The Woman Next Door(28)
But we still need to find a way to move this huge thing.
My mind’s eye roams around the garage, where Terry kept all sorts of things from his decorating business. And then, bingo, I have an idea. There’s a sort of metal trolley there, under some boxes, I think. He used it to move heavy paint cans and whatnot. I’m sure it’s just about big enough to fit this onto.
I’m about to tell Melissa when the doorbell shrieks, unnaturally loud.
We stare at each other, mouths fish-like, gaping. Who is it now?
It rings again and again, insistent and bossy. The letterbox rattles. Why can’t the world leave us alone?
‘Lissa? Honey, please talk to me,’ says a familiar husky voice. ‘I know you’re in because all your windows are open.’
Saskia. That damned woman, again.
We have to get rid of her. I start to rise and Melissa’s hand shoots out, grabbing my arm in a painful grasp. Her eyes are wide as she mimes a shushing motion.
‘Look, I’m not going away,’ says the nightmare creature on the doorstep. ‘It’s just me. And I’m staying here until you talk to me.’
I don’t know where the image comes from but for a moment I picture her wrapped in plastic too. Silent for once. Compliant. The image brings a thrill of satisfaction. But no, there are too many people who would miss her, not least that alarming man-child she drags around the place.
Melissa gets decisively to her feet, ripping off the gloves and throwing them onto the table. For a second, I think she’s gone quite mad, because she suddenly ruffles her hair with both hands and rubs her eyes fiercely. She stalks out of the room without giving me a second glance. I confess my heart is in my mouth as I hear her open the front door. What is she doing?
‘Honey!’ The voice seems to fill the hallway. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘Yeah,’ says Melissa in a very weak voice that I can only just make out. ‘I’m sick, Tams. I ate some prawns late last night that had been out in the heat all day. I’m not ignoring you. I’m just … not well.’
‘Let me come in and look after you,’ says Saskia.
Melissa’s acting performance slips slightly for a second as she squeaks, ‘No! I mean there’s really no need!’ Then, more calmly. ‘I just want to sleep, honey. We can catch up later, yeah? And don’t worry about Nathan and the Hester thing. I’m sure she’ll see the funny side. Eventually.’
This hurts me, I don’t mind saying. I know she is only acting but it still rankles.
‘Okay darling,’ says Saskia at last, reluctantly. ‘You go back to bed. I’m so sorry about Nathan’s idea of a joke. I’ve told him he’s in the fucking doghouse for a year.’ She gives one of her trademark deep laughs and I hear Melissa laughing too. She really is a very good actress. It’s not half an hour ago that she was virtually hysterical.
I think it’s only now that I understand this could all work out okay. Between my common sense and her ability to put on a front, well, we really are quite a team.
There’s a flurry of ‘love you, babe’s’ and other nonsense, before the door closes and Melissa comes back into the room.
She straightens her hair and regards me coolly.
‘Right, so you need to get your van into my garage. I’m going to move my car out the front. We’ll get … him’, she nods at the plastic chrysalis on the floor and I see her swallow deeply before continuing, ‘into the van. Then we’ll look up that place you talked about.’
An hour later we’ve made real progress.
The trolley proved to be a godsend in terms of transporting it from the kitchen. But getting the body and then the trolley into the van itself was a lot more difficult, and with all the pushing and shoving I think I may have pulled a muscle in my back. Between us, though, we managed it.
Thankfully, most of the decorating stuff in the van had been cleared out and there is a decent space. Terry mainly used it for his fishing gear after he retired, but once he was gone from my life, I did a proper tidy.
When the doors are nicely closed up again, a sort of euphoric relief takes hold of both of us. I think it’s because we don’t have that horrible sight in front of us anymore. Truly, anything seems possible now.
We go to work in silence with a bleach-based detergent and cloths, scrubbing the floor tiles, arms pumping back and forth in unison. I really do feel a sense of camaraderie as we scrub and scrub. From television I know all about Luminol and how the police can find the tiniest splash of blood; but they would need a reason to look in the first place, wouldn’t they? People may have seen Jamie here, but he clearly had no settled lifestyle and there would be no reason to suspect Melissa’s part in any perceived disappearance. Who would suspect a woman like her of murder?
After we’ve finished, Melissa gets on the phone to Tilly and tells her she is going away for a night to visit an old friend whose mother has just died of cancer.
Unfortunately, I can hear from this one-sided conversation that Melissa is having problems convincing her daughter of this story.
‘Why would you have heard of her before now?’ she says and, after a pause, ‘You don’t necessarily know all my old friends, do you?’ and, ‘Of course I have old friends, don’t be cheeky.’
When she finally comes off the phone she looks pale. I persuade her to eat the sandwiches I have been making during her conversation. She gives me a very strange look as I offer the plate, and it’s only when I say, ‘If you go fainting on us, it really could draw the wrong sort of attention,’ that she eventually reaches for one and takes a couple of small bites, chewing as though her mouth is filled with sand.