Peter James - Perfect People

What day was it today? Friday. They were taking Luke and Phoebe to see Dr Michaelides, to talk about special schools. Then in the afternoon they were going to see a couple of dog breeders, one which had a litter of Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies, and another breeder who had a litter of Alsatians sired by a police dog.

Trying not to wake John, she slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom, wrestled herself into her dressing gown and pushed her feet into her slippers. She peed, then washed her hands and face, brushed her teeth.

Horrible bloody bags under my eyes.

She peered closer into the mirror. More wrinkles. Every day there seemed to be fresh ones. Some were beginning to look like crevasses. Let’s face it, kiddo, you are ageing. Another decade and you’ll be a wrinkly. A couple more after that and you’ll be a crumbly. Next thing you know, Luke and Phoebe’ll be pushing you along the seafront in a wheelchair with a tartan rug over your knees while you sit there, with mad white hair, drooling.

Except.

Would Luke and Phoebe ever take care of John and herself? Would they ever care enough? Would they want to be bothered? Wasn’t that what kids were supposed to do? Wasn’t that

the way life was supposed to work? How did that bumper sticker she’d seen go? GET EVEN! LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO BECOME A PROBLEM FOR YOUR KIDS!

She closed the bedroom door behind her and switched the landing light on. Luke and Phoebe’s bedroom door was shut and the box-room door was shut. They were usually up at this hour.

But this morning, silence.

The stair treads creaked like hell, and she went down slowly, mindful of not wanting to wake John. Then, as she reached the hall, she felt a stab of unease. The safety chain on the front door, which they always kept in the locked position when they were indoors, was hanging loose.

Had they forgotten to attach it last night? She supposed they must have done, and made a mental note to tell John. Right now they needed to be more vigilant about safety than ever.

Then something else struck her. She turned and looked at the Victorian coat stand. It seemed emptier than normal. Where were the children’s coats? Her eyes shot down to the ground, to the hollow in the middle of the stand where they all kept their boots. Luke’s blue wellingtons and Phoebe’s red ones were missing.

Her unease deepened. Had they gone for a walk? At this hour, in the pitch darkness, in the filthy weather?

She opened the heavy oak door, pushing hard against the strong, biting wind and flinching against stinging droplets of rain, and peered out into the darkness.

And froze.

Something was lying on the ground right in front of the porch, a sack or an animal, or something.

A slick of fear shot down her spine. She stepped back warily, looked at the panel of light switches, and pressed the red one.

Instantly all the exterior floodlights, except one, came on and she saw it was not a sack or an animal. It was a man, sprawled on his back. A handgun lay in the gravel near him. Barely registering more than that, she slammed the door shut, pulled on the safety chain, and threw herself up the stairs, choking with shock.

‘John!’ She burst into the bedroom and switched on the light. ‘John, for God’s sake, there’s someone downstairs, outside, a man, a man. Unconscious, dead, I don’t know. Gun. There’s a gun!’

She ran out, along to the children’s bedroom, threw open the door; but even before she had hit the light switch she could see the room was empty. The box room was empty, too.

John came out onto the landing in his dressing gown, holding his shotgun. ‘Where? Where outside?’

Staring at him in wild, bug-eyed panic, she blurted, ‘F-f-f-front – f-f-front door. I don’t know where Luke and Phoebe are.’

‘Call the police – no – hit panic button, quicker – by the bed, press the panic button. They’ll come right away.’

‘Be careful, John.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Front door.’ Trembling. ‘I don’t know where Luke and Phoebe are. I don’t know where they are, they may be outside.’

‘Panic button,’ he said. Then he switched the safety catch off, and headed cautiously downstairs.

Naomi ran to the side of the bed, pressed the red panic button and immediately the alarm began sounding inside and outside the house. Then she grabbed the phone and listened for a second. There was a dial tone. Thank God. She tried to stab out 999, but her fingers were shaking so badly that the first time, she misdialled. She dialled again and this time it rang. And rang.

‘Oh Jesus, come on, answer, please, please!’

Then she heard the operator’s voice. She blurted out, ‘Police.’ Then, moments later, she heard herself shouting into the phone, ‘MAN! GUN! OH GOD, PLEASE COME QUICKLY!’

She calmed enough to give their address carefully, then ran down the stairs, passed John who was in the hallway peering out of a window, and into the living room, calling, ‘LUKE! PHOEBE!’

No sign of them.

Back in the hall, Naomi stood behind John and stared fearfully out of the window at the motionless, rain-sodden figure in his anorak, bobble hat and wellingtons. His face was turned away from them so they could not make out his features. And she wondered, just for a fleeting instant, whether she had been overreacting. A tramp? He looked like a tramp?

A tramp with a handgun?

‘I can’t find Luke and Phoebe,’ she said.

John was opening the front door.

‘Oh God, please be careful. Wait. The police will be here-’

‘Hallo!’ John called to the man. ‘Hallo! Excuse me! Hallo!’

‘Wait, John.’

But John was already stepping outside, holding the shotgun out in front of him, finger on the trigger, staring at the brightly lit drive and lawn, and the pre-dawn darkness beyond, swinging the gun from left to right, bringing it back onto the man each time. He took a few more steps, the wind lifting the bottom of his dressing gown like a skirt. Naomi followed.

They were standing right over the figure, right over the man in his black cap and black anorak and black trousers and black boots. He was young, no more than thirty, she guessed. John crouched, snatched up the handgun and gave it to Naomi to hold.

It was heavy and wet and cold and made her shudder. She stared out warily into the darkness beyond the lights, then back at the man.

‘Hallo?’ John said.

Naomi knelt, and it was then that she saw the hole in his forehead above his right eye, the torn flesh, the bruising around it, and the plug of congealed blood inside that the rain hadn’t managed to wash away.

She whimpered. Scrambled on all fours round the other side of his head. Saw the patch of singed hairs at the base of the skull, the torn flesh, more congealed blood here.

‘Shot,’ she said. ‘Shot.’ Trying frantically to remember a First Aid course she did when she was in her teens at school, she grabbed his hand, pushing back the cuff of the leather glove, and pressed her finger against his wrist. Despite being soaking wet, the flesh was warm.

She tried for some moments, but couldn’t tell whether it was a pulse or just her own nerves pulsing. Then his eyes opened.

Her heart almost tore free of her chest in shock.

His eyes rolled, not appearing to register anything.

‘Where are my children?’ Naomi said. ‘Can you hear me? Where are my children? For God’s sake, where are my children?’

His eyes continued to roll.

‘Where are my children?’ she screamed, barely able to believe he could still be alive with these holes in his head.

Then his mouth opened. Closed. Opened, then closed again, like a beached, dying fish.

‘My children! Where are MY CHILDREN?’

In a voice quieter than the wind, he whispered, ‘Lara.’