‘You want to laugh. I can see it in your face!’ I managed through the giggles.
‘I don’t want to laugh,’ he retorted, even as the corners of his mouth began to slightly twitch upwards.
‘Oh, come on, can I touch you now, hot-head?’ I asked with a smile, my cackles beginning to subside, and Gareth gave a snigger. I stretched my arm out and began to stroke the back of his head gently.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry, okay?’ I said. He finally tilted his head to look at me and gave something of a smile, although to me, it looked more like he was passing wind.
‘I’m sorry for exploding.’
‘It’s okay, we all explode sometimes,’ I said back. He leaned forward and gave me a kiss as he rested his hand on my thigh.
‘For example,’ I said as I placed my hand on his cheek, ‘you exploded in record time in the wank room today.’
It was the following Monday and I had decided to work most of the morning from home, which worked out well as Gareth had rushed out in the morning and had taken my phone instead of his.
I hadn’t really thought much about Clark after we’d got back from the clinic. It had mostly been pushed to the back of my mind as Gareth and I had discussed what Dr Patel had told us. But in the cold light of day, alone with my thoughts and onlymundane email admin to distract me, Clark’s grotesque face began to slither into my head. I had tried tracking them all down over the years, and it was only Macleod I had ever managed to find. I had thought that maybe Clark had died long ago. But now two of them had turned up in just over a month. It all felt vaguely serendipitous – for me that is, certainly not for them.
I tried to find a way to distract myself. I set countless work targets to keep my mind occupied, but no matter how hard I tried, Clark’s smug, gross face kept appearing in my mind. That flash of fear that I hadn’t felt for years. More worryingly, the thought of killing him kept pushing its way into my cerebral cortex, attached to a rather uncomfortable feeling of delight. Macleod was like a scratch card, and O’Neill, perhaps, the Thunderball. But Clark? He was the triple rollover Euromillions – the most cruel and sadistic of them all. Suddenly, all I could think about was Clark.
Again, I know this is probably something that psychopaths think, and I know that I’ve said that I am not one. However, I won’t lie to you. The thought of slitting Clark’s throat was genuinely indescribable. Like, you must have something that feels like this. I had this intense rush of joy as I thought about the most painful and agonising ways I could do it. I loved the whole piano-wire thing from gangster movies, you know. I could just say something cool like ‘Francesca says hello’, and then yank it back against his throat as his little old arms and legs flailed about.
I hadn’t really thought about the possibility of going to prison until after I had cut up O’Neill, and even then, it was tempered by that weird old feeling of fate lurking in my mind that had propelled me to kill him. This was the universe giving me a chance to correct it, so why would I be punished for acting on the opportunity presented before me?
I started to realise that maybe, in fact, I was perhapsun pocopsychopathic. Hey, at least I was self-aware.
I decided that not a lot of work was being done, so I would go and see Angus. I thought about picking him up some papers along the way, but knew that would probably only feed his own personal obsessions more, positioning me as some kind of enabler.
I hated where Angus lived, not just because it was about an hour’s drive away, but also because it was so incredibly miserable. The whole small estate seemed to be in a constant state of grey, drizzly overcast, and all the high-rise apartment buildings shared the same plain grey concrete exteriors with a small pink neon sign at the top, so over-lit that I couldn’t even make out the word it was trying to say. I clambered up to floor eleven, wheezing, as I dared not take the lift that looked about the same age as the Roman lighthouse at Dover Castle. I beat my fist hard on the door six clear and coherent times, counting each knock as I did so. He swung open the door, saw me, and barely reacted.
‘Hi,’ he said, unbothered by me standing there, still damp from the rain that I had got caught in.
‘You good?’ I asked somewhat cautiously, with an expectant smile. He stared blankly at me and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Guess so,’ he replied. ‘You want to come in?’
‘Nah,’ I said.
He just groaned in response to my sarcasm, and turned to walk back into his flat as I followed him in. At least he had done some organising since I had last been here. The newspapers in the hallway, which formed a small tunnel, had all been nicely folded and organised with little multi-coloured markers placed to indicate the date. The other tens of thousands looked a little more erratic in terms of their organisation.
‘How long did it take you to arrange this?’ I asked, examining the thousands of thin spines of paper that were all placed perfectly on top of each other, no edge even slightly out of place.
‘A week or so. There were re-runs of some old Hammer films on one of the channels, so I watched them whilst I did it. Time flew by.’
‘So, what am I looking at here?’ I asked, motioning to one of the many eight-foot-tall pillars of newspapers, curious if I could call him out on his knowledge.
‘You’re looking at…2009,’ Angus said, hands on hips, like he was inspecting a modern art piece. ‘Please don’t touch it, though.’
‘Pfft, you think I’m that brave,’ I replied as he led me into his kitchen – also full of papers, as well as plenty of empty food-stained pots from microwaveable ready meals and takeaways.
‘Jesus Christ, it’s gross in here, Angus,’ I said to him, trying to take in the sheer mess he had crafted: pans had been left permanently soaking in their own fat and grease, a wide selection of plastic pop bottles had been tossed on the floor, and a small ecosystem of flies were hovering around a room that served as their all-you-can-eat buffet.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ he muttered under his breath.
God, Angus really was insufferable sometimes.
‘I won’t take up too much of your time, okay?’ I said, trying to find someplace to sit that wasn’t covered with food or newspapers. It was equal parts strange and offensive that he actually looked relieved when I said that. I don’t think he had seen anyone since I’d last checked in on him some two weeks ago, and there he was, counting down the minutes until I left him alone again. ‘I just want to know more about Clark. I want the paper,’ I said, realising it was easier to stand than find somewhere safe to sit.
Angus nodded, spinning himself around to one of the smaller stacks that I guessed he was still building. He filed through the stack for a second, carefully and tenderly dancing his fingertips across the thin spines of the papers, and then yanked one out and passed it to me.
