In Bloom. C.J. Skuse

snapped the mask from his face and yelled ‘If you don’t disappear I will visit you in the dead of night and cut your real fucking face off.’ Got spit in his eye and everything. I eyeballed him until he looked away, got onto his bike and sped off, laughing like it didn’t matter. Clearly it did. We never saw him on the estate again.

      For ages after, Jonathan left me presents outside my door, sent random cards and flowers, then Craig got jealous and asked him to stop. Now it’s tackle hugs and proclamations of love across the car park.

      ‘We’re going to the zoo, we are,’ says Jonathan, rocking to a tune only he could hear; trouser hems flapping in the breeze.

      ‘How lovely,’ I say, wiping facial sweat on my dressing gown sleeve.

      ‘I like animals, I do.’

      ‘Yeah, so do I. They’re great, aren’t they?’

      The Jerramses laugh for no apparent reason.

      Jonathan prods Whittaker’s door with his spoony digits. ‘What’s in there?’

      ‘I’m watering Mrs Whittaker’s house plants. She’s gone into hospital.’

      ‘Oh dear,’ says Mrs J. ‘What’s happened?’

      ‘She had a fall.’

      The Jerramses accept this. Whittaker’s a proper Weeble, always falling over – usually in the stairwells. Most residents have had to carry her flabby arse up two flights before now. It’s like a rite of passage in this place.

      ‘Where’s your dog?’ Jonathan shouts, two feet away.

      ‘Tink’s staying with my parents-in-law,’ I tell him.

      ‘Do you like my t-shirt?’

      He opens his jacket to reveal a Jaws t-shirt with a sizeable belly underneath and a bolognaise stain on the neck. Why do people who look after the disabled never dress them in good clothes? It’s always cheap Velcro shoes and washed-out charity shop threads that never fit. The shark glared at me, teeth gleaming. It didn’t have as many calcium deposits as Jonathan.

      ‘Nice,’ I say. ‘You wear it well, JJ.’

      I’m still sweating like I’m at hot box yoga even though all I’m doing is talking – meantime I have a corpse mouldering in one flat, a broken pensioner in another and a police forensics team arriving any second. It’s only when I’m making my excuses I realise my dressing gown has opened and boobage is on the prowl. Old Jerrams can’t take his eyes off them. I have to say, it’s a big turn on when he looks up my dressing gown as I’m climbing back up the stairs.

      ‘What are you doing, Rachel?’ Mrs Whittaker calls out, scaring the crap out of me. I’d forgotten she was still there in front of Calamity Jane. Doris and some other tart are singing about a woman’s work never being done.

      Too fucking true, Doris.

      ‘Just went to see if there was any sign of the ambulance.’ I mop over the oil puddle with a bleachy dishcloth. ‘You all right there while I get changed?’

      ‘Oh yeah, you carry on love, don’t mind me.’

      I change my bed, turn the mattress, Febreeze the room and open both windows. When I’m changed, I go in and sit next to Whittaker and watch a bit more of Calamity Jane ’til the ambulance comes.

      ‘I’ll water your house plants, don’t worry,’ I call after her as they stretcher her into the lift. ‘And I’ll call Betty for you. Leave everything to me.’

      It’s minutes between the ambulance leaving to the police drawing up. I’m on the balcony, chewing a Dime bar. Three be-suited people – a tightly-bunned black woman and two men, one tall, blond and erect; the other like the short tubby guy in Grease who’s about forty years too old for high school. It’s then time to get into character as the wronged girlfriend of a serial killer.

      I’ve learned a lot from watching those Crocodile Tears docus on YouTube. It all comes flooding back, like an old First Aid course when you have to treat a casualty. Not that I’ve ever had to. Or would, let’s face it.

      I’ve remembered the key points about lying to police and they are these:

       1) Strong emotional displays – dead giveaway.

       2) Micro-expressions – Keep gestures to a minimum. Rubbing one’s face denotes self-comfort/lying. Stillness/shock are natural responses.

       3) Shaking hands – good, if you can manufacture it. Luckily, my hands were shaking efficiently – the adrenaline of my frantic lunchtime running round hiding corpses and maiming pensioners.

       4) Script – less is more. Any idiot who killed his wife and went on TV to beg for help in ‘catching the bastard’ always makes the same mistake – their dialogue is too prepared. Sandwich the lies between truths – I was on a hen weekend, Craig did call me from Amsterdam to say he’d been arrested, he did habitually use pot to relax. Then the lies.

       5) Co-operation – do everything they say without hesitation.

      The detective leading the investigation, DI Nnedi Géricault from the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol, interviews me with DS Tubby Guy from Grease. The blond guy dons gloves and snoops around the flat. They have had to get a warrant which is presumably why they have taken so long to get here. Thank Fuck.

      ‘Do what you need to,’ I say, still in utter shock and bewilderment, fiddling with the solitaire on my fourth finger.

      I tell them I’m pregnant and that I have high blood pressure – a half-truth so they’ll treat me with kid gloves. Works like a charm.

      ‘We’ll keep it brief today as clearly it must be a stressful time for you,’ says Géricault.

      ‘I can’t believe it,’ I keep repeating. ‘Please tell me this is a mistake.’

      If there’s one thing I’ve always been able to do well, it’s cry on demand. I learnt from an early age that people soften when you turn on the waterworks – nothing too dramatic, just some light sobbing at the right moment and you’re laughing.

      Internally, of course.

      ‘I’ve known the guy for four years,’ I wail. ‘I live with him. I sleep in the same bed as him. I’m having his baby. How the hell is he supposed to have killed three people behind my back? It makes no sense.’

      ‘Would you like some water?’ Géricault offers, motioning to the blond in the kitchen. She has a couple of fingers missing on her left hand – the fourth and fifth are stumps. I wonder if they’ll find AJ’s blood spatter in the grouting. You’ll only see it if you’re looking for it. And this isn’t a crime scene.

      Yet.

      ‘How long will this take?’ I ask, glass shaking in my adrenalized grip.

      DS Tubby Guy from Grease says ‘It’ll take as long as it takes.’ I’m so thankful I pay my taxes to keep his ass in cheap suits.

      As it turns out they stay around two hours forty minutes. They ask all sorts of questions – questions they already know the answers to, like where Craig is right now and where his van is and even questions about my dad’s well-documented vigilantism.

      ‘Craig didn’t know my dad for long. He didn’t know about what he did in his spare time. He wasn’t one of them.’

      ‘How can you be sure?’ asks Géricault.

      ‘I guess I can’t,’ I shrug. And they ask no more about it.

      They say I’ll need to move out for a while. I inform them that Craig’s parents Jim and Elaine have said I can stay with them. They take Craig’s laptop and his pot in evidence bags, some of our kitchen knives (not the