Free The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood Page A

precise amount of his debt, made out in careful, neat script, the gaps scored through with a ruled line and a capitalised ONLY, and that Bright’s will – God help him for leaving it out for anyone to nick – contain cash. Of course, he’s probably in there anyway, he thinks, listening, although there’s no music playing. Watching through the keyhole, for all I know. Anyone tried to nick it, he could be out there before they got to the front door.
    He knocks on the door of flat two. Hears the sound of a bolt being pulled back and a chain being slipped on, raises an eyebrow. Collette opens the door in a knee-length cotton dress, her hair pulled back from her face with a rubber band. She looks better than she did when he first met her. I bet she’d brush up nicely, he thinks. Quite a looker, our Collette, if she’d wipe that don’t-touch-me look off her face. ‘All right?’ he says.
    ‘All right, thanks.’
    ‘I see you’ve added some extra security,’ he says.
    She shrugs. ‘Yale lock’s not a huge amount of protection, is it? Specially given what happened to the old lady downstairs.’
    ‘I hope you’ve not damaged my door,’ he says.
    ‘You can take it off my deposit if I have.’
    She looks him straight in the eye. The look of someone who’s used to handling stroppy clients. Managing that bar in Spain, he wonders. But he’s never believed any of her story, never will. Policewoman? Could be. A no-questions-asked rooming house like this attracts all sorts, and where all sorts are, the plod are rarely far behind. Teacher? He considers for a moment. Yes, that’s it. She’s another teacher. Split with her husband and on the downward slide, but she’ll never shed that air of judgement.
    ‘Settling in?’
    ‘Yes, thanks,’ she says. ‘I’ve got the rest of that money for you inside. Hang on a sec.’
    She turns away and closes the door. He’s used to that. His tenants rarely seem to want to let him look inside their quarters. Ironic, really, considering that he has keys to every room in the house. He presses an ear against the door, hears the sound of things being moved around, and a zip being drawn. He is back in the middle of the corridor by the time she returns. She extends an arm from behind her chain, a sheaf of notes in her hand. ‘There you go,’ she says. ‘I think that’s the lot.’
    The Landlord counts. Three hundred and twenty pounds, all present and correct. ‘Yup,’ he says. ‘That’s you done till next month.’
    ‘You’ll be giving me that receipt I asked for, of course?’ She gives him The Look again. No one’s asked him for a receipt since he made a brief, unsatisfactory foray into student accommodation back in the noughties, though Vesta Collins is a stickler for her rent book. He has a receipt book somewhere in his desk, he’s sure of it. It might be a bit yellow by now, but he doesn’t suppose that matters. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I’ll drop it in next time I’m passing.’
    ‘Thanks,’ she says, and closes the door, firmly.
     
    Rent day’s not a lengthy procedure at the moment. The Government pays the rent for Hossein Zanjani directly into his bank account. It’s swings and roundabouts with these asylum-seeker/single-parent DSS accounts. The tax is a nuisance, but at least the pay is regular. No feckless bimbos skipping out on their bills, no I-swear-I’ll-have-it-next-week types. A bit of a wait for payment to start, sometimes, but it always come through in the end.
    He tucks Collette’s money into the pocket alongside the envelope, takes his Filofax from the shopping trolley and leaves it parked in the hall. Hauls himself slowly, step-by-laboured step, up the staircase, gripping the banister like a mobility aid. Good God, this heat is heavy. It’s been threatening to thunder for weeks, but nothing ever happens. He wishes it would. It’s like wading through treacle. If the fun bit weren’t on the first floor, he would leave it until later.
    He stops on