Dead Like You

1998

38

Tuesday 6 January

‘Does it work?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, course it works. Wouldn’t be selling it otherwise, would I?’ He glared at the lean man in the brown boiler suit as if he had just insulted his integrity. ‘Everything in here works, mate, all right? If you want rubbish I can point you up the street. In here I only do quality. Everything works.’

‘It had better.’ He stared down at the white chest freezer that was tucked away between the upturned desks, swivel office chairs and upended settees at the rear of the vast second-hand furniture emporium in Brighton’s Lewes Road.

‘Money-back guarantee, all right? Thirty days, any problems, bring it back, no quibble.’

‘Fifty quid you’re asking?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s your trade price?’

‘Everything here’s trade price.’

‘Give you forty.’

‘Cash?

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Taking it away with you? I’m not delivering for that price.’

‘Gimme a hand out with it?’

‘That your van outside?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Better get a move on. There’s a warden coming.’

Five minutes later he jumped into the cab of the Transit, a few seconds ahead of the traffic warden, started the engine and drove it with a bump off the pavement and away from the double yellow lines. He heard the clang of his new purchase bouncing on the hessian matting on the otherwise bare metal floor behind him and moments later heard it sliding as he braked hard, catching up the congested traffic around the gyratory system.

He crawled passed Sainsbury’s, then made a left turn at the lights, up under the viaduct, and then on, heading towards Hove, towards his lock-up garage, where the young woman lay.

The young woman whose face stared out at him from the front page of the Argus, on every news-stand, beneath the caption HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PERSON? Followed by her name, Rachael Ryan.

He nodded to himself. ‘Yes. Yep. I’ve seen her!’

I know where she is!

She is waiting for me!

39

Shoes are your weapons, ladies, aren’t they? You use them to hurt men in so many ways, don’t you?

Know what I’m saying? I’m not talking about the physical, about the bruises and cuts you can make on a man’s skin by hitting him with them. I’m talking about the sounds you make with them. The clack-clack-clack of your heels on bare floorboards, on concrete paving stones, on floor tiles, on brick paths.

You’re wearing those expensive shoes. That means you’re going somewhere – and you’re leaving me behind. I hear that clack-clack-clack getting fainter. It’s the last sound of you I hear. It’s the first sound of you I hear when you come back. Hours later. Sometimes a whole day later. You don’t talk to me about where you’ve been. You laugh at me, sneer at me.

Once when you came back and I was upset, you walked over to me. I thought you were going to kiss me. But you didn’t, did you? You just stamped your stiletto down hard on my bare foot. You drilled it right through the flesh and bone and into the floorboard.

40

Saturday 10 January

He’d forgotten how good it had felt. How addictive it had been! He’d thought that maybe just one, for old times’ sake. But that one had immediately given him the taste for another. And now he was raring to go again.

Oh yes!

Make the most of these winter months, when he could wear a coat and a scarf, hide that Adam’s apple, strut around freely, just like any other elegant Brighton lady! He liked the dress he had chosen, Karen Millen, and the camel Prada coat, the Cornelia James shawl around his neck, the big shiny shoulder bag and the slinky black leather gloves on his hands! But most of all he liked the feel of his wet-look boots. Yep. He felt soooooo good today! Almost, dare he say it, sexy!

He made his way through the Lanes, through the light drizzle that was falling. He was all wrapped up and snug against the rain and the cold wind, and, yes, sooooo sexy! He cast constant sideways glances at himself in shop windows. Two middle-aged men strode towards him, and one gave him an appreciative glance as they passed. He gave a coy smile back, snaking his way on through the throng of people in the narrow streets. He passed a modern jewellery shop, then an antiques shop that had a reputation for paying good prices for stolen valuables.

He walked down past the Druid’s Head pub, the Pump House, then English’s restaurant, crossed East Street and turned right towards the sea, heading towards Pool Valley. Then he turned left in front of the restaurant that had once been the ABC cinema and arrived outside his destination.

The shoe shop called Last.

It was a specialist designer-shoe shop and stocked a whole range of labels to which he was particularly partial: Esska, Thomas Murphy, Hetty Rose. He stared at Last’s window display. At pretty, delicate, Japanese patterned Amia Kimonos. At a pair of Thomas Murphy Genesis petrol court shoes with silver heels. At brown suede Esska Loops.

The shop had wooden floorboards, a patterned sofa, a footstool and handbags hanging from hooks. And, at the moment, one customer. An elegant, beautiful woman in her forties with long, flyaway blonde hair who was wearing Fendi snakeskin boots. Size five. A matching Fendi handbag hung from a shoulder strap. She was dressed to kill, or to shop!

She had on a long black coat, with a high collar turned up and a fluffy white wrap around her neck. A pert snub nose. Rosebud lips. No gloves. He clocked her wedding band and her big engagement rock. She might still be married, but she could be divorced. Could be anything. Difficult to tell from here. But he knew one thing.

She was his type. Yep!

She was holding up a Tracey Neuls TN_29 Homage button shoe. It was in white perforated leather with a taupe trim. Like something Janet Leigh might have worn in the office before she stole the money in the original Psycho. But they weren’t sexy! They were sort of retro Miss America preppy, in his view. Don’t buy them, he urged silently. No, no!

There were so many other much sexier shoes and boots on display. He cast his eye over them, looking appreciatively at each of their shapes, their curves, their straps, their stitches, their heels. He imagined this woman naked, wearing just these. Doing what he told her to do with them.

Don’t buy those!

Good as gold, she put the shoe back. Then she turned and walked out of the shop.

He smelt her dense cloud of Armani Code perfume, which was like her own personal ozone layer, as she walked past him. Then she stopped, pulled a small black umbrella from her bag, held it up and popped it open. She had style, this lady. Confidence. She really, very definitely, could be his kind of lady. And she was holding up an umbrella, like a tour guide, just for him, so he could more easily spot her through the crowd!

Oh yes, my kind of lady!

The thoughtful kind!

He followed her as she set off at a determined stride. There was something predatory about her walk. She was on the hunt for shoes. No question. Which was good.

He was on the hunt too!

She stopped briefly in East Street to peer in the window of Russell and Bromley. Then she crossed over towards L.K. Be

An instant later he felt a violent blow, heard a loud oath and he crashed, winded, down on to the wet pavement, feeling a sharp pain across his face, as if a hundred bees had stung him all at once. A steaming polystyrene Starbucks cup, its dark brown liquid spewing out, rolled past him. His head felt a rush of cold air and he realized, with panic, that his wig had become dislodged.