The Hiding Place(15)



I can hear something too. Faint but persistent. An odd rustling, clicking sound, like air in the pipes. I stand and listen. It’s coming from the bathroom. I push open the door and pull on the tattered old light cord. The light flickers on with an irritating low hum, like a dying mosquito.

The cold is worse in here. The noise is louder too. Not air in the pipes. No. That clicking, skittering sound is something else. Something more familiar. Something more…alive. And it’s coming from the toilet.

The seat and lid are down. Not because I am in touch with my feminine side but because I have a slight phobia of open holes. Drains, overflows. Any hole in the ground. Last night, before bed, I went around and placed all the plugs in the plugholes. Now, I reach forward and tentatively lift the toilet lid.

“Shit!”

I leap back, so fast I almost lose my footing and crash to the floor. Somehow, I manage to grab hold of the sink and keep my balance. I don’t have such great control over my full bladder. A spurt of warm urine trickles down my leg.

I barely notice. The inside of the toilet bowl is moving. Teeming with a mass of small, shiny black bodies. Clickety-click-clicking as they scurry around, like a moving sea of excrement.

“Christ.”

A shiver of revulsion ripples through me. Along with the faint echo of a memory: It’s the shadows. The shadows are moving.

I lean on the sink, breathing heavily. Beetles. Fucking beetles.

After a moment I step forward and raise the lid again. The swarming increases, like they sense I’m here. A couple make a break for it and start to scramble up toward the rim. I hastily slam the lid back down, trapping them between the two bits of plastic. They crack with a satisfying crunch.

How the hell did they get in there? The bowl must be dry so they’ve come up the pipes, but still? I reach for the bleach, take a deep breath, flip the lid once more and squirt the whole bottle down the toilet, drenching the scuttling insects.

The chittering and skittering increases. Some scramble up the side of the bowl. I grab the toilet brush and force them back down. Then I flush the toilet. Again and again until the cistern groans and there’s nothing left in the bottom but a small scum of water and a few floating black corpses. Just for good measure I grab some toilet paper and stuff it down the waste pipe to plug it up.

I sit down on the edge of the bath, or rather my legs give and the edge of the bath rises to greet me with a hard bump. Beetles. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My heart is hammering. I’m sweating, despite the cold. I need a drink, and a cigarette. But more than that, I need a fix. For the first time since I arrived here. For the first time in a long while. I need something to calm my nerves and steady my shaking hands.

I fumble in my pocket for my phone. BT isn’t coming to install broadband until next week, but I have 3G. Just. Online is second, even third best. But like an alcoholic reaching for the rubbing alcohol when every other bottle has been drained, needs must.

I bring up a web page. “Vegas Gold,” it declares in appropriately glittery gold writing. The irony of playing “Vegas Gold” while sitting on the edge of a mold-encrusted bath in jeans wet with urine is not lost on me. My thumb hovers over the link.

And that’s when I hear the crash from downstairs.

“What the hell?”

I hobble as fast as I can back down the narrow staircase and into the living room. A blast of cold evening air smacks me around the face. The curtains tussle and grapple in the wind. A jagged hole gapes in the living-room window and shards of glass litter the floorboards. Tires squeal, an engine revs and the high-pitched whine of a moped fades into the distance.

In the middle of the room I spot the source of the damage. A brick with a piece of paper wrapped around it, secured with a rubber band. How original.

I walk forward, kicking the slivers of glass out of my way, and pick up the brick. I unpeel the paper. It’s thin and lined, torn from an exercise book. As welcome messages go, it leaves something to be desired: FUCK OFF CRIPLE.





7





You know you’re getting older when the police are getting younger. I’m not sure what it says about you when the police are getting smaller.

I stare down—way down—at PC Cheryl Taylor. At least, I think that’s what she said her name was. Her tone is brusque, her demeanor cool. I get the impression she would rather not be here. Perhaps I’m keeping her from a major heist, or the evening takeaway run.

“So, you say someone threw the brick through your window at approximately 8:07 this evening?”

“Yes.”

Approximately one hour ago, so whoever did it is long gone by now. Still, at least it gave me the chance to change my jeans.

“Did you see anything?”

“I saw a large red house brick in the middle of my newly air-conditioned living room.”

She gives me a look. It’s one I’m familiar with. I seem to get it a lot from women.

“I meant anything else?”

“No, but I heard a moped accelerating away.”

She makes some more notes then she bends down and picks up the house brick.

“Do you need to bag that or something, check for fingerprints?”

“This is Arnhill, not CSI,” she says, putting it down again.

“Oh, right. Of course. Sorry, for a moment there I thought you were interested in catching whoever did this.”

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