Ever been ina situation where you’ve made some lovely new friends but now they’ve all found out that you’re a serial killer and you’re worried they don’t like you anymore?
Carol started to get the feeling that something wasn’t quite right when she went for her morning coffee. A good way of appreciating the little things is to spend thirty-five years being denied them. Little things like a coffee on the bistro patio.
Now that she was free, Carol tried to enjoy everything Sheldon Oaks had to offer. On-site there was a restaurant, a bar, and a bistro, with a nicely kept outdoor eating area. Baking was just one of the activities. There was a pool, a gym, a yoga studio, a sauna, two tennis courts, boules (some French alternative to lawn bowling), a library with an “arts and crafts” area, croquet on the front lawn, a snooker table, and a cinema room. Silly, really, since half the residents were virtually bedridden. Carol was sure that the climbing wall, for example, hadn’t been used once. But you get what you pay for, and everyone at Sheldon Oaks had paid rather a lot.“Five-star comfort, five-star care.” That was their slogan and they delivered on it.
Carol was developing a habit of, after some toast in her apartment, heading down to the bistro and having a coffee outside. If lattes and cappuccinos and whatnot had been around before Carol had been imprisoned, they hadn’t enteredherlife. She’d grown up a secondary-modern girl from South London. Tea and toast, egg and chips, “Things were better when we had the Krays”—that was her world. After trying them all, she’d decided that Americano, with a splash of milk, one sweetener, was her drink of choice.
Carol was content to be on her own, but usually, happily, somebody would end up joining her. Catherine might come over with an herbal tea and tell her about all the things she’d already done that day—a swim, a walk on the Heath, a video phone call with her grandchildren, a meeting with the charity she was a patron of. She really was the most unbearably perfect woman.
Or Margaret would sit down with crumbs from a croissant on her chest and deliver some gossip: Belinda from the second floor took a man back to her apartment the other night. Giles, the owner, seems to be rather aggressively selling—was he struggling for money? The home did seem to have a few empty apartments. The gardener, Tyler, smelled of drugs (“drugs” said in hushed tones with the same seriousness with which one might say “suicide vest”). Did you know he’s Elisa’s son? Or the story, from the other night, which Margaret had heard secondhand, of Desmond having a stand-up row with Jim in the bar—“You know, Carol,Jim, the chap who likes to sing.” Or the rumor, most likely triggered by Margaret’s own paranoia, that if more people didn’t start ordering vanilla cheesecake, they might take it off the menu,so, please, could everyone start treating themselves to it at least once a week.
This morning Carol had just ordered her coffee when Margaret had walked outside, seemed to jump, given a little shriek, and then headed straight back indoors. It was as if she had seen a rat, but Carol felt as if what Margaret had in fact seen washer. Which reminded Carol that when she had passed Catherine in the lobby that morning, she had lifted her arm to wave and Catherine had flinched. Was Carol being paranoid?
Desmond was at a nearby table with his daughter and her husband, sharing a pot of tea. The two polo-shirted grandchildren stared at their tablets. Desmond hadn’t noticed Carol and didn’t look as if he would, so engaged were the three adults in a low-volume argument. Carol watched as Elisa skirted past Desmond and his family.
As she passed Carol, Elisa gave her a smile. “Any plans for today, Carol?”
“No,” said Carol, smiling back.
“So you’ll be staying at home for the day?”
“Oh, yes, I should think so, yes.”
“Good,” said Elisa firmly, continuing on her way through the bistro. “I want you to enjoy your time here.”
Would that be possible anymore? Carol had been starting to feel so at home in Sheldon Oaks, so comfortable, that she hadn’t even made herself a little shank for protection. Now, suddenly, something wasn’t right. In prison, when things felt off, you worried someone was planning a hit on you. That seemed unlikely here.
With no plans for her day, Carol had been hoping that hermorning coffee might present something. Perhaps Catherine would invite her for a walk, or maybe someone would suggest lunch in Hampstead. Now Carol felt an anxiety in the pit of her stomach. She resigned herself to going back to her apartment and making a start on the jumbo crossword book she’d bought from Ryman’s yesterday.
Someone—was Polly her name?—had declined to enter the lift with her, her voice trembling as she said she’d take the stairs “for the exercise.” Absurd, she thought. Carol’s secret was definitely out. Polly had looked at her like she was an apparition, clinging on to her knitting for dear life. She was surely ninety, a little old lady who looked like a gust of wind could finish her off. Stairs were a far greater danger to Polly than entering the lift with a serial killer. Carol had only killed seven people! Maybe more…She really should take a moment sometime to sit down and count them. But the point was, the vast majority of her hours had been spentnotkilling people. If Carol killed everyone she came into contact with, she’d have no time for anything else. She hadn’t killedanyonesince the eighties…apart from that guard someone else had taken the blame for.
Believe me, Polly, thought Carol, if I wanted you dead, I would have tripped you up in the first week. A firm handshake would probably have done the job.
Carol sat on her balcony and opened her puzzle book. A cleaner was vacuuming the hallway. The noise was irritating. Carol should have been out and about, but now that she felt self-conscious, it was as if she had retreated to her cell. If this was the way it was going to be, then this was the way it was going to be. People would grow to trust her.
The vacuuming stopped. Good. A gentle breeze, a touch of sun on her face. Hampstead was in the heart of North London but all she heard were birds in the trees. Carol Quinn was a lucky woman.
Go long enough without killing anyone and they’ll see that those days are over. You’re just Carol from baking now, she told herself. Death does not follow you around.
One across. Group of crows (6).
Carol looked out, staring into the middle distance, trying to remember the word. Just then, something went directly past her eyeline.
She stood up, took off her reading glasses, and leaned over her balcony. No one.
No one except a brand-new corpse, lying on the ground in front of the entrance.
A body that seemed to fall straight out of the sky. It was raining the dead, as if heaven were full and starting deportations.
“Hello?” Carol shouted. “Is anybody there?”
She heard nothing but rapid footsteps, coming from above.
Six
Well, this wasfun. Carol had never seen a death she hadn’t participated in herself before. She felt like Roger Federer must have the first time he’d gone to Wimbledon after retirement.
Ten minutes ago there had been no one outside. Now it seemed everyone was there, not wanting to miss out on the show. And what a show!
