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‘Were they?’

‘No. Of course not.’

‘Well, you never know. Keep your eyes open on the walk home. If there’s a madman around, you can’t be too careful.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Just what I wanted to hear.’

It Is Much More

It is done. The note has served its purpose.

The note itself is meaningless. Alone it will accomplish nothing.

No: it is much more. It is special, because it is the first step. It has got this started. There is a long way to go yet, but it is now in motion.

Unstoppable, irrevocable motion.

Slow, still, but with a force behind it that is irresistible.

You read it again. It is in your hands, removed from the pole – quickly, and surreptitiously. You took steps to make sure you were unobserved, although they were probably unnecessary. After all, who would be watching?

If you are reading this, I am watching you.

You are now part of my collection.

You are many, but soon, I will choose one of you.

You will be mine, and your life will never be the same again.

Do not think this is a joke: your life has changed.

It is excellent. Quite perfect, in and of itself. But when put into the large context of what it is going to accomplish, its true genius is revealed. It is something much more. It is a piece of a major masterpiece.

You crumple it up and hold it under running water until it is no more than a blob of paste. It seems a shame to destroy it – it deserves to be preserved – but you cannot leave any evidence around at all, however unlikely it is that it will be discovered.

You drop it into the trash. It is garbage day tomorrow, when it will be gone forever.

Its work is done. But this is just beginning.

The New Neighbour

Mary turned into her street. It was normally quiet, but this evening there was a small U-Haul parked in front of the house next door. Ryan was standing by the cab, talking to the driver.

He was their new neighbour. Since Mary had moved in – with her ex, Eddie, Otis and a newborn Sally – the house had been occupied by the same person, an elderly man called Wilf. He was in his early eighties when they arrived and he lived alone, after his wife of fifty-seven years had died. She rarely saw him leave the house, although every evening he set out for a walk. After they had been living there a few months Mary had asked him where he went.

To the cemetery to see Gladys. I like to say good night to her. I pick some flowers on the way.

Her heart had broken for this old, frail man whose life now lacked the one person who had given it meaning, a person he visited every evening. It was a relationship she admired and envied; there were already cracks in her and Eddie’s marriage, and, although she would not have predicted how soon it would end, it was clear that she was not Gladys to his Wilf. Nor, for that matter, was he Wilf to her Gladys. It saddened her that she would, more than likely, never have a relationship like Wilf’s, although part of her was relieved. After all that time, she couldn’t imagine how bereft you must feel when your other half – and it really would be, by then, two halves of a whole – was no longer there. She wasn’t sure she would survive the loss, and she was glad she would never find out.

Then, at the start of this summer Mary had been woken in the early hours by the sound of breaking glass. At first she had thought there was a burglary in progress, but then she had seen the lights of the ambulance and fire truck outside Wilf’s house.

Downstairs, she had asked what had happened. Apparently a barely coherent Wilf had called 911. By the time they arrived, he was dead.

Stroke, most likely, the EMT said.

He’s well over ninety, Mary said. Lives alone.

The EMT, a blonde woman who looked like she lifted heavy weights in the gym, raised an eyebrow.