I would tell him about everything with O’Neill later. Angus was the kind of person who preferred to be left alone, but I still liked to check up on him every day. I wondered what he would say to me after I told him about O’Neill – he’d probably be absolutely furious with me, but I figured I’d cross that bridge later.
Mep came to sit with me as I went through a few more reports from my clients in bed before flicking the lights off to sleep.
Gareth came home an hour or so later than he’d said he would, but true to his word, we still had sex, a very simple, breadand butter kind of sex. He finished within two minutes, job done. I considered tucking my legs up, a technique Gareth said his mum had sworn by when conceiving him and his brothers. The nature of the advice seemed problematic, even vaguely Oedipal, but I decided to give the pregnancy Pilates a miss for now.
‘When we have the baby, I’m going to dial it back, I promise,’ Gareth murmured, placing an arm around me, and drifting off to sleep.
I was far too drowsy to respond, but I knew Gareth was only half-committing to what he was saying. He would always have three loves in his life: me (obviously), our future children (hopefully), and the police (unequivocally).
As I tried to sleep, I calculated roughly how far away we were from the remains of the corpse, from our bedroom to his wheelie bin. Roughly, I calculated about eleven metres.
TWO
FRAN
Honestly, I kind of hated Tony.
I know, I know, what kind of dickhead hates a dog? Well, the same dickhead that kills her neighbour, I guess.
He was this wiry, vicious little thing that was more teeth than fur. I could already see him sizing me up from the hallway as Beryl led him out to me.
‘Here you go,’ Beryl said cheerily, stuffing my hands with poo bags and dog treats. ‘Now, he can be a bit feisty with the bigger dogs: small-dog syndrome, Trevor used to say, so best to keep him on a short lead and distract him with treats if he does try and go for any of them.’
I wondered if a similar strategy would have worked on Napoleon.
‘Keep him away from Dalmatians. Something about their spots gets him all riled up. And thank you again for doing this, Fran. It’s so, so appreciated,’ Beryl gushed as her face cracked into a relieved smile.
‘It’s not a problem, Beryl,’ I said, desperately attempting not to let my eyes dart to the side of her. My brain felt like it was firing on every available synapse, calculating how much force I would need to muster to break that infuriating piece of cheapimported plastic. I kept talking to Beryl, somewhat aimlessly, but my mind was focused on whether the door at the police station had built up enough muscle in my tricep to be able to break the casing.
‘Sorry, my dear, what was that? Can you say that again with a tilt?’
My stomach lurched upwards. Had she rumbled me? Seen my eyes’ focus swing between her and the doorbell? Had my mind gone on autopilot while talking to her, and had I accidentally confessed the details of the grisly homicide I had committed?
‘What was what?’ I asked, trying to keep my composure.
‘Could you just angle yourself, dear?’
‘Oh, of course,’ I said, hoping she wouldn’t catch the frantic tone of relief in my voice as I angled my body slightly to the right. Beryl was constantly losing her batteries for her hearing aids, so she had taken to relying more on lip-reading as a way to get by. I repeated myself as I saw her eyes drop down to carefully watch my lips.
‘I thought that I might take Tony up around the river. Give him a bit of a walk that way?’ I said to Beryl, as I now made direct eye contact with the ominous lens of the doorbell while trying to recall what I had said in somewhat of a foggy conversational haze.
‘Okay,’ Beryl said ebulliently, after taking a moment to process. ‘That sounds like a grand idea. And, oh! One more thing! Just be careful…’ Beryl came forward, and her facial muscles shifted into a serious, stoic frown as she leaned her small doddery frame closer to whisper to me. ‘Tony does have a tendency to defecate when he’s nervous. It doesn’t matter where he is, be that in the sewers or the Savoy. I’m just letting you know, but it is rather important that you try not to make him feel ashamed about it.’
What a horrible dog.
‘Call me if you need anything. You have my number,’ Beryl chirped, transitioning seamlessly back to her friendly tone without missing a beat.
‘Thanks, Beryl. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.’
She slammed the door shut behind her as I made a purposeful rummage through the poo bags, dropping a few before attempting to stuff them back into my pocket. As I watched her totter away through the glazed door, I slipped on the leather gloves Gareth had given me for Christmas 2023. Then, I took a deep inhale, and in one swift movement, I rotated my heel and thrust my elbow into the video doorbell, simultaneously tossing my body clumsily into the doorframe. I was lucky, it must have been a cheap knock-off, as my elbow crushed the lens instantly on impact, causing flimsy shards of plastic to fall onto the gravel below.
‘Oh, bugger, oh, crap!’ I yelped.
I put on a good show, trying to fix the camera as I wedged more bits of the broken plastic into the lens to really ensure it was destroyed beyond repair. I got a B in GCSE Drama for my portrayal of a gender-swapped Algernon in our adaptation ofThe Importance of Being Earnest, you know, so I’d like to think I’m pretty good at this kind of thing. I peered inside the exposed mechanics and saw the camera had ruptured inwards on itself. There was no way it would be recording any video after this.
I realised that perhaps overacting might give me away, which was maybe why I’d only got a B, and strolled Tony across the road to the small gap between my house and O’Neill’s. I took a quick cursory glance and practised the, ‘Oh, I think I accidentally threw away a half bottle of wine’ speech in my head, just in case anyone was nosy enough to ask why I was rooting around the rubbish. I pulled open the dustbin we kept in the shelter and hauled out the lightest bag of the two. I had decided tokeep his identifiable body parts somewhere I could easily reach, but where others wouldn’t go rooting around, and certainly not within our actual house. It wasn’t like the new place had a spare cadaver cupboard.
Tony smelt it instantly, perching up onto his hind legs and beginning to whine and beg. I had forgotten how heavy the bag was, and I did my best to keep it suspended above the ground whilst Tony kept incessantly nipping at my heels. It came to mind that, to be fair, this may actually be quite a good nutritious meal for Tony, but I wasn’t sure Beryl would approve of this particular kind of raw-food diet.
