Perfect People (27 page)

Amid a burst of laughter at the ragged singing, four glasses of Skåne aquavit clinked across the festive table in John and Naomi’s dining area.

‘
Skål!
’ John said.

‘
Skål!
’ said Naomi.

‘
Skål!
’ Carson Dicks said, putting down his song sheet.

Then with a little less enthusiasm, as if she was embarrassed by such rowdy behaviour, Carson’s wife Caroline added her own, small ‘
Skål!
’

The centrepiece of the table was a huge dish heaped with crimson freshwater crayfish, covered with sprigs of fresh dill. A small plastic Swedish flag was placed to one side of it, and several candles burned around it. Two plates were stacked with the traditional white toasted bread, and another with Greve cheese. In front of each place setting were glasses of schnapps, beer, wine and water. The tablecloth was paper printed with pictures of crayfish, and the theme was carried through on the napkins at each of the four place settings and on the bibs they were wearing.

John, fuelled by alcohol, felt good. Naomi had made the table look wonderful. She looked beautiful, and he felt intensely proud of her. He was with his favourite friends. The air was balmy. How could you fail to be happy on a night like this?

He stood up and raised his glass. ‘I wish to make a toast to you, my darling. You are a wonderful woman, a fantastic wife, an incredible mother, and I love you and adore you.’

Carson and Caroline raised their glasses. Naomi mouthed an embarrassed, ‘Thank you.’

‘To Naomi!’ Carson said.

‘Naomi!’ Caroline said, leaning across the table and clinking glasses with her.

He refilled Carson Dicks’s schnapps glass, but Caroline covered hers with her hand.

‘I’m driving,’ she said.

John looked at her as if she was mental. ‘No one drives to a crayfish party. You should leave your car and take a taxi home!’

Then he got up from the table and staggered over to the baby-monitor speaker. Just a faint hiss of static. All quiet. Good. He hoped their singing down here wouldn’t disturb the children, but hey, the annual crayfish party would become part of Luke and Phoebe’s lives too, in time. An essential cornerstone of their Swedish culture.

‘So, how are you finding life at the Morley Park Institute, John?’ Carson Dicks said, breaking into his thoughts.

John nodded. ‘Good. I’m glad you persuaded me. I’m very happy.’ He looked at Naomi.

‘I owe you a big thank-you for bringing us back to England,’ she said.

‘We’re happy, too,’ Carson said, peering at both of them through his bottle-thick glasses. ‘We’re lucky to have John working for us – and we’re fortunate to have you both here. It’s worked out well. You’re married to a great man.’

Caroline picked up her glass. ‘Who was it who said that behind every successful man there stands a truly astonished woman?’

They all laughed.

John beamed at Carson. He liked him so much. His boss had dressed for the occasion tonight in a blue and yellow striped T-shirt, the Swedish national colours, unbelievably baggy trousers and open-toed sandals. He looked a complete prat, and yet . . . so adorable. Suddenly he raised his glass and stood up again. ‘Carson and Caroline – you’ve been truly good friends to us. You’ve helped us both in so many ways. I want to say thank you. I think Naomi and I are very fortunate to have your friendship.’ He drank half the glass and sat down.

Caroline, looking a little embarrassed, smiled. Carson raised his own glass. ‘You know the definition of a true friend, John?’

John shook his head. ‘No, tell me.’

‘It’s someone who knows everything about you – and still likes you.’

John roared with laughter. ‘I guess that makes you a true friend indeed!’

‘Don’t you think there is a lot of serendipity in life, John?’ Caroline said. ‘That sometimes things are meant to be?’

‘I think that’s a cop-out,’ Naomi said.

John, sensing an argument about to happen, picked up his song sheet. ‘Right! Time for the next song. Caroline, your turn to sing!’

Reddening with embarrassment, she stood up, holding her sheet, and made a valiant attempt at singing the Swedish words.

‘Tänk om jag hade lilla nubben
. . .’ she began.

When she had finished, she sat down to raucous applause from John and her husband, who again drained their schnapps glasses.

John refilled the glasses. He was about to sit down again, when a sound from the baby monitor caught his attention. For a moment he thought it was just the static again, but then, listening closer, he heard a sharp buzzing sound. Naomi looked up at him, catching his eye.

‘Problem?’ she asked.

He listened again. A very definite angry buzzing sound. ‘I’ll go.’

He raised a calming hand and headed, unsteadily, out into the hall. Then, swaying from side to side, he hurried to the twins’ room. Opening the door, he almost immediately had to duck as a small, dark object, barely visible in the weak glow of the night light, hurtled at him, buzzing angrily, batted against a wall, then shot away.

He blinked, his vision a tad blurry.
Shit.

He snapped the main light switch down and the room instantly flooded with light. Moments later the insect zoomed low over the cots, then buzzed him again before racing up towards the ceiling. It was a very large wasp, a queen, or maybe even a hornet.

Jesus.

Luke and Phoebe were both awake, silent, staring at him.

‘It’s OK,’ he said, looking around for something to whack it with. A story book lay on the floor beside the play ring, and he grabbed it, looking around for the insect, which had now disappeared. He scanned the walls, the ceiling, then the bright yellow curtains. Nothing.

He raised a finger to his lips. Slurring his words, he said, ‘Sssh – issschhhstt’s OK. Daddy’s s-shhere.’

He wobbled unsteadily, brandishing the book. Took a step towards the window. The insect launched itself at him. He took a wild swipe with the book and missed. It batted off the wall behind him, then swooped low again over the cots.

As it did so, Luke’s hand shot up. He saw Luke’s finger and thumb close like pincers. And a moment later the insect fell, silent and twitching, to the carpet.

John stared in disbelief. He went down on his knees. The headless body of a huge wasp lay there, jerking in death throes, its sting sticking out then retracting, sticking out, then retracting again.

He stood up and stamped on it, once, then again, until it lay motionless. Then, still not able fully to believe his eyes, he went over to Luke’s cot. His son’s eyes were wide open and he was holding his arm up, finger and thumb outstretched, as if he was presenting a trophy to his father.

There was a tiny black mark on his thumb. And a definite black blob on his forefinger. It was the head of the wasp, John could see, looking closer.

Shaking, he removed it with his thumbnail, unsure what to say. ‘Luke – that’s so—’

There was absolutely no expression on Luke’s face. Nor on Phoebe’s. Both of them stared at him, as if it was he who was the object of curiosity.

He kissed them both, and it seemed there was a glimmer of a smile back from them. Perhaps they were starting to show a little affection. And as he dimmed the light and went back out of the door, he found himself wondering whether he had imagined the whole thing.

Or, as he thought much later, hoping he had.

Out in the night, concealed behind dense shrubbery, the Disciple could hear laughter. The light that spilled from the downstairs windows of the house spread out across the lawn, but faded into the darkness long before it could reach him.

But the laughter reached him, and the laughter angered him.

These were people who had no business to be laughing.

He could see them clearly through the lenses of his small binoculars, a man and a woman whose faces matched those in the photograph he carried in his pocket, and another man and woman who were the guests, who had come in a grey Jeep Cherokee that was parked in front of the house.

I said of laughter, it is mad: And of mirth, what doeth it? Ecclesiastes 2: 2.

He was dressed in black trousers, a black parka and black, rubber-soled shoes, safely invisible to anyone inside the house. Beneath these outer clothes he wore a full body stocking that covered all of his head except for his face, and was designed to minimize the chances of leaving behind skin and hair for forensic scientists to find. But he was regretting the warm top layer now. He had thought the night would be chilly but instead it was humid.

In the sagging pockets of his parka he carried a pair of thin leather gloves, a set of lock-picks, a gas cylinder, a gas mask, a canister of quick-drying foam, a canister of liquid propane gas, a toolkit, a beautifully engineered air rifle that was collapsed like a tripod, a night-sight, a torch, a lighter. And of course the photograph of the sinners. Around his neck hung a pair of night-vision goggles. Clipped to his belt was a small oxyacetylene cutter.

From his vantage point the Disciple could make out four people sitting at a table inside; they seemed to be having a good time. There was a weak glow around the edges of the curtains in an upstairs window, and he wondered if that was where the twins slept.

A bead of perspiration trickled down the nape of his neck.

Closing his eyes, he said the Lord’s Prayer. Afterwards he stood in silent vigil, waiting for the other couple to leave. Although, he thought, since they were cavorting with the sinners in their house, they were undoubtedly in league with Satan, and it would be a service to kill them too.

But those were not his orders.

Behold, ye have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out. Numbers 32: 23.

It was ten o’clock. He felt a little nervous, but the Lord was by his side, and that certainty gave him strength. And what gave him even more strength was the knowledge that, by his deeds tonight, he was going to demonstrate to the Lord his love and absolute commitment to Him.

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. John 3: 19.

At a few minutes past eleven a fox slunk through the garden, triggering the powerful outside floods, which swept up the lawn, drenching the shrubbery all around him in brilliant white light. He remained motionless; the male sinner’s face appeared at a window, looking out for some moments, then went away. Nothing else happened. After three minutes, the lights went off.

A short while later the four people got up from the dinner table and moved to sofas on the far side of the room. Through the binoculars he could see the woman sinner was pouring what looked like coffee. He could hear music now. It sounded quite loud out here, and it must be even louder in the house, he reasoned. Cole Porter. Decadent music.

It was a good time now. He clicked the air-rifle components together, slotted the night-sight into place, pressed in place the air cylinder, and inserted ten .22 pellets into the magazine.

Then, using a stiff branch as a rest, he squinted through the night-sight and saw, in close-up, the wall of the house in a soft green glow. Moments later he had the cross-hairs on the first flood lamp. The light bulb, still hot, glowed a brilliant orange colour, so bright it almost dazzled him.

A month on his own in the ranch on top of the mountain in Colorado had given him plenty of time to practise his aim, but it was God who really made the pellet strike its target. He squeezed the trigger, heard the
thunk
of the gun discharging, then a fraction of a second later a light tinkle; barely any sound at all; and a shower of glass that looked like sparks through his night-sight.

Moments later, God helped him take out the second bulb with a single shot, just as easily. In the grand scheme of things, a couple of broken light bulbs and two flattened airgun pellets were unlikely ever to be discovered.

An hour later the music stopped. They were all standing up. He watched them saying goodbyes, exchanging kisses. They moved out of the room and out of sight.

A short while later he heard a vehicle starting up. The Jeep, he presumed. It drove away. The sinners came back into the room and began to clear the table.

Then at long last the sinners left the room and switched off the lights. A light came on in an upstairs window. He saw the woman sinner framed, briefly. She was staring out into the night when her husband came up behind her, slipped his arms around her, and began nuzzling her.

Leave her alone, creep. Go to bed. Turn out your lights. You are being selfish, you are keeping me waiting too long.

The husband moved away and, a few moments later, the woman. Then, finally, after what seemed an eternity, the light went out.

The Disciple made his way across the lawn. With the beam of a mini Maglite torch he held in his teeth, using a pick, he worked on the lock of the kitchen door, which yielded easily. But he did not open it. Instead, he went around the side of the house and scaled a drainpipe, which took him up to the alarm box just below the eaves. Drilling a small hole in the box, he emptied into it the contents of his canister of fast-drying foam, then dropped back to the ground.