53

The neighbours' bare feet practically danced out and onto the soft, wet grass of Mrs Careen’s garden. He made his way slowly down the garden before he turned back. The lights at the back were all off, and the curtains now drawn. He drew a grimacing smile upon his lips as he realised he had sent her further inwards. Her locked doors were delicious.

Arriving back at the pass-through, leftward to his home, he turned right and looked through the opposing hedge-hole, then glanced at the rain crashing against the top of the bloody diamond, further away above Mrs Careen's hedge. He dug his nails into his scalp. He padded slowly nearer to the boy's family home, crouched slightly to get through the hedge-hole, his feet submerged in a deep, muddy puddle. He made his way slowly closer in the creeping dark. There were two - he assumed - police officers speaking away and to his right, near the outhouse that jutted out from the kitchen. Stepping away, he reached the second back door that would take him directly into the cottage lounge.

His hand wrapped around the large brass handle, and he twisted left slowly. Nothing. Without even a consideration of turning back, he jerked the hand sharply again, and it released. He pulled, and the familiar welcome of a twisted home ushered him in. He wiped his feet on the mat, dislodging a few fragments of the mud that had accumulated between his toes. The rest followed him in. He looked around the lounge. He spotted on the wall a very young boy, whom he acknowledged as the lad who had visited him, beside him another lad, and in the middle of them a young girl. Her eyes betrayed their kinship; he admired the veil but gazed straight through it. Her own compulsions had made the same journey as his own - moving on through shame, to complete abandonment of anything right in favour of anything she wanted. The house had a tone much like his own, a quiet ringing that pulled you to its centre. Here it rang from upstairs. He moved through, pressing his hands, as he always did, on the steps in front of him as he ascended to identify the spots that would not creak.

He reached the top, crouching beneath the tape, and pressed his hands to his mouth tightly to stop himself from crying out. He stared at the mattress, laid out like someone had conducted brain surgery, and multiple amputations. The dried blood was all over the room. He clasped his lips tight and dug his nails into his scalp. He scratched hard, reaching for his skull. He could feel the tips of his fingers as they grew wet. He touched them to his mouth again.

Past the art installation on the mattress was the walk-in closet. Opening the drawer nearest him, he found their fathers' underpants, beautifully arranged like ornamental napkins. At the back of the open drawer was the small silver clasp. It clicked and pulled it open. Above the underpants now stood another tray, eighteen watches laid out in three rows. He laughed when he saw it; the girl's father had replaced it.

“Like for like, you fucking motherfucker,” he whispered through clenched teeth. He reached his bloody fingers through the band and lifted it gently, tucking it away into the pocket of the tartan dressing gown. He made his way back through the silent house, through the rear door and into the night. He heard one officer mention some ‘right ‘orrible bastard’ as he passed by the outhouse on his way back through the hedge-holes and into his beloved filth.