Three Steps Behind You (28 page)

But that would confuse her; it is not straightforward enough. She would just see danger. And she would run and tell. So instead I will need to be hybrid Dan–Luke. Win her, romance her, use her.

‘I’m sorry, Nicole,’ I say, moving towards her. ‘That was rude of me. We all love Adam, I know.’

‘You don’t love Adam. You raped him. Jesus, you
raped
him. How is that love?’

She has read an entire book about me loving Adam and still she does not understand. Maybe I need to edit it. But I’m not sure how I can make it more obvious.

‘I don’t question your love for Adam,’ I say, still moving towards her. ‘Why do you question my love for him?’

‘Because it isn’t love! It’s an obsession. And you hurt him. You can’t hurt people you love! They won’t stand for it!’

I ignore the suggestion I hurt him. Any physical discomforts he may have suffered are healed, I am sure. He has hurt me in the past, more deeply. We are even.

‘He was trying to strangle you when I arrived. You said so yourself. Does he not love you?’ I ask. If she kept still, I would be almost level with her now. But she keeps moving backwards.

Nicole does not answer me.

‘Does he not love you?’ I ask again.

I see her eyes are watering.

‘Nicole, why would he love you? What would he see in you?’

Tears clot at the start of her eyelashes. In between all those little hairs, the globules sit, waiting the final pressure.

‘Does he appreciate you, Nicole, the way a man should appreciate you? Or does he hate you?’

The globules escape and begin their cascade.

‘When did he last look at you like he really loves you? When did you last really bond, connect, in a meaningful way?’ I ask.

‘What, like your connection with him is meaningful?’ she retorts, but her voice shakes.

‘Or are you just a Helen surrogate? Someone to fuck, a source of an heir?’

‘Of course he loves me. He married me.’

‘Did he kill Helen, Nicole? Did he kill her, and is he now going to kill you? Is that what you think?’

She is silent. Which means yes. It always means yes.

‘Is he coming here, to find you, to kill you?’

It’s a stupid question, because we both know he didn’t kill Helen. He has an alibi. Flawless. It’s on Facebook.

‘You’ll give me a miscarriage,’ she says, like that matters.

‘No,’ I say, ‘I will give you dinner. Come, sit.’

‘Let me pour you champagne.’
I don’t have any champagne so I will have to improvise with water.

Nicole stays standing. This is not part of the plan.

‘Dan, I can’t stay here. You may not have killed Helen, but what you did—’

‘Take a seat at the table, my love,’ he says, thinking of sitting her down, pushing her in, watching her fork his food between her lips. Then when she is sated he will quench his appetite
.

Nicole backs in the wrong direction, away from our supper. But she is against the wall. There is no escape there.
She needs to be guided. I place my hands firmly on her shoulder. She writhes around,
trying to slip out of my grasp. I put one hand on her belly. She gasps but stops resisting. I push her down on the chair. If I move round the table again I expect she will stand up again, which will not do. So
I stay next to her. Close
. I half squat, holding her hands behind her back.

He feeds his beloved her supper. She longs for lobster, licking her lips as he raises it towards her, her mouth ready and open to receive it. Once in, she consumes it ravenously—

Nicole spits out a piece of fish finger onto my face. A strand of saliva follows it, linking us.

‘You disgust me,’ she snaps, breaking the strand.

Maybe Nicole is not used to romantic dinners. Perhaps Adam cannot conjure up the feelings to cook for her.

I’ll have to show her how it is done.

I take some more fish finger.
This time I push it deep into her mouth
, down her oesophagus, so she must eat.

She starts pretending to choke.

‘Just swallow,’ I say. ‘It will be easier.’

It’s possible that she’s not pretending. But if I let go and try to rescue her, she will run away. Which we don’t want, Luke and I.

He knows that some women enjoy being tied up. He hopes that she is one of them. He pulls her hands around the chair and holds them there. She cries out in excitement as, with one hand, he binds her hands and feet to the chair
.

There. Now I have restrained her, I can rescue her.

I slap her on the back. Fish escapes her mouth. Interesting. She was not faking after all. She coughs and splutters all over the place, which, frankly, is not nice so I take my place over the other side of the table.

‘Bastard! Perverted, fucking, bastard!’ she croaks at me. ‘You killed that girl, didn’t you? You killed Ally Burrows!’

Eventually, I will need to find a way to stop her talking. I would gag her, but she needs to eat the nice meal I have prepared.

‘I know you were there, the day before she died. And “Luke” the suspect, I’m sure you said he’s your character, although I couldn’t see him in those notes – I did dry them out, by the way, a bit, and I’m sure I just about made out Soho. And then there were those Internet searches of yours. I thought, if I could just see a bit more of your writing … He won’t do anything, when he knows Adam’s coming round, I thought; it’s safe. Plus, I might be wrong, might just be pregnancy hormones, making me mad. But now this, tying me up! It’s the final proof. It’s you – you killed Ally Burrows!’

None of this is news to me, so I let her ramble. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to let her tell anyone else this story. So, I focus on the task in hand. From opposite her, I cut up her remaining fish fingers with my sabre.

‘You’re sick,’ she says, in case I have not understood. ‘Perverted. You don’t understand love. You don’t love Adam.’

I skewer a section of fish finger on the end of my sabre and proffer it to her lips. She twists her head away. I follow it with the sabre.

‘I’m not eating it, you—’

I’ll never know what I am because I get the fish finger into her mouth while she is talking.

‘I’m sorry it’s not lobster, but just use your imagination a little, pretend,’ I say.

She spits out the food.

That is no good. I must give her a romantic meal. Otherwise how will I know, how will Luke know, how it is done? This is the last chance, the last supper, before I am caught. I feel this, I know this. I must carry on.

He knows that when people say no, they mean yes. No one would really say ‘no’ to such pleasure, such closeness, if they were thinking freely, unbound by social stereotypes (if not by ropes). The secret is not to give them a chance to say anything at all. That helps everyone
.

I skewer another piece of fish finger onto the sabre.

‘You know there’ll be here soon, don’t you, the police? I told them where I was, when I phoned. There’ll be here any minute.’

This is what people always say. She is too silly to remember that I know she was calling Adam.

‘Just enjoy your dinner,’ I say. ‘Then after that, we’ll have a nice hot bath, get you in the mood.’

‘I can’t have a hot bath, with the baby,’ she says. ‘I’ll miscarry!’ She is obsessed with this baby of hers. Also of Adam’s, I suppose. If I get really close inside her, maybe I’ll meet Adamkind coming the other way. She needn’t worry though, about the hot bath. It’s not the traditional variety. She needn’t be immersed. We’ll just use the saucepans and the hob. Do some sluicing. Makes up for the lack of shower and hot water.

Now, Nicole has eaten enough of her fish fingers, so
we must move onto dessert
.

Dessert was his favourite dish. He liked chocolate tortes, meringues, sugar baskets filled with fruit. That cracking sound with all of them when you smashed them with the fork – delicious. It took control, for all the pieces not to go flying, not to destroy the whole sweetness. Ice-cream, he used occasionally, when a lady wanted it, so much she would die for it. Sometimes you had to give a lady what she wanted
.

Nicole would have to make do with Angel Delight. It’s the pink sort, most tasty. I could, I suppose, drizzle it on her, then lick it off. Perhaps that would be seduction.

I carry the bowl through, and walk behind her chair.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks, twisting around, trying to see me.

I hold her hair and move it away from her neck, over her shoulder.

Now I have the nape of her neck, exposed to me. Were she a lobster, I would start my incision, just there, cutting down, down down. Or would I? Maybe the front. Yes, that would be more effective. Her belly, exposed
.

But as she is not a lobster, I take a spoonful of Angel Delight and drip it onto her neck.

She screams so loudly that I almost don’t hear the doorbell.

Chapter 3

There it is, though. The doorbell. Loud, ringing, penetrating our nice romantic dinner. I look at my watch. It is too early for Adam. Which means it is a surprise person, someone I do not want. Best to pretend not to be here.

Nicole does not seem to agree, as she starts screaming again. I clamp my hand across her face. She bites me and then starts screaming again.

Fine.
Time for the gag
.

Not a speciality one this time – that’s with Ally. This is more basic.
I pull off my socks, stuffs them in her mouth, then whip off my belt and tie it round her face
. The screaming stops, but the ringing continues.

Leaving Nicole in the kitchen, I creep into the hallway and into the bedroom. I snake along the floor on my stomach. If I can peer through the curtain without being seen, I will know who is out there. I can make the choice. Slowly, I rise up, and edge my eyes into the small gap between curtain and frame.

Outside, I see a Maserati.

And Adam.

I fall back down again.

He is here.

Adam, at my home. Adam, wanting to enter.

Adam, too early.

But I cannot deny him. It is not for me to turn him away, if he cannot wait to be with me again. Perhaps the long game is over?

And he cannot wait, for he shouts through the letterbox: ‘Dan, Nicole – I know you’re in there. Open up!’

I must obey, Dan must obey.

I stand, and knock on the window to show that I am coming. Adam looks at me and bobs his head. There is also a movement from the Maserati. He is not alone. Jimmy. It must be Jimmy. But why would Jimmy come here, with Adam, to collect his wife?

Only Adam can answer.

I turn to walk out of the bedroom. Book three stares at me openly from the bed. I would like to close it, I should close it, but it feels wide open now, no longer secret. But as long as Nicole stays gagged in the kitchen, he will not know. The book’s secrets are still safe from their only important audience, the audience who must never read it, must never know. I close it again, lock it in the box, put it under the bed, and go to open the door to Adam.

I slide back the catch, push down the handle, open the door, and there he is – shining in the lamp light. Only his face, though, because he is all dressed in black. I could have sworn, earlier, that he was wearing the pink shirt, the one with the little pink cufflinks bursting through. But maybe he has dressed to see us. I’m not sure if he is pleased to see me. I put out a hand to shake his in greeting, but he keeps his behind his back.

‘You brought Jimmy?’ I ask him.

‘Yes,’ he says, pushing into the hallway, closing the door behind him, still with hands behind his back. ‘Where’s Nic?’ he asks.

I wonder what he will think when he sees that I have gagged and bound his wife. I had not thought of that. Perhaps I should delay him, tell him she is in the bathroom, usher him into the bedroom while we wait for her. But book three is in the bedroom. Can I trust it to stay closed while it is sat beneath him? Will it not spring open and reveal its secrets?

‘Where’s Nic?’ he repeats.

And even if it does not, what then? I cannot untie her. Do I go into the kitchen now, ahead of him, and penetrate her, quickly, while Adam is not looking, get the closeness? Because the way that Adam is looking at me, I don’t know that there is ever a prospect of being close to him again.

‘Is she through here?’ he asks, pushing past me. I see for a moment his back. He is carrying something, wrapped up, in a carrier bag. Something that appears to have a handle. Which he is holding, with gloves. Then he puts his back to the wall again, and pushes me forward into the kitchen.

Nicole sits, still gagged and bound.

When Adam comes in, I see her first reaction is one of relief. Adam, her rescuer! Her eyes plead to Adam to release her. But then something else clouds them. Fear.

Adam rushes towards Nicole and undoes her make-shift gag. He goes to kiss her but she keeps her lips closed, twists her face away.

Then she opens them to speak.

‘Adam,’ she says, in barely a whisper. ‘My love. Tell me something. Tell me you didn’t kill Helen.’

Chapter 4

I laugh, but Adam doesn’t.

‘Are you saying I’m the type of man who’d kill his own wife?’ he asks Nicole.

Nicole starts shaking her head violently.

‘No, no, you’re right, you couldn’t have done, you’re my darling Adam. I’m sorry, it’s just that Dan—’‘Because you’d be right,’ Adam says.

Nicole’s words stop. The earlier tremors restart. Her eyes open wide. Then she starts shaking her head.

‘No, no, no, that’s not true,’ she whispers. ‘It was an accident, like you said.’

‘No accident,’ says Adam.

‘An anonymous hit and run,’ Nicole pleads.

‘Not so anonymous,’ says Adam. He walks round the chair to stand behind her and places one hand on her shoulders, one hand still behind his back. She flinches.

I don’t know what Adam’s game is, but he has taken leave of his senses. It is quite likely he is confessing just to be rid of Nicole. This, I can understand. But I will not let him incriminate himself in this way. Nicole has links to the police. She will turn him in.

‘But you have an alibi,’ I remind him. ‘You were out with your colleagues. It’s on Facebook.’