathing. Its sameness is haunting.
When I think I am done I begin walking to the studio kitchen, but a noise at the door startles me and I jump back behind the doorframe. The door handle turns. Surely the policeman shouldn’t be coming in? It’s a crime scene for God’s sake. Then: a woman’s voice and high heels on tiles. My mind hurtles. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I try to control my breathing. Figure out what to do. The back window is protected with burglar bars. The bathroom window is too small for escape. I hear a handbag being dropped onto the kitchen counter, and then a heavier sound, on the floor. The kettle is switched on. A sigh as a hinge yields: a cupboard door opening. Porcelain plunked on marble. The kettle clicks off and hot water streams into the mug. Another breath and then the melody of a teaspoon stirring. A snapping sound as the crime tape is ripped down. I wonder if I am imagining the moment when Eve was killed. If it is my punishment to have to relive, second by excruciating second, what happened to her last night. I sense that she is moving towards me and I dive under the bed. She turns the light on and seems to hesitate before she walks in. I’m sure she can hear my heart beating, smell the hot sweat I feel under my clothes. She walks past the bed and into the bathroom. All I can see are her feet. Elegant black shoes. She turns on the bath taps and adds foam. I don’t dare risk edging closer to get a better look at her. She dims the lights, puts a match to candles. She goes back to the kitchen to fetch her tea and brings it to the bath, each time walking past the bed, so close to me I could reach out and touch her ankle.
I have no idea what to do except lie where I am and be as quiet as possible. I will stay here for days if it means not being caught under the bed of the woman I am suspected of killing. It would be impossible to explain. If I die here, under this bed, at least I will never have to put this trespassing into words.
My muddled brain tells me Eve’s ghost is here: come to show me my culpability in this crime. I did, after all, imagine this over and over again, in this exact sequence. As truly shocked as I was to learn that Eve had been murdered – and I was, still am, truly, completely, exhaustively shocked – there was some kind of harrowing glint, some small flash of acquaintance with the fact, as if some tucked-away part of me knew it would happen all along.
16
THE GHOST BEGINS TAKING OFF HER CLOTHES
The ghost begins taking off her clothes. Heels are kicked off. A cashmere cardigan, a blouse and a pencil skirt all land next to my head. A black camisole. Wrinkled stockings, like shed snakeskin. The smell of Eve’s perfume fills my nose. There is also something else familiar, but I can’t think what it is. Bare-soled and naked she walks towards the bath, turns off the taps and steps in, facing away from me. It’s not Eve. This woman is tall and has dark hair. What is she doing drinking Eve’s tea, bathing in Eve’s bath? I can’t imagine a possible answer.
A pressure starts building up in my chest and I am finding it difficult to keep my breathing quiet. I wonder if it is the beginning of a panic attack and, if so, I have to get out from under here before this woman hears me. I lift myself up on my elbows and begin to inch my way out, leopard crawling with the stealth that comes with being an ex-soldier. For a moment I sense she has heard me and I freeze there on the carpet in the middle of the room, in plain view were she to turn her head. She starts moving again and I am able to slither out of there.
In the passage I almost knock over a pile of boxes that weren’t there earlier, just miss tripping over a suitcase. I see the handbag and am tempted to look for ID but am spooked by voices outside. Perhaps a new shift is starting. I try to look under the front door to see if I can figure out an exit plan but I can’t tell what the shadows mean.
I tiptoe towards Eve’s studio, thinking there must be a way out there. The place is filled with huge windows with no burglar bars. Closer, I see why: the drop down is so high no burglar would chance trying to climb up to break in. I squint in the bad light to see if there is anything I can climb down on. The last window on the eastern side is near a tree and I consider trying to jump onto its branches but am dissuaded by my memory of a) bad luck with climbing trees and b) a particular scene in First Blood, when Rambo ends up with a branch through some part of his body and resorts to stitching it up himself.
I try the back door of the studio kitchen. It is locked, but I have extra keys on the ring Eve gave me and when I turn one of them in the lock it works. The back door leads out onto a narrow ledge used for drying washing and storing rubbish and I have to feel my way along in the dark. At the end of the row I find a metal staircase leading into the underground parking lot. From here it’s plain sailing: I walk out of the pedestrian gate at the entrance and I’m home, free.