Richard House - The Kills

Rafí dug his phone out of his pocket, and worked a bad smile as he scrolled through finding photographs. Cecco on a bed, soft, loose and compliant on Rafí’s dope. Cecco arranged across a bed with his shirt hitched up, eyes closed to half-moons, arms propped behind his head. Cecco with his legs spread wide, so deeply relaxed that he appeared as something hunted, a trophy. He showed Lila the photographs and said they weren’t half-bad, given that the camera on his phone was a piece of shit. Rafí’s concentration did not last long, and while Lila could not guess the details of this new plan, she didn’t doubt that he would replace her.

* * *

She came down in the late evening and waited outside Rafí’s door. Hungry, she wanted food. Rafí stintingly provided what they needed, going out after midday to bring back ready-cooked meals from an alimentari opposite the Fazzini, usually something simple, pasta and beans, or pasta and tomato, which they shared sitting in front of the small balcony overlooking the roof. While he ate, Rafí would coo to his dog and taunt it with scraps. Lila had never needed to remind him before, but there was no coffee, no bread, no sugar, nothing sweet at hand, and she had woken hungry and dizzy.

She sat on the stairs and waited and listened, but could hear nothing inside. When she knocked there came no reply. The door was unlocked, and opening it she found Cecco asleep in Rafí’s room. She’d never slept in Rafí’s bed.

SUNDAY: DAY H

Amelia Peña returned on the Sunday morning, and found the basement door ajar and a white plastic shopping bag tucked inside. The bag was heavy and the sides scuffed with what she took to be brown paint. Inside she found a hammer, a pair of pliers, and a saw-tooth blade on top of a bundle of damp rags. The rags were wet and sticky, and looked like clothes. When she looked at her fingertips, she recognized that this was not paint or thinners, but blood. Beside the clothes curled to the plastic lay a piece of meat, pink and mottled and dry, and beside the meat a single tooth with long white double roots. The tooth, perfectly formed and specked with red pith, convinced her that this was real and not some kind of fakery. It took her a moment to realize that the meat, with its velvet upper surface and slick underside with a single ridge, was, as far as she could tell, a human tongue.

* * *

Marek’s problems started when he checked out of the room. While the brothers had paid, they’d also left a package at the desk for him: a box containing a pair of latex gloves (large), a disposable white suit (large), covers for shoes (size 42 to 50), what looked like a shower cap (medium), a pair of industrial goggles (one size, adjustable), and a two-litre bottle of bleach. Paola stood by the windows to the patio, her back to the desk, her bag between her legs. Marek asked when the package had been left and the clerk replied, on Friday, when the gentlemen checked out.

‘And there was no note?’

‘Just the box.’

‘Why didn’t you just give it to me when I arrived?’

The clerk pointed to a note which stated, quite clearly, that the package should be presented to Marek Krawiec when he checked out on Sunday.

Marek asked when they would be back, and the clerk looked blankly back at him.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What time do they get back? Do you know what time they return?’

The clerk logged on to the computer, found the reservation and said no. The room was booked for another couple for the entire week. They had no reservation for Mr Wolf and Mr Rabbit. He smiled as he read the names. Funny that. Funny names.

Marek said no. Those aren’t the names. ‘Check for Marc and Paul.’

‘Last names?’ The receptionist looked from Marek to the screen.

‘It will be the same last name. First names: Marc and Paul.’

‘No,’ the clerk adjusted the monitor. ‘These are your names. Marek and Paola.’ He made a creditable stab at pronouncing Marek’s last name. ‘Car-wee-ack.’ No one could pronounce his name.

‘No, no. I said Marc and Paul. Not Marek. Not Paola.’ Marek spelled out the brothers’ first names and the clerk still couldn’t find them. First or last.

They’d paid in cash on Friday morning (everything in cash from Mr Wolf and Mr Rabbit), and there was no further booking, no apparent intention to return.

Marek didn’t want to talk this through with Paola. Mr Wolf and Mr Rabbit? There were people with nouns for last names across the globe. Everything in English sounded funny: Mr Vest and Mr Trowzer (lawyers in Gdansk), Mr Grass (his French teacher years before in Lvov), Mr and Mrs Shyte (Pennsylvania, backpackers he’d met in a London hostel, unremarkable except for their last name); it didn’t even have to be translated into English: Frau Frau (a nurse in Dusseldorf). In New Zealand a town pronounced Papa-fukah. Not quite right, but there it was. Wolf and Rabbit were probably spelled some other way (Wulffe? Wapett?). Although, weren’t they brothers, Marc and Paul? They hadn’t said they were brothers, because, being obvious, it hadn’t needed saying. Marek had just assumed that this was fact. Wolfe and Rabbit was some joke between them, another example of their humour which he just didn’t get. If Wolf and Rabbit was a joke then what about Marc and Paul, apostles both?

* * *

His telephone began to ring on the train back. Ring and cut off. When he checked his messages he found five calls, all from the supervisor Amelia Peña. Peña’s messages were incoherent. The situation wasn’t helped by a poor connection. Something terrible had happened and if she could not reach him she would have to call the police. When Marek called back the line was busy. As the train came into Torre Annunziata he made another attempt, and when Peña answered she spoke in a rapid staccato, repeating herself and the exact words from her last message. She was sorry, she said, sorry she couldn’t reach him. She had called many times. She was sorry, the basement door, she said, a bag. Something about a bag? Salvatore wasn’t around, she said, he wasn’t even in Naples right now, and she didn’t know who else to call.

Marek didn’t understand her urgency or why it was necessary to call the police. Whatever her problem he had plans for the day. As far as he knew everything at the palazzo should be in good order. Paola spent the journey looking out of the window, head turned so that he couldn’t see her face, not even in reflection. This gesture, if that’s what it was, summed up the weekend, where she had participated but was barely present.

Mr Wolf and Mr Rabbit.

He would be back, he said, he would not be long.

At this Peña’s voice became fearful and brittle.

She had found a plastic bag in the entrance. A shopping bag. There was blood smeared inside the bag, and worse, much worse, something so bad she didn’t dare say. She hadn’t dared go down to the basement. Couldn’t.

* * *

They walked from the station to the palazzo and found the door locked. She’s made this up, Marek told himself, Peña has concocted some plan or she’s stupid, or maybe crazy.

He rang Peña’s bell and her face appeared briefly at the bottom of the grille in a small square peephole cut into the door, her eyes wide and red, glassy and fearful. She had locked herself inside and in her anxiety she could not draw back the bolt. Paola drew an impatient breath, and said more to herself than Marek that Peña was a drunk dwarf. She wasn’t even the proper supervisor; no one paid her. It’s not official. ‘And now she’s locking us out of our home.’