Two
I want to tell myself that I’m letting my justified but ultimately still unhinged paranoia get the better of me. But it’s a little easier said than done when I come home from a hard day of drafting catchy slogans for elbow warmers, and there it is outside my door. A large pink box. Like all the pink boxes he delivers his pies in.
Only this one?
It has a bow.
And a little fancy card that says just for you on it.
And I can’t shake the feeling that this is his way of covering up that glimpse of something in the lift. That he’s being extra super nice in order to make sure any of my suspicions die. Especially when I get inside and open it up, and see it isn’t a pie.
It’s a cake.
And on top of the cake, in the most perfect swirly iced lettering, he’s written the words: Mighty Sorry If I Scared You This Morning . All of which only tells me one thing. He’s overcompensating. Sweating, over me discovering whatever terrible thing he’s up to. Like plotting my demise. Or plotting his wife’s demise. Or plotting both our demises at the same time.
So before I can guess which one of those things it might be, or imagine the even wilder things that he might do to conceal his crimes – like stuffing poison into what looks like the most gorgeous fruit-laden confection – I decide the best thing to do is call Mabel. Right now, while still in my on-trend but entirely uncomfortable work clothes.
And bless her, she answers on the second ring.
Because she’s a good, good friend. ‘Sweet pea,’ she says.
At which point I realize I have absolutely no idea how to word this.
‘Hey, Mabey, just got a quick question for you, no big deal really,’ I start, and of course I know I’ve fucked up already. I almost hear her sit bolt upright, and that’s definitely a little gasp she lets out.
Because she knows me too well.
I may have to stop telling her anything about myself. Go back to being the mysterious cool girl she first thought I was. Instead of a complete disaster fart who always gets into terrible scrapes.
‘Oh gosh, so it definitely is a massive deal. Are you in jail? Is your plane crashing? Did someone kidnap you? Just tell me where you are, I’m on my way right now. And if you can’t say where you are I will find you anyway. Or Alfie will find you, because apparently he’s already on the phone to some bloke he knows who may or may not be part of some kind of crime ring,’ she babbles away, and oh god, what have I done, what have I done.
‘Holy shit, what, no, tell him to stop immediately, I am not kidnapped.’
‘He says you could be just saying that, so tell us your code word.’
‘But I don’t have a code word.’
‘Now he’s furious about that.’
He is, too. I can hear him in the background, saying, ‘For fuck’s sake.’ Followed by a lot of growling about ‘What if there’s a crisis’ and ‘That friend of yours is always getting almost murdered’ and ‘How does she not have one’ and ‘This is a travesty, I’m getting my crowbar.’ So naturally my response is:
‘Mabel, what on earth does he think he’s going to do with a crowbar?’
And Mabel doesn’t even pause to think. She knows her husband even better than she knows me. ‘My best guess would be prizing you out of the trunk of your kidnapper’s car, but honestly he could have just about anything in mind. He was furious the other week when I questioned why he sleeps with such a thing under the bed, and spent four hours telling me all the ways it can save your life.’
‘That sounds completely unhinged.’
‘It was. But luckily it was also really hot.’
‘Yeah, I want to say no way to that, but you know me.’
‘I do. I have heard many times about the terrible things that make you horny.’
‘Just can’t help it. I think it’s the reason any nice men I date turn out to be incredible assholes. Secretly my vagina is hoping that’s what they are. She acts without my permission or any regard for good sense, and next thing you know I’m in a well in someone’s basement,’ I say, then, like always, I laugh.
But weirdly, my laugh doesn’t seem as bright as usual. Something about it is off, something about my words sounds dull. And I can tell Mabel picks up on it.
‘Please tell me that’s not what is actually happening now,’ she says.
‘Of course not. I just need to know something. About that editor of yours.’
‘If the something is could he possibly be a secret maniac, my answer has to be: Do you honestly think I would give you a secret maniac for a neighbour? Come on, at least give me a little credit.’
I give her another laugh. But it still sounds weird.
Bitter, almost, I think. ‘It isn’t you I’m not giving credit to,’ I say.
‘So it’s all for him and his possible status as a genius supervillain.’
‘Exactly. I mean, what better way to take over the earth than by convincing everyone you’re some kind of hairy, mustachioed Clark Kent? Absolutely no one would see this dude coming. The mayor will hand him the keys to the city, and that’s when he’ll launch his death ray,’ I tell her.
Then I think about the first time I ever watched something with Superman in it. One of the old movies, I think it was, that Mabel and Berinder had seen before but I’d always told myself I didn’t care about. Bet he’s somehow evil , I had said about halfway through. And they had laughed, like I was joking. But I hadn’t been. Even though I’d behaved as if I was, I hadn’t been. I still remember being surprised when he was the best sort of man all the way through.
Because they almost never are in real life.
No matter what Mabel has to say about it.
‘Even you cannot possibly believe a man who wears suspenders has a death ray.’
‘If anything, the fact that he does only makes it seem more likely to me.’
‘I better not tell you that he also prefers long johns to undertrousers then.’
I snort at her. ‘Now you’re just making things up.’
‘I swear to god I’m not. They’re the kind that connect with a top, too.’
‘So you’re telling me he wears a onesie under his clothes. And I’m supposed to believe he isn’t a psychopath? That’s it, I’m getting myself a crowbar,’ I say, and hear the faint sound of Alfie saying, ‘Attagirl, you know it makes sense,’ in response.
Then Mabel, much clearer, at Alfie: ‘The more you enable this crowbar stuff, the less sex we’re going to have.’ Even though I can already hear that she’s struggling with this ultimatum. And she definitely struggles harder when he growls what may well be ‘Okay, I’ll just start without you.’
I have to cut her off.
‘Babe, you need to go. I don’t even know how you’re managing to stay when he’s doing whatever I think he’s doing.’
‘I’m managing because I don’t want anything to happen to you.’
‘So you do think Beck might be a surreptitious serial killer.’
‘Of course not. But I worry what you’ll do if you believe he is.’
Move to France , I think. Mostly because that’s what I almost did when one of the Nice Guys started cyberstalking me. Though, I swear, I have no actual intention of doing that here. ‘Look, I promise. No matter how suspicious I am, I will not hurl a cake I only suspect is poisoned into your editor’s face. The very most I will do is put it in the bin, and even that is only out of an abundance of caution.’
‘But even then you’re only hurting yourself.’
‘I know,’ I sigh. ‘Honestly this thing looks so good that even when I did briefly and truly think it might be laced with arsenic, I almost took a bite anyway. And not even with a fork. I was just going to scoop a big chunk out with my hand while crouched on the floor, like an animal.’
‘To be honest I get it. Last one he gave me actually made me cry tears of joy.’
‘See, so that answers my question. You ate his food and didn’t immediately die, case closed. Now go and have hot sex with your crowbar-wielding man. I’m going to cut myself some cake and rethink all my life choices.’
‘And by cut yourself some cake you mean just plunge your face into it, right.’
‘Absolutely I do. Love you, babe. See you after you’ve recovered from all the hot fucking,’ I say, then before she can protest, which I absolutely know she’s about to, I end the call. Because she has things to do, and by things I mean her man.
And even if she didn’t, it’s clear to me now.
I was being ridiculous.
Nervous about nothing.
Everything is fine, just fine.
I decide the best way to prove everything is fine is to go over there with a peace offering. After all, I probably scared him half to death. So I cut two slices of his cake and ease them onto the prettiest plates I own. And I brew some fancy coffee in the fancy coffee maker my other bestie, Berinder, got me for Christmas. And I make my way across the hall, feeling very good about all my choices.
Then I get to his door.
His door that is, for some inexplicable reason, ajar. And when I just sort of call his name and push it a little, I don’t get a cheery reply and the welcoming sight of his perfectly normal living room. There is no well, hey there , and the tidy throw pillows and framed inspirational pictures and cosy nooks I imagined.
Instead, there is something straight out of a horror movie.
The curtains are all drawn, with no hint of a reason. His only furniture is a coffee table and a couch, on a floor that looks as if it’s been recently prised up. And every available surface is simply covered in stuff – none of which looks remotely normal. There are about a million pictures of women that have obviously been carefully cut out of magazines. Only none of them are the whole woman.
They’re just heads.
Loads and loads of heads.
Which is bad enough on its own, but then there’s all the notepads scattered around. With scribbled notes scrawled all over the open pages, none of which look like they’re about anything normal. I gingerly take a step forward and squint at one of the questions I can see scrawled in bright red.
Where can I tell people my wife is? it says.
As if her actual location is too terrible to reveal.
She’s under his floorboards , I find myself thinking, and only manage to not lose my mind because other things distract me. Like the poster board that dominates the wall to my right and all the things that are on it. Bits of red string, attaching some cryptic thing to another. Pictures of weird stuff I don’t understand. More frantic scribbling surrounding newspaper clippings and disturbing-looking trinkets and what I think are old receipts for god only knows what.
Most likely the shovel and quicklime he used to dispose of her body.
And that is the thought I’m having when I suddenly hear my name.
‘Constance?’ someone says.
And I know it’s Beck. Of course I do – nobody else I know has that accent. This warm, elastic, generically American accent, of the kind that sounds as if he’s enjoying the taste of every word he says, before he speaks it. I swear, he could play some cheery made-up US President, in a movie about a talking dog.
Though even if that were not the case, I would know it was him.
There just isn’t anyone else in the world who calls me Constance.
Mainly because Constance isn’t actually my name. He simply assumed, and I could never work up the effort or the courage to explain. Nice Guys never like it when you correct them, in any real way. They tend to get nasty, even over things that don’t really matter.
And this definitely matters.
He has a murder lair.
There isn’t really any way at all to spin that into him being right and great. So, unsurprisingly, I panic quite a bit. ‘You stay right there, Henry Beckett!’ I say. Then I inexplicably brandish the only weapons I have: two plates of cake and a flask of coffee. None of which are remotely menacing. All three of them have vegetables with faces all over them. Mabel bought me the set for my birthday.
It’s not a surprise that he looks astonished.
And astonishment on him is really something to behold, too. I mean, at the best of times he has this incredibly strange, super macho, but somehow simultaneously guileless-looking face. He constantly reminds me of a dark-haired Steve Rogers, not entirely grasping that Hooters isn’t really just a hot wings place.
But now it’s even more extreme.
It’s like seeing a human omg emoji. His eyes go round, his mouth goes rounder. His eyebrows are practically in his thick thatch of pitch-black hair.
And I can tell he has lost the ability to speak. Which, coming from a man with a mouth like a cheery wood chipper, is really quite something to see. In fact, it’s so unsettling it almost makes me want to fill the silence. But luckily, he gets it together before I can. ‘If I don’t, are you gonna shoot me with my own frosting?’ he asks.
And I’m not even sure if he does it mockingly. He just sounds incredulous and sort of wondering. So I figure the best bet I have here is to press my advantage.
‘You bet I am, and I’m going to do it hard and in your face ,’ I snarl. Though I swear it’s only after the words are out that I realize how they sound. Rude, somehow. Like I’m somehow sexually propositioning him in the middle of this utter madness. And judging by his expression, I’m not the only one to connect those dots.
His cartoon face goes even deeper into shocked emoji territory. This time even his moustache joins in – it kind of quirks up on one side, like all of this ridiculousness has turned it into a third eyebrow. Then he goes to say something, and I just know it’s going to be bad. All of this is bad.
So instead of waiting around for whatever it is, I run.
And I don’t stop until I’m in my flat, with the door locked.