Accidents Happen A Novel

CHAPTER FOURTEEN



The football still sat in the middle of the trampoline, waiting for the blond boy to come home and kick it.

Spoilt brat, Magnus thought, looking out of the window onto the gardens at the back of Hubert Street. All these toys, in the garden and in the bedroom. And a scooter too.

He rubbed the red, open pores of his nose, and clicked one more button on the laptop in front of him. ‘Installation five minutes’, said a message popping up. Magnus glanced at the clock.

He sat back on Kate’s swivel chair and pushed his long legs against the wall of the study under her desk.

It had been thirty-five minutes since he’d seen her race off towards Cowley Road, and two minutes less than that since he’d squeezed himself through the ragged brick hole behind her son’s wardrobe. Five more minutes was all he needed.

Magnus looked around Kate’s study, inhaling the faint leftover fragrance of her vanilla hand lotion. He liked it. So much, in fact, that he’d taken some in a little saucer to keep in his room. ‘Brrr, brrr, brrr,’ he parped like a trumpet, clicking his fingers on the table as the installation symbol on her new laptop in front of him read ‘Four minutes and thirty-nine seconds.’ He opened the drawer and took out the photo of her and a man. He’d seen that one before.

‘Brr, brr, brr,’ he sang through his closed lips. Four minutes and three seconds. He stood up and wandered out of the study into the hall, noting that the cage at the far end, across the stairs was open for the first time. That was interesting. He smirked. Silly woman.

Trying to stay one step ahead of him with her new alarm and this cage.

The cage he was right inside.

He turned right and entered Kate’s bedroom.

It wasn’t as tidy as usual today. The bed was made more roughly, a duvet chucked on top, its four corners sprawled randomly, like the limbs of a gunshot victim. Her nightclothes lay strewn on the pillow. Not the usual flimsy nightie with the holes, he noted with interest, but a new long grey T-shirt. He lifted it and pushed his nose into it, inhaling. It didn’t have the same soft silkiness of the other nightie against his bristles, but still. Interesting.

‘Brrr, brrr, brrr,’ he sang, rolling the ‘r’ with his tongue. The fitted wardrobe door was open, with two pairs of jeans hanging over them. Idly, he took a pair down and held them up to his crotch at the mirror. Yup. Too skinny. He placed one hand inside the top of the jeans, and pushed his arm all the way down one leg. Nearly fitted his arm.

As he put them back, the photo by the bed caught his eye. That was new. A black-and-white image of a man and a woman in their fifties looked back at him. The man was handsome, not unlike Magnus, with dark blond hair and glasses, and a small nose. The woman not so much. Her nose was sharp, and she was almost as skinny as Kate. Magnus took out his camera and photographed it. Then he snapped the grey T-shirt on the pillow.

Sighing, he sat on the bed and pulled his long legs up onto the duvet, turning his head to sniff the pillow. He pushed his buttocks and thighs into the duvet and wriggled a little. ‘Brr, brr, brr’ he sang, the tone of his voice becoming falsetto.

Suddenly, there was a click of a key in a lock downstairs.

He sat up abruptly.

No way. The skinny woman was back? That quick?

Standing up quickly, trying to stop his weight creaking the floorboards, Magnus paused to listen. He heard her go to the hall cupboard. Beep beep beep the alarm went as she turned it off.

Have to be quick now.

Walking swiftly, he re-entered the study. ‘Thirty-nine seconds’, the message on the screen said. ‘No problem,’ he murmured in English.

He heard the woman unlocking the door into the kitchen at the back of the house. That meant she’d be walking right under his feet in a second, so he’d have to be careful not to creak the floorboards.

Calmly, he counted down with the computer: ‘three, two, one . . .’, then ejected the disk he had put in the side of her computer. He tiptoed heavily to the door and peered out of the study.

Damn. She had come back out of the kitchen and was running up the stairs.

It was too late now. He wouldn’t make it back to the boy’s room.

Before she reached the top of the stairs, Magnus slipped into Kate’s room. Checking he’d put the photograph back on the table, he laid himself down on the floor, put his hands under her bed frame and pulled himself carefully under Kate’s bed.

A pair of ankle boots with worn-down heels got in his way. He shoved them and pulled his big feet in, away from the edges.

The air was different under here. Warmer, and stale.

Never mind. It wasn’t a big deal. He’d done it before, twice. He’d just stay for a while. He heard her reach the top of the stairs then walk up the corridor. Her humming was interrupted by a mobile phone ringing in her hand.

‘Hello . . . Oh, hi, David. . . I’m so sorry. Give me another twenty minutes. I’ve had a difficult week with Richard and Helen. I’ll tell you when I see you.’

Magnus listened, interested. He didn’t get to hear the skinny woman’s voice that often.

‘When I see you,’ Magnus mouthed under the bed, trying to copy her vowel sounds.

Magnus lay back on the carpet under the bed and stretched out among dusty boxes, and relaxed, holding his nose tight so he didn’t sneeze. It was only twenty minutes.

Of course, ultimately, it was his choice. He could pop out right now and give her a right old fright.

But no.

It wasn’t time for that yet. There was a lot more to do first.