The Magpies (22 page)

‘Maybe we’re imagining it,’ he said, finally sitting down beside Kirsty.

‘But we can both feel.’

‘That might be because we’re putting ideas in each other’s heads.’

She knew what he would do now – switch into reassuring mode.

‘Look, we’ve both been pretty spooked since yesterday afternoon, and I know I was nervous about coming back. I’ve always been paranoid about burglary, plus I had this thought at the back of my mind that Lucy and Chris might do something while we were away. I suppose I brought my worries in with me and my imagination ran away with itself. But there’s no evidence that anyone’s been in here. The door was locked. The windows are shut tight.’ He tried to smile. ‘We must be wrong.’

‘I guess so.’

It was growing dark outside, long shadows pointing towards the house as the sun went down. Kirsty yawned. ‘I’m tired. That long journey’s worn me out. I might go to bed for a while.’

‘OK.’

She drew the curtains in the bedroom and slipped beneath the cool duvet. She lay there with her eyes wide open, shivering. She wanted Jamie to come to bed with her, to lay close behind her, keep her safe. But he didn’t follow her into the room. She heard him moving around the living room, checking shelves and drawers, trying to prove to himself that his instincts were right, even though he wanted them to be wrong.

Night descended and Jamie went to bed. Kirsty had by now fallen asleep, and he kissed the back of her neck and put his arm around her, feeling the slight curve of her belly with his palm. He went to sleep in that position. Earlier, Kirsty had rung her parents and told them about the wedding. They had been not furious but disappointed, which was worse, and Jamie had listened to the brightness fade from Kirsty’s voice as she’d tried to justify why they’d done it. The conversation had exhausted her.

Jamie was woken up by a creaking sound. He opened his eyes, a shot of adrenaline making him feel fully awake. The noise sounded close, almost as if it was coming from the next room. Jamie had a clear, horrible thought: What if there really had been someone in the flat – and what if they were still here?

No way, he told himself. We searched the whole flat and there was nobody in here.

But what if the intruder had been hiding somewhere they hadn’t looked?

He felt a tremor of fear and sickness run through him. Beside him, Kirsty slept on, oblivious to the drama and tension that held Jamie in its grip. The sounds of footfall continued. Jamie checked the bedside clock. It was three a.m.

He slipped out of bed as quietly as he could and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt which lay on the floor beside the bed. He realised he wouldn’t want to face an intruder barefoot – it would make him too vulnerable – so he groped around in the darkness until he found his trainers. He pulled them on and laced them up.

With his heartbeat booming in his ears, he gently pushed the bedroom door open, wincing and tensing his neck muscles as it squeaked – the squeak sounding as loud as an aeroplane taking off in the night-silence of the flat. He paused in the hallway beside the front door. The door’s squeak had actually helped tear open the wall of silence and now the creaking didn’t sound so loud. But it was still there. He could still hear it.

The fuse box was beside the front door and next to that was a heavy-duty rubber torch. Jamie kept it there in case of a power cut. He picked it up and felt reassured by its weight. He didn’t plan to use it for casting light but as a weapon.

Holding the torch over his shoulder, ready to strike anyone who stood in his way, he shoved the living room door open and flicked the light switch. The room flooded with light and Jamie shut his eyes tight for a second then opened them, blobs of light appearing in his vision – but that was all. There was nobody in the room. It was as empty as he had left it when he went to bed.

‘Jamie?’

He turned and saw Kirsty in the doorway, squinting against the light, her hair sticking up all over the place.

‘What are you doing?’

He went over and put his arm around her. She felt cold.

‘I heard a noise. I thought maybe someone was in the flat.’

‘There’s nobody here.’

‘I know.’

‘You must have imagined it. You probably dreamt it.’ She yawned loudly. ‘God, Jamie, I’m so tired. And you’re going to have to get a grip of yourself. You’re letting your mind play tricks on you, and it isn’t good for either of us.’

He knew she was right – but he had heard the creaking so distinctly, even when he had got up and stood right outside the room. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep now. He would lie there for the rest of the night, trying to work out if he was losing his mind.

Kirsty went back to bed and Jamie went into the bathroom. He felt too lazy to stand up so he sat down and peed. Just as he finished he saw a fat spider scuttle across the carpet. He jumped up, grabbed it and threw it into the toilet, flushing it away. He quickly decided that he wouldn’t tell Kirsty about it. He knew she would imagine it clinging to the pipes, resisting the flush, then crawling back up while she was sitting there.

Yes, best not to tell her.

Jamie woke up feeling relieved that he didn’t have to go to work; pleased that he had booked an extra day’s leave. He had, to his surprise, fallen asleep quite quickly after returning to bed, but only into a shallow sleep. He lay just beneath the surface of consciousness, jagged thoughts and dark music looping inside his head, preventing him from sinking into deeper sleep, where he wanted, and needed, to be.

As he lay in the light of morning, his eyes shut, trying to re-enter sleep, he felt Kirsty get out of bed and go into the bathroom. He heard the toilet flush, then the sound of her cleaning her teeth. He knew she had been sick, as she was most mornings. She came back to bed and went back to sleep.

Jamie left her in the bed. He needed to get out, to get some air to clear his head. His body felt like a boxer’s the day after a big fight. He felt like somebody had squirted a tube of glue through his ear into his brain, and his thoughts were sticking, sluggish and clogged. He dressed and went out for a walk.

There was a small park nearby. He bought a newspaper and a coffee in a polystyrene cup and sat on a bench. He flicked through the newspaper, not really taking any of it in, and listened to the children in the distance, playing on the swings and slide, scaring themselves giddy on the roundabout. Mothers wandered by with pushchairs and prams. Jamie imagined himself and Kirsty coming to the park in a few years with their own child, sitting on a bench and watching him or her joining in with the other children. He wondered if he and Kirsty would hold hands as they sat watching. Would they still be in love? His own parents merely tolerated each other, staying together ‘for the sake of the children’. Now those children had grown up and left home, they stayed together out of habit and fear. Whenever he spoke to his dad he complained about his mum; his mum did nothing but slag off his dad.

No, he and Kirsty would never be like that. They would be together forever. And stay happy. He stroked his wedding ring, rotating it on his finger. Kirsty might be up by now. He ought to be getting back.

Heading up the road towards the flat, he saw Chris and Lucy in their car.. He stopped dead and watched as they parked outside the flat and got out. Lucy was in her nursing uniform. Chris was wearing a smart suit. They loitered beside the car for a few moments, apparently in no hurry to go inside. Jamie saw Chris looking at his car and he had a sudden vision of Chris taking out his keys and scratching it, or bending down and slashing the tyres.

He felt a surge of anger – as if Chris had actually done it – and he broke into a run. Within a split second he stopped himself running, lurching to a halt before he had taken a full step. He felt foolish, his heart pounding, his cheeks full of colour. Had the Newtons seen him? No, he didn’t think so. They were going inside now, Chris dragging his hand along the top of the wall. Lennon sat there and Lucy paused to stroke him, the cat pushing his head hard against Lucy’s fingers.

The image had been so real. He had actually seen Chris scratch the car, slash the tyres. He had seen an evil grin on his face, a dark malevolent glint in his eyes. He shook his head to clear the mental imprint of the image and waited until he heard the Newtons close their front door before walking on.

Before going inside he checked his car. Not a mark on it and the tyres were fine. Shit, he was starting to get really paranoid. He needed to snap out of it. What he really wanted was a drink, but it was only eleven o’clock. He licked his lips, felt thirsty. He saw the picture again: Chris taking out his keys, smiling cruelly, etching a deep line in the paintwork from bonnet to boot. He would be able to have a drink at twelve. With lunch. That would be okay: socially acceptable. He licked his lips again.

‘Are you up?’ he called as he went inside.

‘I’m in the bath.’

He went in and said hello. She looked tired, dark bags under her eyes, lines spreading out from the corners. Had they been there before? These signs of ageing only sprang to attention once in a while, like the horrible moments when he noticed that his hairline had retreated a little more, that the lines at the side of his mouth didn’t disappear when he stopped smiling.

‘What are you staring at?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

The lines actually made her look more attractive, he thought. When they had first got together she had been a girl. Now she was a woman. He had watched that transformation, had shared in it – had helped it happen, even. No-one else could say that. No-one else knew Kirsty like he did. They were a partnership, a team. All the moments of ecstasy and misery were moments they shared. One day they would be old, and he would be able to look at every line on Kirsty’s face and see a story there, a moment from their life together. More than anything in the world, he wanted that. He wanted them to be together always.

‘You were staring at me,’ she said. ‘What is it? What’s wrong with me?’

He knelt beside the bath and submerged his hands beneath the warm, soapy water, stroking her belly.

‘I was thinking how beautiful you are.’

‘Yeah, right.’

There was a knock at the door.

‘Oh no.’

‘Don’t answer it.’

‘Why?’

‘It might be them,’ she said. ‘Lucy and Chris. Complaining about the noise we’re making.’

He blinked at her, surprised. What had happened to the optimistic Kirsty: the one who was trying to cast the Newtons from her mind? He said, ‘We’re not making any noise.’

‘So? That won’t stop them.’

Jamie stood up. ‘I hope it is them. I really fucking hope it is.’ He dried his hands, marching off towards the door, his courage and fury deserting him the second he opened it. He didn’t know what he would do if it was Chris. He had a vision of himself pulling a gun out of his back pocket, blowing a hole in Chris’s chest, laughing as he slumped to the floor, pumping more bullets into his slack body, pieces of bone and brain splattering against the clean white paintwork…

Jesus Christ, what was going on?

He opened the door. It was Brian.

‘Hello, Jamie, I was – hey, are you alright?’

‘What?’

‘You look a bit…stressed.’

‘No. I’m fine. I’m fine.’ He blinked hard to clear the image of Chris’s gunned-down body. ‘How can I help you?’

‘Well, it’s my computer. The whole system seems to have gone kaput.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It keeps crashing, and I can’t open any of my files. I was wondering if you’d have a look at it for me.’

He really couldn’t concentrate on what Brian was saying. He watched his mouth move, heard something about a computer, things going wrong.

He nodded. ‘Sure. Wait there a second.’

He told Kirsty where he was going and followed his neighbour up the stairs. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Brian for ages. Their paths seldom crossed.

Brian opened the door of his study and Jamie was once again struck by how spooky the room was, with its horror paraphernalia and dark walls. He sat down at the desk and switched the computer on.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Brian said. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

Jamie waited for the computer to boot up. There was no doubt about it – something had gone wrong. The hard drive whirred and made awful crunching noises as the system started up. Several worrying error messages flashed up before the desktop finally appeared. Jamie set about checking the system, trying to open Brian’s Word files. As soon as he did this the system crashed and he had to reboot.

Brian came into the room with the coffee.

‘Any joy?’

Jamie shook his head. ‘It doesn’t look good. What have you done to it?’

‘Nothing. I haven’t done anything different at all. I only use it for word-processing and the internet. I never fiddle around with it.’

‘You’d better give me half-an-hour. I find it difficult to work with someone looking over my shoulder.’

Brian hesitated. ‘I’m really worried. I’ve got my new book saved on there. It’s almost finished.’

‘You’ve got it all backed up though, of course?’

‘Well…’

‘Do you use Dropbox or anything?’

Brian looked blank. ‘No. It’s just saved on the hard drive.’

Jamie sighed. ‘OK. I’ll do what I can.’

Thirty minutes later Brian came back into the study, looking anxious. ‘Have you found out what’s wrong with it.’

Jamie swivelled round on the chair. ‘You’ve got a virus. You probably got it from an email or downloading some dodgy program. It looks like the virus you’ve got is a brand new one. There might not even be an antidote for it yet. It’s a bad one as well. It’s running through your system eating the files on your hard disk. Have you got a virus checker on your system?’

‘No.’

‘OK. I’ve got the software downstairs. I can install it for you. First, let’s try and find out where you caught it from.’

He doubled clicked on the email program, Outlook. The screen flickered and Jamie thought the system might crash again. Eventually, though, the inbox appeared, with a list of all the emails Brian had received.