73

Saturday 6 October

I WAS WALTZING. SO I KNEW IMMEDIATELY IT WAS A DREAM. I’ve never waltzed in my life. But in my dream I was whirling, Viennese style, spinning like a top, round and round as the music grew louder, and everywhere I turned there were red balloons and streamers and bright-scarlet confetti falling like petals from the ceiling.

I spun faster, and the music in my head started to hurt. Then suddenly the balloons and the streamers and the petals were changing, taking on odd shapes, gleaming wet. The streamers weren’t paper any more, they were entrails. The petals were blood spatters and the balloons – oh Christ – the balloons were severed human heads, staring at me with milky eyes everywhere I turned.

With something between a gasp and a scream I was awake. I was out of bed, standing at its foot, shaking. The room was dark and for a second I could see nothing but the lights of Joesbury’s alarm system. Tiny red lights.

I’d had no idea how disorientating it would be to wake suddenly in the middle of the night and not be in bed. How vulnerable it would make me feel. I stumbled across the room and switched on the light.

As soon as I could see, the first thing I did was to check my body, my arms, legs, torso. The dream had been so vivid that even now I was convinced I was covered in blood. There was nothing, of course. The sticky dampness I’d felt on waking was just sweat. Harder to explain away, though – in fact, impossible – was the music.

The music hadn’t been part of the dream. The music was still playing. At first I thought it was in the room with me, but I knew I’d checked all the locks and alarms before going to sleep. It was coming from outside. I was wearing a running vest and loose shorts. I don’t own nightclothes. I found a sweatshirt on the chair and pulled it on.

Outside, the music was louder. I was surprised other people in the house hadn’t woken and heard it. It was an instrumental version, but of course I knew the lyrics off by heart. Raindrops, roses, copper kettles and wild geese. All the best things in the world. Favourite things.

Through the shed window I could see a light flickering, like a candle flame. And the door didn’t seem properly closed. I was halfway down the garden now, my bare feet cold on the stone path. The shed door was unlocked and just an inch ajar.

Door bells, sleigh bells, girls in white dresses. My own list of favourite things hadn’t been quite the same as Maria’s, although I couldn’t argue with most of her choices. My list, though, had included being the first to dive into a swimming pool and break the lovely clear stillness of the water. Also the steam that comes off ponies’ bodies on winter mornings. And the velvet soft feel of their noses. I’d adored ponies.

I’d been in the shed earlier. When I got home from work I’d changed and unlocked it. I’d stared at the dummy’s head on top of my punchbag and imagined it with turquoise blue eyes, tanned skin and even, white teeth. An hour later I’d returned to the flat exhausted.

Books were my other great passion as a child. I’d practically taught myself to read and it rarely took me more than a term to get through everything on the classroom reading shelves. With never enough spare cash to buy books, the lending library had been a godsend. Every Saturday morning I was there. And my favourite book ever? The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, of course.

The music was coming from the shed.

I’d liked city parks, too. The way the grass and the trees seem to form a bubble around you, shielding you from the noise and smells of the city. And the zoo, I shouldn’t forget that. I’d always, from being a toddler, loved visits to the zoo. Pools and ponies, parks and the zoo; and public libraries full of books. My favourite things.

I was at the shed. All I’d done was walk the length of the garden path, but it seemed to have taken a very long time to do so. Even longer to stretch out my hand and push the shed door gently.

From the very beginning, this case had been about me. At some level, I’d always known that.

There was no need to go into the shed. From the doorway I could see the punchbag swaying to and fro, as though remembering the hammering I’d given it earlier. Or as though someone had not long left it. It had the look of a clock’s pendulum, marking time. Tick tock. I could also see that the inanimate head I’d pictured earlier as Mark Joesbury’s face was no longer on top of the punchbag. Something else had taken its place.

There was no need to switch on the lights. Five candles in a circle around the punchbag made extra lighting unnecessary. They flickered and danced in the breeze that the open door had allowed in. Their light was soft, golden, warm as the morning. They made Karen Curtis’s severed head look almost alive.