Page 24 of The Psychopath Next Door

‘A nice surprise?’

‘Oh, it’s going to be very nice.’

‘Like a party?’

She stole another chip. ‘Oh no. Much better than a party.’

9

‘So, how was your first day with Fiona?’ I asked Rose as the four of us sat down to dinner.

‘It was good.’

‘Just good?’

Rose shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

Dylan laughed. ‘Aargh, too much detail. We don’t need to knoweverything.’

The look she gave him was so dirty I was taken aback.

‘You were the same when you were twelve,’ Emma said to Dylan. ‘We’d ask you how school was and all you ever said was “normal”.’

Before I could ask Rose anything else about her first day with Fiona, the doorbell rang.

‘Are we expecting a delivery?’ I asked, getting up and going into the hallway to the front door, with Lola following me. I opened the door – and found myself face to face with Tommy, Albie and Eric’s dad. Lola had been good up to this point, but now began barking, possibly because she could smell his German shepherds on him. He looked at her like he wanted to kill her, and it struck me what a deeply unpleasant bloke he was. The kind who kept dogs as a macho status symbol. He probably found it pathetic that I owned a cute little cockapoo.

‘One second,’ I said, scooping Lola up and taking her back to the dining room.

‘Who is it?’ Emma asked as I handed her the dog.

‘Tommy,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know what he wants.’

I went back, closing the dining room door behind me.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘How’s Albie?’

To my horror, a tear ran down his cheek and his eyelids fluttered, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, clearly trying to stop himself from breaking into sobs. I was filled with dread. Had Albiedied? Was he going round telling the neighbours the bad news?

He managed to get hold of himself and said, with his voice trembling, ‘The docs are running all sorts of tests. But they don’t know if he’s ever going to fully recover.’

‘Oh, thank God.’

He stared at me, eyes bulging, grief flipping to rage. ‘What?’

‘I mean ... I thought you were going to say ...’ I cleared my throat. ‘Thank God for the NHS. For looking after him.’

‘Yeah. Those nurses. They’re angels.’ He held on to the door frame with one meaty paw and pressed his face into the crook of his bare arm, breathing rapidly and wetly. What was I supposed to do? Should I ... hug him? Pat him on the shoulder? I had a lot of experience dealing with crying children – a crying wife too, I was sorry to say – but a six-foot-two man weeping on my doorstep? I was not equipped to deal withthis. Luckily, a prop came to the rescue: a box of tissues on the hall table. I handed it to him and he plucked two out, blowing his nose loudly before giving the wet tissues back to me. I treated them like they were hot potatoes, dropping them on the table as quickly as I could.

As soon as the tears stopped, the anger returned.

‘Someone punctured that tyre deliberately,’ he said, fixing me with a death-ray glare.

If I’d been guilty, I probably would have confessed right there and then. But as an innocent man I was able to say, in a surprised tone, ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Something sharp burst the tyre. Something like a nail or a big shard of glass, right at the spot where they always jump the bike between the trees.’

I was shocked. ‘I took Lola for a walk shortly after it happened.’ I explained how I’d seen the bike still lying there but no sharp objects.

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