Page 41 of M for Murder

She weighed it up against how badly she wanted to see the inside of his house, to see the bathroom where he showered, the wardrobe full of his clothes, the bed where he slept.

You won’t get caught. Not if you’re careful.

Convincing herself she was right, Justine opened the gate and stepped into the garden, oblivious to the pair of eyes watching her from across the street.

14

E ntry into the house was easy. Had she had to break a window to get in, Justine would have turned around and gone back to campus. She wasn’t a criminal or a vandal and, however much she wanted to see the inside of Lawrie’s house, she wouldn’t cause any damage.

Her initial plan had been to check for unlocked doors or windows. She knew that back in the small town where she had grown up, people were constantly forgetting to shut windows before they went out. Hopefully Kylan and Lawrie had the same bad habit.

She tried every door and window on the ground floor, taking extra caution when she was round the front of the house not to be seen by any neighbours. All were locked securely. Finally realising that she wasn’t going to get in that way, Justine admitted defeat and moved to her second, and less likely to be successful, plan of checking for hidden keys.

She checked the top of the back door, underneath a row of flowerpots that stood on the backyard patio and tried to get into the shed, without success. Then she tried the two flowerpots that sat either side of the small fishpond next to the shed. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the small silver key hidden beneath where the second flowerpot had been sitting.

She’d found it.

Thinking how easy it had been, she took the key and replaced the flowerpot, then made her way back up to the house. She headed for the back door, hoping that the key would fit so she wouldn’t have to go around the front and risk being seen by anyone who might happen to be passing by.

As she slipped the key into the lock it crossed her mind for a fleeting second that it might not be a house key. The shed had been locked and was right next to the pond. Maybe she wasn’t going to be as lucky as she initially thought.

You might only get to see the inside of Lawrie’s shed instead.

The key seemed to fit. Holding her breath, she turned it in the lock. It moved easily and she was relieved to hear the click as the door unlocked. Tentatively she pushed down on the handle and eased the door open.

She found herself looking into what appeared to be a small cloakroom. The light wasn’t on, but the moon shining through the window covered everything with a pale hue. Justine stepped inside, carefully closing the door behind her, and glanced around.

A rack on the opposite wall was filled with various coats and jackets. Looking closer, she recognised a cream-coloured suede jacket that she had seen Kylan wearing around campus before. The walls either side were filled with wooden shelves. To Justine’s left the shelves contained a mixture of video cassettes, all originally boxed, and books, both fiction and non-fiction. The shelves to the right were mainly filled with plants and ornaments.

There was no door to the cloakroom, instead an archway which separated the room from the rest of the house. Deciding she’d seen enough of the cloakroom, Justine headed through the archway and into a hallway that ran the full length of the house. The floor of the hall was polished wood and as she stepped on it her shoes made a loud, echoing clack. Even though she was certain there was no one home, she still felt uncomfortable making any kind of noise, so raised her feet onto tiptoe before continuing.

She conducted a quick tour of the downstairs of the house.

The peach-coloured living room with two beige couches and an elegant-looking sideboard that was partly lit by a table lamp; the kitchen, a room she avoided going into as it looked directly over the main street; and a room that seemed as though it was used as some kind of study. She wondered if this was Lawrie’s secret room. A room where he could come to be alone, away from Kylan, a room where he spent a lot of time and had his deepest thoughts.

Then she saw the framed picture on the desk: Kylan and Lawrie, their arms around each other, smiling for the camera.

Feeling sick she turned away.

As she climbed the plush carpeted stairs to the bedrooms, she felt a mixture of nerves and excitement. She was almost there. Almost to the place she most wanted to see. Although it wasn’t cold, she had goose-bumps on her arms.

At the top of the stairs she found herself on a small landing with three white doors leading off, all of them shut. Justine opened the one closest to her. Through the darkness she could make out a bedroom. She doubted it was Lawrie’s bedroom though, as the large pine bed was bare of linen, and it was scantly furnished. The room wasn’t empty, though; it was littered with boxes, some full, others with their contents strewn across the floor. Justine could see photo albums, ornaments, lamps and books amongst the clutter. This was obviously just a spare room used for storing junk.

She was tempted to root through the photo albums, see if she could find some pictures of Lawrie when he was younger. Remembering the picture in the study stopped her. She didn’t want to risk seeing any more pictures of him with Kylan and chances were that if she did look, she might find some wedding photographs. Something she definitely didn’t want to see.

She closed the door to the spare room and tried the next door. This one led into the bathroom. Knowing she was at the back of the house and unlikely to alert suspicion, Justine pulled at the light switch cord. Light fell onto the room and the extractor fan started to whirl, making her jump. The bathroom suite was deep forest green with gold-coloured fixtures and the room had been decorated with a coastal theme. Decorative white and gold starfish and sea horses hung by hooks from the wall forming a border around the bathtub; the toilet and toothbrush holders were in the shapes of crabs; and several large white shells sat on the vanity unit containing soaps and bath oils.

Above the vanity unit was a mirrored medicine cabinet. Justine pulled the door open and glanced inside at the shelves crammed with bottles and tubes. Spotting a packet of condoms jutting out from behind a bottle of sleeping pills, she quickly closed the mirrored door.

A towel rack stood next to the bathtub and two large cream towels were draped over it. The top one still looked damp.

Was this Lawrie’s towel? Had he used it to dry himself after his shower, before he went out this evening? She picked up the towel and held it to her nose. It smelt of musky soap.

Glancing at the shelves again, she noticed that one of the soaps sat in a shallow pool of water. She imagined Lawrie in the shower using the soap to cleanse his skin before stepping out of the water and into the towel. She rubbed the towel against her cheek. It felt soft and fluffy and slightly damp from where it had been used.

This was the closest she had come to Lawrie and she planned to savour every moment. Stepping over to the vanity unit, she turned on the hot water faucet, picked up the bar of soap, held it under the warm running water then caressed it against her cheek. She rubbed it against her skin, building up a lather, before replacing the soap and rinsing her face under the faucet. She returned to the towel and buried her face in it, thinking about how she was using Lawrie’s towel and Lawrie’s soap.

When her face was dry she took his toothbrush from the crab holder. It was easy to tell which of the two brushes belonged to him. One was pink and one was green; Lawrie’s had to be the green one. Squeezing minty toothpaste onto the bristles, she began to brush her teeth. She watched herself in the large mirror on the wall, feeling now that she was really part of Lawrie. What would he say if he could see her standing here in his bathroom, using his things as if they were her own? What would her classmates back at college think if they knew she was here in his house?