The Killer Next Door by Marwood Alex

Author:Marwood, Alex [Marwood, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781405521208
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2013-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

Vesta closes the door and lets her face drop. The strain of keeping up a good front, of projecting reassurance for all these hours, has drained her. That bloody man, she thinks. I’m going to have a rest for a couple of hours, but then I’m right round there. I can’t believe he’s got the gall. Utter bastard. I’m going to go round there and tell him. Just because they’ve done away with tenant rights doesn’t mean he can just bully people. I’ve had enough. Really, I’ve had enough.

She’s so stiff she has to hold on to the banisters all the way down the stairs, take them one at a time with her right foot first. She feels old today, and hates it when she’s forced to remember that nearly seventy is old. She has always taken such pride in staying young, in fighting all those generational attitudes when they’ve tried to creep up on her, and the thought that in the end it’s all inevitable fills her with dread. She wishes she’d remembered to neck one of Cher’s tramadol while she was up there, but there’s plenty of ibuprofen in the flat. A couple of those, a cup of tea and a lie-down, and I’ll be right round there, she thinks. I’ll bloody well tell him he can’t bully people.

The stink hits her the moment she opens the flat door. Like the rat – rotten and foetid and old – but far, far worse. It’s a thick, viscous smell, and it’s huge.

‘Oh, God,’ says Vesta. What now? Haven’t I had enough already? Really, today, over the last few weeks? Haven’t I?

She turns on the light and goes in, covering her face with the sleeve of her cardy. It’s sewage. She knows it is. It’s not hard to tell the smell of shit and fat and urine, even if it’s not a stench you smell every day.

The carpet is damp and sludgy beneath her feet. Vesta gags, and forges forward. It’s the drains. Those bloody drains she’s been asking him and asking him to sort out. Something has gone terribly wrong, and now it’s all over her kitchen.

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