The Doll's House (13 page)

K
eith Burkiss was alone in the house. He couldn't describe – even to himself – how he was feeling.

This was the end. He knew it. And he drew strength from that, power, to a certain extent. Or as much power as he could muster under the circumstances. He might not be able to live, he thought, feeling the pain in his chest and looking down at where his legs used to be, but he could certainly control how to die.

Money doesn't matter
, his old man used to say,
as long as you've got your health.
Keith had always thought his old man was soft in the head to choose that as his personal mantra, a snivelling excuse for not working harder and being more successful. And his old man had died young when that other car had smashed into his. So what did he know?

After he died, his mother started saying it too, as if chanting the words could bring him back to life. It didn't. He stayed dead. But it gave Keith something to think about. Something to modify into his own mantra:
Money buys you everything
.

He looked down at his legs once more. Felt a tide of bitterness rising within him. Hoped it wouldn't trigger another coughing fit. It didn't. He just about managed to stave it off.

Cancer and diabetes. A hell of a double whammy. And his doctor, the expensive fucker who was supposed to stop this kind of thing from happening, said it was his own fault. Smoking to excess. Drinking heavily. Eating a horrendously self-indulgent diet and taking no exercise whatsoever. Keith had complained. Said he didn't do anything different to other men, friends of his that he did business with and went drinking with. The doctor had shrugged. Genetics still played a large part. And ignoring the advice of all his regular health check-ups over the years. That just made Keith angry. But since he couldn't blame himself, he took it out on the doctor. And the doctor just struck him off his books, private patient or no private patient. Keith's first thought had been to try and find another one. But he didn't get round to it. He came to a decision instead. If this was the way he was, then this was the way he was. There was no point in changing things; just bring it on.

And he had done.

He wheeled himself over to the window, looked out. The house was huge, Edgbaston opulent. Set well back from the road in its own grounds. He had been proud of that when he first moved in, pleased he had made something of himself, his life. Now it just felt like a huge private prison. Luxurious, but still a prison.

He listened. Nothing. Good. Kelly was out. He had told her to go. She had looked at him suspiciously, narrowing her eyes when he told her he didn't mind if she went into town to meet friends. They both knew what they were really talking about. What kind of friends she was going off to meet. She made some attempt at pretending to care for him, not wanting to leave him on his own, but he just waved her off. He couldn't bear to hear any more of her lies. Eventually, not believing her luck, she thanked him and got ready. Left the house.

Left him alone once more.

She was his second wife and he used to love her. Totally, unconditionally. Like life itself. Now he couldn't believe how stupid he had been, how naïve. She was just his trophy, his midlife crisis made real. A nightclub pick-up elevated to mistress to wife. Nothing more. Not the love of his life. Just something he was supposed to have when he reached a certain age and a certain status, like the Bentley and the house. Something to show off with. Something that said he had made it. She knew that. Had known it straight away. Unfortunately, Keith had only recently realised.

The first time he met her she had looked stunning. Half his age at least, but he didn't care. He wanted her, had to have her. She was in the club with friends, all dressed to the nines, all in sex-predator mode. And she latched on to him. He had thought at first that she actually liked him. His looks, his jokes. He was even stupid enough to think he aroused her. But there was only one thing he had that did that. If he had been a long-distance lorry driver she wouldn't have given him a second glance. However, if he had been a long-distance lorry driver he wouldn't have been able to afford a private booth in the VIP section of the club for himself and his friends, and he wouldn't have been drinking champagne at three hundred pounds a bottle. There was the aphrodisiac.

She told him her backstory. A poor, underprivileged kid from Druid's Heath, using whatever talents she had to better herself. It struck a chord within him. He wanted to take her under his wing, protect her, love her, give this beautiful woman an equally beautiful life.

After that the story had been pretty straightforward. The old wife was divorced, given a fair amount of money to cover her bitterness, and the new wife moved in. She was a terrible cook and never cleaned the house, but he forgave her that. It wasn't why he had married her. She made him feel like a sex god in the bedroom, an enthusiasm he now knew was faked but which made him feel good about himself. And when he took her out, he knew all his friends were staring and wishing they had her. Keith got a huge kick out of that.

Then the health problems started. And Kelly wasn't quite so supportive any more. She began going out without him, seeing friends he'd never heard of. Spending more and more time away from him but still expecting him to pay for it. Eventually she left him, said she couldn't cope. And that was when he saw her for what she really was, and what an idiot he had been for her. The hurt curdled, the bitterness increased. She asked for a divorce. He gave her one. But made sure her settlement was next to nothing.

And when she realised she had got nothing, back she came, contrite and apologetic and ready to play happy families again. He had pretended to welcome her back. But he was wise to her now. He knew what she was doing. Help the crippled ex-husband, remarry him even, get the lot when he goes.

She did nothing to help him. She regarded him with barely disguised revulsion. He had watched her from his wheelchair, losing first one foot then the other, then his shins, then his knees as the diabetes took control of his body, then his lungs and liver as the cancer stepped up to stage four. He had seen how she behaved. The secret phone calls that she abruptly cut off if he was around. The unguarded looks she gave him when she thought he wasn't watching her. The trips out with ‘the girls'. He knew what she was doing. He knew how much she hated him. How she was just waiting for him to die so she could take his money, his house and his cars, and install whoever she liked to replace him. And all the things Keith had spent his life toiling for, the life he had built for himself, would be given to someone else.

Well, he wouldn't allow that.

He had talked to his solicitor, got his will changed. She would receive nothing, but he told her she would get everything. And the stupid cow believed him. He had smiled at that, laughed even.

Blissful revenge.

He tried to think what he could do with the money, since he had no children, no natural heirs. At first he thought about giving it to charity, but that would just be a waste. Then he thought of doing nothing with it. Eventually he came up with the idea of giving it to the university, creating a professorship in his name. He knew that would seriously piss her off.

He just wished he could be there to see her face.

He turned away from the window. This was it. It was really happening. Now. Tonight. His last night on earth.

He still didn't know how he felt about it. Still hadn't decided. Part of him wanted to rage against the dying of the light, as he had read somewhere. The rest of him, or rather the little of him that was left, just wanted to let go. He was tired. He wasn't living. He was just dying slowly.

He pointed the remote, put the TV on.
The One Show
. The anodyne, unthreatening presenters were speaking politely to the studio guest, the crew behind the cameras laughing as if it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. He switched it off.

He didn't want his last memory to be of
The One Show
.

He felt he should write something, say something. Make some statement, share the truths he had discovered from his time alive. But he couldn't think of anything.

He wondered about God, the afterlife. He had never believed in it and thought it was a bit late to start now, but just in case, he closed his eyes, and, hedging his bets, tried to say a prayer. Nothing came.

So he just sat there. Waiting.

‘
W
ell, that was nice. So what have got next, then?' DC Nadish Khan laughed as he took the DVD out of the tray, replaced it with another one. It didn't disguise his shaking hands.

The woman sitting next to him didn't respond. Her features were blank as she made notes in her pad.

‘Dunno about you,' said Khan, ‘but this isn't how I normally spend Friday evenings.'

She put her pen down, looked directly at him. Lips curled into a smile. ‘You sure about that?'

Bitch
, he thought, grabbing the remote and stabbing Play. He sat back to watch the next DVD, angry. Not just with himself but with his new boss. Brennan had given him this job deliberately. And that pissed him off big time.

Yes, it was deliberate. No doubt about it. He had seen the look on Brennan's face the previous night when he had made a couple of comments about gays. Nothing nasty, just the usual stuff. Banter. Sperring had laughed, but then he was a good bloke. Brennan, however, had made it clear that he didn't appreciate what he'd said or think it was funny. Still, thought Khan, he could have been going door-to-door down the gay bars on Hurst Street. Something else Brennan had threatened him with. So considering the alternative, sitting here watching filth might be getting off lightly. At least he wasn't out in the cold.

He looked at his fellow officer sitting on the chair next to him.
Cold enough in here with her
, he thought. Detective Constable Imani Oliver put down her pen, watched the screen.

Khan didn't like her. If he was honest, he didn't like black girls at all. Just a personal preference, he always said; their skins were too dark for him to fancy them. And their features not pretty enough. He liked something a bit lighter and finer. But even he had to admit Oliver had a well fit body. Cracking tits and a great arse. Face wasn't all that much, though, the usual wide nose and big lips, but he might forgive that, if he had to. I mean, who looked at the mantelpiece when you were stoking the fire?

Not that he thought he would ever get to shag her. Her arse and tits might be great; it was her personality that turned him off. Typical black girl. Uppity. Always plenty to say for herself. Not all of it complimentary. Certainly not to him. He used to answer her back when she started giving it lip but stopped after a while. He was sure she was the type to cry racial harassment. He knew, from experience, that her sort always did.

This was the third DVD and Khan was starting to get used to them. He checked himself – get used to them? Jesus. He hoped he would never find the kind of thing he was watching normal. Guys dressed as girls,
behaving
as girls, while other guys treated them as girls. It turned his stomach. And not only that, but some of them looked really convincing. Would make him think twice before picking someone up in Gatecrasher, that was sure. Well, maybe.

They were all of Glenn McGowan, dressed up, calling himself Amanda. And the first two were home-made. Or rather amateur, not professional. They had been filmed with a static camera, pointed at the end of a bed. The victim himself had come into shot, walking round after switching the camera on, then lain down on the bed waiting for another transvestite to join him.

‘Make-up looks a little inexpert,' Oliver had said. ‘Same with the clothes. I reckon this is an early one, before he got the hang of it. What d'you think?'

Khan had agreed with her. Not just because he thought she was right – which he did – but because it saved him looking at the screen too much.

The sex had been perfunctory. Ordinary, even. Just two blokes getting it on, if you took away the clothes.

He had caught Oliver looking at him out of the corner of her eye, smiling.

‘What?' he asked. ‘Why you looking at me?'

‘Just wondering,' she said, as if giving the matter some serious thought.

‘Wondering what?'

‘Well, you know how men like to watch two women together?'

Khan sensed a trap but knew he had to agree. ‘Yeah…'

‘I don't think this is much different.'

He sensed himself reddening. Suddenly the room felt hot. ‘What d'you mean? This isn't… isn't like that. This is…' He looked at the screen. ‘God…'

She shrugged. ‘They're dressed up, stockings, suspenders, the lot. Wigs, make-up. Some of them make more convincing women than some women.'

‘So?'

‘I think that's what men go for. The dressing up. It doesn't matter who's inside, as long as they've got the right kit on.' She turned to him, smiling. ‘Don't you think?'

He didn't know how to answer.

‘Bet you've looked at this kind of stuff before,' she said.

‘No I haven't. It's… fucking perverse.'

‘Really? Come on, you're a man. You can't tell me you haven't been trawling through the internet looking for something to get yourself off to and fancied something a little different. Bet you have.'

Again he said nothing. Just went back to looking at the screen. With another added layer of discomfort.

The second DVD had been similar to the first. The only difference being in the severity of some of the sexual acts. An unmistakable tone of sadomasochism had crept in, with Amanda on the receiving end of some increasingly brutal punishment.

That's not sex
, thought Khan.
I don't know what it is, but it's not sex
.

Amanda's partner was male, hooded and wearing leather. No help at all.

This new DVD was different to the others. He spotted that straight away. Perhaps not up to professional standards, but certainly not amateur. There was more than one camera, for a start, one for long shots, one for close-ups. And Amanda – he was referring to her like that now – was much more professionally made up.

He leaned forward. ‘Hold on…'

Oliver caught his serious tone. ‘What? What is it?'

‘Look,' he said.

She did so. The screen showed Amanda dressed exactly the same as she had been on the night of her death. But there was more to it than that. The room on screen was the living room they had discovered Glenn McGowan's body in. Amanda was going to the door, letting someone in.

‘Ben,' he heard her say in a parody of a woman's voice, ‘what a surprise. Come in.'

A man stepped into shot. Only visible from the shoulders down.

‘Fuck,' said Khan. ‘Can't we, I dunno, can the techies let us see his face?'

‘We might see it later,' said Oliver. ‘Keep watching.'

They did. The newcomer was ushered in, Amanda talking all the while about what a thrill it was to have him for dinner. The camera followed as they went to sit on the sofa. Ben's head was in full view.

‘No we've… Oh.'

He had a thick head of jet-black hair, obviously a wig. He also wore heavy facial hair and sunglasses.

‘He looks like a seventies porn star,' said Oliver. ‘I bet that's deliberate.'

‘Shit,' said Khan. ‘Thought we had him there.'

They kept watching.

‘So what d'you think?' asked Oliver. ‘Is this it? Are we watching Glenn McGowan's last night on earth?'

‘I… don't know…'

He didn't. But he had that copper's tingle he always got when he was on to something. He knew this would be one film he would watch all the way to the end.