Looking Good Dead

  He was so worried he’d even discussed her spending problem recently with a friend of his, who had been through counselling for depression after his divorce. Over a few vodka martinis, a drink in which Tom was increasingly taking solace in recent months, Bruce Watts told him there were people who were compulsive spenders and they could be treated. Tom wondered if Kellie was bad enough to warrant treatment – and if so, how to broach it.

  The dickhead started again. ‘Hello, BILL, it’s RON, yeah. Ron from PARTS. YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT! JUST THOUGHT I’D GIVE YOU A QUICK HEADS-UP ON— Oh fuck. BILL? HELLO?’

  Tom raised his eyes without moving his head. No signal. Divine providence! Sometimes you really could believe there was a God. Then he heard the wail of another phone.

  His own, he suddenly realized, feeling the vibration in his shirt pocket. Glancing surreptitiously around he pulled it out then, checking the caller’s name, answered it in as loud a voice as he could muster. ‘HELLO, DARLING,’ he said. ‘I’M ON THE TRAIN! T-R-A-I-N! IT’S RUNNING LATE!’ He smiled at the dickhead, relishing a few moments of deliciously sweet revenge.

  While he continued talking to Kellie, lowering his voice to a more civilized level, the train pulled into Preston Park station, the last stop before his destination, Brighton. The dickhead, gripping a tiny, cheap-looking holdall, and a couple of others in the carriage got off, then the train moved on. It wasn’t until some moments after he had ended the call that Tom noticed the CD lying on the seat beside him which the dickhead had just vacated.

  He picked it up and examined it for any clues as to how to reach its owner. The outer casing was opaque plastic, with no label or writing on it. He popped it open and removed the silver-coloured disc, turning it over and inspecting it carefully, but it yielded nothing either. He would load it into his computer and open it up and see if that provided anything, and, failing that, he planned to hand it in to Lost Property. Not that the dickhead really deserved it . . .

  A tall chalk escarpment rose steeply on either side of the train. Then to his left it gave way to houses and a park. In moments they would be approaching Brighton station. There wasn’t enough time to check the CD out now; he would have a look at home later tonight, he decided.

  If he could have had the smallest inkling of the devastating impact it was going to have on his life, he would have left the damned thing on the seat.

  3

  Squinting against the low evening sun, Janie eyed the clock on the dash of her Mini Cooper in panic, then double-checked it against her wristwatch. 7.55 p.m. Christ. ‘Almost home, Bins,’ she said, her voice tight, cursing the Brighton seafront traffic, wishing she’d taken a different route. Then she popped a tab of chewing gum into her mouth.

  Unlike his owner, the cat had no hot date tonight and was in no hurry. He sat placidly in his wicker carrying basket on the front passenger seat of the car, staring a tad morosely out through the bars at the front – sulking perhaps, she thought, from having been taken to the vet. She put out a hand to steady the basket as she turned, too fast, into her street, then slowed down, looking for a parking space, hoping to hell she was going to be lucky.

  She was back a lot later than she had intended, thanks to her boss keeping her on in the office – today of all days – to help draft briefing notes for a conference with counsel in the morning on a particularly bitter divorce case.

  The client was an arrogant, good-looking layabout who had married an heiress and was now going for as much of her money as he could get. Janie had loathed him from the moment she first met him, in her boss’s office some months back; in her view he was a parasite, and she secretly hoped he would not get one penny. She had never confided her opinion to her boss, although she suspected he felt much the same.

  Then she had been kept over half an hour in the vet’s waiting room before finally being ushered in with Bins to see Mr Conti. And it really had not been a successful consultation. Cristian Conti, young and quite hip for a vet, had spent a lot of time examining the lump on Bins’s back and then checking elsewhere. Then he had asked her to bring the cat back in tomorrow for a biopsy, which had immediately panicked Janie into worrying that the vet suspected the lump was a tumour.

  Mr Conti had done his best to allay her fears and had listed the other possibilities, but she had carried Bins out of the surgery under a very dark shadow.

  Ahead she saw a small space between two cars, a short way down from her front door. She braked and put the car into reverse.

  ‘You OK, Bins? Hungry?’

  In the two years since they had become acquainted, she had grown very attached to the ginger and white creature, with his green eyes and huge whiskers. There was something about those eyes, about his whole demeanour, the way one moment he would nuzzle up to her, purring, sleeping with his head on her lap when she watched television, and another moment he was giving her one of those looks that seemed so damned human, so adult, so all-knowing. He was so right, whoever it was who had said, ‘Sometimes when I am playing with my cat, I wonder if perhaps it is not my cat who is playing with me.’

  She reversed into the space, making a total hash of it, then tried again. Not perfect this time either, but it would have to do. She closed the sunroof, picked up the cage and climbed out of the car, pausing to check her watch one more time, as if somehow, miraculously, she had read it wrong last time. She hadn’t. It was now one minute to eight.

  Just half an hour to feed Bins and get ready. Her date was a control freak, who insisted on dictating exactly how she looked each time they met. Her arms and legs had to be freshly shaven; she had to put on exactly the same measure of Issey Miyake and in the same places; she had to wash her hair with the same shampoo and conditioner, and apply exactly the same make-up. And her Brazilian had to be trimmed to within microscopic tolerances.

  He would tell her in advance what dress to wear, what jewellery, and even where in the flat he wanted her to be waiting. It all went totally against the grain; she had always been an independent girl, and had never allowed any man to boss her around. And yet something about this guy had got to her. He was coarse, eastern European, powerfully built and flashily dressed, whereas all the men she had dated previously in her life had been cultured, urbane smoothies. And after just three dates she felt in his thrall. Just even thinking about him now made her moist.

  As she locked the car and turned to walk towards her flat she did not even notice the only car in the street not caked in pigeon and seagull guano, a shiny black Volkswagen GTI with blacked-out windows, parked a short way ahead of her. A man, invisible to the outside world, sat in the driver’s seat, watching her through a tiny pair of binoculars and dialling on his pay-as-you-go mobile phone.

  4

  Shortly after half past seven Tom Bryce drove his sporty silver Audi estate past the tennis courts, then the open, tree-lined recreation area of Hove Park, which was teeming with people walking dogs, playing sports, lazing around on the grass, enjoying the remnants of this long, early summer day.

  He had the windows down, and the interior of the car was filled with gently billowing air carrying the scent of freshly mown grass and the soothing voice of Harry Connick Junior – who he loved, but Kellie thought was naff. She didn’t care for Sinatra either. Quality singing just didn’t do it for her; she was into stuff like house, garage, all those weird beaty sounds he did not connect to.

  The longer they were married, the less it seemed they had in common. He couldn’t remember the last movie they’d agreed on, and Jonathan Ross on a Friday night was about the only TV show they regularly sat down to watch together. But they loved each other, that he was sure of, and the kids came above everything. They were everything.

  This was the time of each day he enjoyed the most, the anticipation of getting home to the family he adored. And tonight the contrast between the vile, sticky heat of London and the train, and this pleasant moment now seemed even more pronounced.

  His mood improving by the second, he crossed the junction
with swanky Woodland Drive, nicknamed Millionaires’ Row, with its long stretch of handsome detached houses, many backing onto a copse. Kellie hankered to live there one day, but it was way out of their price league for the moment – and probably always would be, the way things were headed, he thought ruefully. He continued west, along the altogether more modest Goldstone Crescent, lined on either side with neat semi-detached houses, and turned right into Upper Victoria Avenue.

  No one was quite sure why it had been named Upper since there was no Lower Victoria Avenue. His elderly neighbour, Len Wainwright – secretly nicknamed the Giraffe by Kellie and himself, as he was nearly seven foot tall – had once announced in one of his many moments of not exactly blinding erudition across the garden fence that it must be because the street went up a fairly steep hill. It wasn’t a great explanation, but no one had yet come up with a better one.

  Upper Victoria Avenue was part of a development which was thirty years old but still did not yet look as if it had reached maturity. The planes in the street were still tall saplings rather than full trees, the red brick of the two-storey semi-detached houses still looked fresh, the mock-Tudor wood beams on the roof facings hadn’t yet been ravaged by woodworm or the weather. It was a quiet street with a small parade of shops near the top, mostly lived in by youngish couples with kids, apart from Len and Hilda Wainwright, who had retired here from Birmingham on their doctor’s suggestion that the sea air would be good for Hilda’s asthmatic chest. Tom held the view that cutting down on her forty fags a day might have been a better option.

  He pulled his Audi into the tight space in his carport, alongside Kellie’s rusting Espace, pocketed his mobile phone and climbed out, grabbing his briefcase and the flowers. The newsagent across the street was still open, as was the small gym, but the hair salon, ironmonger and estate agency were closed for the day. Two teenage girls stood at the bus stop a short way down, dolled up for a night out, miniskirts so short he could see the start of their buttocks. Feeling a distinct prick of lust, his eyes lingered on them for a moment, following their bare legs up as they shared a cigarette.

  Then he heard the sound of the front door opening, and Kellie’s voice calling out excitedly, ‘Daddy’s home!’

  As a marketing man, Tom had always been good with words, but if anyone had asked him to describe how he felt this moment, every weekday night, when he arrived home to the greeting from the people that meant everything in the whole world to him, he doubted he could have done it. It was a rush of joy, of pride, of utter love. If he could freeze one moment of his life, it would be this, now, as he stood in the open doorway, feeling his kids’ tight hugs, watching Lady, their Alsatian, holding her lead in her mouth, hope on her face, stamping a paw on the ground, tail the size of a giant redwood swinging wildly. And then seeing Kellie’s smiling face.

  She stood in the doorway in denim dungarees and a white T-shirt, her face, framed by a tangle of blonde ringlets, all lit up with her wonderful smile. Then he gave her the pink, yellow and white bouquet of flowers.

  Kellie did what she always did when he gave her flowers. Her blue eyes sparkling with joy, she turned them around in her hands for a moment, going ‘Wow, oh wow!’ as if they genuinely were the most beautiful bunch she had ever seen. Then she brought them to her nose – her tiny, pert little nose he had always loved – and sniffed them. ‘Wow! Look at these. Roses! My favourite flowers in my favourite colours. You are so thoughtful, my darling!’ She kissed him.

  And on this particular evening her kiss was longer, more lingering than usual. Maybe he’d get lucky tonight? Or, God forbid, he thought for a moment as a cloud momentarily slid across his heart, she was prepping him for news of some insane new purchase she had made today on eBay.

  But she said nothing as he went in, and he could see no box, no packing case, no crate, no new gadget or gizmo. And, ten minutes later, relieved of his sticky clothes, showered and changed into shorts and a T-shirt, his see-sawing mood resumed its steady, if temporary, upward trend.

  Max, seven years, fourteen weeks and three days old ‘xactly’, was into Harry Potter. He was also into rubber bracelets and proudly sported white make poverty history, and black and white anti-racism stand up‒speak up ones.

  Tom, pleased that Max was taking an interest in the world even if he didn’t fully understand the significance of the slogans, sat on the chair beside his son’s bed in the little room with its bright yellow wallpaper. He was reading aloud, making his way through the books for the second time, while Max, curled up in his bed, his head poking out of his Harry Potter duvet, blond hair tousled, his large eyes open, absorbed everything.

  Jessica, four, had toothache and had gone into a sudden strop, and was not interested in a story. Her bawling, coming through the bedroom wall, seemed impervious to Kellie’s efforts at calming her down.

  Tom finished the chapter, kissed his son goodnight, picked a Hogwarts Express carriage off the floor and put it on a shelf next to a PlayStation. Then he turned off the light, blowing Max another kiss from the door. He went into Jessica’s pink room, a shrine to Barbie World, saw her scrunched-up face, puce and sodden with tears, and received a helpless shrug from Kellie, who was trying to read her The Gruffalo. He attempted to calm his daughter himself for a couple of minutes, to no avail. Kellie told him Jessica had an emergency appointment with the dentist in the morning.

  He retreated downstairs, treading a careful path between two Barbie dolls and a Lego crane, into the kitchen where there was a good smell of cooking, and then almost tripped over Jessica’s miniature tricycle. Lady, in her basket, gnawing tendrils from a bone the size of a dinosaur’s leg, again looked up at him hopefully and her tail gave a sloppy wag. Then she jumped out of her basket, walked across the room and rolled onto her back, tits in the air.

  Giving them a rub with his foot whilst her head lolled back with a goofy smile, her tongue falling out between her teeth, he said, ‘Later, you old tart, I promise. Walkies later. OK. Deal?’

  It had been this kitchen that had sold Kellie on the house. The previous owners had spent a fortune on it, all marble and brushed steel, and Kellie had subsequently added just about every gadget a creaking credit limit could buy.

  Through the window he could see the sprinkler whirring in the centre of the small, rectangular garden, and a blackbird on the lawn standing under the falling water, raising a wing and rubbing itself with its beak. Tiny, brightly coloured clothes hung on the washing line. Beneath them a plastic scooter lay on the grass. In the little greenhouse at the end, tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries and courgettes he was nurturing himself were coming along.

  It was the first year he had ever tried to grow anything and he felt inordinately proud of his endeavours – so far. Above the fence he could see the Giraffe’s long, mournful face bobbing along. His neighbour was out there at all hours, clipping, pruning, weeding, raking, watering, up and down, up and down, his frame angled and bent like a tired old crane.

  Then he glanced at the watercolour and crayon drawings and paintings almost entirely covering one wall – efforts from both Max and Jessica – checking for anything new. Apart from Harry Potter, Max was car mad and much of his art had wheels on. Jessica’s had weird-looking people and even weirder animals, and she always drew the sun shining brightly somewhere in every picture. She was normally a cheery girl, and it upset him to see her crying tonight. There was no new artwork for him to admire today.

  He mixed himself a stiff Polstar vodka and cranberry juice, grinding in crushed ice from the dispenser on their swanky American fridge – another one of Kellie’s ‘bargains’ – with a television screen built into the door, then carried his glass into the living room. He debated whether to go through into the little conservatory, which had the sun on it now, or even go and sit out on the bench in the garden, but decided to watch television for a few minutes instead.

  He picked up the remote and settled down in his sumptuous recliner armchair – an internet bargain he had actually bought
for himself – in front of Kellie’s most recent extravagant e-purchase, a huge flat-screen Toshiba television. This took up half the wall, not to mention half his income when the payment instalments ‘holiday’ expired in a year’s time – although he had to admit it was great to watch sport on. As usual, the QVC Shopping Channel was on the screen, with Kellie’s keyboard plugged in and lying on the sofa.

  He flicked through some channels, then found The Simpsons and watched that for a little while. He always liked this show. Homer was his favourite – he empathized with him. Whatever Homer did the world always dumped on him.

  Sipping his drink he felt good. He loved this chair, loved this room with its dining area at one end and open-air feel with the conservatory at the other. Loved the photos of the kids and of Kellie all around, the framed abstract prints of a deckchair and of the Palace Pier on the walls – inexpensive art that he and Kellie had actually agreed on – and the glass cabinet filled with his small collection of golf and cricket trophies.

  Upstairs he could hear Jessica’s crying was finally subsiding. He drained the vodka and was mixing himself another one when Kellie came down into the kitchen. Despite her worn-out expression, no make-up and having given birth to two kids, she still looked slender and beautiful. ‘What a day!’ she said, raising her arms in a dramatic arc. ‘Think I could do with one of those, too.’

  That was a good sign; drink always made her amorous. He had been feeling randy on and off all day. He’d woken around 6 a.m. feeling horny, as he did most mornings, and as usual he’d rolled over in bed and straddled Kellie in the hope of a quickie. And as usual he had been foiled by the sound of the door opening and the patter of tiny feet. He was becoming convinced Kellie had a secret panic button that she hit to bring the kids running into the bedroom at the first hint of an attempt at sex.