47 :

I didn’t know how to find him. But I could find her. And if I could find her. I would find him.

So he will never hurt again. So he will never kill again. So that ….

Fuck it. I just wanted revenge.

It was heartbreaking. There was that old cliché, life goes on. But I could only bear that weight because whatever happens, whenever she leaves, wherever she goes, life goes on where you can’t see her. Your life goes on, your life continues. But so does hers.

When she leaves, at that moment, that instant, she becomes a stranger. Someone travelling a different path, a path that with every step moves further and further out of your orbit. Someone you know less and less with every passing day, a person who not only do you not know, someone you don’t recognise. Whatever she used to be, whatever you used to know, that person shrinks away with time, and passing days, until you longer recognise her. A stranger.

But still, I loved her. Still, frozen forever in time, she was. My girl.

And life goes on. Her life went on, where mine didn’t. Not only did she grieve, so did I.

I had to follow her. Stalk her. Watch her with unseen eyes. Tread her hurried, furtive steps. Her face hidden from the light, her life packed up in boxes, hastily assembled from Supermarket packing, from IKEA, Argos, from anywhere. A life on the run, living out of boxes, always ready to leave.

I was turning into him. I would sit outside her front door, waiting on cold steps, hearing the tap of shoes on stone or enamel floors, the rustle of letters in postboxes, the sounds of her flat breathing, the rush of water through pipes, of lights flicking on and off in shadows that hang off the wall. And I stared at that door. Waiting. Trying to see if I could come in.

From time to time an old man or a woman would knock on her door. People I never knew, never met, people who’d known her longer than I. Her mum and dad, their lives rent again by that man, their eyes tired, deadened, exhausted by her broken life.

A murmur of voices, low and soft. There was someone else in there with her. But who? I don’t know. Another of her friends? Another one of that long list of long suffering friends, always tired of her continual bad deal from the deck of life.

I wanted through that door.

I waited. I thought. I wondered. Lonely again.

And this time, I couldn’t see it changing. I didn’t – couldn’t – love again. Oh, that was a lie. I’m sure I could at some point. But never to know when or who or how or why or where. Would I love a ghost, would I fall for another kindred spirit, without flesh? Oh, in time. But let me put it this way. I wasn’t planning on falling in love. But not ruling it out.

I had all the time in the world.

I walked around her area. I memorised the layout of roads. The familiar parked cars. Number plates. The location of every flat, every door, the faces of everyone who lived around here. The times they left for work, the times they came back. Where the shopped – the Safeways, the Tesco’s, the Aldi’s. All these things.

The front doors, the back routes, the fire escapes and alleyways. The dogs that froze and barked, looked at me in rigid fear, their eyes locked on my shapeless form, their barking rising from a erratic whine. The old lady next door, the couple upstairs, the divorced man downstairs, trying to eke out a quiet existence on a single wage, grappling with a mortgage and lawyers costs and maintenance payments to the woman he found in love with another man.

These were my neighbours now, my routine, and I waited, I watched. I hoped and feared that one day I would see that face, that numberplate, a pair of eyes I glimpsed in shilouette. And yet, I felt watched.

Time. It always takes time. Not long. However long it is it was too long and too soon.

A sigh came from next to me. I looked up and matched a pair of dark eyes. Samuel.

He sat next to me. The air was warmer, the vibrations of him felt good. I felt like a car alarm. Triggered by minute, invisible changes to the air. And in my stupid way, I’d missed the old bugger. He was the nearest thing to a friend I had, and it’s easy to forget how much one needs a friend.

“Don’t you ever get bored?” he said in that familiar, slow drawl that only time and boredom can breed.

“Yep.” I didn’t feel much like talking. And I didn’t feel much like being alone.

“So,” He paused. “What’s the plan?”

I didn’t really know actually. I hadn’t quite worked that out. I dunno. Hang around. Think of something. Save the world. Or at the very least, save her, somehow. Kill him. Save the entire planet.

I didn’t know.

“I don’t know.”

He put his hands together in silent prayer, his head bowed, his knees drawn up around him.

“Still love her?” It wasn’t so much a question as a statement.

He thought again.

“You know what you have to do.” And in my silent way, I did, not by knowing what I had to do, but knowing what I couldn’t do. I couldn’t allow it to continue.

He looked off into the middle distance. He told me what I needed to know.

“He’ll be here tomorrow. Four O’Clock. She’s safe until then.”

He stood up. “Come back home. We need to talk.”