Page 28 of The Psychopath Next Door

‘I’mglad we moved here,’ she said.

‘Even with those boys?’

‘Yes.’ She pulled out of the hug. ‘Please don’t let Mum stop me from seeing Fiona. I really like spending time with her. If Mum makes me go to that club, I’ll kill myself.’

‘Rose! Never say things like that!’

But now she was crying, and then Emma appeared in the doorway. ‘Rose? What is it? What’s going on?’

‘She’s worried we’re going to stop her from spending her days with Fiona.’

Emma came over to try to give Rose a hug, but Rose stepped behind me. Emma looked shocked. Wounded.

‘Dad, don’t let her send me to that club.’

I made eye contact with Emma, silently imploring her to go easy on Rose. I could see this going either way. But – to my relief, because I wanted Rose’s tears to stop – Emma said, ‘Okay, fine. But if anything else happens like this, you have to tell us straight away. All right?’

Rose wiped her tears away and smiled.

‘I promise.’

10

Over the rest of the week, Fiona and Rose didn’t venture far from the estate. It rained nearly every day, so they stayed indoors, playing with Karma the kitten, watching movies, or venturing out between rain showers to take Lola for walks. The fields were peaceful without those little shits riding around on their dirt bike, and Fiona was sure it wasn’t just her who felt it. Every other dog walker they came across seemed happier and more relaxed. They were able to let their pets off their leads without worrying they would get mauled by a pair of badly trained German shepherds.

Every neighbourhood needs someone like me, Fiona mused.A spider to keep the fly population under control.

That day in the fields, when that boy had been riding around them on the dirt bike, she’d decided something needed to be done. She had pictured the bike skidding, crashing, exploding. In the fantasy, the boys’ clothes had gone up like firelighters, and they had flapped and screamed as the flames engulfed them. In her head, she could smell their flesh cooking; could hear their final screams before they fell silent forever.

Well, she had thought, perhaps she couldn’t arrange something as aesthetically pleasing as that, but an accident – something that would scare them and damage the bike – should be quite easy to make happen. There were a few people who went up that footpathon bicycles, but Albie and Eric were the only ones who traversed it on a motorbike. She had watched them a couple of times, speeding up and down the path, jumping between two trees that were only a couple of metres apart. Later, she went along the path when no one was around, to take a better look, and realised that the ridge they used as a ramp would be the perfect spot for a little accident. There was a crack in the ground across the ridge, a couple of inches deep. If she hammered a few sturdy, sharp nails into a strip of wood and wedged it into the crack, with the nails sticking up, it would only take a little luck for the wheel to hit them, which would surely send them flying and put the bike out of action. Maybe whoever was riding it would break an arm.

That morning, at the crack of the dawn, she went up the path and set the trap.

And it worked even better than she’d hoped. Albie had flown straight into one of the trees. Not a broken arm, but brain damage. He wouldn’t be bothering anyone around here for a long time.

While the morons across the street had been riding in an ambulance, she’d sneaked along the path and removed the strip of wood before anyone could investigate the cause of the accident. Easy.

And if the kid never recovered? She didn’t care either way.

Among the movies she and Rose watched, there were several that she personally found boring, but she had to choose them because she wanted to see Rose’s reaction to them.My Girl.Home Alone.Bambi.ET. Films that were specifically designed to make you cry. They watched them with the curtains drawn, and Fiona hoped Rose didn’t notice how her attention was mostly on the girl’s face instead of the screen.

Rose never shed a tear. Not when ET said ‘Be good’ to Elliott. Not when Bambi’s mother was shot by a hunter. Not even when Macaulay Culkin was stung by a load of bees and died. In fact, Rose had smiled at that bit.

They played board games too. Cluedo, Risk and chess, which Rose was surprisingly good at. Fiona, who had been taught to play by Maisie, was hard to beat for most casual players, with an Elo of 1300, and she expected playing Rose to be unchallenging, but she had to use all her experience and knowledge of gambits and endgames to beat her.

She set about coaching Rose, teaching her all the most common openings and how to respond to them, and working on tactics and strategy. It passed the hours while the summer rain beat against the window.

When they got bored of the games and movies, or of playing with Karma, Fiona would ask Rose to tell her stories from her childhood. Stories about her mum, dad and brother. It was all useful information-gathering. She found out that Rose’s earliest memory was seeing her brother almost choking on a piece of LEGO.

‘What about when you started school?’ Fiona asked. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Not really.’

‘Why not?’

Rose needed coaxing, eventually saying, ‘There were all these groups of girls that seemed to make friends on day one and I ended up sitting on my own in the playground.’

‘They didn’t invite you to join?’

---