In Bloom - C.J. Skuse

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muster.

      ‘No it’s not your fault, love. If you ask me the tourism board has a lot to answer for. This isn’t a destination area anymore. Nothing for the kiddies. The funicular hasn’t had a lick of paint for decades. Council keep putting up the rates so the little independent shops can’t afford to stay put, and that new leisure centre’s still not finished. Six years they’ve been promising that.’

      Note: I don’t get an iota of blame. Note: he doesn’t check Airbnb himself. Trust, you see. Complete and total trust. I can’t help finding Jim almost unbearably sexy sometimes.

      Another dizzy spell on my way back upstairs – it’s altitude that seems to affect it. I had one yesterday on my way up to the Well House. I lay on AJ’s grave for a full half-hour until it passed. Something to do with my blood pressure. I’m going to have to start carrying around emergency chocolate with me like a St Bernard.

      I checked out Tim Prendergast’s social media to get the measure of the man. His avatar is a pic of himself in one of those seaside cut-outs – a fat man in a stripy bathing suit wearing a Kiss-Me-Quick hat.

      What a wit.

      His eyes are blue with ice splinters in them. I don’t even have to meet him to know he’s a fungus-addled prick of the highest proportions. And for a self-confessed ‘outdoorsman’ who loves hill walking, he doesn’t half spend a lot of time tweet-stalking celebrities. You know the type of thing – RTing how good their books/films/TV shows are. Incessantly @ing them in, saying Good job on The One Show tonight… or Loved your movie – what a talent you are! We’re lucky to have you, and asking them for shout outs and free tickets. The worst part about it is he gets replies. He trades on that tried and tested logic – people will believe anything if it’s a compliment. And it works.

      I honestly don’t know what Marnie sees in him.

      Talking of her, I haven’t heard anything since Saturday. Two texts so far have gone unanswered. I wonder if he’s throttled her. I wonder if I should go round there. I know where she lives – in one of the new houses in Michaelmas Court. She mentioned it at Pudding Club as the number was the same as their anniversary – the fifteenth.

      The Plymouth Star guy was back on the doorstep today, along with several others from the tabloids. He is such a snack, honestly, and it thrills me to wind him up – to play the part of forbidden fruit now I know he wants to eat my ass so badly. I felt quite sorry for him, jostling to be the first to hound me as I sashayed down the front path in my heels and swishy top, like I was at Paris Fashion Week.

      ‘You brought my doughnuts yet?’ I called out to him.

      ‘You were serious about that?’

      ‘Of course,’ I smiled, gliding through the garden gate. Oh boy was I working it today. On the other side I turned back to him and he smiled like we were sharing a secret.

      Gusset dryness = history.

      Drove myself back to the flat to pick up the last of my stuff – only had to stop once on the motorway to vom at the roadside. Otherwise, uneventful.

      The flat is all but empty – most of Craig’s stuff has gone into storage. AJ’s blood dot remains – barely visible to the human eye, but to the psychopath’s eye, there’s no mistaking it. Looks more brown than red now.

      Mrs Whittaker’s moved out – gone to live in Margate with her sister Betty. She ‘can’t be trusted to live on her own anymore’, so Leafblower Ron informed me in the lift, as he coiled his extension lead around his elbow.

      ‘Has anyone else moved in there then?’ I asked.

      ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But the cleaners went in yesterday so I suppose the agent’s found someone.’

      ‘It’s probably for the best,’ I said, trying not to think about the night I cut him up in that bathtub. The foetus doesn’t like it.

      I like thinking about my daddy being alive, not cut into six pieces on an old woman’s lino.

      Afterwards, I bought some Rice Krispie cakes and a bunch of pink gerberas and roses and went round to Lana’s flat. I took a chance that she still lived in the one above the charity shop in the precinct and lo and behold, when I rang the bell at the side entrance, she came to the door. She nearly slammed it in my face but I put my hand out at the last moment.

      ‘Please, Lana, please let me in. I’ve come to apologise.’

      She pulled the door back slightly so that I saw for the first time the extent of my handiwork. She was purple from her forehead to her chin – I almost laughed but stopped myself in time.

      ‘I can’t believe you didn’t press charges,’ I said. ‘You should have.’

      ‘Yeah, well,’ she said. ‘I figured I owed you that at least.’

      ‘Thank you. I truly am desperately sorry. I brought cakes.’

      She opened the door wider and I followed her up the narrow staircase – think Anne Frank’s house with junk mail and stair rods.

      I passed her bedroom – the door was ajar, the duvet unmade, clumps of clothes dotted around the floor – knickers, socks, some hideous pyjama bottoms covered in Minions, a dressing gown draped across the bed. The bed where she’d moaned in my boyfriend’s hot ear and bitten his lobe as her vagina gripped his penis and he slid into her so many times…

      ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, ushering me through to the lounge. Each of the worktops in the poky beige kitchen was covered in debris – side plates with hardened puddles of butter, smudged glasses, sticky cutlery, greasy frying pans, and saucepans ingrained with old scrambled egg.

      ‘How are things at the Gazette?’ I asked when she brought a mug of tea in. There was a purple fleece throw on the sofa, all rumpled into a nest where she’d been sitting watching Bargain Hunt. I sat in the armchair.

      ‘They’ve put me on gardening leave,’ she said, sitting down and wrapping herself in the blanket. ‘Got someone in to replace me already.’

      ‘I know the feeling,’ I said.

      ‘Katie Drucker?’ she said. ‘Yeah she’s, well, malleable. You know Linus is back after his eye operation? Daren’t be off sick for any length of time in that place. Someone will jump in your grave. Do you think you’ll go back?’

      ‘No, don’t think so. I feel quite free actually.’

      ‘I miss it,’ she said.

      ‘So shall we talk about the elephant in the room or shall we let it quietly shit itself in the corner?’

      Lana took a breath and put her mug down on the table. ‘I can’t believe Craig’s capable of doing those things.’

      ‘I don’t know anymore,’ I said, putting my mug down too. ‘I don’t want to believe it but the evidence, Lana.’

      ‘But on New Year’s Eve at least, he was definitely with me.’

      ‘All night?’

      ‘Well no, but—’

      ‘Where were you, here?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And what time did he leave?’

      ‘After the bongs, about twelve-fifteen?’

      ‘The police said Daniel Wells was killed between midnight and four. I didn’t hear him come in.’

      ‘What about the other two?’

      ‘He said he was out with the boys on February twelfth. Gavin White was killed in the park around ten p.m. The boys said he nipped outside

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