They continued talking for another half-hour, then they took a taxi to Beth’s little flat in Camden Town Road. His hotel would have been nearer, but a home is always a home — and she had a bottle of white wine in the fridge and a chicken that only needed heating up.
Shortly after two, she suddenly didn’t want to go through with it.
By that time he was completely naked, and she was wearing only her knickers when out of the blue she decided that enough was enough. They were half-lying on her cramped sofa, the wine bottle was almost empty, the remains of the chicken were on the table, and she had been stroking his stiff penis.
‘I can do it for you,’ she said.
But she didn’t want to go to bed with him tonight. Another time, perhaps, if he would be staying on in London?
But it just wasn’t on right now. Could he understand that?
He said that he could. Moved her hand away and sat there for a while as they drank what was left of the wine. Then he heaved himself up and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Brushed her red hair to one side and began stroking his fingers over her soft, naked skin and the sharp edges of her collarbones.
Asked if he could give her a bit of a massage.
She nodded hesitantly, and straightened her back.
He massaged her gently for a few minutes, until her shoulders relaxed and began to sink. She said she liked it. He said that he did as well. He could feel that she was a sensuous and warm-blooded woman.
Then he felt his own blood reaching boiling point, and strangled her.
It was probably all over within about ninety seconds. He removed her red knickers and laid her down on the floor, on her back. Opened her legs wide and placed her in a position with her pussy exposed and naively inviting. Her dead pussy.
He masturbated, and wiped himself dry with her knickers.
He was back in his hotel room an hour later. Went to bed and slept until noon the following day.
His flight left Heathrow on time that same evening, and as he watched the multi-million city shrinking away into insignificance through his cabin window, he was convinced that they would never find Beth Lindley’s murderer.
Never ever.
He also thought that he had better be careful when it came to women in future. Maybe he should give them a wide berth, that would be the safest bet, of course — but if he found himself in similar circumstances at some point in the future even so, he would be well advised to think ahead.
Very well advised. He ordered a whisky from the stewardess, and noted that he was sitting there smiling.
MAARDAM
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2000
8
She didn’t go out for three days.
Three nights and three days. She spent exactly seventy-two-and-a-half hours in her room with ridiculously short breaks in order to go to the lavatory. Or to the kitchen to have a drink of water and something to eat. A sandwich. A cup of yoghurt. Or just a lump of bread, there wasn’t much food in the flat — and it was a mystery how all that time, all those endless hours and those absurdly long-drawn-out minutes passed through her consciousness without driving her mad.
Or perhaps she was mad. Afterwards — the moment she emerged into the rain-drenched street at a quarter to twelve on Sunday evening — it felt as if those locked-in days had already passed.
As if they had been and gone without touching her.
She was in her room, her mother in hers. Three small rooms and a kitchen. Moerckstraat. Rain, more rain, and no food in the fridge. A manic-depressive woman and her mad daughter, who had just murdered their shared lover.
No wonder they were not exactly memorable days.
‘I’m ill,’ her mother had said when they bumped into each other on Friday afternoon. Coughed a little, perhaps to prove it.
As if Monica hadn’t known. As if she was an easily fooled idiot on top of everything else.
‘Me too,’ she had answered.
And frightened, she could have added if her mother had looked as if she were interested in listening. Or if she had been a different sort of mother.
And mad. And desperate. And scared to death.
No, perhaps she wouldn’t have been able to say that. Might not even have been able to say it if she had been a member of the best of families.
‘I’m going for a lie-down,’ her mother had said. ‘You should do the same. It’ll pass.’
So, in bed, on her back. Staring at the ceiling or with her eyes closed, it didn’t make any difference. The images came. The same images, the same film. Over and over again in a never-ending stream, until she had the urge to dig her fingers deep down into her eye sockets and dig out those disgusting projectors by the roots and put an end to everything once and for all, and fall down into darkness and silence and eternal merciful rest and forgetfulness. . These images.
Benjamin Kerran.
Standing there in the bathroom, watching her.
Just standing there, while she squatted on the lavatory seat, emptying her bladder, then trying to press out a few more drops while frenetically trying to work out a plan in her head. Frustratedly and desperately she rejected all possibilities even before they came to the surface of her flickering consciousness. He dug his hand down inside his trousers, contemplating her with glazed-over eyes and an increasingly warped smile, then suddenly he whipped his penis out of his flies, in a sort of perverted triumph, and ordered her to give him head while she was still sitting on the lavatory. That gave him extra stimulus, he said. No, he didn’t order her: Benjamin Kerran didn’t order her to do it, the circumstances didn’t need that. This was different. Instead he used the same remarkable blend of entreaty and threat as before, that was sufficient. ‘You wouldn’t want your mother to find out about us, would you?’ he said. ‘Just one more time. It’ll be easy. . Don’t you think we should grant ourselves an enjoyable finish, especially as it started so well?’
And she did what he wanted. Was almost sick as he thrust his penis a long way into her throat, but she was even closer to being sick when she thought of the possibility of biting off his glans penis. Just bite him as hard as she could — would that save her? she wondered. Is that enough to kill a man, biting off his cock? Would one strong bite be enough?
She didn’t know, and didn’t do it anyway. It wasn’t necessary, as at that very moment she caught sight of a pair of scissors lying on a shelf diagonally behind his back: no more planning was necessary, none at all. All that was needed was to remain cool and calculating and wait for the right moment. That was all.
And in the insistent cinema of her memory she watches herself flush the lavatory and stand up. Sees herself both from the outside and the inside — these pictures that are three days old, but nevertheless seem to her to be older than life itself. . She forces him out of her mouth but grasps his penis in her hand instead and tosses him off, just as he has taught her to do during the short and bewitched time they have known each other, and slowly manoeuvres herself into a position behind his back. She holds his stiff cock in her left hand, stretches round from behind his back, meets his green eyes in the bathroom mirror, and out of his line of vision reaches out with her right hand for the scissors, takes hold of them silently and then stabs them into his stomach with one violent thrust. Without a thought in her head.
Sees his face reflected in the mirror, sees it dilating and expressing first genuine surprise for a fraction of a second. The pain. Then nothing.
She feels his virility deflating in her hand, just as quickly as the air gushing out of a balloon.