The Magpies A Psychological Thriller - By Mark Edwards Page 0,72
was starting to get really paranoid. He needed to snap out of it. What he really wanted was a drink, but it was only eleven o’clock. He licked his lips, felt thirsty. He saw the picture again: Chris taking out his keys, smiling cruelly, etching a deep line in the paintwork from bonnet to boot. He would be able to have a drink at twelve. With lunch. That would be okay: socially acceptable. He licked his lips again.
‘Are you up?’ he called as he went inside.
‘I’m in the bath.’
He went in and said hello. She looked tired, dark bags under her eyes, lines spreading out from the corners. Had they been there before? These signs of ageing only sprang to attention once in a while, like the horrible moments when he noticed that his hairline had retreated a little more, that the lines at the side of his mouth didn’t disappear when he stopped smiling.
‘What are you staring at?’ she asked.
‘Nothing.’
The lines actually made her look more attractive, he thought. When they had first got together she had been a girl. Now she was a woman. He had watched that transformation, had shared in it – had helped it happen, even. No-one else could say that. No-one else knew Kirsty like he did. They were a partnership, a team. All the moments of ecstasy and misery were moments they shared. One day they would be old, and he would be able to look at every line on Kirsty’s face and see a story there, a moment from their life together. More than anything in the world, he wanted that. He wanted them to be together always.
‘You were staring at me,’ she said. ‘What is it? What’s wrong with me?’
He knelt beside the bath and submerged his hands beneath the warm, soapy water, stroking her belly.
‘I was thinking how beautiful you are.’
‘Yeah, right.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘Oh no.’
‘Don’t answer it.’
‘Why?’
‘It might be them,’ she said. ‘Lucy and Chris. Complaining about the noise we’re making.’
He blinked at her, surprised. What had happened to the optimistic Kirsty: the one who was trying to cast the Newtons from her mind? He said, ‘We’re not making any noise.’
‘So? That won’t stop them.’
Jamie stood up. ‘I hope it is them. I really fucking hope it is.’ He dried his hands, marching off towards the door, his courage and fury deserting him the second he opened it. He didn’t know what he would do if it was Chris. He had a vision of himself pulling a gun out of his back pocket, blowing a hole in Chris’s chest, laughing as he slumped to the floor, pumping more bullets into his slack body, pieces of bone and brain splattering against the clean white paintwork…
Jesus Christ, what was going on?
He opened the door. It was Brian.
‘Hello, Jamie, I was – hey, are you alright?’
‘What?’
‘You look a bit…stressed.’
‘No. I’m fine. I’m fine.’ He blinked hard to clear the image of Chris’s gunned-down body. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Well, it’s my computer. The whole system seems to have gone kaput.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘It keeps crashing, and I can’t open any of my files. I was wondering if you’d have a look at it for me.’
He really couldn’t concentrate on what Brian was saying. He watched his mouth move, heard something about a computer, things going wrong.
He nodded. ‘Sure. Wait there a second.’
He told Kirsty where he was going and followed his neighbour up the stairs. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Brian for ages. Their paths seldom crossed.
Brian opened the door of his study and Jamie was once again struck by how spooky the room was, with its horror paraphernalia and dark walls. He sat down at the desk and switched the computer on.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Brian said. ‘Do you want a coffee?’
Jamie waited for the computer to boot up. There was no doubt about it – something had gone wrong. The hard drive whirred and made awful crunching noises as the system started up. Several worrying error messages flashed up before the desktop finally appeared. Jamie set about checking the system, trying to open Brian’s Word files. As soon as he did this the system crashed and he had to reboot.
Brian came into the room with the coffee.
‘Any joy?’
Jamie shook his head. ‘It doesn’t look good. What have you done to it?’
‘Nothing. I haven’t done anything different at all. I only use it for word-processing and the internet. I never fiddle around with it.’