Extract From Notebook 4
You are meant to be dead, Nell. YOU ARE MEANT TO BE DEAD!!! And yet, you are still alive.
I arrived in the early hours of the morning to kill you, Nell.
I’d waited at home until the clock struck midnight, then made myself wait until the streets had emptied of revelers celebrating the arrival of Christmas Day before making my way to the house across the street from yours.
It was two in the morning by the time I arrived and I was in such a state of excitement that I had to force myself to calm down so that I could enjoy every minute of what I was about to do.
You didn’t hear me as I let myself into the house and crept upstairs to your bedroom.
From the little I could make out in the darkness, you were lying on your back, buried under the the covers and from the noise you were making, I guessed you’d had quite a bit to drink the previous evening, drowning your sorrows at being alone at Christmas.
I hoped the alcohol hadn’t numbed you too much as I wanted you to be able to feel the knife going into your body, I wanted you to know that the end had come and that you were dying.
I was standing over you, about to deliver my coup de grace, when I remembered the day I’d hidden under your bed and imagined driving the knife up through the mattress and into your body.
If you hadn’t been so dead to the world, I wouldn’t have changed my original plan.
But the regularity of your snores told me I didn’t need to hurry so I stooped down and measured the blade of my knife against the depth of your mattress plus the depth of your body and realized that the image that had tortured me in such a delicious kind of way could become a reality.
You didn’t stir as I slid under the bed and got into position.
The blade of my knife was so long that I couldn’t drive it straight up into your body so I had to do it at an angle.
If I’d been standing above you, I would have aimed straight for your heart.
It was impossible for me to gauge exactly where your heart was from under the bed but I knew enough about the anatomy of the body to know that my chances of piercing a vital organ was high and that even if I didn’t, you would bleed to death anyway.
So I found a gap in the springs and with my two hands on the hilt, I took a deep breath and, savoring the moment, drove the knife up through the mattress.
You gave a kind of moan and ceased snoring.
By the time I’d slid out from under the bed, your breathing had become labored and your body was twitching under the covers.
I left quietly and quickly, closing your bedroom door behind me and crept down the stairs.
I waited in the hall a moment but there was no sound from your room, so I went back to the house across the street and waited for your body to be found.
I knew it could take days, but I had a plan.
Sometime in the afternoon, I would make an anonymous call to the police, pretending to be worried about a neighbor who hadn’t turned up for Christmas lunch.
I must have dozed off because I was woken by a police car screeching down the street, its siren sounding and its blue lights flashing.
I jumped to my feet; I didn’t want to miss your body being brought out on a stretcher.
I checked my phone and I was surprised to see it was only nine twenty in the morning.
I hadn’t expected your body to be found quite so soon but I thought you must have invited a friend to spend Christmas Day with you, and I smiled, imagining the fright they must have had when they’d found you dead.
I watched as two police officers approached the front door.
It was opened from the inside and as they disappeared inside, I wondered what they would make of the tip of the knife protruding from your body, what they’d make of a killer who had lain under your bed and driven a long-bladed knife up through the mattress and into your flesh.
An ambulance arrived. It parked behind the police car and dispatched a couple of paramedics.
A few minutes later, another police car turned up and parked behind the ambulance.
Two police officers got out, a woman and a man.
They followed the paramedics into the house and I couldn’t help thinking that it was quite a turnout for you, Nell, especially once the forensic team arrived.
I had to wait a while before the door opened again.
There was a flurry of movement on the doorstep and a woman appeared with a blanket over her shoulders and I thought it must be the friend who had found your body.
I watched as she was led toward the ambulance by a paramedic, the two police officers following behind.
The male got into the police car and began to back it up the road so that the ambulance could get out.
The female officer said something to the woman and the woman turned her head and—
I thought I must be seeing things. IT COULDN’T BE YOU, NELL, IT WASN’T POSSIBLE, YOU WERE MEANT TO BE DEAD!
I rammed my hand in my mouth and bit down on it to stop myself from screaming in frustration.
How was it that you were still alive? I forced myself to remain calm.
You could still die; the blanket covering you could have been hiding terrible injuries.
But the fact that you were able to walk made it unlikely.
I couldn’t work out what had gone wrong.
I thought I must have miscalculated the depth of the mattress and the knife hadn’t gone in deep enough to do the damage I’d expected it to.
I couldn’t understand why you had waited seven hours before calling an ambulance but supposed you hadn’t realized you’d been stabbed until you woke up this morning and found a knife protruding from your body.
White-hot rage burned within me as I watched you being helped into the ambulance.
The police officer climbed in after you and once the ambulance had left, I knew I should leave too, before the police started their house-to-house inquiries.
But I was in such a state at my failure to kill you that I needed to compose myself first. So I was still there when a private ambulance arrived and when the medics went into the house with a stretcher, I thought that one of the forensic team had been taken ill.
And then they reappeared, carrying a body bag.
It took me a while to realize what must have happened. You had someone with you last night and I had killed them, not you. A black rage filled me and I took my knife and stabbed it into the wall over and over again, imagining it was you.
I don’t like that someone died unnecessarily, Nell, and I’ll make sure that you pay for it when I kill you.