The Magpies A Psychological Thriller - By Mark Edwards Page 0,79

been having a few problems with Lucy and Chris downstairs and I wanted to ask you if you had had similar experiences.

I also need to know if you ever gave them a key to the flat…

He let it all flow out. By the time he had finished, the letter was nine pages long. He read over it, corrected a few spelling mistakes, and then folded it and put it in an envelope before he changed his mind. He didn’t have any stamps, so he needed to go to the post office.

Leaving the flat, he froze. Lucy was standing in the entrance hall, looking through the post.

He took a few steps towards her. ‘What are you doing?’

She ignored him.

‘I said, what are you doing?’

She rolled her eyes, huffed, then turned and looked at him. ‘I was checking the post. Seeing if there was anything interesting.’ She looked back down at the shelf of mail, where a number old letters for previous occupants and junk mail lay. ‘For us, I mean.’

‘If anything comes for you, I’ll bring it down.’

Lucy turned fully towards him, folded her arms and looked him up and down. ‘Would you really?’

Talking to her made him feel sick. ‘Yes, I would.’

‘How’s Kirsty?’

‘What?’

‘It must be weird, having something living inside you.’ She looked up at a cobweb on the ceiling and said faintly, ‘I would hate it.’

‘I can’t picture you as a mother.’

She stared at him. Her expression was blank, her eyes unfocused. It would have been less creepy if she’d given him daggers, or sneered at him. Instead, she broke into a smile.

‘I have to go,’ she said brightly. ‘We’re expecting company.’

He exhaled.

As she stepped through the front door she paused. ‘Be careful, Jamie,’ she said. And then she was gone.

Twenty

Kirsty and Heather sat in the staff canteen. Heather was going on and on about how Paul had ruined her life.

Kirsty was sympathetic, but she was also tired of hearing about it. Firstly, it wasn’t as if Heather was the first person in the history of the universe to get chucked. It happened every single frigging day, but Heather was acting as if life had conjured up a cruel punishment for her alone; something unique. All that had happened was that Paul had decided that he didn’t want to be with Heather any more. He had been through a trauma. He clearly had things to work out and work through, and Heather was in the way. End of story.

Secondly, Kirsty had problems of her own. The dreams had returned – the terrible dreams of delight turning to horror inside the gingerbread house. To make things worse, details from Paul’s coma dream had seeped into her dream, so the roof of the house was battered by flying beasts, creatures with sharp talons and a rank smell, creatures that – she knew without a doubt – wanted her dead.

Waking up offered little respite. Jamie was in a world of his own, paranoid and jittery, convinced he was going to lose his job and all his friends because of this business with the computer virus. He had stayed awake all night, making these bizarre grumbling noises. She didn’t think he was aware he was doing it. He had looked really shocked when she had taken a blanket with her into the living room and curled up on the sofa.

She was sick of it all. She wanted out.

Their dream home had turned out to be, well, a nightmare. They were living above a pair of psychopaths. That was the only word for them. Sending spiders in to terrify her; taping her in her most private moments; robbing her of the ability to relax. That was one of the worst things. She had a really stressful job – ten times as stressful as Jamie’s job, dealing as she did with mortality and sickness every day – and she needed a sanctuary. Somewhere to switch off, chill out, recover from the stresses of the day. But no – she was forced to tiptoe around her own flat, and if she forgot about the Newtons for a second, Jamie would say something to remind her. Before they went to Gretna, she had been coping. The thrill of finding out she was pregnant and the thought of being a mother had made her feel calm and happy. She had managed to switch off; she had made a conscious effort to leave the worrying to Jamie. She couldn’t afford to worry. She had another life inside her. Anxiety