Page 91 of The Sleepwalker
The door to the bathroom is closed, the shower running.
The unnatural golden light from the petrol station fills the room.
Rikard keeps going, taking in the dark TV mounted on the wall to the right, a little of the window, more of the floor and the foot of the bed.
He steps forward out of the hallway and scans the main room. His eyes dart over to the corner, sweeping across the small desk, the chair and the wardrobe.
There is a red bra on the neatly made bed.
He moves over to the desk and waits for Jezebel with his back to the wall.
The shower is still running.
The yellow light from outside highlights the dirt on thewindows.
Rikard adjusts his vest beneath his jacket and studies himself in the dark TV screen beside the bed.
He looks like a tin soldier, as grey as a field mouse. Trapped in a corner.
His eyes drift over to the hallway.
Jezebel is still in the bathroom.
The bra catches his attention again, and he realises he didn’t look beneath the bed.
She could be hiding under there.
He gets down on all fours to check.
The floor under the bed is dusty, strands of hair caught around the legs.
A strange image pops into Rikard’s head, of a buzzard perched on top of a dead tree, staring down at him with a pair of beady yellow eyes.
He hears another thud through the walls, and he quickly straightens up, dries his clammy palm and grabs his gun from the holster.
Rikard coughs to muffle the sound as he grips the grooved slide, pulls it back and feeds a cartridge into the chamber.
Outside, a car swings around the roundabout.
Its white headlights sweep across the room and are gone.
Gripping his pistol by his side, Rikard moves back towards the hall.
The corridor outside is dark.
He knocks on the bathroom door, waits twenty seconds and then tries again, a little harder this time.
‘Hello? Jezebel? I just wanted to say that I’m here,’ he shouts.
The shower is too loud for him to hear whether she has replied or not, so he knocks again, then opens the door. Hot steam floods out towards him. The water in the shower is hitting the curtain, making it pulse in time with the rhythmic roar.
‘Jezebel?’
On the floor by the toilet, there is a pair of red knickers. The mirror above the sink is fogged up, and the condensation is dripping from the ceiling.
Rikard steps forward into the damp heat and raises his pistol. He has just reached out to push the curtain to one side when something hits the back of his head.
The power of the blow makes him stumble, and he grabs the shower curtain in an attempt to break his fall, tearing it from the rail as he drops to his knees.
