The Coop Read online

  Him?

  She thought she saw him smiling to himself, as if he were savouring a private joke, but it may have just been her raging imagination.

  He swapped spectacles, blinking behind thick brown lashes as his eyes readjusted to the stronger reading glasses, picked up an SLR camera and fired off a couple of test shots. The flash blinded her for a moment. When her vision cleared, he was standing over her holding a pair of chrome pinking shears.

  “I don’t want to cut you so lay still.” He knelt beside her and grabbed a fistful of her auburn hair, twisting it like a coil until it tugged at her scalp. “Shall we begin?”

  He lifted the shears, placed them flat against her scalp and began to scissor. Tessa felt the hair fall across her face and for some inexplicable reason began to fret about the expensive home visit of her hair stylist prior to her date. What a waste, she thought as she sank slowly back into the darkness.

  Her hair lay like a red halo around her. Nephilim was pleased, not a nick or scratch, he’d done his preliminary work well. He wished she’d have been conscious to see it and toyed with the idea of adjusting the dose next time. He placed the Bic razor aside and wiped the remaining smears of shaving foam from her bald head. Picked up his cordless trimmers, replaced its long comb with a shorter one, and repositioned himself to work on her lower body. He switched on the trimmer and began his work, then stopped, alert, listening. The skylark was calling again.

  Eleven hours later, when Tessa Hayes staggered naked and traumatised from the River Wandle in Mitcham, she had no recollection of what had happened to her or that she’d been saved by an MMS, video message, from a dead woman.

  The coven

  A single woman living on the top-floor Victorian conversion of a terraced house in the hinterland of Kew, Laura Fell had learnt to be cautious of builders – and men in general. So, she gritted her teeth as she stepped under the shower.

  “Shit!”

  The water was still scalding. Her Polish plumber was supposed to have fixed the thermostatic mixer but had given her a lot of guff about problems with the loft overflow tank, which was rubbish because as far as she knew she didn’t have one.

  Her landline rang. She paused, listening, as the answerphone clicked on. It wasn’t Gina Lewis but Megan Howell’s insistent voice she heard, rechecking the travel arrangements for the evening. It was Megan, a relative newcomer to South West London, who’d suggested they set up their own Chill Out group within FrontRow, a social club for forty-somethings interested in the arts, and since then had become its driving force. Laura ignored it.

  After her shower, Laura stretched out on her bed, swathed in her dusty-pink dressing gown, checking through the holiday photographs on her laptop as she waited for her expensively streaked blonde hair – one of the few indulgences she allowed herself – to dry.

  Ibiza had been fun. It was supposed to have been a walking holiday, staying in pensions on the north of the island. But Gina had a cousin working at Lio, the famous club in Ibiza Old Town, and got them free passes to their Season Finale Party. The other ladies of Chill Out found the idea of clubbing at their age “faintly embarrassing” and declined the offer. Gina could not have cared less and told Laura they’d have a better time without them. Which they did. It was a blast. They may have been ten years older than anyone else but they’d partied as hard, dancing on their chairs and table, even stripping down to their underwear and jumping in the pool to join the bubble bath finale. Later, on their way back to the pension, Gina confided that she’d finally found the courage to stop taking her medication. Laura was concerned but Gina reassured her, telling her for the first time in years she felt truly happy and at peace with herself.

  Laura sighed at the memory and stretched back onto the fresh cotton duvet. She liked the bed. It was big enough for sex but not overly comfortable for two people to sleep in. Perfect for her, since she was wary of that kind of intimacy. Even as a child she’d been uncomfortable with overt shows of emotion and instinctively mistrusted their proponents. Growing up in Kenya at the fag-end of British colonial rule, her magistrate father had epitomised everything she longed for in a partner: strength and integrity. She remembered him locking her in a Malindi jail, with nothing but a mattress and a slop bucket, for stealing a melon from a market vendor. She was seven years old and terrified. But it was only for a half an hour and afterwards she respected and loved him more for it.

  She reached for her mobile on the shabby-chic bedside table, one of her better purchases from eBay. She didn’t care if it was described as pine but in reality, was painted MDF; it looked beautiful and matched the old lace colour of the walls perfectly. Even though they would have to be redecorated if the ugly cracks fracturing the plaster below the sash window were confirmed as subsidence. Shunting the concern to the back of her mind, she dialled Gina Lewis’ number again. It rang and rang, unanswered. Finally, she gave up and texted her instead.

  She tossed the mobile on the bed, slipped out of her dressing gown and stood naked in front of the Cheval mirror. Her twice-weekly Spinning and Aerotone workouts showed. Perhaps an inch or two taller than she’d have preferred, and with wide swimmer’s shoulders, she still looked lean and fit. She massaged her breasts and stomach with cucumber aloe vera body lotion and thought about how she’d love to have a family of her own. Be like her mother and father and live her life through her children. But she was thirty-nine and that dream was long gone, along with her parents…

  And her closest friend in the world, Gina Lewis.

  It had taken Nephilim over an hour to dump Tessa Hayes – too long he knew – and now the traffic was backed up along Wimbledon Parkside and he didn’t know an alternative route to Gina’s. He wanted to scream, to smash something, someone. He bit down on the leathery weal on the back of his hand until the urge subsided into the pain. It was a trick he’d learnt from his childhood to help him cope with the dark nights in the coop.

  There was a road fifty metres ahead on the left. God knows where it went but anything was better than this. He inched the Mercedes out for a better look. The rain and the headlamps of the cars bearing down on him made it impossible to judge the distance, but he had no other option. He went for broke.

  The driver of the Ford Fiesta heard the screaming engine, looked back in alarm, and literally stood on his brakes as a madman slewed in front of him, narrowly missing an oncoming bus before disappearing down Queensmere Road.

  But hitting the T-junction at the end of the road, Nephilim realised he was lost. A sign pointed to the Wimbledon Tennis Museum but he had no idea where the stadium was in relation to Haydons Road. He pulled over to check Google Maps on his mobile and gasped as the screen glowed again with Gina’s MMS video. He knew he should have deleted it earlier, but he was drawn again, moth-like, to it.

  His eyes brimmed as he watched Gina tighten the nylon ligature around her neck, stare into her iPhone camera as she positioned herself, then jerk violently back as she stepped off the table, her puce face contorting as she held grimly onto the mobile.

  A car horn sounded behind him. He couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear or feel anything but his own agony. She’d done it to hurt him. Sent it to him to hurt him. Why? He loved her. She’d taught him what love was. Real love. Not slut love, doled out like a bargaining chip–

  “Hello?”

  The SUV driver tapped on the window with the heel of his golf umbrella and mimed for him to open up. He slid down the glass. The driver pointed to a sign on his electronic gates.

  “Is that not big enough for you?”

  It read:

  DO NOT BLOCK THIS DRIVEWAY

  “Move. Now. Please.”

  He was a city type in a nice suit, confident and authoritative. Nephilim wanted to get out and kill him. Kick him to death on his precious driveway. Make him suffer like he was suffering. But he didn’t have the time. Gina, his dove, was the priority.

  “Are you deaf or–?”

  He wasn’t expecting the punch. He top
pled forward onto the car, leaving a slurry of blood on the door as he disappeared from view.

  Only a few hundred metres away, Laura Fell and five members of Chill Out were meeting in a snug upstairs room of The Telegraph, a large country-style pub loved by the locals, hidden in the heart of Putney Heath, although tonight the atmosphere was anything but cosy.

  Megan Howell sat ramrod, in a green cashmere twin-set, at the top of the table, fixing the diners with a mile-long stare, unhappy that the meal had started without her and her driver, Laura.

  “You should have phoned,” chided Frieda Cole, whose grey hair and sensible clothes belied her bone-dry sense of humour. “You were the one that insisted we eat early.”

  “I couldn’t get a signal.”

  Frieda smiled solicitously and shovelled another portion of mushroom risotto into her mouth, signalling an end to her part in the discussion. But Megan, bridling at what she perceived as a challenge to her authority, felt obligated to have the final word.

  “And I wasn’t late, although I’m not blaming Lolly.”

  Lolly? groaned Laura to herself. Christ. Why does she have to make everyone sound like a character out of a Victorian bloody novel? Even her dogs are called Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak.

  “She was waiting for the elusive Mr Hart,” continued Megan.

  Solicitous smiles were offered. Laura tried to ignore them. She’d met Don Hart at Rendezvous, a dating club for “mature singles” run by his ex-wife, which she always thought a bit strange. But ever the pragmatist, and good-looking and available men in their forties being in short supply, Laura had let it go. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t. Don had grown jealous of her friends, calling them “the coven” and Megan “Akela” – although he’d never dare say it to her face.

  “So, where is he?” whispered Frieda from behind her large glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.

  “God knows.” Laura shrugged. “I expect he’ll phone later with some lame excuse.”

  In the past, she’d endured Don’s erratic temperament, since berating him never seemed to change anything and she wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. On the surface, he appeared an easy-going and charming man, but underneath lurked a well of resentment. Once, she’d made a jokey enquiry about how he ended up living in “leafy Mitcham” and he nearly bit her head off: “Because, Laura, when you’ve been screwed over by women twice, you can’t afford leafy fucking Kew!”

  “What happened to Colin?” Laura said, attempting to change the subject.

  “He cried off because he thought Don was coming,” explained Frieda, who rather liked Colin Gould, having known him for years and accepted him for what he was. A serious man, muted in every way. A man who chose his words as carefully as he chose his clothes and friends – of which Don Hart was definitely not one.

  “Did you have a row? Has he spoken to Gina?” interjected Megan. “I mean, it’s a bit odd, both of them just not turning up?”

  “Megan. You’re not suggesting they’re having a fling?” Frieda grinned wickedly.

  Megan pursed her fecund lips into a small O of indignation and replied, “Of course not. Gina’s Laura’s friend. She’d never do something like that. It’s just that I phoned them both before I booked the table and they confirmed they were coming.”

  Megan had never really trusted Gina Lewis, thinking of her as flaky, and her absence tonight was a prime example. But it was more than that. Gina’s capriciousness reminded her of someone. Someone who had ruined her life, who she’d moved to London to forget, and was now stalking “Miss Kitty Licker” by phone and online.

  “Anyone want another drink?” Megan enquired, putting an end to the conversation.

  “Just a small Sauvignon. Chilean,” said Frieda, who was already on her second.

  “No one else?”

  Barely waiting for a response, Megan disappeared back down the stairs into the lounge. It was a quiet night, with only a few of the well-to-do locals occupying the comfortably battered sofas around the open fire. The young barman, with the fashionably lop-sided haircut, dragged his attention from the Sky TV football and turned towards her with a well-worn smile as she approached. She ignored him. Made her way into the Ladies, locked the door behind her and threw up violently into the lavatory.

  There was blood in her vomit.

  Nephilim parked on Garfield Road and walked up the path, bordering the empty windswept park. An old guy, walking an even older dog, was taking a fag break on one of the swings in the playground but never looked up as he passed. He turned left onto Caxton Road. The street looked quiet. Most of the commuters had already made their way home and, it being Monday, settled in for a quiet night in front of the television. He pulled the hood of his windcheater further down over his face and made his way towards number sixteen. Pushed open the gate and walked purposefully towards the racing green door. But, in his haste, he’d forgotten the infrared security lamp. He slipped out of its amber spill and, pulling on a pair of latex gloves, picked his way down the gravel path towards the back garden. Reaching over the wooden gate, he slid the bolt and eased inside, shutting and bolting it quietly behind him.

  The garden backed onto the railway siding, but the feather-edge fence adjoining the next garden was barely five feet high, forcing him to creep in the shadows to the back door. The wooden hedgehog boot brush, his present to Gina, was still there, as was the key hidden beneath it. He unlocked the door, removed his shoes, left them on the mat outside and let himself into the kitchen. Every surface gleamed. Every utensil, ornament and piece of crockery was perfectly arranged. The room was, like Gina, immaculate, and gave no clue to the horror that he knew awaited him next door. In his mind, he could smell her as he forced himself towards the lounge. He’d smelt death before in the battery on killing days; that faint, sickly sweet aroma of raw meat. But as he opened the door there was no odour, only his beautiful Gina, hanging like a Christmas turkey in a butcher’s shop.

  He began to cry. He wanted to cut her down and make her perfect for whoever found her. But he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t touch her or leave any trace of himself. He knelt below her, retrieved her mobile phone and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He took a moment to composed himself, then stood, scanning the lounge for any other incriminating evidence. There was none. He walked out of the room and shut the door quietly behind him, as if not to disturb her sleep.

  Laura Fell made her excuses and left The Telegraph early. Half the group, including her so-called partner, Don Hart, hadn’t turned up, and those that had spent the evening sniping at one another. She was relieved to be out of it and not to have to ferry Megan home. Who, feeling impelled to make a statement, even at a cost to herself, had decided she’d “get some air” and walk back to her Upper Richmond Road flat.

  Laura was checking her texts as she drove down Wildcroft Road towards Putney Hill – still nothing from Don – when she heard the sound of an approaching siren. An ambulance screamed up Putney Hill, blazing blue light and yelping sirens, and straight through the red traffic lights ahead of her. Laura jumped her light as it turned amber, praying there wasn’t a camera. The ambulance, a hundred metres head of her, careered around Tibbets Corner and disappeared down Parkside. And for some inexplicable reason, she’d later call fate, she thought of Gina, and instead of turning right onto the A3 and heading home to Kew, she followed the siren’s call.

  The ambulance turned off Parkside and onto Queensmere Road; not the route to Gina’s. Laura drove past feeling foolish. Why had she panicked about Gina? Was it what Megan had insinuated about her and Don Hart? No, that was ridiculous. Still, she reasoned, she’d come this far… She made her way through the village and down Wimbledon Hill. Passed the ugly sixties facade of Elys department store and the smokers huddled for warmth in the pub doorways of the town centre. The New Wimbledon Theatre billboards proudly announced Sinderella, their pre-Christmas adult pantomime starring Jim Davidson. One to miss, she thought, and swung a left in the direction of Haydons Road.
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  Nephilim had begun to breathe a little easier. He’d found Gina’s iMac and discovered nothing else incriminating apart from a pink latex vibrator under her bed. Which he’d taken, not for sexual gratification but to protect her dignity and reputation. But where was their photo album? He’d given it to her on her birthday and she’d cried with joy and kissed him gently on the lips in thanks. It was then they felt the frisson between them. Not born out of lust but something deeper, purer, something he’d never felt before. Love.

  He found the album in her leather shoulder bag hanging on the inside of the wardrobe door. It still smelt of roses. Of her. A small downy white feather floated from between its leaves as he flicked through the photographs, and landed on his trouser leg. He barely noticed it. His mind was on happier times – now all gone. He blinked the bitter thought away and closed the album. He was safe. That was all that mattered for now. He could grieve later. He tucked the album and laptop under his jacket and made his way swiftly out onto the landing and down the stairs. Halfway down he froze.

  The security light had flared on outside. He could see the top of a woman’s streaked blonde hair through the doors fanlight glass. She began rapping the brass knocker.

  “Gina. It’s me. Laura. Are you home? Gina!”

  He was holding his breath, praying she didn’t look through the top of the door and see him. He crouched down on the stairs, out of her line of sight.