32. Cuckoo
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CUCKOO
“These eggs are broken.”
I am scanning the last of this man’s shopping through the till, my eyelids like lead, when his nasally tone interrupts the mindless action of swiping and beeping.
I glance upward at him and inwardly groan.
It’s Edward, well-known for coming in on a Friday lunchtime.
There is always a problem, and this time it’s me and his eggs.
Normally I can laugh him off, but the previous night’s events are still whirling in my brain, and my patience is wearing thin.
The queue behind Edward is long, a wriggling toddler with her dad behind him, a couple of teenagers (my favorite customers because they buy chewing gum and sweets and crisps and shove it all in their backpacks and leave quickly) behind them, and a few women with their weekly shops to round off the waiting crowd.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Your eggs are broken?”
“Yes.” He brandishes the box of them outward, but when I try to reach for it, he retreats them to his chest. “Not the whole dozen. Just one. But it’s unacceptable. You know what a dozen is, don’t you?”
“I know what a dozen is,” I tell him, when really I’d like to tell him where he can shove his eleven acceptable eggs. “Let me have that, and you can go and grab a replacement.”
There is a definite attitude among certain customers that those of us who work on the tills are somehow intellectually deficient, as if we couldn’t possibly be here for any reason other than that we have failed in something else.
We can’t possibly be smart, as why would someone working on the tills be clever?
And so we are treated like idiots, asked what the word dozen bloody means, and given patronizing instructions as if we are incapable otherwise, as if working this job every day has been the Wild West until Interfering Customer #1007 informs me how to perform properly.
Edwards huffs. “The decent thing would be to go and get more yourself for me. But I understand it’s all different now.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, but this time I smile, deliberately, and adjust myself in my chair to make it plain I’m going nowhere.
He relinquishes the eggs (a dozen of them, or should I say twelve to show I’m aware?) and stalks off to the aisles, and the queue collectively groans and tuts and rolls their eyes when they realize they’ve picked the slow lane.
The egg carton, when I open it and inspect, seems fine on first glance.
Then I spot it: the faintest of cracks down one side of the third egg I check, threatening to break any second.
The dad with the toddler shoots me a nice smile. “Must be a nightmare working here sometimes. I bet you get all sorts.”
“It has its moments,” I say. “Mostly it’s alright though.”
And it’s true; it is mostly alright. It’s steady work, and I’m lucky to have full-time hours when I know a lot of my colleagues are struggling on zero-hour contracts or only up to twenty hours.
There are nice customers and rude customers, and honestly I normally like dealing with both.
The not-so-nice ones add a bit of spice to the day.
But in other ways it is incredibly boring.
After Edward is dealt with and placated, there is another hour before the rush dies down; then I head to the break room.
It’s not the most cheerful place in the world, despite however much free fruit the supermarket wants to throw at us, but it is at least away from the bright lights and sensory overload that is out on the aisles.
Dana and Isabel are sitting at the main table eating their lunch, the wafting smell of tuna reaching my nose even from over here by the door.
They’re okay—everyone I work with is okay, really—and I go out with them sometimes on an evening, but they’re not really friends.
We’re all vastly different ages for a start, and they’re mostly older, married with kids, talking about things like saving for houses or MOTs or nurseries.
“Hey,” Dana says. “Are you alright? Late night, was it?”
I can’t help it, my guard is instantly up. “Late night?”
“You just look a bit tired,” she says, and Isabel nudges her. “What? Sorry, I’m not being nasty. I meant it as a good thing. I thought you were going to have a wild story.”
Dana’s idea of a wild story is an accidental Snapchat or gossip about someone cheating on someone else.
“Sorry to disappoint.” I join them at the table, grabbing an apple from the free offerings in the center. “Couldn’t sleep, that’s all.”
“Oops. You don’t look too bad.”
“Thanks.”
“Nice hole you’re digging, babe,” Isabel says. “Anyway, did you both hear about Marcus and Sean? They are finally going on a date!”
“Oh my God!” Dana leans forward. “Why didn’t you say before? That is mega!”
I make all the right noises, pretend as if I care, but my mind is on other things.
Goldie occupies the space, her and Bishop’s House and everything inside it.
The house was different, in subtle, teasing ways.
I will not bring this up with the others because what has happened is already terrible enough.
Someone else knows—and have they done this out of malice?
Anger? Retribution? Kindness? Did someone take Goldie from her shallow, unremarkable grave and put her somewhere worthwhile?
No. That kind of thinking is ridiculous.
But why move her and not tell the police?
“Helloooo?” Dana is waving her hand near my face.
I jerk back, startled, then manage to laugh. “God, I was miles away. What did I miss?”
“I was just asking if you had any gossip,” Dana says.
Oh, not much. Only that I am a murderer.
Imagine Dana’s and Isabel’s faces if I said this point-blank.
Well, first, they would think I am joking because the idea is so ludicrous.
But then, when I insisted, their giggles would turn to appalled silence, their eyes would shift from warm to scared, and they would make their excuses and rise from their chairs and run far, far away.
They wouldn’t sit and listen to the details about how we stalked Hugo and took turns stabbing him and it was wonderful.
They wouldn’t understand that, no, his death doesn’t haunt me, it thrills me, and I have no regrets.
The only person who haunts me is Goldie.
I could tell them about her too. That I know where she really is.
Wait. I don’t know that last part anymore.
After the initial terror and adrenaline, they’d spread the story like wildfire. Make TikToks of it. Reels. Their encounter with a killer. Gossip of the century.
“No gossip,” I say. “I’m going for a smoke.”
I don’t actually smoke. I have one packet of cigarettes that is always half full, as if I’m maintaining a habit, and I hold a cigarette out in the alley behind the supermarket as an excuse to have a few minutes to myself.
It’s a grimy alley, lined with the massive bins that are full of food waste and everything else, but no one else comes here.
The weather is cloudy, threatening rain, and I zip up my jacket to keep warm.
You look terrible, Goldie says. She is leaning against one of the bins, in oversized jeans and a woolly jumper I’ve never seen on her before.
“Speak for yourself,” I say. “Nice jumper.”
She grins at this. You’re to blame for that, aren’t you?
“I’m to blame for everything.”
Oh now. Don’t say that. Don’t go all gloomy on me.
“You’re gone,” I say. “Where are you?”
Living it up in London, she says. I’m famous. I’m a star. Let’s pretend it’s that, shall we? Instead of the truth?
“What is the truth? What happened to you?”
You know I can’t help with that, Cuckoo.
I blink because tears are rushing to my eyes and everything has suddenly gone blurry, and in that flash of darkness, Goldie disappears.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and turn it on. After a minute, the screen shows several notifications. The group chat has seventy-nine messages to read, but that’s not what I am staring at. I know why the group is going mad. It’s the anonymous text message. They must have received it too.
“Fuck,” I say, because there’s nothing else to be said.
Maybe you imagined it and I ran away to London after all.