Loe raamatut: «The Verdict»

Chapter 2
1994 – Guildford

Julia stood outside Guildford train station, twisting a flimsy A–Z in her hands and trying to orientate herself towards the six locations, ringed in red biro, where she’d arranged viewings. Her two criteria were that the room must be clean and close to the train station. Guildford was to be a place of work only, the room she sought somewhere to rest her head. Her life would be in London. At weekends, she’d stay over at Pearl’s, and catch the late train back on weeknights.

After a couple of wrong turns, Julia found the first place. What the advert had described as a charming cottage was, in fact, a tiny terrace house. The landlord was waiting outside. Rotund, and in his late fifties or early sixties, he was more of a yokel than the Surrey stockbroker type she’d expected.

‘Jeff,’ the man said and stuck his hand into hers.

‘Julia,’ she replied.

‘You’re the first to see it. If you like, you can help choose the other tenants.’

So far, so good.

Jeff wrenched open the rusted gate into a small front garden, overrun with weeds. Inside, the house was empty, except for a thick-pile beige carpet on the floor.

‘I’ve ordered new furniture,’ the landlord said once inside.

A sofa and coffee table may have helped to hide some of the stains or distracted from the thick dust on the skirting boards.

‘Did the last tenants wreck it?’ Julia asked.

‘Who?’

‘The previous tenants, it doesn’t look like they took care of the place.’

The man scowled. ‘My wife’s always been a stickler for housework,’ he said. ‘If it’s a little dusty, it’s because we moved out a couple of weeks ago and there’s been no chance to run a cloth over it.’

Julia eyed the sticky mug ring on the mantelpiece and caught a whiff of dog hair rising from the carpet.

‘What do you think?’ Jeff asked, after giving her a tour.

‘The bedroom’s a bit small,’ she said.

The second room on her list was in a similar Victorian terrace to the first. Two male PhD students, from Surrey University, were already living there. It annoyed Julia that she hoped at least one of them was good-looking and single. The first hope was wiped out as she entered the house, and she never got around to asking about the second.

Ewan, twenty-six and reading physics, showed her the room, which was large and had its own sink. Promising. And while the place couldn’t exactly be called clean, it wasn’t filthy, and the location was convenient.

Ewan sat her down in the kitchen and made her a cup of tea.

‘This is Simon,’ he said. ‘He’ll be your other housemate.’

Simon sat at the other end of the table to Julia, his face hidden behind some academic tome.

‘Hi,’ Julia said.

Simon lowered the book, peered over the top, but didn’t respond.

‘So, what do you do?’ Ewan asked.

‘I’m about to start as a …’ Simon distracted her by putting down his book, placing his elbows on the table, his head in his hands and devoting all his energy to glaring at her. ‘As a software developer at Morgan Boyd Consulting.’

Had she done something wrong? She looked directly at Simon and smiled. He continued to glare. Ewan appeared unaware of his housemate’s open intimidation.

‘We’re kind of quiet in the week, but go out on Friday and Saturday,’ he said.

Simon’s expression remained fixed and hostile. A mild panic ran through her. Was this a trap? Did these men lure young women in with the offer of a room, do away with them and stash their corpses under the floorboards? Perhaps her tea was drugged. Perhaps Simon kept his dead mother mummified in the basement. She’d seen Psycho.

Julia put down the mug. ‘You know, it’s lovely but … er … too far from the station.’

‘It’s a three-minute walk,’ Ewan said.

‘Thanks.’

Simon was still staring at her. Julia picked up her bag and ran out down the hall, towards the door.

‘Is it the mess? We’re thinking of getting a cleaner,’ Ewan called from the kitchen.

Julia slammed the door behind her and ran to the end of the road before turning back. She almost expected to see Simon racing from the house to hunt her down. The front door stayed shut. She walked around the corner and out of sight before stopping to catch her breath. As soon as her breathing had slowed down, she laughed out loud. Psycho – she was being ridiculous. People aren’t murdered in cosy commuter towns. Perhaps all Simon had wanted was to keep Ewan to himself. Perhaps he’d end up murdering Ewan in a fit of jealous rage. Again, Julia laughed. Her mother, Audrey, always told her she had an overactive imagination and it was possible that, for once, she was right.

Three more places were left on the list. One turned out to be more of a cupboard than a room, the other was next to an MOT servicing garage, open six days a week. By the time Julia headed towards the last potential room, she had scratched ‘clean’ and ‘near the station’ from her list. As long as there was no heavy machinery next door and it was free from homicidal maniacs, she’d take it.

Downs Avenue was a steep, winding road on the edge of town, further from the train station than was ideal. On one side of the road, houses of varying styles and sizes stood at the bottom of sharply sloped drives. On the other lay the open hillside of the Downs.

Julia had not seen them before, the low-rolling hills, covered with meadow flowers interrupted by clumps of trees, lusher and more inviting than the hills at home.

On reaching number 72, she thought she had made a mistake and rechecked the address. Downsview Villa, 72 Downs Avenue – it was the right place. The house was in a modern style, with a nod to Georgian, detached, double-fronted and set over three storeys. Far grander than anything she’d expected. Julia rang the bell and waited a moment before swathes of fabric floated across the frosted glass of the front door. A slender woman of medium height opened it. A classical beauty, with high rounded cheekbones and long curled eyelashes. Around Audrey’s age, Julia thought, fifty or so, but her mother would never dress like this. A printed silk scarf was wrapped around the woman’s head and fashioned into a turban and she wore a matching dress, long and flowing. Was she on the way to a fancy-dress party, or perhaps rehearsing for a play? Julia waited for her to speak, but the woman remained bolt upright at the door, one arm stretched across its frame.

‘Hi. I’m Julia. I’ve come about the room,’ she said, when it was clear the woman wasn’t going to speak first.

The woman’s spine relaxed a fraction and she looked Julia up and down for some moments before saying, ‘Julia? You don’t look like a Julia. My name is Genevieve.’

The retort, You don’t look like a Genevieve, would have been ill-applied. No one could look more like a Genevieve. Julia would have been very disappointed if she were named Mildred.

Unsure how to respond, Julia stayed silent, half expecting the woman to turn her away, but she said, ‘Come in,’ stepped back and flung her arm out to usher Julia inside 72 Downs Avenue.