Anne Billson - Suckers

'Oh,' I said, 'and by the way, I am not a lesbian.'

Duncan raided his stationery cupboard. The stake wasn't really a stake but an eighteen-inch ruler whittled to a point. He positioned it over her heart and began to bash the other end with a chunky Sellotape dispenser. The point sank in very slowly. He was very calm, as though he were stretching a canvas, or tacking a sketch to the wall. She was calm too; I'd expected her to screech and clutch at her chest, at the very least, like I'd seen in the movies, but all she did was cough up a small amount of claret-coloured blood and belch. When he'd finished she lay there with the ruler sticking out of her, fixing us with her one open eye as she began to hum 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata.'

I hadn't expected this.

Duncan gawped in disbelief. 'What's wrong? Why isn't it working?'

'Mmmnnnn mmmmgggghhh,' sang Violet.

'It's not enough,' I whimpered. 'You'll have to cut her head off.' I was thinking of her as a piece of meat now. I'd gone way beyond the stage of wanting to pass out, but I tried not to look when Duncan fetched a small hacksaw and set to work with it. The teeth kept getting clogged up with bits of gristle, so after a while he switched to a serrated blade designed for carving through frozen meat. It wasn't easy for him because she kept rolling around, spluttering and giggling, while he carved, and the ruler that was sticking out of her chest kept whacking him on the chin.

The head, even when it had been separated from the neck, continued to make noises. This time, I thought I recognized the Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly . She was deliberately choosing well-known pieces to annoy me. I stepped up my whimpering, trying to drown her out.

'Oh for God's sake shut up, the both of you,' snapped Duncan.

Violet continued to hum. I rocked back and forth and tentatively suggested dismemberment.

She had been born into an age when the average human frame was smaller, and her smallness was an advantage to us now. Her ankles were no thicker than my wrists, and it didn't take long for Duncan to hack through them, even though her legs kept dancing around. He did the feet, and the arms, and the hands, and all the pieces continued to wriggle, and the head kept up a contented gurgling interspersed with snatches of melody.

Eventually, Duncan yelled at her to shut the fuck up. The walls of his flat were solid enough, but it was getting late and I didn't want the neighbours getting nosy, so, at my suggestion, he stuffed her mouth full of garlic. She kept trying to spit it out, so he tied my black chiffon scarf around her head to keep the jaw shut. Even then, she kept up an audible insect-like buzzing. Duncan finally lost patience, smothered the head in pages of the Guardian , and dropped the whole bundle into a black plastic bag, which he sealed with several yards of electrical tape.

'I've had enough,' he said, collapsing into a stained armchair and covering his face with sticky red hands.

'You haven't finished,' I objected. 'You've got to displace parts of the skeleton and pickle the major organs in holy water.'

'Oh, bugger that. Can't we just put her outside and wait for daylight?'

'Wouldn't work,' I said. 'Not if the stake didn't.' Deep down, I was realizing the books hadn't given the whole picture. Either that, or Violet had been around for so long she was no longer required to play by the rules. She was still singing, for Christ's sake. And we'd need more sunlight than we were likely to get at this time of year. Besides, wherever we dumped the body, Grauman would find it.

Grauman. I'd forgotten about Grauman. The thought of him instantly made me feel twice as sick as I'd already been feeling. This hadn't been part of Grauman's plan, not at all. When he found out what we'd done, he would kill us, no question. I retreated into my rocking, but it wasn't just the pain that was making me whimper now.

The pieces had finally stopped squirming. Duncan settled down to the task of wrapping each one separately in newspaper, and tape, and bin-bags, making a set of neat black plastic parcels. I thought he was being unnecessarily conscientious, but since he was doing all the work I didn't have the right to criticize. All I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep, but something told me that if I did that, I might never wake up again. I could have murdered a line or two, but I'd left all my drugs at Matt's. I was dying for the night to be over, but I had an uncomfortable feeling the arduous part was just beginning.

I dragged myself over to the window and peered out between the curtains. I knew what I was going to see, but I'd been hoping not to see it, just the same.

Parked just across the street was a battered Cortina. The windows were steamed up, but it didn't take a genius to work out who was inside.

'Oh God ,' I groaned, collapsing back on to the sofa.

Duncan looked up sharply from his post-dismemberment cigarette. 'What's up?'

Now was the time to tell him about Grauman. But I held back. Once Duncan knew that part of the story, I might not appear quite so innocent in his eyes. In fact, my involvement with Andreas might smack of conspiracy. As though we'd meant for this to happen.

'Feeling any better?' asked Duncan. 'How's the finger?'

He was looking quite concerned about me, almost fraternal. That did it. We were partners in crime now, and I wasn't about to spoil it by telling him things he didn't need to know. With my right hand, I smoked a cigarette, wondering all the time if it was going to be my last.

Duncan sat and stared into space until I told him to take a shower and put on clean clothes. When he looked halfway presentable, I made him pour strong black coffee down his throat until his eyes lit up like a pinball machine. I needed him to drive the car.

It was while he was getting changed that I had my brilliant idea. It was so blindingly obvious I couldn't understand why I hadn't thought of it earlier. Pain had obviously dulled my intellect. Under my breath, I recited a phrase which had popped into my head: 'It is important for all the pieces to be disposed of separately.'

It was then I remembered my Greek mythology.

It was two in the morning when we piled into the car with our baggage. We drove round in circles for about twenty minutes before I summoned the nerve to dispose of the first bag, the one containing the head. I nipped out and dropped it into some roadworks at the junction of Ladbroke Grove and Holland Park Avenue; not a crossroads, but near enough. There was no singing as I let it fall. Her battery must have finally run down.

As we drove off again, I saw the Cortina draw up at the kerb. We left it behind us, but not for long. Duncan caught me looking round. 'What's happening? Don't tell me we're being followed.'

'I think it's an unmarked police car,' I said. 'Try shaking it off.' Duncan threw a sharp left, and the Cortina carried on up the road.

Bag Number Two contained the torso. I weighted it with stones and heaved it into the canal. It sank out of sight immediately, leaving a few sluggish bubbles to float up to the surface and burst.

The Cortina rolled up again as we pulled out. Duncan was looking in the opposite direction and didn't see it, but I allowed myself to relax slightly. The water of the canal was murky and brown; Grauman would be forced to wade in and grope around. It could be hours before he struck lucky. This time, we had gained ourselves an unassailable head-start.

The West End was surprisingly busy, so we headed south to Kennington and left Bag Number Three in a communal rubbish container outside a block of council flats. Bag Number Four went into roadworks on Clapham Common. In Battersea, Duncan managed to pry open a manhole; Bag Number Five went down there.