Outside, a van is slowing. It parks beneath a tree. Two people get out. Oscar and Roland. The side door slides open. Elias is sitting on the bench seat. This time he has a suitcase.
They are walking up the path. Any moment they’re going to ring the doorbell or knock. What am I supposed to do? Show him to his room? Make small talk? Hide the knives?
The bell startles me. I wait. It rings again. Fuck! I open the door.
‘Special delivery for Cyrus Haven,’ says Oscar. His gold tooth glints.
‘Cyrus isn’t home.’
‘No problem. You know Elias.’
I want to say, ‘Take him back,’ but Elias is giving me his goofy smile, all chins and teeth. He’s dressed in baggy corduroy trousers and a khaki shirt with press studs instead of buttons. There are old sweat stains under his arms, which have discoloured the material.
‘Hello, Evie,’ he says. ‘How are you?’
I try to read something in his face but can’t tell if he’s being creepy or trying to be polite or if this is part of his training. They dump his suitcase in the hallway and turn to leave.
‘Are you going?’ I ask.
‘Yeah,’ says Oscar.
I follow them down the path. ‘Is there anything I should know?’
‘Like what?’
‘Instructions.’
‘He doesn’t come with a manual.’
Smirks between them. Arseholes!
When I go back inside, Elias is in the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers.
‘Are you looking for something?’
‘Just checking where things are kept.’
He is getting closer to the knives.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I ask.
‘I can make my own. Do you want one?’
‘No.’
Elias fills the kettle. ‘When will Cyrus be home?’
‘Any minute. He popped out to the shops to buy some things. Milk.’
He has opened the fridge. ‘We have plenty of milk.’
‘Something for dinner.’
I’m standing with my bum against the cutlery drawer.
‘What do you do, Evie?’
‘I go to school. I work.’
‘I’m studying too. I’m going to be a lawyer.’
Fat chance, I think. He’s looking for a teaspoon. I reach behind me and take one from the drawer. When he looks away, I slip a short-bladed knife into the waistband of my jeans.
Nursing his mug of tea, Elias continues opening cupboards. Reading labels. Looking at jars. Reciting ingredients. Maybe this is new to him.
‘Do you have any Coco Pops?’ he asks, looking at a box of cereal.
‘Cyrus says they have too much sugar.’
‘And he’s the boss.’
‘No.’
Elias begins arranging the jars and canned goods with the labels facing out.
‘How long have you been living here?’ he asks.
‘A year.’
‘Where were you before that?’
‘A children’s home.’
‘Why?’
‘My parents are dead.’
‘And what – Cyrus adopted you?’
‘I’m twenty-one.’
‘You don’t look it.’
You don’t look like someone who killed four people, I want to say, but that’s not entirely the truth. He looks exactly like one of those pasty-faced, overweight doughballs you see in TV shows about serial killers. Occasionally, one of them is handsome, like Ted Bundy, but most are like the creepy uncle you avoid sitting next to at Christmas.
Silence fills the room. Elias is embarrassed. I’m embarrassed. I want to hide in the attic.
‘It must feel strange – being out after all this time,’ I say, forcing myself to make conversation.
‘Yeah. I barely recognise some of the streets. They knocked down the old cinema on Abercrombie Road and there’s an office block where my old piano teacher used to live.’
‘Can you play the piano?’
‘Badly.’
He is adding more sugar to his tea. Four scoops. No wonder he’s fat. He keeps talking.
‘There are different makes and models of cars. And everybody is walking around looking at their phones – never taking their eyes off them. What are they looking at?’
‘Messages. Instagram. TikTok.’
‘I’ve heard of them – what are they?’
‘Social networking sites.’
Elias looks at me blankly.
‘You can post videos and pictures online. Stories.’
‘Why?’
‘Your friends will know what you’re doing.’
‘Why don’t they just ask?’
How do I answer that?
‘If you post something interesting you can get lots of likes.’
‘What’s a like?’
What is this – twenty questions?
‘Ask Cyrus,’ I snap and immediately feel guilty. Elias goes quiet and rocks back and forth, heel to toe.
‘What are you going to do first?’ I ask.
‘I might make French toast. I used to love to cook. The French call it pain perdu, which means lost bread, because they use stale bread to make it. And the trick is temperature control – and not soaking the bread too long.’
This guy is seriously weird.
‘It’s the small things you take for granted,’ he says. ‘Like this.’ He walks to the door and flicks the light switch up and down. ‘At Rampton, I couldn’t do that.’ He looks at the ceiling. ‘And there were cameras watching me everywhere I went.’
It was like that at Langford Hall, I think, but I don’t tell him that.
He opens the fridge and chooses a carrot from the vegetable crisper. ‘I couldn’t do this,’ he says, biting off the end and chewing noisily. A piece of carrot lands on the floor.
He carries his tea to the library and then the sitting room, where he turns on the TV and flicks through channels, leaning forward over his knees and thrusting the remote control at the screen.
‘We have Netflix,’ I say. ‘You can watch lots of different movies and TV shows.’
‘Like a normal TV?’
‘Yeah, but there are more choices.’
Elias doesn’t seem impressed. He points to the wireless speaker on the mantelpiece.
‘It works with the TV,’ I say, ‘or you can stream music.’
‘Where do you put the music?’
‘It uses the home Wi-Fi.’
‘Like radio.’
‘Yeah. I guess.’ I have no idea if that’s true.
‘Show me,’ he says.
I take out my phone and choose a song. He is standing so close to me that I can smell his breath and his body odour. The music starts playing. He looks at the speaker as though I’ve performed a magic trick.
‘Choose another one.’
I do as he asks. Celeste. ‘Stop This Flame’。 She sounds like Amy Winehouse.
‘Make it louder.’
I turn up the volume. He closes his eyes and begins nodding his head and clicking his fingers in time with the beat. His body jiggles.
‘Want to dance?’ he asks.
‘I don’t dance.’
He takes a step towards me, reaching for my hand, but I back away towards the door. He tries again.
‘Don’t touch me.’
‘It’s only a dance.’