The Killer Next Door Read Online Free PDF Page B

Cher. There’s nothing in the world will make me live like that, smelling of piss and my tits round my knees and not even able to keep warm on a day like this.
    The woman looks up at her and bestows her with a snaggled smile. ‘Thanks, darling,’ she says, the tones of London almost as impenetrable and jarring to Cher’s ear as those of the Mersey were to her. ‘That was nice of you.’
    ‘That’s all right,’ says Cher.
    ‘Not many young people bother, these days,’ she says, and Cher realises, too late, that she’s befriended a talker. ‘You’re all in such a rush. I’m surprised you bothered to stop – young people are so selfish.’
    Her tone has changed from the brief flash of gratitude to one of reproach. Oh, God, thinks Cher, never a good deed goes unpunished.
    ‘In my day, we respected old people,’ the old lady says, ‘and we got a clip round the ear if we didn’t.’
    The urge to roll her eyes is almost overwhelming. ‘You’re not allowed to do that any more. It’s against the law.’
    The old woman purses her lips like a cat’s arse. Not a sweet little old lady at all. Not her nanna. She’s always wondered how people manage to believe that old age automatically bestows some sort of saintliness when they are so convinced – if the platitudes she’s heard mouthed at funerals are anything to go by – that only the good die young. ‘And more’s the pity,’ she says.
    Cher considers tipping her wheelie bag over, but settles for saying. ‘Never mind, you’re
welcome
,’ pointedly, and walks on shaking her head. You can’t win if you’re young these days. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. She helps herself to an apple from the display outside the Knossos minimart, turns the corner on to Beechcroft Road and takes off her jacket. It really is hot today. Too hot. She’d like to ditch the wig as well, but she’s too careful for that. Nowhere in England is built for this sort of heat. It’s stupid, having to walk all this way to get back to pretty much where she started. If she could get over that chain link at the station, she’d be home in less than a minute. There’s even a gap in the garden fence that leads straight on to the embankment.
    Beechcroft Road is full of skips. There are four along its hundred-yard length, their bricks and laminate-kitchen-cabinet contents bearing witness to the arrival of the home improvers. Cher scans them as she passes for usable gear, but it’s all builders’ rubble and some hideous patterned carpet. She once saw a beautiful Persian rug in a skip off Kensington High Street, but she had no way of getting it home.
    A telly, she thinks. That’s what I could really do with. If I had a telly, I wouldn’t need to go out so much. It’s going out that costs the most. You can’t do anything for free in this town, unless you’re ready to pay in other ways.
    She crosses over on to the opposite pavement to turn into Beulah Grove. This side of the street basks in full sun, and it’s like stepping into an oven. She hurries round the corner, crosses over into the shade, suddenly aware that her mouth is parched. One of the Poshes’ kids – Celia, Delia, Amelia, whatever – has dumped a pink bicycle at the foot of the steps up to number twenty-one. I could have that, thinks Cher. Probably get twenty quid for it in the Royal Oak. Some people don’t know they’re born. Some people deserve to get ripped off.
    She passes by, pauses at the bottom of her steps to find her keys, and glances down to see if the net curtains covering the basement window move. If Vesta is back from her holidays, she’ll be looking out: she’s always looking out, constantly on the watch for life passing by her window. But nothing moves. Cher shrugs. She’ll be back soon, she’s sure. She runs up the steps to the front door.
    She smells the Landlord before she hears him. Knows for a fact that he’s been in today, from the aroma he’s left behind: Old Spice and