Page 71 of The Psychopath Next Door

‘I’m really sorry we got off on the wrong foot,’ Fiona said.

‘We’re still on the wrong foot, and will be until you tell me what you saw.’

She switched on her most obsequious smile, mixed with an apologetic head-bow. ‘I will. I just want to explain why I acted so aggressively. You see, I haven’t been sleeping very well recently, and the doctor gave me these tablets to knock me out, but I think they have side effects because I wake up feeling like a bear who hibernated too long ...’

She talked for a while, giving him an entire invented history of her insomnia and her attempts to cure it naturally before resorting to drugs, not pausing for breath or giving him any room to interrupt, killing time but also deliberately speaking slowly, monotonously, making her voice as close to a drone as possible. She enjoyed watching him squirm impatiently, although she noticed his movements slow as she went on. She used the same words over and over: tired, pillow, bed, dream,sleep. He bit down on a yawn.

‘Oh, sorry, am I boring you?’

‘Yeah. Actually ...’ He trailed off, looked confused, shook his head. Looked into his beer bottle and realised it was empty.

‘Would you like another?’

‘No. I’m . . . good.’

He yawned again and his eyelids fluttered, looked heavy, like there were tiny weights attached to his lashes.

‘It’s the weather,’ she said, in a slow, dreary tone. ‘It makes you feeldrowsy, doesn’t it?Sleepy.’

‘Huh? Yeah, I guess.’ His eyes closed for a couple of seconds.

‘Maybe I should make you a coffee?’ she said. ‘Do you take milk? Sugar?’

She didn’t give him a chance to respond. She went into the kitchen and filled the kettle, then stood next to it, letting it boil. She checked the time on her phone. Waited until five minutes had passed.

When she went back in, Tommy was asleep.

The sedative she had put in his beer had done its job. She’d procured it a while back, from a woman she’d met in prison, knowing it would come in handy at some point. She’d discovered it years ago, during her year of travelling and sleeping around. Had regularly slipped it into the post-coital drinks of her partners so she could make an exit with whatever belongings took her fancy. Then she’d move on to the next place, the next bed.

Tommy was passed out on the sofa, his head resting on the back, his mouth open. He wasn’t quite snoring but his breathing was wet and heavy. Why had she thought he was brutishly attractive? Close up, he truly was a disgusting specimen of a man. If she could slit his throat right now – put a blade through that bulging Adam’s apple – and get away with it, she wouldn’t hesitate. All that blood and DNA, though, and that was before she even considered the practicalities of removing his heavy body.

She had a much better idea.

Unfortunately, it involved taking his underpants off.

She crouched on the carpet by his feet and undid his shoelaces, then tugged at his trainers, recoiling at the smell of his socksand struggling not to gag. Muttering to herself, a steady stream of insults and curse words, she hooked her fingers into the waistband of his jogging bottoms and dragged them down to his knees, exposing his underpants. He was wearing tight little briefs, navy blue. She took a deep breath then pulled them down too. Finally, she pulled his T-shirt up to his chest so it wasn’t anywhere near his naked groin.

It was, she supposed, unfortunate that he was flaccid, because it made the story she was concocting slightly less plausible. He was still quite big, though. Circumcised. She went out to the hallway and fetched some gloves so she wouldn’t have to touch him with her bare hands. It was still gross, but she manoeuvred him so it looked like he at least had a semi. Then she picked up Tommy’s phone, which was lying beside him on the sofa, and held it in front of his face to unlock it before taking several dick pics.

Then she sent them from his phone to hers, along with a string of messages.

Fiona. I want you to imagine how big I’m going to be when I’m naked with you. So big you’re going to gasp with shock. I’m going to ruin you.

Too much? No, it was the kind of vile message she’d received in the past from men on social media.

She typed out some more – a load of crap about all the things he wanted to do to her.My wife doesn’t turn me on anymore. I have to think about you to get hard with her. You’re so much hotter than her.

She thought about adding some more. Making up a confession that it was his fault that the bike’s tyre had burst and that he knew Fiona wasn’t to blame. But she decided to keep it simple. A bloke lusting after his neighbour. What could be simpler and easier to believe than that?

She messaged back from her own phone:Leave me alone. You’re married. Come near me again and I’ll show this to Nicola. I can’t believe you could be thinking about cheating when your poor son is still getting better.

Then she fetched a knife from the kitchen and sat in the armchair across from him, waiting for him to wake up.

It took thirty minutes. Going mad with boredom, she considered chucking a glass of water in his face. But finally, he stirred. It took him a minute to figure out that he was sitting there with his underpants and joggers pulled down; another few seconds to see Fiona with the knife.

‘Do what I say or I’ll cut your cock off,’ she said flatly, once she had his attention. ‘Now, pick up your phone – it’s right there – and look at your WhatsApp.’

Eyes wide, he wiped drool off his chin with the back of his hand, then opened the phone, all fingers and thumbs, taking a long time to navigate to WhatsApp. But when he did, it woke him up properly.

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