Mouse (16 page)

Forster bent to his haunches, his finger touching one of the nuts that fastened one corner of the grating to the floor. It came away smeared with oil. He smelled it. ‘WD-40,’ he said. ‘Has this been taken off recently?’

Caldwell
shook his head. ‘No, not at all. Why should it have?’

Forster got to his feet. ‘What are those?’ He pointed to a corner of the room.

Damn Vince, thought
Caldwell
; he was supposed to have gotten rid of those film cans. ‘Nothing. Just some old junk. They should have been removed.’

Forster nodded. ‘Not sure yet whether we can use this room to create another smaller auditorium,’ he mused. He looked speculatively at a far wall. ‘Might be able to knock that through. Whatever, you’d have to cap off that well and re-concrete this floor, putting some kind of damp-proofing in. I reckon the water table is quite high and there might be the risk of flooding if we don’t do something soon anyhow.’ He made a few scribbles on his clipboard and exchanged words with the architect. He glanced at Caldwell, who was sweating and looking decidedly pale. ‘Are you feeling alright, Mr Caldwell? You don’t look at all well.’

‘I’ve got a cold coming on,’ he admitted. He had to shove his hands into his pockets to stop them shaking. He needed a stiff drink, he thought.

‘Shall we move on up?’ urged Forster. ‘This one’s a maybe. Would take a bit of work and thought to incorporate it into the overall design, though.’

‘How many screens are they after creating?’ said
Caldwell
.

‘Five at least,’ he said. ‘To make it viable.’

‘And if it’s less?’

Forster smiled an ambiguous smile. ‘Shall we?’ he said, indicating the steps. ‘Let’s take a good look around first before we come to any definite conclusions. We’ve only just started. This is not going to be an easy job. The trouble with all these old places is that there’s only so much you can actually do with them. They were designed for what they were, not for what they might become.’ He looked back from the top of the steps into the dark basement below. ‘In my opinion – and it is only
my
opinion – this area is dead space,’ he said.

‘Meaning?’ asked
Caldwell
.

‘There’s no life in it,’ he explained.

*  *  *  *

Friday evening. It looked like it might rain, she thought, staring out onto the bleak fields. Her misty reflection stared back at her,
like some kind of lonely ghost
wanting to be let inside. She returned to dicing the carrot, the silvery blade flashing in the harsh glow from the kitchen light bulb.

She had a recipe book lying open before her on the worktop. To Laura
,
cooking wasn’t instinctive. In fact it was all but alien to her. But she could follow instructions to the letter.
She could follow rules. She had spent so long doing that she never thought to question them, never deviate from what was expected of her, even in a recipe book. Everything measured to the exact ounce, timed to the exact minute. Cooking – or trying to cook – was a good way to channel the myriad streams of thought that gushed unchecked through her troubled mind. It demanded attention to detail. She could become absorbed in it, even though it was all fearfully new to her.

She sniffed, paused in her chopping, blamed the onion for her stinging tears. She scooped up the diced carrot and dropped in into the casserole dish. Next she removed the stewing steak from the fridge, took a sharp carving knife and cut the red and bloody meat into neat little chunks and tossed them into the water after the carrot. She looked thoughtfully at the slimy pink stain the blood left on her fingertips.

Casper
’s white Ford Cortina pulled up outside, blurred by the condensation spreading over the window pane. His familiar form emerged from the car. He glanced up at the window, saw her and waved energetically. He had something in his hand but she couldn’t make out what exactly. The doorbell rang and she wiped the blood off her hands, walking almost mechanically to the door.

‘Hello there, Laura!’
Casper
piped up. He held out a bunch of flowers for her. ‘Flowers for my flower,’ he said.

She took them. When he leant forward to kiss her she stepped aside to let him in. ‘Please, go straight through,’ she said.

‘Can I smell onions?’ he asked.

‘Casserole,’ she said blandly.

‘Is everything alright, Laura? You look – well, you look awfully tired.’

‘I haven’t been sleeping well,’ she replied. ‘Please, go on in,’ she said again.

He studied her for a second or two, smiled broadly and went through into the living room, taking off his jacket and flinging it over the back of a chair. Laura lifted the flowers to her nose, breathed in their scent,
and then
threw them outside onto the wet gravel. She closed the door and turned the key in the lock. She slid the key into her apron pocket.

‘I’ve got everything sorted,’ he called. ‘The clinic is booked. Mind if I fix myself a drink?’

‘Go ahead,’ she said evenly. ‘Make yourself at home.’ She went through to the kitchen and picked up the carving knife from the worktop. She set about slicing up a turnip. She heard him come into the kitchen behind her.

‘You wouldn’t believe the trouble it took, though,’ he said. ‘Lots of technical and legal things to sort out.’

‘I’ll bet there were,’ she said.

‘Then of course there are the flights and hotels to get lined up.’ He took a swig from his whiskey glass. ‘This is really good stuff,’ he said.

‘It belonged to my father. I don’t drink. My father only liked the best.’

‘He could afford to, I guess,’ he said, feeling a tad uneasy. ‘You sure you’re OK? You sound rather distant. Not your usual self.’

‘Thank you for thinking of me,
Casper
. It’s so reassuring to know that there is someone there who cares, looking after my best interests. You don’t know how that makes me feel.’

He saw a smear of blood on a wooden chopping board. Observed how unnecessarily aggressive she was being with the carving knife. ‘Careful,’ he warned. ‘Has that turnip done something to annoy you? You’ll end up cutting yourself.’ He came to her side, attempted to slide his arm around her waist but she pulled smartly away.

‘I’m very busy,’ she said.

‘Fine,’ he said, holding up a hand. He went to lean on the worktop, scrutinising her. He took in a breath, let it out casually. ‘Have you…’ He took a drink. ‘Have you sorted things out at the bank, Laura?’

She turned to him; she tapped the tip of the knife against the worktop, a regular, irritated pattern, almost like Morse code. ‘Oh yes,
Casper
. It’s all sorted. Who is Katherine?’

The name took him by surprise, almost as if someone had fired a gun in the small room. But he recovered quickly. ‘Sorry – who?’

‘You heard. Katherine.’

‘I don’t know anyone by the name of Katherine,’ he said. ‘Look, what’s all this about? What’s going on?’

‘Who is KATHERINE!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.

He put his drink down, took a step away from her. She had the knife held out in front of her; she was breathing heavily, her eyes like two marble balls.

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, Laura. Calm down, please. You’re scaring me. There’s obviously been some kind of mistake here, some kind of misunderstanding.’

‘I thought you loved me,
Casper
. I trusted you with everything, even my heart, and nothing is more precious than that.’

‘But I do love you, Laura!’ he said.

‘Don’t lie to me,
Casper
!’ she shouted again, then calmed herself down, closing her eyes tight and squeezing a solitary tear from her lid. It traced a silver line down her reddened cheek. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she said, every single word painfully drawn out. ‘I thought we were going to get married.’

‘And we will get married,’ he assured.

‘I thought you were going to die.’

‘The operation will save me,’ he said desperately.

She took a step towards him and he backed off a little. ‘You were never going to die,
Casper
. You don’t have cancer. You’re not the least bit ill. And you’re not going to
Philadelphia
with my money for an operation. You never were. You never intended to marry me. The cancer, the operation, the clinic, everything a lie. You planned it all. We didn’t meet by accident. You didn’t fall in love with me. You never had a wife who died.
The only thing you were after was my money.’

‘That’s not true, Laura,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Where have you dredged all this up from? Christ, Laura, I’m your
Casper
– I love you!’

‘You’re not my
Casper
; you’re someone else’s Felix.’

His mouth fell open. ‘I…I…’ he stammered, looking for a way to retrieve the situation.

‘Why? How could you be so heartless?’ she asked plaintively.

‘It’s someone’s idea of a big joke, that’s all…’

‘I’m the real joke, though, aren’t I? That’s what you thought, you and that girlfriend of yours, your Katherine, your Kat. I’ll bet you’ve had a real good laugh at my expense. I should call the police.’

He held up both hands. ‘Now hold on, Laura, let’s not be too hasty. This is all a lie!’

She removed the letter from her apron pocket. Held it out. Her hand shook. Gingerly he reached out, took the letter from her and began to read. His face went pale.

Laura shook her head slowly, the knife now flat against her chest. ‘You’re the lie,
Casper
– Felix, whatever your real name is. Preying on lonely, vulnerable, susceptible women like you do. You’re vermin, do you know that?’

Seeing the game was well and truly up he dashed out of the kitchen, down the corridor to the main entrance hall. He turned the handle of the door but it was locked. When he spun round she was right there behind him.

‘Open the door,’ he said. He swallowed hard when he saw she still had the knife in her hand. Her face was impassive, eyes frosty and lifeless. Her lips worked at something, almost as if she were reciting a prayer to herself, or silently chanting some verse or other.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘All I need to know is why?’

‘Put the knife down, Laura,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she asked again.

‘No harm was meant.’

‘No harm was meant,’ she repeated. ‘You clearly don’t know how much I am suffering inside,’ she said, the knife point almost penetrating her blouse. ‘You don’t know how much all this hurts me. I loved you. I thought you loved me. I’d have done anything for you. But it was all a sham. Like the false diamonds you gave me, it was all worthless. You deserve to suffer, too, as I have suffered.’

‘Open the door, Laura!’ he said firmly, his voice tinged with escalating fear.

‘I opened the door to my heart, a door that had been locked shut for years, a door I thought would stay forever locked, but gave it freely to you and you abused it.’

‘In heaven’s name, Laura, it’s only money!’ he said. ‘Put the fucking knife down!’

She stared hard at the blade, as if she hadn’t realised she had it in her hand. She lifted her head, gazed into his terrified eyes. ‘You deserve to suffer,’ she said.

*  *  *  *

For the first seven days she didn’t worry unduly that he hadn’t phoned her. That was the nature of the game they played. It took time and patience, they both knew that. But when the first week bled into the second and still Kat had not heard a single thing from Felix she began to get edgy. Usually he made time for a
quick update, to snatch a
phone call, if only for a second or two. It was their unspoken rule. By the end of a fortnight she knew something was dreadfully wrong.

She became frantic with worry. She didn’t know what she should do for the best. She started at every noise outside on the street, her hope rising with the passage of shoes on concrete, only to be dashed whe
n they walked on by. She tramped
the streets of
Glastonbury
, scanning faces, searching for his familiar form amongst the shoppers. She went to the top of Glastonbury Tor, where they’d stood to take in the views, and she grew increasingly despondent at the sight of autumn scorching the land and shrivelling the leaves. In the end she could stand it no more.

There was a
biting crispness to
the air,
a portent of the chill to come, he thought, unlocking his MG. He loathed winter, even though in this part of the country the weather could be quite mild. He grabbed a chamois leather to wipe away the condensation from the windscreen.

‘Martin.’