The Magpies A Psychological Thriller - By Mark Edwards Page 0,35

him all these things – telling him about our future together – and I might as well have been talking to a plant. He looked like an empty shell. Oh God, it makes me feel so horrible saying that.’

Jamie put his arms around her. ‘He is in there, Heather, I promise you. And he will come back to us.’

She blinked at him, shedding tears that rolled down her cheeks. ‘But what if he doesn’t?’

‘I don’t know. I…’ He ran out of words. He had known this was going to happen, and suddenly he felt angry. He didn’t need Heather to remind him that he might have lost the person who, behind Kirsty and his close family, meant the most to him in the world. He couldn’t cope with this, not right now. He wanted to shout and scream at the injustice. But he didn’t. Instead, he let Heather cry on his shoulder, and then he opened the wine. It was going to be a long evening.

At eleven, after several hours spent trying to mop up Heather’s tears – a task much better handled by Kirsty, who held her friend while Jamie stared at the TV, feeling numb and exhausted – they called her a taxi.

‘Why don’t you take a few days off work?’ Kirsty suggested. ‘Call in sick.’

‘I might.’

They watched the taxi sail away, then went back inside. Kirsty stared at the empty wine bottles and beer cans, the crumpled, soggy tissues that lay on the floor by the sofa. ‘I’m shattered.’

‘Me too.’

‘I don’t think we’ll be giving the neighbours cause for complaint tonight.’ She smiled wryly.

‘No. I don’t think so.’

But when they had both got into bed, they somehow found themselves rolling together, clinging to one another. In the darkness beneath the quilt, they made love slowly, their hot bellies pressed together, slick with sweat, and when Jamie came he saw a flash of light behind his eyes.. Afterwards, they realised they had made love in silence. But it felt to Jamie that something had happened – something they felt no need to talk about, although he knew Kirsty knew it too.

The next morning, Jamie opened the front door and found a small Jiffy bag lying on the carpet in the hall, addressed to him and Kirsty. He picked it up and tore it open. Inside, there was a CD. He turned it over in his hand. How peculiar.

‘What is it?’ Kirsty asked. Jamie was going to give her a lift into work, as she didn’t feel like taking the Tube this morning. She wanted to keep her contact with people to a minimum.

‘We’ll soon find out.’

After they left Mount Pleasant Street and joined the traffic on the main road, Jamie inserted the CD into the car stereo and pressed PLAY. For the first ten seconds there was nothing but the hiss of silence.

‘It’s blank,’ Jamie said.

‘No, listen.’

‘I still can’t hear anything.’

Kirsty turned the volume up. ‘Now, can’t you hear it?’

Jamie could. It was a soft, rhythmic banging, plus a creaking sound further in the background. Then he heard a human sound: a gasp. The banging increased in pace and volume, and the gasping sounds got louder. At first it was just woman’s voice, and then a man joined in with a deeper grunt.

‘Kirsty.’

Hearing his voice on the CD made him stamp on the brake. The car behind stopped just in time, the driver sounding her horn angrily. Jamie pulled over to the side of the road, out of the traffic. On the stereo, the gasping and groaning grew steadily louder. It was them. Making love.

They looked at each other in horror. Kirsty had gone pale.

‘Jesus Christ.’

He pressed stop and ejected the CD. He was going to throw it out of the window but Kirsty stopped him. She said, ‘We might need it. And I don’t want anyone else to pick it up and listen to it.’

‘They recorded us having sex. I can’t believe it.’

‘Jamie, it makes me feel violated.’

‘I know. When the hell was this made? It can’t have been last night. We were quiet last night, weren’t we?’

She nodded. ‘They must have already recorded this when they sent us the letter. Maybe we did make noise last night without realising it and they sent this as, what? A warning?’ She shivered. ‘I feel like I need a bath. It’s horrible. Horrible.’

‘What are we going to do?’

Jamie looked at the CD in his hand. He felt that awful sense of weariness weighing down on him. ‘I really don’t