How vulnerable Walkman-wearers are to advancing enemies Stephen thought as he walked twenty feet behind Lewis and his personal stereo. If he stepped closer he’d hear the headset’s tinny sound. But he’d already heard enough of the man’s music – ten pitiless weeks of it. Ten weeks of anticipating the next rest-deprived day or dream-denied night.
Lewis himself clearly didn’t need much rest. He bounded past Deacon Brodie’s pub then crossed to follow the road that led to the railway station, each step emphatically energetic. It’s an energy you’ve stolen from me, Stephen thought wearily, and from Caroline.
He hadn’t planned to follow his upstairs neighbour into town, was just on his way to collect some crowns from a dental lab in the city centre. Caroline needed the car later in the day so he’d decided to walk.
Walk this way. Lewis and co had woken him with their music at one o’clock. He’d phoned and asked them to put it off half an hour later. Even then, they’d raced about for another hour, keeping him and Caroline from sleep. Now he was stumbling through the wintry dark streets at seven-thirty whilst Lewis boogied on down into town. Fall. There were icy and frost-sparkled pavements beneath. Stephen himself trod carefully. Or become so engrossed in your bloody Walkman that you step in front of a car.
The youth was now nearing the steps, a long steep row of stairs which led to the ladies and the gents toilets and to one level of The Waverley Market. He rocked his head and arms from side to side, clearly responding to his music as he reached the top stair. It was a gesture of self-confident euphoria, of health and vitality, of someone who was totally at peace in his own little world.
Fuck it. Fuelled by a level of hate he’d never known before, Stephen threw himself at the ignorant cunt and pushed as hard as he could, his fingers driving into the man’s back and registering its warmth. He watched Lewis hang by one heel above the stairs, his arms flailing. Then he started a coat-flapping slow motion dive. Had anyone witnessed…? Stephen glanced behind him but no one seemed to have noticed his unplanned ambush. He raced by, his heartbeat thudding through his body and resounding in his suddenly hollow-feeling head.
He hurried on, on, on till he reached the lab where he was due to collect the dental work. How had he got here so quickly? He caught sight of himself in the glass door, noticed that his collar-length fair hair looked grey in the early morning sun. His blue eyes also looked grey, reflecting the dark shadows beneath them. He’d always been healthily slim but now he looked emaciated, washed out.
Lewis deserved to die, or at least hurt a lot. Stephen started to pace restlessly outside the closed dental technician’s entrance. Had the youth fallen all the way to the ground, his broken bones and blood spiralling outward? Or had the first landing broken his fall? Hearing a siren in the distance, he wondered if the police were already searching for a man in a neat beige raincoat and mock leather shoes…
‘Can I help you?’
He jumped and went rigid then turned to see a woman taking keys from her bag. She was clearly the receptionist. ‘Yes, I want to collect…’ He searched for the term he wanted but the words had fled. He cleared his throat: ‘I’m Stephen Day of Faversham & Day. I’m here to collect an order.’ He handed her the invoice from his suit pocket, saw her brow smooth, watched her unlock the lab door. When they reached the Despatch Room she said something about a courier service. He nodded and moved the corners of his mouth upward – would she tell the police later that he’d smiled like a killer? – and took the little labelled parcel from her hands.
Outside, Stephen scanned the now-busy roads for several moments, leaning back against the building until he could finally hail a cab.
He felt safer when the taxi dropped him off outside his surgery. He opened the door and picked up the mail then locked himself in securely. Seconds later, the phone reverberated through the surgery.
As he walked closer to it, the answering machine clicked on. ‘Hello, you’ve reached Faversham & Day. Our opening hours are… ’ He listened to the rest of the message, half fearing that the caller would be the boys in blue, but it was just a patient cancelling an appointment. Dental-phobics often did that on the day.
‘I see you’re lightening the load again.’
He looked up from deleting the patient’s name in the appointments book. His partner, Terence, had crept up behind him. Terence made up the Faversham part of Faversham & Day.
‘My 11am patient just cancelled.’ He played back the ansaphone message for Terence’s benefit.
‘Party time – you get a half hour break.’
‘And lose a half hour’s income.’ He tried to keep his voice light, tried not to think about the two mortgages he had to pay.
Terence shrugged – but then Terence’s father had financed his half of the practice so he didn’t have to worry about a diminishing income and ever-rising costs.
‘Do you want a tea?’ He wished for the first time in years that he had access to a gin.
‘Make it a coffee.’
As usual, Stephen felt patronised by his dental associate. Terence was 26 to Stephen’s 32 but he always acted as if Stephen was the younger. He’d gone to boarding school and it had made him old before his time.
At a quarter to nine Stephen’s first patient arrived for her nine o’clock dental check. His most dutiful patients often turned up early. It was as if they wanted to get in the dentist’s good books in the hope that he’d find less surgery to carry out on their teeth.
‘Any problems?’ he asked as she eased herself carefully into the chair.
She pointed vaguely in the direction of her lower left six. ‘Well, I’ve been getting a few twinges.’
The filling was indeed softer than it should be and he suspected that if he took an X-ray he’d find the dark shadow of decay. But to confirm the problem would mean drilling down to remove it – and he wasn’t up to excavating the cavity. Just carrying out this examination was taking all the concentration that he had. The fingers holding the little mirror and probe felt awkward, almost frostbitten. He was glad that he’d started early so that Nicky, his dental nurse, wasn’t around to see he was ill at ease.
Trying to still the slight shaking of his hand, he examined the rest of the patient’s teeth and gums. ‘We’ll just keep an eye on that tooth for now as it may settle down – but give us a call back if you have any problems.’
The woman catapulted from the chair as soon as he’d finished tilting it up. ‘Oh good. I was sure I’d need a filling this time.’ She was half way to the door with himself taking more measured steps behind, when she half turned around, ‘The music! I knew something was different – there’s no music today.’
He’d just killed the music – well, killed Lewis. He felt his mouth drop open a little way.
‘Oh, it’s my fault,’ she continued jauntily, ‘I know I was too early. Its just that I’ve grown used to your little tunes.’
The little tunes were quietly upbeat songs that he taped from compilation tracks or from the radio and played back later in the surgery. They calmed the patients in a way that the radio with its news and noisy slogans never could.
As soon as she left he put the cassettes away in the cupboard in the hall. He’d give them to the Oxfam shop. Absence of noise was now a luxury so he’d fight hard to preserve each moment of peace. Next door the whine of the drill started up, followed by the low hum of the amalgam machine. Stephen sank back into the dental chair and put his hands over his ears.
He was pulled from the blackness as cool fingers touched his arm. He cringed.
‘Sorry, Mr Day. I guess I should be wearing gloves. It’s freezing out there. Just wanted to make sure you were all right.’
‘Mm? Oh, that early patient must have worn me out.’ Normally he’d have admitted that he’d been kept awake for hours by his neighbours. But suddenly it seemed more prudent not to be seen as their enemy, given that one of them might have been carted off to hospital with a fractured skull and broken neck.
Joy in reception kept a radio on her desk. He went up to her and casually switched it on. ‘Any news, Joy?’
‘On the hour, as usual,’ she said. He turned the sound down then tried to look her way as she continued speaking. ‘Are you interested in anything in particular, Mr Day?’
‘Oh, just wondering if that bus strike has ended. Caroline has to go to the wholesaler today so she’s got the car.’
They listened together to the weather report, to a local councillor being interviewed about poor insulation in older council flats. ‘Now the main headlines again,’ the newscaster rumbled. ‘A man has been found…’
Stephen stiffened. He noticed Joy looking up at him and frowning. ‘…found guilty of serious fraud at Edinburgh District Court.’ Stephen relaxed.
‘There’s always someone up to something, isn’t there?’ Joy said.
But some things weren’t planned… He lived with his thoughts until lunchtime and then he shut himself in reception and phoned home to hear his wife’s voice, to feel lovable. Caroline answered on the fourth or fifth ring.
‘Caroline Day,’ she said. Her greeting sounded different, much deeper and slightly harsher than before. He’d heard that sound from his most nervous patients when tension interfered with the functioning of the voicebox.
‘Only me,’ he said, trying to keep his own tone casual and light.
‘Oh, hi.’ She usually said hi you in an intimate way. He wondered if the body had been discovered. Caroline would probably feel sorry for Lewis, despite his causing them sleepless nights.
‘You okay?’ he asked more urgently.
‘Working.’ Her voice was still flat, yet normally she was pleased when she had clients. It was hard for her to find sufficient customers to fill a five day week – there were simply too many other trained aromatherapists in Edinburgh these days.
‘You got a last minute patient?’ She’d only had an early morning one scheduled when he’d left.
‘Yes, Mrs Abingdon phoned to cancel her Thursday visit and asked if I had anything sooner.’
‘But that’s good, isn’t it? Means you get paid sooner.’
Inside his mind was pleading tell me about the body whilst another part of his psyche hoped that he’d never have to know.
‘The money’s good – but they’re being so loud that she’s been complaining all through the session.’ She lowered her voice even further, ‘Stephen, she’s really annoyed. I don’t think she’ll be back.’
Mrs Abingdon’s husband worked overseas for weeks at a time. He sent lots of money home, so she’d been known to have three massages in a single week to alleviate her boredom. Neither he nor Caroline could afford to lose that kind of cash.
‘Is it the builders who’re being loud?’ The entire tenement had been given one of those ninety percent grants for essential repairs. It meant that there had been scaffolding up for weeks outside their window. The builders shouted loudly to each other and drilled and hammered five days a week.
‘No, at least they’re at the other side of the house. It’s upstairs again. It’s so bad that I went up and had it out with them just before she arrived.’
Jesus. Caroline was the type who’d slip a polite note through the letterbox rather than risk a direct confrontation. He found that he was holding his breath. ‘Who… who answered the door?’
‘The long-haired one who’s at home all day. You know, that Jez.’ She stopped on a near-sob and he realised that he could hear upstairs’ apology for music. ‘You didn’t catch up with Lewis, did you? Didn’t have a go at him? Maybe you made things worse.’
He knew that by ‘have a go’ she meant verbally harangue the man. She’d never suspect him of actually lashing out at anyone. Hell, he hadn’t known till this morning that he was capable of such overwhelming rage. ‘No, he’d got a head start on me. There was no sign of him when I left the close,’ he lied.
‘Well, I went up and explained to Jez that I had a client due and that they came here to relax and that my house sounded like a rave club.’ Again he could tell that she was close to tears.
‘And what did he say?’ His fingers cramped and he realised belatedly that they were digging in to the receiver. What was it he told his patients? Relax your fingers and toes and it’ll halve your tension. With effort he forced his right hand to loosen as he listened to her reply.
‘I said could he turn it down and he stared at me for about a minute – you know that really insolent way he has? Then he said I’ll see what I can do.’
‘And it didn’t get any better?’
He heard her sigh. ‘At most he put it down by a fraction. Then Mrs Abingdon arrived and I wasn’t sure what to do next.’
‘They must be breaking some noise law. They’re impacting your business. Phone the police.’ He’d suggested this before but Caroline had been determined to sort it out amicably. She’d said that making it formal would permanently sour relations between the two flats.
But now she agreed with him. ‘I will – but not whilst I’ve a naked woman in my front room.’ He could tell that she was striving desperately to find some levity, ‘Talking of which, I’d better get back to her before she streaks away.’
‘Well, just make it clear that it’s not your fault. Tell her that you value her custom. Be honest, Carrie – she’s always liked coming to you.’ He felt more like her father than her husband as he searched for words to placate her, wished yet again that he could protect her from all unhappiness. ‘She gets a lot out of your treatments and she knows this isn’t your fault. I’m sure she’ll understand.’
‘Maybe.’ He’d never heard her sound so low. He could hear just what she heard: a repeated bass note that was brain-stunning and nerve-shearing and digestion-killing. ‘Anyway, I’ll do what I can then phone the police after she’s gone.’
He hung up. It was only then that he realised that the police mightn’t come round right now. What if they arrived after he was home from work? They might mention Lewis had been found dead or maimed and Caroline might say that Lewis had slammed his way out of his flat just before Stephen left the house this morning. He’d have to make a false statement and pray that no unseen witnesses could uncover his lies.
He felt dislocated and forlorn as he tried to anticipate what would happen back home. Would he manage to feign surprise when a policeman told him about the morning’s violence? What would he say to news of Lewis’s disfigurement or premature death? Long term sleep deprivation and a momentary rage had caused him to attack one of his neighbours. Stephen swore to himself that he’d never do such a thing again.

Click to visit the 'Noise Abatement' page

Also by Carol Anne Davis
Shrouded
Safe As Houses

About Carol Anne Davis

Click logo to buy from Amazon.co.uk