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above the trees.
Then you see Mrs Jamieson coming though the gate from the road and up the
garden path and you duck down, walking quickly to the door and the top
landing. You listen to the front door opening.
Mrs Jamieson comes in and goes through to the kitchen. You remember the
creaking stairs. You hesitate
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Complicity for a second, then walk normally to the stairs and go down them
with a fairly quick, heavy tread, whistling. The steps creak.
'Murray?' Mrs Jamieson's voice calls from the kitchen. 'Murray, I didn't see
the car - '
You reach the foot of the stairs. Mrs Jamieson's white-haired head appears
beyond the banister rails to your right, her face turning to you.
You swing round, seeing her start to react, mouth dropping. You already know
what you're going to do, how you're going to play this, so you punch her,
knocking her down. She collapses to the floor, making little flustered,
bird-like noises. You hope you didn't hit her too hard. You haul her up and
keep your hand over her mouth as you drag her upstairs.
You pin her on the divan base and stuff a handkerchief in her mouth using the
handle of the Stanley knife, then pull a pair of her tights over her head, tie
them round her neck and mouth and put her inside the old, heavy wardrobe in
the main bedroom, pulling out the few clothes hanging there and handcuffing
her to the rail. She whimpers and cries but the gag muffles everything. You
pull the tights she's wearing down and tie her ankles together above her
sensible brown brogues, then you close the wardrobe doors.
You sit on the divan base, pull off the mask and sit there, breathing hard and
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sweating. You cool off, then put the mask back on and open the door again. Mrs
Jamieson stands, trembling, her eyes through the dark grey mesh of the tights
looking bright and wide. You shut the door, then close the curtains in that
bedroom and the one with the iron-frame bed.
Her husband arrives half an hour later, parking the car in the drive. He comes
in by the front door and you're waiting behind the kitchen door as he walks
through; you make a noise, he turns and you punch him, sending him clattering
back against the kitchen cabinet, producing an avalanche of willow-pattern
plates. He tries to get up so you hit him again. He's very old and you're
quite surprised it takes two punches to lay him out, though he's still a
decent weight.
You stuff a pair of his wife's panties in his mouth and do the same trick with
the tights, over the head and tied round the neck, then drag him upstairs to
the second bedroom. You can smell he's been drinking recently; G & Ts,
probably. Some cigarette-smoke smell, too. You're sweating again by the time
you get him onto the bed with the iron frame.
You tie him to the bed, face down. He's starting to come round. When he's
secured, you take out the
Stanley knife. He was carrying a light windcheater which you left in the
kitchen and he's wearing a blue
Pringle sweater with a knickerbockered golfer depicted on the front, a Marks &
Spencer's check shirt and a light string vest. You cut his clothes off,
flinging them into one corner. His fawn slacks scatter golf tees when you
throw them aside; his socks are bright red, his Y-fronts white. His golf shoes
are brown and white, heavily spiked and with elaborate tongues and tasselled
laces.
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Complicity
You take off your day-pack. You get the pillows from the main bedroom and
stuff them and those from this bed under the old man's torso, raising his body
from the bed. He's making spluttering, shouting noises now and moving weakly.
You use a couple of rolled-up blankets to bring his rump up further, then go
back to the day-pack and sort out the things you'll need. He struggles, as
though wrestling with a pinned, invisible opponent. He's making a noise like
he's choking but you don't do anything yet. You take the top off the cream.
There's a spitting, hacking noise and he must get at least some of the gag out
of his mouth because he splutters, 'Stop this! Stop this, I say!' Not the
gruff, home-counties voice you recall from the television;
more high-pitched and strained, but that's hardly surprising in the
circumstances. He sounds less frightened than you expected, though.
'Look,' he says, in something more like his normal voice; deep and
no-nonsense. 'I don't know what you want, but just take it and get out;
there's no need for this; no need at all.' You squirt some of the cream onto
the vibrator.
'I think you're making a mistake,' he says, trying to twist his head round to
see you. 'Seriously. We don't live here; this is a holiday home. It's rented;
there's nothing of value here at all.' He struggles some more.
You kneel on the bed behind him, inside the inverted V of his scrawny,
varicosed legs. There are broken veins on his back and upper arms. His shanks
look grey and withered; his buttocks are very pale, almost yellowish, and the
skin on his thighs, below the level shorts would come to, has a grainy,
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