Normal: The Most Original Thriller Of The Year. Graeme Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ nothing like as posh as he said it was.”

      Contrary to the impression her flowery telephone manner had given me, she wasn’t painting an endearing picture of Jeremy. She told me that he’d lied about his home, his job, his background. Christ, she wasn’t even sure Jeremy was his real name. “He stands me up all the bloody time,” she continued. “Usually when I complain, he tells me he was stuck in the office finishing a report or his Jag wouldn’t start, which is bullshit because he hasn’t even got a car—he gets buses everywhere because they’re free because he’s a bloody bus driver, not a regional transport coordinator, which is what he said he was. And the stupid thing is, I’ve never let on that I know that because I don’t want to look like a psycho. Why, I don’t know. It’s only been six weeks, and half the time I actually resent the fact that I even bother.” Gulp. “But hey, it keeps me on my toes, right? And to be honest, when he’s not being a lying toerag, he’s quite a nice guy. And I’m grateful for the distraction—I mean come on, my life is just so...so...”

      “Average?” I suggested.

      She nodded and emptied her glass. “That’s right,” she said. “Annie fucking Average.”

      As much as I admired the simplicity of her explanation, she was clearly deluding herself. We both knew that she put up with it because she was drunk.

      By 1:47, it was all over for Annie. She’d pulled a spicy beef pizza from the oven and promptly dropped it facedown on her cream sofa. Recoiling in horror, she’d then knocked the open cranberry juice carton from the coffee table.

      Overcome with exasperation, she rushed to the kitchen sink and, without first removing the dirty dishes, liberally threw up.

      So it was, then, that I came quite literally to undress Annie and tuck her into bed. She was asleep before she hit the pillow.

      I liked Annie a lot for some reason, and so on my way back through the city, acting on information copied from her address book, I stopped by to pay the weasel Jeremy a visit. She was right; the house was crappy—paint peeling from the doors and window frames, guttering cracked and loose, garden overrun with weeds and nettles.

      Getting in was easy; the kitchen extension at the back had a flat roof, above which a boxroom window had been left open—presumably on the assumption that the fresh air would combat the condensation running down the walls. Helpfully, I closed it.

      Jeremy’s bedroom was at the front of the house. The thin curtains were no match for the streetlight right outside the window, which made the ceiling and the flock wallpaper glow fluorescent orange. The dresser, a mahogany-look junk-shop special, was strewn with hair gels and torn envelopes and half-empty coffee cups, some of which showed signs of life. In the opposite corner, the matching wardrobe sagged under the weight of bulging black sacks and sports bags, piled so high that the shirts didn’t hang straight and the doors wouldn’t close.

      The bed, on the other hand, looked new. A full six feet wide, with an antique-brass-effect frame in an overdone neo-Gothic style. The bedspread was patterned counter-contextually with meaningless stylized Chinese characters and, I was less than surprised to note, concealed two distinct forms in repose.

      I chose to let Jeremy sleep, not out of consideration but simply because I hadn’t thought to ask what he looked like. This would not normally have been an issue, since the majority of couples are distinguishable by clear, simple and universal gender-specific identifiers. Put simply, the clue is in the cock. This couple, however, quite obviously had two.

      Judging by the collection of photographs on the mantelpiece downstairs, Jeremy’s predilection was clearly not a recent discovery. The hairstyles on display dated right back to a New Romantic flick and were unerring in their attachment to one hirsute, muscular torso or another. This was a man who knew his own mind.

      In the void beneath the stairs, opposite the mantelpiece and the tasteless log-effect gas fire it so shamefully highlighted, was a computer. The desk it sat on was strewn with scraps of paper carrying scribbled tidbits of personal information: email addresses, first names, hometowns, occupations, pets and vital statistics. Aliases like “Hunnybunny” and “Lucyluvsit.” Some had telephone numbers. A handful noted dates and times, names of pubs and restaurants. One, sadly, said “Burger King.”

      Tacked to the small triangle of wall above the desk were a dozen photographs printed on copy paper. A dozen women sat at a dozen corner tables, alone, staring into their drinks and fingering their mobile phones.

      I was glad I’d taken the time to stop by. That Jeremy should devote his leisure time to stalking straight girls seemed like a new twist on something I’d encountered a hundred times before and couldn’t be bothered to try to understand. In any case, his motivation was none of my business, but that he might have a photographic record of the recent movements of every desperate, lonely woman in the county most certainly was. God alone knew how many of them I might be in.

      Affirmative, proportionate action was therefore the order of the night, and so by the time Jeremy awoke in the morning, his hard drive and memory cards were blank, his printer was out of ink and the only photograph above his desk was of himself, naked and asleep, with a pair of pinking shears artfully arranged about his under-endowment.

      * * *

      To those of us startled into forgetting what we went shopping for, and perhaps hoping, subliminally or otherwise, for a second attempt at a first impression, the 24-hour supermarket must surely rank alongside tea bags and ambiguous social-network privacy tools as one of modern mankind’s most useful inventions.

      In the early hours there are no screaming children to contend with, no half-hour queues at the checkout. There are hundreds of empty parking spaces, and you can always find a trolley.

      For the most part, the only activity you’re likely to encounter is the gaggle of fellow insomniacs charged with the unenviable task of restocking the shelves. These people are paid a reasonable wage and are therefore usually polite and unobstructive. They’ve always got what you’re looking for, and it’s always fresh.

      Unfortunately, however, the fish counter was closed, and the acute sense of disappointment this brought about came as something of a shock. I was distracted and listless as I pushed my express trolley from aisle to aisle, supplementing my earlier haul of melted coconut ice cream and two defrosted salmon by randomly tipping in anything and everything purporting to be free of meat. Carrots, olives and limes. Carnaroli rice and a can of lima beans. All sense of direction and purpose again fled to the outer reaches of my mind, beaten away by the horde of metal roll cages obstructing every aisle. A blanket of frustration fell over me then, obscuring my vision and blocking my ears. The back of my neck bristled with the distinct sense that I was being watched, and I felt an overwhelming desire to be somewhere else.

      I left the trolley and wandered to the entertainment aisle, where bored husbands congregate to inspect cheap laptops and watch football. It was blissfully empty, quiet but for the bank of televisions, each one tuned to a different channel, muttering to me as I passed:...according to Inca lore, once rail operators pledge to iron lace while damp, a real icon like Elvis Presley is likely to command the council to loan Eric an electric wheelchair. Detective Chief Inspector Lowry made the following statement. “Whilst we will never give up hope of finding Sarah and Erica alive, we have to face the reality that with every passing week, our chances of doing so continue to fade. I am, therefore, again appealing to anyone in the local community who thinks they may have any information, no matter how trivial you might think it is, to pick up the phone and call us, either directly to my team here in the incident room, or anonymously via Crimestoppers. Somebody out there knows something, and only with your help can we hope to bring Sarah and СКАЧАТЬ