Dead Like You

entrance ramp to the car park, switched the engine off and killed the lights. It was a Godawful cold, rainy night, which was perfect. No one was going to take any notice of the van, floodlights or no sodding floodlights. Everyone had their heads down, dashing for the cover of the buildings or their cars. All except the stupid athletes on the track.
    He was prepared. He was already wearing his latex gloves. The chloroform pad was in a sealed container in his anorak pocket. He slipped his hand inside, to check again. His hood was in another pocket. He checked that again too. Just one thing concerned him: he hoped that Jessie would have a shower after her game, because he didn’t like sweaty women. He didn’t like some of the unwashed smells women had. She must shower, surely, because she was going straight on to pick up a Chinese takeaway and then to watch a horror film with Roz.
    Headlights approached up the ramp. He stiffened. Was this her? He switched on the ignition to sweep the wipers over the rain-spattered screen.
    It was a Range Rover. Its headlights momentarily blinded him, then he heard it roar past. He kept the wipers going. The heater pumped in welcoming warm air.
    A guy in baggy shorts and a baseball cap was trudging across the car park, with a sports bag slung over his shoulders, engrossed in a conversation on his mobile. He heard a faint beep-beep and saw lights wink on a dark-coloured Porsche, then the man opened the door.
    Wanker , he thought.
    He stared again at the ramp. Looked at his watch: 6.05 p.m. Shit. He pounded the wheel with his fists. Heard a faint, high-pitched whistling sound in his ears. He got that sometimes when he was all tensed up. He pinched the end of his nose shut and blew hard, but it had no effect and the whistling grew louder.
    ‘Stop it! Fuck off! Stop it!’
    It grew louder still.
    Exceptionally diminutive manhood!
    Jessie would be the judge of that.
    He looked at his watch again: 6.10 p.m.
    The whistling was now as loud as a football referee’s whistle.
    ‘Shut up!’ he shouted, feeling all shaky, his eyes blurring with anger.
    Then he heard voices, suddenly, and the scrunch of shoes.
    ‘I told her he’s an absolute waste of space.’
    ‘She said she loves him! I told her, like, I mean, what??????’
    There was a sharp double beep. He saw a flash of orange over to his left. Then he heard car doors click open and, a few moments later, slam shut. The brief whir of a starter motor, then the rattle of a diesel. The interior of the van suddenly stank of diesel exhaust. He heard the blast of a horn.
    ‘Sod off,’ he said.
    The horn blasted again, twice, to his left.
    ‘Sod off! Screw you! Fuck you! Fuck off!’
    There was a mist in front of his eyes, inside his head. The wipers screeched, clearing the rain. More came. They cleared that too. More came.
    Then the horn blasted again.
    He turned in fury and saw reversing lights on. And then realized. A big, ugly people carrier was trying to reverse and he was parked right in front of it, blocking it.
    ‘Fuck you! Screw you!’ He started the van, crunched it into gear, jerked forward a few inches and stalled. His head was shaking, the whistling even louder, slicing his brain to bits like a cheese-wire. He started the van again. Someone knocked on the passenger door window. ‘Fuck you!’ He rammed the gear lever into first and shot forward. He carried on, almost blind with fury now, and hurtled down the ramp.
    In his haze of fury he was utterly oblivious of the headlights of the little black Ford Ka racing up the ramp, in the opposite direction, and passing him.

1998

68
    Wednesday 14 January
    ‘I’m sorry I’m late, my darling,’ Roy Grace said, coming through the front door.
    ‘If I had a pound for every time you’ve said that, I’d be a millionaire!’ Sandy gave him a resigned smile, then kissed him.
    There was a warm smell of scented candles in the house. Sandy lit them most evenings, but there seemed more than usual tonight, to mark the special occasion.
    ‘God, you look beautiful,’ he said.
    She did. She’d been to the hairdresser’s and her long fair hair was in ringlets. She was wearing a short black dress that showed every curve of her body and she had sprayed on his favourite perfume, Poison. She raised her wrist to show him the slim silver bracelet he’d bought her from a modern jeweller in the Lanes.
    ‘It looks great!’ he said.
    ‘It does!’ She admired it in the mirror on the Victorian