Human Remains

it, overpowering, a smell I recognised from Shelley’s house. Someone in here had died.
    I put my hand over my nose and mouth. Perhaps I should have been unconcerned, but I couldn’t help it. I felt my stomach, empty, heaving.
    ‘Sorry. The smell – I forget,’ he said. ‘Come on. It’s not so bad upstairs.’
    The hallway was dark, quiet, the deep red carpet that ran up the wooden staircase dull with a film of dust. Beside the front door was a pile of newspapers, takeaway menus and unopened post. I glanced at it, tried to see if I could see a name, but he was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.
    ‘Annabel, come with me.’
    I followed, watching his back as he climbed the stairs. The fear, which had abated a little with the triumph of realising that my analysis had been spot on, was coming back.
    Last time we’d met, I’d been in a very bad place. Lack of sleep, grief, shock, the horror at losing my mum so suddenly – and he’d appeared. Whatever it was he’d said to me, whatever he’d done, I didn’t remember it at all. I remembered his appearance, an ordinary-looking man, not old, not unattractive, his head shaved to hide the receding hairline, green eyes, unsmiling but not threatening in any way. His clothes had been unremarkable. I could have passed him any number of times on the street and not looked at him twice. But, in that crazy few minutes when my heart was shattered and my head spinning, I had looked at him and listened to what he said and I had genuinely believed he was an angel, and that he was there to take care of me.
    And what he was doing now amounted to the same thing, didn’t it? He hadn’t hurt me, and, even though I was jumpy and afraid and felt as if I’d taken a stupid risk, I didn’t think he was going to hurt me now. He’d just done exactly what I’d asked him to do – taken me somewhere where I could be alone. Was that not what he’d done to all the others? Helped them achieve what they could not do alone? Answered their prayers?
    At the top of the stairs a hallway stretched down to an arched stained-glass window at the end; behind it the branches of a tree created dancing patterns, rattling against the glass, scratching against it like clawing fingers. All the doors on either side of the hallway were closed. I followed him down towards the window, to the last door on the left, which he opened.
    It must have been a guest bedroom once. The double bed was covered with a pink satin counterpane, but the divan underneath it was bare. The carpet was peach with swirling patterns, grey with dust. The curtains, heavy, frilled, were closed against the greyness outside, leaving the room gloomy. Built-in wardrobes lined one wall, the doors closed. A dressing table was set into the wardrobe with a stool tucked underneath, the seat a dark green velvet, a gold-coloured satin twist fringe coming away from one corner and hanging forlornly underneath. The walls were painted a pastel pink, two faded landscape prints hanging from the walls in pink plastic frames either side of the bed. A single bedside table held a lamp with a shade tipped to a drunken angle, an old-fashioned alarm clock with two bells and a hammer, no tick.
    I didn’t know if I was getting used to the smell or if it was just fainter up here, but the odour coming from the room was not unpleasant, merely musty, the smell of a room with no fresh air – a faint sweetish floral scent to it. On the dressing table I noticed a porcelain bowl filled with a brown pile of dried flowers and a single pine cone, all of which were coated in grey dust. Nothing said ‘guest bedroom’ quite as loudly as a bowl of pot pourri.
    Colin stood to one side of the open door, watching me with interest. I could feel his eyes on me as I looked into the room.
    ‘You can stay here,’ he said.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. I walked into the room and stood still, waiting for whatever came next. I didn’t hear him shut the door or leave, so I sat down on the edge of the bed. He was filling the doorway, watching me, and the glance I had of him made me alarmed. In that one glimpse I could see how alive he looked, how animated – excited, even.
    He paused for a moment, and then he said, ‘I will come back in a little while to check you’re alright. We can talk some more then, if you want.’
    Then he closed the door, without waiting for me to reply. A second later, I heard the key turn in the lock. He was locking me in! Why? Surely he had no need to