She listened as he went into the bathroom and she followed in the darkness, making no sound on the soft carpet. The bathroom door was pulled to and she heard the clink as he unhitched his belt and started to pee.

Hold onto it, it’s the last time you’ll get to use it, thought Simone. She moved through to the bedroom and softly opened the money belt she kept around her waist, pulling out the neatly folded plastic bag.

She moved to the bed and lay down on the carpet, sliding underneath. Simone enjoyed this part, the lying in wait. It reinforced all those childhood nightmares of the bogey man under the bed, of monsters crouching in a darkened cupboard. She was a monster, she knew that, and she revelled in it.

She listened to the muffled sounds of Stephen in the bathroom. The sound of the water being turned on, the rustle as he pulled the shower curtain across.

He finally emerged minutes later, and she watched as his feet appeared in her line of vision, as he unsteadily made his way around the bed. His phone began to ring, and he cursed, fumbling in his trouser pockets. There was a click as he cancelled the call, and then the phone dropped to the carpet beside her. Its screen glowed. Then he lost balance and crashed down onto the bed. Simone shrank back further under the bed and into the shadows. The mattress shifted above her.

‘Jeez, how much did I drink?’ she heard him murmur. Simone waited another minute before moving to where the phone lay on the carpet. She reached out and pulled it towards her, then switched it off. Slowly, softly, she slid out from under the bed. She could see he was lying on his side with his back to her; his hand was moving shakily over his face. She stood for a moment and watched him, listening to his groans, and then moved quietly from the bedroom and back down the stairs. The electricity box was in a small cupboard under the spiral staircase. She opened it and flicked off the power.

Her eyes had adjusted to the light. She looked across at the books he had written, which lined the shelves: Descent into Darkness, From My Cold Dead Hands, The Girl in the Cellar. It was Stephen Linley’s mind she hated and feared the most. Her husband had enjoyed his books, had enjoyed the horror and the torture. She thought of how Stan had held her down and poured boiling water over her naked body… how he had lifted this particular torture out of From My Cold Dead Hands.

She stood for a minute and drank in the silence, interrupted by the murmurings from Stephen upstairs.

‘I’m coming to get you. I’m coming to get you, you evil bastard,’ whispered Simone. She moved quickly, back up the stairs and into the bedroom.

The bed squeaked and shifted as Simone climbed in beside him. There was a soft crackle of plastic as she reached across and slipped the bag over his head.

Stephen panicked and lashed out, catching Simone on the side of her head with his fist. She tried to ignore the pain and the burst of stars in her vision and jerked at the string, pulling it tight around his neck. He fought harder and lashed out again, punching her in the mouth. The strength of his blow surprised her; she thought, by now, he would have been very subdued and weakened by the drug pumping through his veins. She yanked the cord roughly and it tightened further, biting into the skin of his neck. He started to thrash around on the mattress, trying to move away from her across the bed. She thought he was trying to escape, only realising what he was doing when his arm came up and something very hard and heavy crashed down onto the back of her head. He didn’t have the strength to land a serious blow, though, and the large object glanced off her head and rolled onto the mattress.

The bag was now tight on his head, the plastic starting to form a vacuum over his face and his groaning mouth. Simone held onto the bag with one hand and searched with her free hand for what had hit her. Stephen’s elbow landed a painful blow to her temple and her hand closed around a large heavy marble ashtray. He was scrabbling madly at the plastic over his face, choking and retching. He placed his feet on the mattress and pushed up with his legs. Simone felt his head pull away from her. She lifted the ashtray high in the air and, with all her strength, brought it down on his head. There was a sickening thud as the front of his skull caved in. She lifted the ashtray and brought it down again, and again. On the third blow, the plastic bag burst and blood and bone mottled the wall.

She sat there on the mattress, shaking. She’d done it. She’d done it. But she’d screwed up badly. It was then that she ran out of the bedroom, falling down half the flight of stairs, and kept running, out of the flat. She didn’t stop until she was safely away, shrouded by the darkness and the pouring rain.

56

Erika jumped as her landline began to ring, cutting through the sound of the pounding rain. She didn’t know how long she’d been staring at the neat handwriting in the card. She grabbed the phone off the floor beside her front door and answered.