Murderers Anonymous (32 page)

She took another long draw from the cup. The wine, she had to admit, had been tasting bitter these last few cups, but somehow, at three o'clock in the morning, it didn't seem to matter.

'I was just sitting here thinking, well, I'm feeling quite horny and you're looking at my breasts.'

'I'm not looking at your breasts.'

'You're looking at my breasts.'

'I am not!'

'You are absolutely looking at my breasts. Look, you're doing it now.'

'No way!' he said, gesturing wildly, looking at her breasts.

'Sure you are. Anyway, I was just thinking, I could do with a shag. But then I thought, bugger it, look at the state of us, we couldn't even get our clothes off, never mind manoeuvre into the back seat, never mind actually, you know, fuck.' A pause. Mulholland looked at her in that distractedly perplexed way of the utterly pissed. 'See what I mean?' she said.

'Haven't a clue what you're talking about.'

'Movie sex. You know in movies when they're in a fully-clothed clinch, and then the next thing you know, boom!, they're shagging. No one's taken any clothes off, there's been no fumbling around to find the right hole, 'cause you know, we've got seven or eight of them down there. It's just straight in there and off they go.'

'What?'

'Movie sex. And it's worse at the end. When do you ever see someone go to the bathroom after movie sex? They just roll apart and nod off, or both immediately pull their clothes on. What's going on? Either the guy's got a dripping condom to get shot of, or the bird's got a pint of the stuff cascading down her thigh. See what I mean?'

'I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about,' he said, reaching for the empty bottle and tipping the last few drops into his cup. 'But I do get the impression you're being a bit vulgar. You must be drunk.'

'So are you. Which is why we can't have real sex.'

'I'm not looking at your breasts.'

'I didn't even mention my breasts.'

'Anyway,' he said, last of the wine into his mouth, 'you're getting away from the main issue, which is that you're trying to change me already. It was inevitable.'

'What?'

Proudfoot started looking around the back seat for the sixth bottle, which she'd been sure Mulholland had mentioned, but which she'd never actually seen.

'That remark about the house,' he said. 'I bet it's a crap house. We only decided to get married two minutes ago and already you want to change my way of life. It was itterly unevitable.'

'You're definitely pissed.'

'Whatever,' he said, waving an explanatory hand. 'You're all the same, you birds. Get your hook into a bloke and you're off. Change that, change the next thing. Get a new house, ditch all your mates, can't go to the pub any more, get a nose job, start wearing different clothes, don't like your motor, disown your relatives, change your job, don't shave so often, you're not shaving often enough, blah-de-blah-de-blah-de-blah. Change this, change that, watching too much footie on the telly. You're all the same. Bloody bastards. Go to the toilet, get the shopping, do fucking the next thing.'

'And you're not bitter about your divorce?'

'Lose weight, clean the motor out more often, don't drive so fast, can't go fishing any more, on and on and on and on and on. You're all the same.'

She turned her back on him, and leant further into the back seat area, searching among the empties for the sixth bottle.

'What're you doing?'

'Looking for the sixth bottle,' she snapped back at the tone.

'There is no sixth bottle.'

'You said you bought six!'

He held his hands out.

'See? See what I mean? Now you're even changing what I said in the past. You're Stalin. Simple as that.'

'Oh, shut up,' she said. She turned back and slumped down into the seat. Pulled her jacket more tightly around her. 'You don't half talk some amount of shite, you.'

'I won't stand for this,' he said, sitting where he was, numb from the waist down. And up.

'Look, why would I change you?' she said. 'You don't have any mates to give up, your family are all dead, you're way too ugly for a nose job to make any difference, you don't have a TV, and I don't give a toss about all that other stuff. So shut up and stop talking shite.'

He stared through the darkness and the intoxicating effects of two and a half litres of wine.

'Fuck,' he said, before attempting to get another microlitre of fluid from the cup. 'You must really love me.'

She shook her head and yawned. Suddenly felt very tired and very drunk. Late at night, surrounded by empty bottles, and cold and darkness. The burst of energy in search of the mythical sixth bottle having completely drained her.

'Like I said, you're full of shite,' she said.

'And you've got brilliant tits. Can I get a shot of them some time?'

The words 'I don't think they'd fit you' had not quite escaped her mouth and Mulholland had collapsed into a heap on the steering wheel. She smiled at something, although she wouldn't have been able to explain what, then reached out and touched his hair. Laid her arm on the dashboard, rested her head upon it, and within ten seconds had joined him in sleep.

***

Three o'clock in the morning. The revelry over for the night. Strangely Barney had set the tone and the others had drifted off to bed in his wake. They had gone in ones and twos, but even the twos had split up when the upper floors had been reached, and tonight all these people slept alone.

A few disappointed souls, but there remained ample time to jostle for position the next day. And, of course, one more night, when deeds would be done, agendas set and promises kept or broken.

Arnie Medlock had been the most disappointed of the lot, having considered his union with Katie Dillinger inevitable. But she had made her excuses, and he had been left alone; as alone as the others. Death and taxes, he had ruefully mumbled to himself, on finally retiring to his room. But it was not somewhere he hadn't been before, and he was confident of the following night's success. Disappointed, yet sanguine, Arnie Medlock.

And so the house slept. Most in their beds, Barney in his chair, from where he could watch the door and the window. But not, however, the secret door built into the wood panelling beside the bed.

The house slept, but for one. A lone figure, walking through the dark. Along corridors, searching out secret doors, down dark passageways. Never been here before, but a long night of searching had revealed every hidden doorway, every hidden passage, every concealed flight of steps or alcove, every area of the house blocked off for some clandestine use more than three hundred years previously.

Eyes adjusted, he visited each of the bedrooms in turn. Did not know into whose room he was about to walk until he was there; then he stood over the bed and watched the breathing of every potential victim. And none awoke to him. None conceded to a sixth sense.

He let the tip of his finger run along the cheek of Katie Dillinger; he touched the hair of Annie Webster and considered that at another time he might have had a chance with her; might even have forced her. He gently kissed the lips of Ellie Winters, and she stirred and tasted the night air, then shuffled in her sleep, and ended up all the way over on her other side. And he watched her for a further fifteen minutes, hand always on the knife in his jacket pocket, before he left, to follow another directionless passage.

He stood over Barney too, for a short time. A little more circumspect here, as his was the only room with the light left on, and he did not blend so easily into the dark. A few minutes, then he was gone.

And then, half an hour later, Barney awoke in terror, the vision having visited him again in the night; but this dream even more forceful, the stage having shifted to a large house, with old paintings on the walls, and the minister on his knees, supplicant to a vengeful God, praying for Barney's soul. And once again Barney had seen the face, and once again that face was gone from his memory the instant he awoke. Sweat on his forehead, heart pounding, mouth dry.

So Barney sat in his seat, eyes wide open, waiting for the dawn. And all the while, that year's serial killer made the rounds of the house, lurked in damp and dirty passageways, danced with the rats and stood over each of the members of the Murderers Anonymous Bearsden chapter.

Proudfoot awoke, feeling just about as awful as it was possible for one single person to feel. Draped over the dashboard in the same position, all aches and pains and uncomfortable joints, yet with an empty bottle of Australian white now clutched curiously to her chest. She lifted her head and immediately a high-velocity train started sweeping through it. One, two, three, up and out of the car, bent over the side of the road, and vomiting violently over the wet grass and general shrubbery.

It was a full two minutes before the retching was over, her stomach had settled, and she had a temporary respite from nausea. She looked up, hands on her knees, throw-up on her shoes, face covered with sweat, panting, and saw her surroundings in daylight for the first time.

The car was parked off the road, no more than six inches away from the drop of a few feet into general bog. All around enclosed by trees, so that her immediate world was small. The aroma of rain on the forest and earth. Fresh and cold, the first hint of the chill of winter in the air. Beautiful. Across the road was the driveway up to the house; the bleak mansion slept quietly in partial obscurity. Then she finally noticed that Mulholland was no longer in the car and her head hurt so much she couldn't think straight as to where he might have gone.

Back into the car, searched her bag for something to help with a headache and came up empty. She closed the car door and wound down the window, let her head fall back on the headrest, did not even attempt to clear the growing fug in her head, and fell asleep in less than half a minute.

***

The late night had taken its toll of early morning risers at the weekend retreat. No one got up early on this Sunday. All except Barney Thomson, who hadn't slept since waking in a cold sweat at just before four o'clock.

He had waited for the dawn, from his position of uncomfortable terror, then, when he'd been satisfied that the night had been vanquished and the vampires put to sleep, he'd ventured out to plunge himself into a steaming shower.

And so now he made his way down the stairs that had caused him such terror the night before, past the same old paintings. In the half-light of a grey early morning, they looked more miserable than menacing, more despondent than intimidating. Wretched souls and sullen soldiers; distracted dogs, painted with the stilted strokes of an amateur brush. Barney was no art critic, but he could tell. Painted for a hobby, not for commission, most of these.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs he could smell breakfast, the glorious pungency of fried bacon, and he wondered who else had managed to drag themselves up at this time. Despite the night before, he had his first thought of the day of Katie Dillinger. Hoped it would be her who was up, and that she and Medlock had not spent the night together. Still, it was his intention to leave early regardless. He was not trapped there. Maybe even before he had seen any of them. Except the breakfast king.

He wound his way through stuffy rooms and short corridors with uneven floors until he found the kitchen and the origins of the magnificent aromas. Opened the door with little confidence, for his self-assurance was gone.

Hertha Berlin stood at the cooker, administering to a panful of frying breakfast goods. A man Barney had not seen before sat at the table, large jaw encircling a roll packed with every available morning enchantment. Sausage, bacon, black pudding, egg and mushrooms.

'How you doin' there, fella?' said the man through his breakfast bite. Mid-sixties maybe, bit of a paunch, distinct American accent through the food.