For God's sake, hurry up!
I forced myself to calm down.
It was almost two minutes before I heard: 'I'm ready, Nick.'
'Now listen to me very carefully. Euan is not a friend; he has tried to kill me. Do you understand, Kelly? He has tried to kill me.'
There was a pause.
'Why? I--I don't understand. Nick. I thought he was your best friend.'
'I know, I know, but things change. Do you want to help me?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Then you must do exactly what I tell you. I want you to put your sneakers in your coat pockets. OK, now it's time to go downstairs. I want you to keep the telephone with you. All right?'
'Yeah.'
Time was running short, and so was my money.
'Just remember, you must be very, very quiet, because otherwise you will wake Euan. If that happens, you run out of the house toward the hidey hole--promise?'
'Cross my heart.'
'OK, I want you to creep very, very gently down the stairs. Don't talk to me again until you're in the kitchen; and re member, from now on, what we must do is whisper all the time. OK?'
'OK.'
I heard the door open. As she came out of the room I imagined her passing the bathroom on her left. Ahead of her, up a half-landing and about twelve feet away, would be the door to Euan's room. Was it open or closed? Too late to ask her. A few steps now and she'd be at the top of the main stairs and next to the old grandfather clock. On cue, I heard its slow, ponderous tick-tock; it was like something out of a Hitchcock movie.
The sound receded very slowly: good girl, she must be going down the stairs very carefully. Only once did I hear the creak of a board and I wondered again about Euan's door. Did he usually sleep with it open? I couldn't remember.
At the bottom of the stairs she'd be turning back to the right, heading toward the kitchen.
I tried to imagine where she was but lost her in the silence.
At last I heard the barely perceptible sound of a protesting hinge; that was the kitchen door. I felt a stab of guilt for using the girl like this, but she knew the score well, sort of. Fuck it, the decision was made; I just had to do it. If it worked, fine;
if it didn't, she was dead. But if I didn't try it, she was dead anyway, so let's get on with it.
'I'm in the kitchen, but I can't see very much. Am I allowed to turn the light on?'
It was the loudest whisper I'd ever heard.
'No, no, no, Kelly, you've got to speak very slowly and very quietly like this,' I demonstrated.
'And don't put the light on; that would wake Euan up. Just go more slowly, and listen to me all the time. If you don't understand anything, just ask, and remember, if anything goes wrong or you hear a noise, stop and we will both listen. OK?'
'OK.'
The problem with her being quieter on the phone was that it was harder to hear her. The truck driver had now finished, slamming the phone down and storming into the Burger King. A woman took his place and was yammering to a girlfriend.
The kitchen was two areas knocked into one, the old back room of the house and what had used to be an alley between the cottage and the old sheep-pen wall. The alley had been closed in by a sunroom, with all the kitchen units arranged galley-style in one long range beneath it. There were plants on pedestals and a large circular wooden table in the middle of the area; I hoped Kelly wouldn't knock anything over onto the squash-court floor. Thinking of the night we'd spent 'rescuing' the wood made me shudder at all those years of friendship, trust, and even love. I felt let down, used, fucked over.
There couldn't be much battery time left.
'Everything OK?' I said. I tried hard not to convey any sense of panic, but I knew we would be in trouble soon. If the phone went dead, would she remember what I'd told her to do?
'I can't see a thing. Nick.'
I thought for a few seconds, trying to remember more of the layout.
'OK, Kelly, go very slowly to where the sink is.
Go and stand by the hob.'
'What's that?'
'It's the bit you cook on with saucepans. You see it?'
'Yeah.'
'OK, there's a switch on the right-hand side. Can you see that?'
'I'll look.'
A second or two later she said, 'I can see now.'
She must have switched on the small fluorescent light that illuminated the stove top; she sounded relieved.
'Good girl. Now I want you to go back and very gently close the kitchen door. Will you do that for me?'
'OK. You are coming for me. Nick?'
I wasn't feeling confident about this at all. Should I stop it now and just get her to open the door for me and wait? No, fuck it. He might be getting a phone call any minute about Simmonds's death.
'Of course I am, but I can't come unless you do what I say, OK? Keep the telephone to your ear and very gently close that door.'
I heard the telltale click.
'What I want you to do now is go and have a look under the sink and put all the bottles and things on the table. Will you do that for me?'
'OK.'
There was silence, then a soft clatter as she moved bottles and cans around.
'Everything's out now.'
'Well done! Now, very quietly, read out the labels to me.
Can you do that?'
'I can't.'
'Why not?'
'There's too many things and it's too dark. I can't do it.'
She was sounding under pressure now; there was that wobble in her voice.
Fuck, this is taking too long.
'It's OK, Kelly, just walk over to the light switch by the door and turn the light on. Don't rush. Will you do that?'
'OK.' It sounded as if her nose was stuffed up. I knew the sound so well by now. The next stage, if I wasn't very careful, would be tears and failure.
I heard her shuffling toward the light switch.
'I can see now, Nick.'
'OK, go back and read to me what the labels say, OK?'
'OK.' She moved back to the table. I could hear her pick up the cleaning products.
'Ajax.'
'OK, Kelly, what's the next one?'
Fucking hell, this was outrageous. I held the phone hard against my ear, almost holding my breath as I silently willed her to succeed. I was really pumped; I could feel my heart going. I was writhing like a madman in a straitjacket, twisting and turning in the kiosk, miming Kelly's actions to myself. I looked across at the other booth; the woman who was talking to her friend had wiped the condensation from the glass to get a better view of me and now seemed to be relaying a running commentary. I must have looked like a mass murderer, with cuts and scratches on my face, and my hair and clothes soaking wet.
The loud noise of metal clattering onto wood made me jump.
