Dorothy stretched her legs down Whitehouse Loan onto Grange Road. She hadn’t had much exercise since the cat attack, but her body was aching less, her arm healing, her ribs less tight. At her age she needed to stay active or she would atrophy. She’d seen that with elderly couples. When one dies the other fades away, joining them in the ground soon after. She didn’t want to be in the ground anytime soon.
She glanced at her phone. The dot throbbed in the same place it had since last night, Grange Crescent. This was the tracker she put in Kevin Goodfellow’s old car, she’d got his surname from running the numberplate. The young guy from FME. Turned out Grange Crescent was only twenty minutes on foot from her house.
She walked past Carlton Cricket Club. It was strange to think of Scottish people playing cricket, but she supposed it must happen. She glanced at the oval expanse of the cricket field and thought about all that green space, then about Whiskers. She imagined the jaguar leaping over the wall and savaging her, but she hadn’t been spotted in daylight, she was a night-time killer. There were a lot of hoax sightings but also a few more reliable ones from further south in the city. Maybe she was heading for the fields of Midlothian, woods and bushes, farmland with lots of sheep and cattle, deer on the Pentlands.
Dorothy reached the turnoff for Grange Crescent, newer houses, post-war bungalows rather than the old wealth of the row behind. She rounded the bend and spotted Kevin’s white Ford. She looked at her phone screen, she was right on top of the dot. Archie was checking up on Davey from FME, and Dorothy was just here for a wee chat. But something about this location, so close to home, made her pause. She thought about calling Thomas to talk it through but he was busy with a hundred different things, so she put her phone away and walked up the drive of number twenty-two.
She stood at the door listening to trees rustle in the wind. She heard the thwack of leather on willow from the cricket practice nets along the road. She rang the doorbell and waited, looked around. The house was set back from the road, hedges on both sides so that you couldn’t see the neighbours’ houses. And bungalows meant no one was overlooked by next door’s windows. Dorothy thought about that. A gust of wind made the birches sway.
She tried the doorbell again and looked at the car in the driveway. He could be at the shops or out for a walk.
She went round the side of the house, unlatched a high gate, walked past recycling bins. She edged round the back and looked in the first window. Old-fashioned décor, a display case of ceramic knick-knacks, brown-patterned sofas and thick carpet. Strange taste for a guy in his twenties. She went to the kitchen window, more dated décor, old hob, cream-coloured fridge and washing machine, cabinets and worktops that had seen better days. She tried the back door. Locked.
She looked round the garden. It was larger than she expected. At the bottom was a long shed which looked newer. The door was shut and the small windows had curtains drawn. She heard a blackbird in the tree, chirping a warning as two magpies flew close. A knot of sparrows scattered over the house and away. She thought she heard something coming from the shed amongst the bird racket, but wasn’t sure.
She stood for a long time then walked down the garden. She placed her feet carefully on the grass, heard the hum of bees from a nearby bush with blue flowers. She felt her heart against her bruised ribs, tried to control her breathing. In and out, like she did for the yoga she’d practised all her life, regulate the breath, feel your core, control your body.
She reached the shed door and listened. The blackbird was still chirping above, a magpie clacking in retaliation. It filled her mind with noise and she tried to shake it.
She reached out and touched the handle, opened the door.
She blinked heavily and stared.
Kevin stood in the middle of the shed wearing scrubs and blue gloves, standing over two naked bodies on a table. They were elderly, a man and a woman. Their heads were nearest the door, and Dorothy could see whisps of white hair, also chew marks on their scalps and down the arm of the woman. She craned her neck to get a better view, saw chunks missing on the man’s waist, his thigh. She saw as far as the other end. Neither body had feet. She suddenly realised something. A big cat would probably go for a human’s innards first, but presumably Kevin had removed those in the embalming process, so Whiskers had opted for the feet.
Kevin held a brush in one hand, something that looked like a raw chicken fillet in the other. Beside him was a bottle labelled Mastix, and on the worktop behind him was a box which looked like it was full of latex prosthetics. Dorothy had seen similar in her own embalming room, had watched Archie carefully recreate a smashed nose or an ear that was ripped off in an industrial accident. Dorothy glanced round the rest of the shed, more embalming instruments including a fluid pump against the far wall. She looked back at Kevin who was focused on the bodies in front of him.
She braced herself against the doorframe. ‘Kevin.’
He jumped and looked up. In his scrubs and gloves he looked like a surgeon, but Dorothy was glad he had a glue brush in his hand, not a scalpel.
He stood and stared at her for a long time. The magpies outside were noisier now, maybe they were winning against the blackbird.
Dorothy kept expecting a burst of movement from him, lunging at her, pushing her out of the way as he fled, but he just kept standing there blinking as if this might all go away.
‘Kevin,’ she said again, just to make sure the world hadn’t stopped completely. ‘It’s OK.’
She held out a hand and took a step into the shed.
‘Kevin, can you tell me who these people are?’
Kevin squeezed the prosthetic in his hand. Was it something specific, or just latex to cover wounds?
As Dorothy stepped closer to the bodies she saw the damage better, teeth marks the same as she had under her bandage. Bigger chunks of flesh ripped from the midriff and leg, scratches all over the bodies. She saw a large makeup kit similar to Archie’s, and wondered how on earth Kevin thought he could make this better. She looked at the four legs ending in bony stumps, torn flesh and sinew, red through pink to the white of the bone.
‘Kevin.’ Dorothy took another step closer.
‘Grandma and Grandad,’ he said in a gentle voice, looking at the bodies. ‘I didn’t kill them.’
Dorothy took another careful step. ‘OK.’
‘They just died,’ he said, waving the glue brush around. ‘First Grandma, then Grandad. He didn’t want her to leave him, so we kept her. Then he died a few days later, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want them to go. My mum and dad left me, they were all I had.’
‘It’s OK,’ Dorothy said, but it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be ever again for Kevin.
His body deflated, his shoulders slumped and his hands dropped to his sides. Dorothy kept watching him for sudden violence.
‘I thought I knew what I was doing,’ Kevin muttered. ‘I thought I could look after them.’
‘But?’
He swallowed hard and looked at the leg stumps. ‘I left the shed unlocked. Someone got in and did this. Some monster.’
Dorothy felt her heart skip.
‘It was a jaguar,’ she said.
He looked up at her. ‘What?’
‘Haven’t you seen the news?’
‘I don’t understand.’ He waved a hand at the bodies, started to cry. ‘I’ve been trying to tidy them up ever since but I’m not very good.’
Dorothy could see botched prosthetic jobs on the bodies now she was closer, they looked like cancerous growths. ‘You can’t do this.’
‘I know,’ Kevin said, tears down his face. He placed the prosthetic and brush on the table, began sobbing, shoulders shaking. He placed his gloved hands on his face and Dorothy thought about the hygiene. The shed was grimy anyway, no place for the dead.
‘I don’t want them to leave me.’ He was like a little boy upset that his friends had gone off to play somewhere else. ‘I don’t want to be alone again.’
Dorothy stepped forward until she was in front of him. He was a foot taller, young, strong, could easily overpower her, beat her, strangle her, kill her in a million different ways.
She wrapped her arms around him, felt him sob into her shoulder, and she held him for as long as he needed.