He pressed his ear to the door. He could hear water running. He fetched the spare keys. He returned to his brother’s bedroom and slipped in the key. He walked inside, bare-foot, leaving the door wide open behind him.
Brad looked round the immaculate room. He could still hear the sound of the bathwater running as he crept across the room. He’d wait, Steven would have to come out at some time. The room was different from his own, but similar to his mother’s — floral drapes at the window, a canopied bed with swathes of silk caught in a coronet and tied with large satin bows. The carpet was oyster pink, as were the silk-covered walls. The stereo equipment was built into banks of mirrors; the television section was mirror-fronted to match the rows of wardrobes. Steven’s tapes and videos were neatly stacked and listed in alphabetical order, hundreds of CDs, old records and tapes. Brad caught his own reflection over and over again. There was no corner of the room in which you couldn’t see yourself. It was all elegant, expensive, even tasteful, if you liked that kind of décor. Brad hated it.
He looked over the dressing table — more fitting for a woman than a man, with jars of creams and perfumes in neat symmetrical rows, silver-backed mirrors and hairbrushes, and rows of silver-framed photographs. Brad had only ever entered this room two or three times and now he looked around slowly, taking everything in. He opened one wardrobe door after another to reveal rows of linen jackets and a vast array of shirts, each one covered in plastic. The shoes were packed in boxes with colour coordinations marked. There were racks of ties, silk handkerchiefs, even straw hats, a few he recognized as having belonged to his father.
He could hear the bathwater draining away. He knocked, waited a moment, then knocked again. The softly playing classical music was turned off.
‘Come on, Steven, I have to talk to you. It’s important.’ He punched the bathroom door. ‘Okay, fucking stay in there. You can come to me, I’m not waiting any longer. But you’d better come and see me, you hear? That was Andrew Fellows, my friend from the college, the professor. He’s working with the police. He had something to tell me about you, about that Norman Hastings friend of yours. If you want to know what he told me, then... screw you, Steven!’
Brad waited another few moments, then spotted the briefcase, placed neatly at the side of the dressing table. He picked it up and tried to open it, but it was locked. He looked over the dressing table and found a thin paper-knife. He prised open the lock, removed a file of papers, and then replaced the briefcase. His brother had still not made a sound so he left.
Two minutes later the bathroom door opened and Janklow walked out, draped in a silk dressing gown, naked beneath it. He bolted the bedroom door, to ensure his privacy, then walked casually towards the dressing table and sat on the small frilled stool. He opened a bottle of lotion and began carefully to cream his hands. Every move was studied, each finger massaged, each perfectly manicured nail scrutinized. He used pointed cotton-wool sticks to wipe around the cuticles and then looked along his row of clear varnishes, choosing one and carefully painting each nail. His hands were steady; he was calm. He slipped off the robe and stood naked, surveying himself in the mirrors. His slim body was still pinkish from the bath, a pale, white-skinned body, but muscular. He never went in the sun, unlike Brad — he never did any of the things Brad did, not as a child or as a man.
He began to do his yoga exercises, studying every posture in his mirrors. His testicles were small, like marbles, and his penis flaccid. He knelt forwards, squeezing his thighs together, pushing his penis out of sight until he knelt upwards, seemingly devoid of any sex organ. His nipples were erect, pink, and he slowly massaged his breasts, breathing deeply. The only blemish on his hairless skin was the mark at the side of his neck. He had used oil of arnica, even make-up to disguise the toothmarks of the bitch who had bitten him. He had been desperate to find her again. She could hurt him much more than the bite had. He breathed deeply, not wanting to become agitated.
It was almost over, he was almost free. It had been a terrible long nightmare. He had even thought of suffocating his mother just so that she would never find out; he had done it all for her because he loved her with an all-consuming passion. But they were not like mother and son, they were one. That was why he couldn’t kill her. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, just as he could not tolerate her knowing about him.
Brad stood in his mother’s room. He wasn’t sure why he had come here, possibly because it reminded him of Steven’s. He stood at her dressing table looking at the photographs and then slipped his finger into the small drawer in the centre. Everything here had a place and not one perfume bottle was out of line. He sniffed a cut-glass stopper and recognized the same smell from his brother’s room. As he was about to replace the stopper, he accidentally knocked over the bottle, which tipped into the open drawer, perfume splashing over the leather jewel boxes. He swore, snatched a tissue from the white-embroidered box and dabbed at the leather, then took out the large, fan-styled box to make sure it was not stained. He clicked it open. The velvet-lined case that had once contained four fabulous ropes of perfectly matched pearls was empty. He closed it and then opened the other boxes. All were empty.
He whistled softly as he shut the drawers. He checked that the perfume bottle was once more in line with the others and walked out.
Just as Brad left his mother’s room, he heard the front door close. ‘Steven? Steven?
He ran down the stairs just in time to see his brother drive out in the Mercedes.
Lorraine hadn’t seen it coming. She was totally taken aback when Dilly Fellows, midway through talking about Brad Thorburn, burst into tears. She sobbed loudly, hands over her face. ‘This is so stupid, but just talking about him hurts me so much because I love him. I don’t know what to do about it sometimes. I can usually control it but sometimes it just bursts out of me.’
Lorraine stood up. ‘Look, I’d better go. My friend’s waiting outside.’
Dilly sniffed. ‘You should have brought her in. I don’t know what’s happened to Andrew and I’m so sorry about this, I don’t know what you must think of me. Andrew doesn’t know. Oh, God, you won’t tell him, will you?’ Lorraine shook her head. ‘He’s got no idea. He knows I had a passion for Brad — well, it was obvious to begin with — but he doesn’t know just how much I care. I think about him all the time, I make up excuses to call him. I’m like a teenager — but I like it. I like this feeling. It’s like a pain, it’s almost sexual it gets so intense, and then when he comes here with Andrew, I have an orgasm just looking at him. I do, I honestly do, and it’s an incredible feeling. I put it back into my work when he’s been around, I can paint for hours. Did he touch you?’
Lorraine felt more and more uneasy. Dilly was over-bright, over-excited and her voice was verging on hysterical. ‘Why did you ask me all those questions about him? Did you fuck him?’
Lorraine picked up her purse. ‘No, I didn’t, and I have to go. Thank you for the tea.’ She couldn’t wait to get into the car.
‘Jesus, you took your time, I was just about to come in and get you. A few minutes, you said,’ Rosie growled. She was hungry and it was way past lunchtime.