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- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Everything stays the same for the tenants of The Beresford, a grand old apartment building just outside the city … until the doorbell rings… Will Carver returns with an eerie, deliciously and uncomfortably dark standalone thriller. 'A gripping novel laced with humour and cutting character insight … a thrill from start to finish. Expect the unexpected!' Sarah Pinborough 'Equally enthralling and appalling … unlike anything I've read in a very long while' James Oswald 'Ridiculously addictive' S J Watson _______________ Just outside the city – any city, every city – is a grand, spacious but affordable apartment building called The Beresford. There's a routine at The Beresford. For Mrs May, every day's the same: a cup of cold, black coffee in the morning, pruning roses, checking on her tenants, wine, prayer and an afternoon nap. She never leaves the building. Abe Schwartz also lives at The Beresford. His housemate, Sythe, no longer does. Because Abe just killed him. In exactly sixty seconds, Blair Conroy will ring the doorbell to her new home and Abe will answer the door. They will become friends. Perhaps lovers. And, when the time comes for one of them to die, as is always the case at The Beresford, there will be sixty seconds to move the body before the next unknowing soul arrives at the door. Because nothing changes at The Beresford, until the doorbell rings… Eerie, dark, superbly twisted and majestically plotted, The Beresford is the stunning standalone thriller from one of crime fiction's most exciting names. _______________ 'Creepy and brilliant' Khurrum Rahman 'Reminiscent of The Shining … a creeping and perfectly crafted novel tinged with dark humour and malice' Victoria Selman 'A masterfully macabre tale' Louise Mumford 'I stepped into the imagination of Will Carver and it swallowed me whole' Matt Wesolowski 'Magnificently, compulsively chilling' Margaret Kirk 'Fans of Chuck Palahniuk will adore Carver … he is utterly brilliant' Christopher Hooley 'Devilishly dark and maniacally brilliant' Raven Crime Reads 'Slick, stylish ... a sharply crafted and delectable slice of entertaining darkness' The Tattooed Book Geek 'Intense, brilliant, horrific, humorous and everything in between' Liz Loves Books
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i
Just outside the city – any city, every city – is a grand, spacious but affordable apartment building called The Beresford.
There’s a routine at The Beresford.
For Mrs May, every day’s the same: a cup of cold, black coffee in the morning, pruning roses, checking on her tenants, wine, prayer and an afternoon nap. She never leaves the building.
Abe Schwartz also lives at The Beresford. His neighbour, Sythe, no longer does. Because Abe just killed him.
In exactly sixty seconds, Blair Conroy will ring the doorbell to her new home and Abe will answer the door. They will become friends. Perhaps lovers.
And, when the time comes for one of them to die, as is always the case at The Beresford, there will be sixty seconds to move the body before the next unknowing soul arrives at the door.
Because nothing changes at The Beresford, until the doorbell rings…
Eerie, dark, superbly twisted and majestically plotted, The Beresford is the stunning standalone thriller from one of crime fiction’s most exciting names.
THE BERESFORD
WILL CARVER
v
For the hell of it.
vi
‘Some people never go crazy.
What truly horrible lives they must live.’
—Charles Bukowski
CONTENTS
OBITUARY
Jordan Irving, famed screenwriter, director, race-relations activist and philanthropist was discovered dead at his home in the early hours of the morning. Authorities suggest that the influential young filmmaker had taken his own life.
No note was found, though the situation is not being treated as suspicious.
Irving sprung up from nowhere to gain critical acclaim and commercial success with his first screenplay, South of Heaven, after working as a runner and location scout on several independent features.
He joins an illustrious list of performers and artists who were taken on the upswing of their careers at the tender age of twenty-seven. Known widely for his clean lifestyle, Irving did not fall into the usual traps of substance abuse or alcoholism, though he did struggle with his mental health.
He was a notably warm collaborator and passionate auteur, but those close to him have commented that he was increasingly tormented towards the end of his life, believing that he was not deserving of his success.
A hard worker, Irving never rested on his laurels. In his short career, he wrote nine screenplays and was due to direct his third feature, following armfuls of awards in both categories. A catalogue of work that any filmmaker working in the industry for twenty years would be pleased with. It is a stark reminder that this gifted storyteller leaves behind a legacy that is so much more than the hidden desperation of his life and brutality of his untimely death.
PART ONE
ONE
Your daughter brings home Abe Schwartz and you’re pleased.
Not for her.
This guy won’t last. He’s not dangerous or charismatic. He’s not on any of the sports teams. He doesn’t ride a motorcycle or wear a leather jacket.
He’s scrawny and academic and polite. He’s average. He’s normal. He’s nice. What he lacks in charisma, he can’t make up for with enthusiasm.
Yes. Your daughter brings home Abe Schwartz and you’re pleased.
For you.
She drinks too much at a party, and Abe Schwartz is going to put her safely into a cab and walk her back to her doorstep; he’s not even thinking about how he will get home. Maybe he’s not drinking so he can drive her back himself. That’s the kind of thing he’d do.
Abe probably doesn’t like parties, anyway, because other people make him feel anxious and uncomfortable.
Your kid is never going to fall off the back of Abe’s bike at 90mph and shatter her skull or fracture her pelvis. Don’t worry.
And that pelvis won’t be moving into a position to squeeze out a child anytime soon because Abe will double-bag his penis if things get that far, or he’ll shoot a load into his pants. He doesn’t have your daughter bent over in an alley behind the club. That Schwartz guy isn’t knocking anybody up. He’s a safe bet.
Here’s the thing: no parent had to think this. Nobody had to feel pleased for themselves about Abe Schwartz because Abe never dated in school.
By the time he hit university, though, that whole ‘geek’ thing was really taking off.
He got laid. He wore a condom. Just the one. And he didn’t come in his pants.
And he did go to parties and drink and he tried the softer drugs, and he liked them. He still does, occasionally. But he never rode a motorcycle and he never let a girlfriend make her own way home whether she was drunk or not. He fucked in a bed, never outside, and only twice on the floor.
Then he did what was expected of him, which was graduate and obtain a job that he never really wanted, he doesn’t really care about but cannot leave because he has to buy food and pay rent. And he doesn’t want to starve. And he doesn’t want to get evicted.
That’s Abe.
And that brings us up to date.
Abe Schwartz lives in a one-bed furnished flat. An apartment building called The Beresford. The bell rings and he’s the one opening the front door to a stranger.
Before that, he’s dragging a dead body into his room, mopping up blood and asking himself, What the hell just happened?
TWO
Like so many, Blair Conroy was on that long road to the middle. She’d always had good grades, not the best, but high enough to excel without drawing any attention to herself. She was athletic. A distance runner. Fast enough to be competitive – she worked hard – but not enough to have the consistency that a champion requires. She was beautiful in that not-really-trying way and popular without being a bitch to those deemed (by others) to be on a lower social rung.
Blair was always going to do just fine and nobody begrudged her that prospect.
Her parents were the well-meaning, God-fearing type. But pleasant with it. They’d been married forever. Not passionately in love but not merely existing in the same house. There was a love there, a tenderness, boring as it looked to Blair.
She loved them dearly but it was not what she wanted for herself.
They wanted their daughter to excel, to accomplish more in life than they ever had. They were ready for her to leave – as long as she didn’t go so far away that visiting was made difficult.
‘The Beresford,’ her mother had chirped, ‘sounds very posh.’
The rent was low, it was available for immediate occupancy, and there was no need to commit to a lengthy contract. Blair didn’t have the heart to say that she’d only seen pictures and spoken with the landlady on the phone.
She just wanted out of that small-town life, that tiny-world mentality. She wanted the city and noise and thrum of culture and vibrancy of characters. She’d even told herself she wanted jazz, though she definitely did not.
It annoyed her that she agreed with her mother but the old woman was right, The Beresford sounded like a great place to live. The best thing about it was that Blair had paid an insignificant deposit, so all she had to do now was pack her bags and she was gone.
Goodbye, town meetings and church on Sunday and cooing at the year-three dance recitals. So long, baking for the school fete and carolling with the neighbours at Christmas. Fuck you, bridge night and babysitting for the McDowell brats and the goddamned farmer’s market.
See you never, mother.
Blair’s father hardly spoke as he helped to carry the box of books and few bags of clothing to the car.
‘You’re sure that’s everything you need, darling?’ That’s all he said, his eyes screwed up in disbelief and concern.
‘Yes, Dad. The place is furnished. You can come and see once I’m settled.’
He nodded, wanting to believe her.
‘And you’ve packed your Bible, of course,’ her mother chirped in. It wasn’t aggressive. More of a friendly nudge towards the Lord.
‘Dad carried my box of books.’ Blair’s way of not lying to her mother.
Farewell, scripture study group and creepy Father Cahill and Mary Miller’s too-weak tea with too-dry pastries. See you later, CreationFest and the ‘unmissable’ Christian rock concert.
Screw you, Jesus.
It was a tearful but brave goodbye – Blair’s mother was tearful, her father was brave. Blair didn’t want to look in the rearview mirror, her focus was on what lay ahead. She was getting out of that town where she thought she had never belonged, her future started now. But she couldn’t stop herself from glancing. She’d waited as long as she could but there they were, her parents, waiting in the same spot until she disappeared from view, and for a moment Blair felt sad enough to ease her foot off the accelerator.
Just over an hour later and she’s walking up the steps to her new home and ringing the bell. Within ten seconds, the door is opened by a man, thin, late twenties/early thirties – and he’s out of breath.
THREE
The Beresford was old. The kind of building you don’t expect to see near a modern city. A hulking edifice that seems to appear only in sepia photographs or black-and-white newsreel footage. The building had been noteworthy on occasion. In the twenties, it had been home to several writers and artists before they moved on to Paris. In the seventies, it is rumoured that a notorious serial killer had stayed there for almost a month after a murderous spree, avoiding capture. None of this was ever substantiated. Ten years later, a couple fell from one of the top-floor windows.
Look back another hundred years you’ll find a hundred more stories like that. A mafia wedding reception, business conventions, celebrity affairs. And there’s another hundred stories you won’t find anywhere.
New Year’s Eve, 1982. A woman went missing from one of the upper-floor apartments. She was found two days later, frozen and naked on the roof. Nobody could understand how she got up there unnoticed. The cause of death was seemingly an overdose. It was unclear whether it was accidental or not, but suspicions were roused and The Beresford came under some scrutiny.
It changed after that.
The top eight floors remained the same as they always had been. But a new entrance was built around the side of the building to access the lift that would take residents to the upper levels. An antique, art deco design with iron doors you have to shut yourself. The kind you would expect to find in a jazz-age hotel, complete with its own operator.
The third floor was cordoned off for functions, conventions and other events. This was also accessible from the new side entrance.
That left the first two floors. No lift. The original entrance to The Beresford – a discreet doorway that opened into a large communal area. Five apartments. Two up the grand, white stone staircase and three at ground level, including one occupied by The Beresford’s owner and keeper, Mrs May.
She had seen it all. The stories everybody had heard and embellished and mythologised, and the ones that had never left the walls of The Beresford, much like the old lady herself.
The exterior of The Beresford altered over the years. Originally renaissance revival in its architectural style, gothic archways were introduced at ground level. The facade was updated in the mid-twentieth century and the high gables and balconies suggested more German renaissance, while the interior high ceilings felt Victorian. The hodge-podge nature of its styling reflected in the multi-culture of its residents over time.
The Beresford was old. It was grand. It evolved with the people who inhabited its rooms and apartments. It was dark and elephantine and it breathed with its people. Paint peeled and there were cracks in places. It was bricks and mortar and plaster and wood. And it was alive.
FOUR
Flat two is Abe’s place. The entrance is tucked beneath the stairs, which is fine for Abe now, because it means he doesn’t have to summon strength he does not possess to haul a body up to the first floor. Until today, Abe has hated that he has to sleep at street level; it never felt safe to him.
This is the first person Abe has killed. And it was an accident, he thinks. Though the two black marks beneath the dead man’s Adam’s apple suggest it was not. Surely he could have stopped pushing against his windpipe. He could have let him live. Maybe just knocked him out.
Abe panics and checks the body over.
Not breathing. Definitely dead.
He takes his phone from his pocket and opens his internet browser.
He types ‘serial killer body disposal’ and hits the search button.
‘Following each murder, Nilsen would observe a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victim’s body, which he retained for extended periods of time, before dissecting and disposing of the remains by burning on a bonfire or flushing down a lavatory.’
Jesus Christ. Not that. Bathing with them?
Abe Schwartz throws up onto the floor next to the dead guy from flat three.
He tries again.
‘How to get rid of a dead body.’
Search.
Something about Greeks and Romans cremating bodies. Blah blah. He scrolls.
People also ask: can you keep a body at home? The dropdown suggests that this is possible but involves putting embalming fluid into the bloodstream to delay decay. Abe isn’t even sure what he will use to clear up his own vomit. This looks like too much.
He scrolls.
‘Ten Ways To Get Rid of a Dead Body (If You Absolutely Have To).’
Click.
First things first, you have to destroy the teeth, finger/toe prints and the DNA. Abe Schwartz did not learn to ride a bike until he was a teenager, and now he has to pull somebody’s teeth from their skull. Abe Schwartz, whose two main hobbies are reading and masturbating, has to find a tool that will allow him to cut through bone so that he can remove the twenty digits that are easy identifiers of the man who no longer lives at number three.
He’s sweating. He looks at the body, then the door, then back at his phone screen.
Options include:
BURIAL. Too risky.
BURYING A DECOY. So, burying the body ten feet into the ground then burying something four feet above it. Like a dog. But then he’d have to buy a dog and kill it. And what about the digging? Ten feet? Abe’s biceps start to ache if he takes more than three minutes to whack one out.
REUSE A GRAVE. Preferably a recent one. Dig it up and throw your body underneath. Abe was tired just thinking about all this digging.
A sound outside. Abe Schwartz holds his sick breath. Probably Mrs May skulking around in the foyer near the stairs. He’d got rid of the blood, there was only a small patch. He was sure he’d cleaned it up well enough.
The body was going to have to stay in his room until he knew what do with it. Abe put his phone on the bed, grabbed the former resident of number three beneath the armpits and dragged him towards the bathroom. The floor was tiled and would be easier to clean. He took a deep breath and hauled the body over the edge of the bath tub. The head and arms were flopped inside while the legs were still on the outside.
Then the front doorbell rang.
It couldn’t be the police. Not now. Already? Surely not.
Abe Schwartz gave himself a quick look in the mirror and ran his fingers through his hair. He wiped his face and mouth on a towel that was hanging over the door and he went back into the foyer. He had to act normal.
The old landlady was nowhere to be seen. He would open the door. Make it look like nothing important had happened that day.
Through the window he saw a young woman. Similar age to himself, maybe younger. WASPy. He opened the door, still breathing hard.
‘Hello, can I help you?’
Act normal.
‘Hi, er, yes. I’m Blair Conroy. I’m here to see Mrs May.’ She waited. Abe looked at her. A moment of silence. ‘I’m supposed to be moving in today.’
FIVE
Mrs May would joke that she was so old, she knew Jesus the first time around.
‘I’m hanging in for the second coming because he still owes me money.’
It was her icebreaker with every new tenant at The Beresford. Everyone found her charming and Blair was no exception to that rule.
‘So, number two is over there beneath the stairs. That’s Abe, who you met briefly when he let you in. He’s kind of quiet and bookish but a very sweet and reliable boy. You’re upstairs in number five, which is above me. You’re not a tap dancer or anything, are you?’ Mrs May smiled.
‘Oh, no. Nothing like that.’ Blair smiled back.
‘Well, the room next to you is empty at the moment and the kid in the one next to mine is hardly ever around. I can’t think of his name off the top of my head.’
The rates were reasonable for the space you got at The Beresford, and the deposit was so low that, often, tenants would move out or move on without a word and not care about forfeiting the money. The place had something of a turnaround. You could forgive Mrs May for not remembering everyone’s names, but she blamed her forgetfulness or her age, of course.
She handed Blair the key to flat five.
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it. The place is clean and ready to go. I can have a chat with Abe and get him to help you with any boxes you have if you’d like. I’m sure he’d help.’
Good old Abe. Chivalrous Abe. Predictable Abe. Always there to lend a hand.
‘I’m sure I’ll be fine.’ Blair wasn’t sure how accepting help would fit in with her new independent lifestyle.
‘Nonsense. Why don’t you go up and take a look around, and I’ll have a word.’
Blair nodded, gripped the keys to her new home tightly in her right hand and made her way up the stairs. Halfway up she turned back to see Mrs May tottering back to her own place. She must have been in her eighties but her movement was more sprightly than you’d expect.
With the key pushed halfway into the lock, Blair Conroy took a deep breath before forcing it all the way in, turning and opening up to her new life.
Mrs May was right, the place was spotless. The long corridor led into a large kitchen, complete with central island, which had double doors that could open the space out into the living area. There was a coffee machine, wine rack, bowl of lemons and vase of daffodils to dress the white room and give it a splash of colour.
Care and attention had been paid to keep the space neutral in order to appeal to any new resident while illustrating the impact one’s own colour preferences could have. This was not something that was offered ‘upstairs’.
The lounge had a huge bookcase that was only half filled. Plenty of room for the two boxes of literature that Blair had brought with her. Parquet flooring and wooden cladding on the bottom half of the wall made it darker than the white painted wood on the hallway walls. But it was somehow more comforting. And warmer, even when the open fire was not yet roaring. There was nothing she could do about the floral fabric sofas but there was plenty of scope to make the space her own.
She remembered her promise to send a text when she arrived safely, so she took a seat and fulfilled that obligation. Her parents would respond to her within the minute. Blair took that minute to sit back and take in the space that was her lounge. Through the window she could see the light was beginning to disappear from the day and she still hadn’t unpacked her car.
Just a minute to breathe. To take it all in.
Her phone vibrated. Proud parents. They were going out for dinner. They wanted pictures of the place once she was unpacked.
Hello, constant stream of questions from afar. Good day, irritating video calls filled with tech-idiot muting and awkward pauses. Greetings, awkward interrogations concerning the whereabouts of local churches and bible groups.
Blair was looking forward to a few things in that first week: preparing her own meals, leaving the bedroom door open while she got dressed, leaving the bedroom door open while she masturbated but, mostly, it was the lie-in she was going to have on Sunday – every Sunday – by not going to church.
Another buzz.
Another message.
We love you, sweetie.
Blair Conroy was glad to be away from the mediocrity of her hometown. The residents were humble and modest and ultimately caring, and it pissed her off. She knew they weren’t bad but she had always felt outside of it all. And she understood that her parents were not. They were firmly rooted in the pleasantness of everything. Part of her wanted to switch her phone off and ignore them, but they hadn’t done anything wrong. They had looked after her from birth until about two hours ago when she drove away from dependence.
She sent back two kisses.
Then she turned her phone off.
Below her non tap-dancing feet, she felt the vibration of music from Mrs May’s place but couldn’t make it out. Classical. Maybe whale song. Panpipes?
There was no need to think about that, she had to get the things out of her car before it got dark.
Welcome, first night alone.
SIX
BURNING. Logistically difficult and there’s also the smell of dead flesh.
Abe was back in his room and scrolling through his options.
Dissolving in acid. This seemed like the least amount of work. No digging. No bonfire. And all the bath tubs at The Beresford were cast iron, which could hold the acid without eroding. On further investigation, it seemed as though there was no need to surreptitiously purchase industrial-sized barrels of hydrochloric or hydrofluoric acid, because most drain cleaners are corrosive enough to dissolve human hair and skin and, in the right quantities, reduce bone to something brittle enough to be ground into a dust.
Abe Schwartz, who tried to do right his entire life, who lived on the peripheries, who was quiet and kind and thoughtful, had his first seriously dark thought.
He would experiment.
The removal of fingerprints was key, he recalled. Fingers are small. He would use the secateurs that Mrs May pruned her roses with to cut off the fingers – maybe the toes, too. He would obtain the drain unblocker from the cleaning products cupboard, fill the sink and place the twenty digits in overnight. At the very least, it would remove the skin, therefore the fingerprints, and give him an indication of how well this plan might work on the rest of the body.
If it didn’t work, then he’d have to rent a woodchopper or feed it to some local pigs or take it out to sea or cook the flesh and eat it himself. He sniggered at that and didn’t know why.
Abe looked down at his former neighbour, the vomit still on the floor next to him, and he wanted to say sorry. He wanted to say, ‘This isn’t me.’
Not once did he think to call the police and explain what had happened, that it was an accident. Neither did he contemplate phoning his parents and getting the family lawyer involved. He’d probably get off with a moment of madness.
Instead, the likeable Abe Schwartz was panicking and considering how best to cover up his stupid mistake. He was deliberating between burning, burying, melting and eating.
And then there was another knock at his door.
He hadn’t given Blair Conroy a second thought.
SEVEN
It wasn’t the new girl, it was Mrs May.
‘Oh, hello, Abe. Thanks for letting in the new tenant.’
‘That’s not a problem, Mrs May.’ Abe was keeping his door ajar enough to fit his face through the gap, and nothing else. He was already paranoid about the smell, though his old neighbour had only been dead for an hour. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’
‘If you have a spare moment, Ms Conroy has a couple of heavier boxes in her car. She’s a young, modern woman and wants to do it all herself, but I think it might make her feel more welcome if you could give her a hand … if you’re free…’ She let it hang in the air.
Abe looked inside at a dead man.
‘Sure, I mean, I was just reading, anyway. How long do I have? Enough time to finish this chapter?’ He was surprised at how easily the lies were rolling off his tongue.
‘She’s just gone to settle in and look around, so you’ve got ten minutes, I’m sure.’ She didn’t blink.
The newly minted killer of men gave the old lady a nod and a goodbye before she trundled back to her own flat.
Once inside, Mrs May flicked her music on. It wasn’t panpipes. It was the flute. She pottered around, humming along, not really doing anything. She took her teacup from the dining table, poured away the cold remnants of her last brew and shook her head at the pattern of the tea leaves before placing it into the sink.
Her place was the same layout as Blair’s. She poured herself a glass of iced tea from the fridge and walked along the corridor to the living room as though mimicking Blair’s footsteps above.
She fluffed some pillows. Then, when Blair sat down to text her parents, Mrs May sat down to sip at her drink. When a door closed upstairs, the old landlady put on her gardening gloves, grabbed her secateurs and made her way out to the roses that didn’t need pruning.
EIGHT
He went by one name: Sythe. He’d chosen it himself because it means passionate and creative. Mrs May had not forgotten the name of the man in flat number three when she talked Blair through the list of tenants, she just couldn’t bring herself to say his stupid, made-up name. Because, like most people who met Sythe, she thought he was a dick.
He would sign his paintings with that idiotic label, too. And over-wealthy, undereducated dilettantes would lap it up like they’d discovered the next Banksy.
Aidan Gallagher had left home, dropped the accent and reinvented himself as an Irish American expressionist painter. Like so many who arrived at The Beresford, he’d been an outsider in the world he’d been brought up in. He was escaping.
Mrs May’s place was supposed to be a halfway house, but Sythe had entrenched himself so deeply in this new persona that he’d ended up craving the poor artist’s life, even though his earnings had increased exponentially.
Flat three had become his studio. There were canvasses leaning against the walls of the hallway, and the furniture that is provided to every flat had been pushed into the corner and piled up to make way for the easels and trays of acrylics.
He seemed to emerge on the art scene from nowhere. There was an interest in some of his larger, more expressive pieces, but it was an exhibition showcasing one of his portraits that garnered the most interest. A small canvas of a striking black woman was framed on the wall. Her right eye was crying a fluorescent orange tear, which streaked down her cheek and over the frame before trickling down the wall and ending in a small puddle on the gallery floor.
That’s when he made a splash. In the art world, at least. In that city. At that time.
And it had made him even more unbearable.
Mrs May didn’t care. As long as the rooms were filled, she was content. It didn’t matter who anybody was or why they were there. She never asked why they had to leave, she never followed up if they moved on without a word. The rooms were never empty for long.
As soon as somebody was out, somebody else came in.
That’s how The Beresford worked.
Sythe played his music loudly. He would get angry with his work. He would shout at his paintings. He would scream as he put his foot through another canvas or snapped a frame. Mrs May had allowed him some space in the modest, communal garden. A corner for his metal can where he could burn the work that had upset him so much. At least once a week, Sythe was out there setting fire to wood and material, watching it burn as the smoke caused his eyes to water.
He was creative and he was passionate. That part of this character he created was true. He was expressive – maybe even talented – but he was most certainly a dick and, in the end, being an expressive dick is what got him killed.
NINE
Blair took the keys, left the flat and went back downstairs. On the bottom step she could see the ruffled brown hair of the man who had let her in. There was a line of sweat running down the spine of his sensible blue shirt.
She was only a few steps down when he turned around.
He smiled.
Such a kind face.
‘Blair, right?’
‘Yes. And you’re Abe.’
‘Well, now that’s out of the way again, I believe you have some boxes in your car…’ Abe presented his hand, gesturing for his new neighbour to lead the way.
‘If you’re sure it’s no trouble?’ Blair wanted to do things alone, she didn’t want somebody she hardly knew walking around the new home that she had not yet explored fully herself. But she could see that he was just being kind and accommodating. Awkward, but kind.
She considered herself a good judge of character, and Abe looked like the dependable lapdog type.
And Abe hadn’t noticed that small-town smile. He hadn’t clocked the purity and innocence. He didn’t smell the sweet perfume or run his gaze over the contours of Blair’s body. Because all he could think about was the dead one in his flat.
Still, he managed to pull himself together. ‘No trouble at all, m’lady.’
He regretted that as soon as he had said it.
Blair led the way to the car, explaining that there really wasn’t that much to help with but that she appreciated his efforts. She asked how long Abe had lived there and he told her it was almost a year, maybe more, maybe two. He noticed her accent and she told him that she was from a place about two hours north. Abe was from the other side of the city but had always lived around these parts.
‘What about the other guy?’ Blair asked. Abe stiffened, his lower back already in discomfort from the weight of the books.
‘What guy?’ He knew what guy.
‘The one in number three. What’s he like? Mrs May couldn’t even remember his name.’ She grabbed a sports bag from the back seat, which contained most of her shoes.
‘He’s an artist. A painter. Bit of a recluse, you know? Keeps himself to himself.’
‘Oh, very mysterious.’ Blair was intrigued and Abe could tell.
‘Honestly, you could be here for three months before you even catch a glimpse of him.’
He had either quashed her intrigue or piqued her interest, he couldn’t tell.
Blair spotted Mrs May from the corner of her eye. She was outside the front door, wearing a pair of gardening gloves and clipping parts of a rose bush. Or pretending to.
‘You think she’s listening in?’ Blair whispered.
Abe gave a short but genuine laugh. ‘She does like to be kept abreast of everything.’
‘She seems nice enough, though.’
‘Oh, yes. Mrs May is a gem. Very sweet, old lady. A little eccentric at times. I mean, she’s clearly not pruning anything over there, and I have heard some weird noises coming from her apartment. Some of the music she plays is so God-awful.’ He added another laugh but noticed Blair balk a little. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.’
And she could see he meant it.
‘No. No. I’m not offended. Not in the slightest. It’s just that where I’m from, nobody would ever use a phrase like that, you know? God is everything to everyone. But not to me. It’s okay. That’s the thing I wanted to get away from.’
There was a tender moment of silent understanding between the new friends before Abe broke it by saying, ‘Now can we get away from this car because this box of, I’m going to guess encyclopaedias and anvils, is starting to pull on my back.’
They walked back up the front steps, where Mrs May pretended that she hadn’t noticed them outside. Some pleasantries were exchanged but Abe hurried things along to get inside with his load.
For a moment, he forgot that he was now a murderer.
It only took three trips to empty Blair’s car. They stacked the boxes outside her front door and she told Abe that she could get them in herself. That way, she had accepted help but maintained her independence. She hadn’t even looked at her bedroom yet.
‘Thanks for your help, Abe, it was very kind of you. If you need anything in the future – a cup of sugar, help burying a body – you know where I am.’ Blair laughed at herself.
It made Abe nervous and awkward. He wondered whether she really meant the last part. Then he managed to rationalise her words and excused himself so that he could cut the fingers and toes off the artist hanging over his bath tub.
TEN
That morning, there had been another of Sythe’s infamous burnings in the corner of the garden. His paintings had been taking a slightly darker turn, and he wasn’t comfortable with the direction he was heading. He had taken his frustrations out on a canvas, and it had fought back a little. He had snapped the frame, and the splintered wood went through the palm of his left hand, bleeding over the floor and the ruined picture.
He cursed loudly, just as he always did. Then wrapped his hand with a rag, tucked the broken masterpiece under his arm and took it outside so that he could set fire to it.
Twenty-five minutes later, there was a knock at the door, which Sythe answered.
‘Is it you?’ The man was angry.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You. Is it you that is having a fucking bonfire in the middle of the day?’ The middle-aged barrel of a man took a step closer, and Sythe, instinctively, took a step back.
Abe was reading and could hear the commotion.
‘Do NOT try to come in here, sir.’
The barrel wasn’t listening.
‘I’m trying to eat my lunch in peace and I’ve got smoke coming into my house. I can’t even keep my windows open in this weather because someone in this house is always burning their goddamned rubbish.’ He poked a finger towards Sythe’s face on the beat of the last four syllables.
‘Get your finger out of my face.’
‘Get your smoke out of my house.’
Abe stopped reading so he could concentrate on the argument.
‘I’m sorry but who are you?’ Sythe looked disgusted at the sight of the man trying to barge his way over the threshold of The Beresford.
‘I’m a neighbour. I live directly behind your garden.’
‘And what do you do?’
‘What?’ His anger gave way to confusion.
‘What do you do … for a living?’ Such condescension in his voice.
‘What has that got to do with anything?’ The anger was rising again.
‘Because I am an artist. I have a process. And part of that process is editing out the works that are not fit for consumption. In simple terms, I burn the shit. I rip it apart and I set fire to it. Erasing it forever and cleansing myself of it.’
‘Well, you need to be more considerate about when you do it.’ The overweight neighbour seemed to think he was in a negotiation with a rational human being.
Mrs May’s music seemed to get louder.
Abe came out of his flat, a hardback book in his right hand, and perched himself against the wall a little closer to the action. He didn’t know why. Morbid curiosity. Perhaps he was hoping the man from over the fence would punch Sythe on the nose. That would be funny.
‘You’re wrong. You wouldn’t understand. You probably sell insurance or something. The only thing I have to consider is my work. If I need to purge at midday or midnight, that is when I will do it.’ His face was so punchable.
But the complainer was so taken back by the self-importance, it took him a moment to compose himself.
‘Take this as a friendly warning: the next time smoke pours over that fence and into my house, it will be the last thing you ever fucking burn and the first thing I ever stick up your arse.’ And, with that, the barrel turned and rolled back home.
Abe had to stop himself from laughing. Mrs May was still in her flat with the flute blaring.
Sythe shut the door.
‘Everything alright?’ Abe asked, suddenly finding himself out on the open landing between the downstairs flats.
‘Mind your own business, Abe.’ Lost somewhere in the moment, a little of Aidan Gallagher’s accent found its way out.
Abe exhaled in disbelief. ‘Jesus, I was only asking.’
Sythe’s venom had a new target. He paced over to Abe Schwartz and stood close to his face, just as the neighbour had done so threateningly a few moments before.
‘What’s it got to do with you, eh? What do you even do all day around here? You’re always reading some book or another?’ It was as though he’d forgotten he was Sythe at all. Abe was hearing some Irish impersonator.
‘Why are you so—?’
There wasn’t time to think of the correct word before Sythe or Aidan or whoever he was pushed Abe in the shoulder.
‘What the—?’ Again, Abe was stuck.
‘You’re always skulking around, not doing anything. What are you, a spy for old Mrs May?’ He pushed Abe again.
‘Mrs May? What has she got to do with anything?’
Then Sythe slapped Abe around the face. Hard. It may have been residual anger from his last conversation or some kind of pent-up frustration over his artistic failings. Perhaps it was that Sythe was a dick. And he was bigger than Abe, so he thought he could push him around a bit. Sythe had thrust himself, somehow, onto this art scene and he had nobody around him to reel him in, to keep him grounded, like his family did back home in Ireland.
Maybe he thought he was invincible and could get away with anything.
He provoked Abe once more, slapping him with the inside of his bloodied hand. What he didn’t expect was for Abe to lose himself so completely.
The hardback book came straight up, almost sending Sythe’s nose through his skull. His eyes watered and he hurled some obscenities, but Abe was not himself. Soon, they were on the floor. Abe straddled the artist’s chest. He hit the book into Sythe’s face a few more times and pushed downwards with all his force so that both thumbs pressed either side of Sythe’s poisonous windpipe.
There was kicking and gargling and a bloodied nose and the woodwind instrumental from the corner apartment.
Then stillness. And realisation.
The first kill is always the best.
The next time the smoke crept over the fence, it would be Abe attempting to dry out the bones of the man he had just strangled to death.
ELEVEN
‘Jesus Christ!’ Blair held a hand to her heart.
‘I’m sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to scare you.’
Mrs May raised a gloved hand towards her new tenant in apology for sneaking up on her. Blair had two boxes left to drag inside her new home. She wanted to get some books on the shelf, drink a large glass of wine and masturbate with the bedroom door wide open. It wasn’t the most refined of plans but it was what she wanted to do on her first night of freedom.
‘Where did Abe go? He stopped helping you?’
‘It’s okay, Mrs May, I asked him to leave me be. I haven’t even seen all the rooms myself. He helped get the heavy things upstairs. I’m more than capable of taking things inside myself.’ And she smiled that wholesome country-girl smile of hers.
‘Well, if you’re sure. I was going to give him a piece of my mind.’
‘No, no. Please don’t do that. He seems very kind and gracious. The kind of neighbour anyone would want. Really.’
Then Blair found herself in a too-long conversation with Mrs May about nothing. She was too polite to leave the old woman out in the hall but also didn’t want to invite her in. All the time hoping she would go away so that Blair’s freedom plans could be realised. The wine was on the side in the kitchen. Calling her.
‘It’s been a long day. I’m going to get these last couple of boxes in and probably turn in for the night. We can catch up again tomorrow.’
In Blair’s mind, this was courteous. She was making future plans for discussion but she was busy right now. That’s how they’d see it back home – what used to be home. But she was in the city now. And the look on Mrs May’s face made Blair feel as though she had been too abrupt and had insulted the woman who provided her shelter (for a more than fair price).
But she couldn’t hesitate. That would draw attention to her possible mistake. Blair had to ride it out. She edged into her new place, the last two boxes stacked on one another in her arms, an elderly lady in gardening gloves staring at her. Wordless.
‘Goodnight Mrs May,’ she tried.
Nothing.
Blair set the boxes down in the hallway, letting the door close behind her, and waited to hear feet shuffling back downstairs.
She waited some more.
Was Mrs May still waiting out there? Blair was too uncomfortable to look through the peephole. Instead, she bolted the door and pulled the chain across before honing in on the wine.
Her first glass went so quickly, she stopped thinking about the creepy landlady and managed to unpack one box of books. She drank the next large glass in the bath. Washing away her past and the scent of mediocrity.
The bathroom was at the end of the long corridor that stretched from the front door to the back of the apartment. It was the same as Abe’s place, Mrs May’s and the artist formerly known as Sythe’s studio. Wet footprints marked the black-and-white tiles of the hallway floor where Blair had not dried herself off fully.
With the towel wrapped around her, she poured another glass in the kitchen then laid herself down on her new bed, opened the front of the towel and placed her hand between her legs.
She wasn’t worried about the noise but she had closed the door.
She wasn’t quite ready.
She would wake up tomorrow and make new plans.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
It should be simple.
What music do you like?
Well, definitely not Coldplay, I can’t stand them. Their first album was great but they’re awful after that. And no ABBA. In fact, nothing of that ilk from around that era. Or from that part of the world. Everything in the charts is so manufactured and insipid now, too, I prefer to drive in silence these days, rather than have the radio playing.
You want to put a film on?
Not sci-fi. I’m not in the mood for that, at all. And I’m sick of all the romantic comedies coming out of Hollywood at the moment. It’s the same old shit. Even the people in them look almost identical.
Hey, kids, what do you fancy for dinner tonight?
Not stir-fry. We hate stir-fry. And not that horrible pasta sauce you did the other week, either. And definitely not soup again.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
I don’t want to work in an office.
Where do you want to work?
Not a big corporate. But not a start-up, either.
So, a reputable and established independent company?
Not in the city.
Saying what you don’t want, what you don’t like, what you don’t agree with, is so much easier than the opposite. Deciding what you do want, the things that interest you, and standing for something, requires belief.
Belief in yourself.
Belief in something higher.
Not committing to something that you want – no matter how small – does not protect you from never attaining it. It prevents you from ever starting. Leaving you to walk through this thing you call life like it’s purgatory. It is your waiting room for death.
Start small.
Keep it simple.
Have a go or go to hell.
Can you say one thing that you do want?
We want to belong.
TWELVE
Abe often went out into the back garden at night, to smoke weed. The same spot where Sythe burned his awful paintings.
It was funny how the neighbour over the fence had never complained about that.
He liked his new neighbour but she really had arrived at the exact wrong time. He imagined that they could be friends. She was warm and funny. She apparently enjoyed reading, and they both seemed to have an aversion to organised religion. Marriages were built on less than that.
But he couldn’t focus on new friendships right now. Not while the world’s most overrated abstract expressionist corpse was starting to stink up his bathroom. He needed some time to think. And smoke. And be outside of the fear for a moment.
It was cold but Abe didn’t care. The line of sweat running down his back had been widening with every trip up the stairs, carrying a new box.
He was panicking. Did the body already smell? He’d seen enough crime shows to know that bodies start to kick out fluids and odours fairly quickly. And what about Mrs May? Luckily, she hardly saw Sythe, and it was obvious that she wasn’t particularly fond of him. If he wasn’t around for the next week, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. But she must have keys to all the apartments. She owns The Beresford. It’s her business, her livelihood. She can’t have tenants camping out and not paying their rent. What if she goes into Abe’s room to drop off some mail? Very innocent and helpful of her, of course, but she’d be hit by the scent of death. And curiosity would take her further inside the depravity.
Then what? Kill Mrs May? Murder Blair, just to tie up all the loose ends?
This wasn’t him.
This wasn’t Abe Schwartz.
He did not want to go on a killing spree. He just wanted people to leave him alone.
Abe drew in a couple of lungs of smoke, shut his eyes for a moment and held it there before releasing it into the air. A few seconds of calm. He was all alone. He always had been. He liked it that way. Look what happened when you got involved with other people.
A light turned on in the house behind the garden and somebody opened the window. Abe ducked down behind the fence, stubbed out his joint and held his breath. A few seconds later, he heard the window squeak closed and let out his breath.
The Beresford looked huge from his position, looming over him, rounding its back. The red bricks had turned grey and it looked somehow haunted now. The decking was uncomfortable to sit on but Abe stayed, surveying the area.
There was a clear separation between the upper and lower sections of The Beresford. The third floor, when not in use by some company for an end-of-quarter presentation and kick-off party, acted like a dark tourniquet that kept the upstairs levels from touching the section where Abe lived.
A different sound came from the higher floors. It felt edgy to Abe. Things were probably happening on those floors that he didn’t want to know about. He enjoyed being out the back but, at night especially, it felt like those shadowy floors above were pressing downwards and that empty corporate space on level three was the only thing stopping him from being crushed.
Mrs May took such care of the garden. Flowers everywhere. Vegetables growing in raised beds. She had been out the front of the building earlier while Abe had been helping Blair, and he had thought she was just being nosey, trying to listen in. But he could tell that he had been wrong. Mrs May must have continued her pruning out the back of the house because there, resting on an oversized plant pot next to her roses, were her secateurs.
The old dear must have been distracted by something. She seemed a little senile and was probably always misplacing items.
The old Abe would have taken them back immediately for fear that Mrs May would start to worry.
The new Abe thought they’d be perfect for cutting off fingers and toes.
All he needed now was the drain cleaner.
THIRTEEN
Mr and Mrs Conroy soaked up the hospitality of their church group that night. Their friends were sensitive. They were caring. They were the way that all Christians believe themselves to be but many rarely are. The community was their church. Not the building they frequented.
Blair had hated it because she didn’t belong, not because there was anything evil or cultish or untoward. It was perfect. And, to her, there was no beauty in perfection.
No risk.
No passion.
No point.
Just how the Conroys wanted it to be. They went out for dinner with two other married-forever couples. They all had the soup starter. For main course, everybody ate meat apart from Mrs Conroy, who was vegetarian. It was the one thing that set her apart from the others at church and, as such, was the one thing Blair truly respected about her mother.
