wonder about the strange noise from the exhaust, gradually realize that the floor was wetly tacky and that there was a smell that hadn’t been there before. That was what she had to get into this chapter, she thought, as she started typing again. When Tina and her DCI went down through the back of the coffee shop after a long and bad-tempered fruitless watching session, the terrible realization that the next murder victim was already lying dead and cruelly mutilated inthe cubbyhole beneath the stairs would have to seep into their senses like the stench of rotting river water.
It was close to midnight when Melanie finished working for the day. The heating had gone off hours ago and her fingers were starting to set into cold curves over the keyboard. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and her stomach was telling her it was painfully empty. Down in the kitchen she opened the fridge and found a big slab of Cheddar, which she grated over a couple of thick slices of bread. She shoved the lot under the grill and poured herself a generous and well-earned glass of red wine. Outside some kind of animal life skittered about and a cat yowled a raucous warning to an invading creature in the garden. Mel sat rigid at the table, not looking at the uncurtained window and waiting for her heart to stop pounding. That was the problem with writing about the most terrifyingly gruesome things that could happen, you never stopped imagining the worst. What was important, she told herself as she switched the grill off and topped up her wine glass, was to switch her mind off along with the computer. Tina Keen and the macabre, murderous world she inhabited were only pretend. Really.
Four
Melanie had left the radio tuned to Radio Four and when she returned home and switched it on she could trust it not to be blaring out Chris Tarrant at full volume. She also knew that if there’d been bread in the cupboard before she went out to the gym in the morning, she’d be able to have toast when she got back. These small truisms occurred to her as she got into the car and chucked her bag onto the back seat. Superficially trivial facts like these represented significant milestones – with Rosa occupying the house no such things could ever be counted on. No item of food was safe, no last half-inch of milk, no final scrapings from the marmalade jar or sticky crystals from the bottom of the sugar bowl. Before, when Mel had gone out in the morning, she’d had to gamble with herself whether it was worth calling in to the corner store to do a quick restock in case she felt acute exercise-induced near-starvation after her workout and swim. There’d be that nagging thought in the back of her head that in the cupboard the loaf was down to barely more than a drying heel – just enough for a desperate snack – but only for one. Rosa, who, when Melanie leftwould have been fast asleep and dead to all but her dreams, would be up before her mother got back, scavenging the kitchen for something sweet and filling. Toast, with honey, jam or marmalade, was what she craved on waking. And back into the fridge would go an empty, scraped-out jar, back in the cupboard would go the bread wrapper containing only crumbs. Empty banana skins would be replaced to blacken and seep their sweetly rotting aroma on top of the fruit bowl.
‘At least she puts things away,’ Sarah had commented, watching Melanie one day as she discovered a pair of completely empty ketchup bottles in her store cupboard. ‘Mine just leave everything scattered around like a burglary gone wrong.’
‘I wouldn’t call it “away”,’ Mel had replied. ‘Throwing the empties in the bin would count as “putting away”. I blame all that emphasis on recycling and conservation at school – she finds it just about impossible to consign anything to the trash.’
Today Melanie had left the kitchen as tidy as a show house. And when she got home it would, so long as robbers hadn’t come ransacking, be just the
It was close to midnight when Melanie finished working for the day. The heating had gone off hours ago and her fingers were starting to set into cold curves over the keyboard. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and her stomach was telling her it was painfully empty. Down in the kitchen she opened the fridge and found a big slab of Cheddar, which she grated over a couple of thick slices of bread. She shoved the lot under the grill and poured herself a generous and well-earned glass of red wine. Outside some kind of animal life skittered about and a cat yowled a raucous warning to an invading creature in the garden. Mel sat rigid at the table, not looking at the uncurtained window and waiting for her heart to stop pounding. That was the problem with writing about the most terrifyingly gruesome things that could happen, you never stopped imagining the worst. What was important, she told herself as she switched the grill off and topped up her wine glass, was to switch her mind off along with the computer. Tina Keen and the macabre, murderous world she inhabited were only pretend. Really.
Four
Melanie had left the radio tuned to Radio Four and when she returned home and switched it on she could trust it not to be blaring out Chris Tarrant at full volume. She also knew that if there’d been bread in the cupboard before she went out to the gym in the morning, she’d be able to have toast when she got back. These small truisms occurred to her as she got into the car and chucked her bag onto the back seat. Superficially trivial facts like these represented significant milestones – with Rosa occupying the house no such things could ever be counted on. No item of food was safe, no last half-inch of milk, no final scrapings from the marmalade jar or sticky crystals from the bottom of the sugar bowl. Before, when Mel had gone out in the morning, she’d had to gamble with herself whether it was worth calling in to the corner store to do a quick restock in case she felt acute exercise-induced near-starvation after her workout and swim. There’d be that nagging thought in the back of her head that in the cupboard the loaf was down to barely more than a drying heel – just enough for a desperate snack – but only for one. Rosa, who, when Melanie leftwould have been fast asleep and dead to all but her dreams, would be up before her mother got back, scavenging the kitchen for something sweet and filling. Toast, with honey, jam or marmalade, was what she craved on waking. And back into the fridge would go an empty, scraped-out jar, back in the cupboard would go the bread wrapper containing only crumbs. Empty banana skins would be replaced to blacken and seep their sweetly rotting aroma on top of the fruit bowl.
‘At least she puts things away,’ Sarah had commented, watching Melanie one day as she discovered a pair of completely empty ketchup bottles in her store cupboard. ‘Mine just leave everything scattered around like a burglary gone wrong.’
‘I wouldn’t call it “away”,’ Mel had replied. ‘Throwing the empties in the bin would count as “putting away”. I blame all that emphasis on recycling and conservation at school – she finds it just about impossible to consign anything to the trash.’
Today Melanie had left the kitchen as tidy as a show house. And when she got home it would, so long as robbers hadn’t come ransacking, be just the
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