Page 32 of One Summer

Unless it’s feigned sleep.

But what self-respecting serial killer would fake a snort?

I open the door a crack, then a little further, and peer into the dimly lit room. There’s definitely a figure in the bed. Suddenly, there’s a blur of movement, a small thud, and something barrels into my ankles.

A something that appears to be licking my shoes.

Thirty

Hound

At my feet, a small, brown dog is staring up at me. It has a shag haircut, and it’s hard to discern anything of its face other than a button nose and the merest suspicion of a shiny bottom lip. When I bend down to peer at its collar in the gloom, I see a large brass tag with a phone number and one word.

TED.

I’m withdrawing my hand when a soft tongue curls around my wrist.

‘Well, halloon there, Ted,’ I whisper, using the Loor vernacular.

An underbite appears, displaying the tiniest crooked white teeth. Is he smiling?

He certainly looks as if he’s happy to see me.

I reach down and scratch him behind the ear, and he immediately flops onto his back and raises his hindleg to offer me his belly, which I also scratch.

Nemo has never met a dog. This must be what he could smell and what made him flee to the top of the bookcase. He detected the stench of tiny canine.

It seems a friendly tiny canine, despite Nemo’s prejudice, which is somewhat comforting because I don’t think a serial killer could possibly own a dog like this; it’s too well-socialised.

Still, there’s someone sleeping in this room, and I’d like to know who. And also, why.

Without warning, there’s a hiss from the direction of the bookcase. Ted jumps to his feet, spots Nemo on top of the bookcase and begins barking furiously.

Safely out of reach, Nemo doesn’t even flinch, but it’s the sort of high-pitched bark that seems to drill into my temporal lobe.

The lump in the bed moves. I hear a groan and the creak of bed springs. A striped lighthouse lamp is turned on.

Sitting up in bed is a man.

Thirty-One

Stranger

An indisputably attractive man, but oddly dressed.

For reasons unclear, he’s wearing a green beanie hat with matching boxers and no shirt, and I am acutely aware of great abs, but my eyes go to his face, where there are twin plugs of toilet tissue in his nostrils.

‘Who are you?’ he says croakily, turning to look at me, and then sneezes so monstrously that the tissue plugs dislodge from his nose and shoot across the bed, landing soggily on the carpet at my feet.

‘Lindy. Gross,’ I say, taking a step backwards.

‘Lindy Gross,’ he echoes, groggily. ‘Who’s that?’

I point to my chest. ‘Me… I am Lindy. You are gross. Or rather, that sneeze was. My surname is not Gross.’

Well, technically it is, the way that Scotty says it.

He sneezes twice more, his hand scrabbling around the bed, looking for the roll of toilet paper, which is lodged between his pillows.

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