Kevin examined the welts on his face in the bathroom mirror then ran the cold water tap. He shuddered, sensed his mother’s presence. Even in death, she still had power over him. Whenever he thought about her, his skin began to itch and realised there was no escaping her.
He never told anybody about the punishments; thought nobody would have believed him. If his misdemeanours had been judged major, she would punish him by sending him to stand in the toilet bowl. She would then walk into the bathroom and empty her bladder. He dismissed the image and looked at his hair. It needed combing and he could do with a shave.
He patted his face with a towel, threw the towel on the floor and walked into the bedroom. A sports bag lay open on the bare, saggy mattress. It was packed with his only possessions: a threadbare bible, his mother’s battered leather diary, a few changes of underwear, clean shirts, a pair of denim jeans that he had recently bought, and a waterproof bag for his toiletries. He was upset about leaving the apartment and the comfortable life he had made for himself, but he had no choice. He knew if Inspector Rimis hadn’t already fitted the pieces of the puzzle together, it wouldn’t be long before he did. He hadn’t left the apartment for days; now was the time to make his move. He had his sights set on another victim. This time it would be the last and he felt better knowing that. ‘Set thine house in order,’ he mumbled to himself.
He opened the top drawer of his bedside table and took out a small metal paint box, an ordinary kitchen teaspoon, a plastic straw, and an expired gym membership card. He recognised the irony of using the card.
He removed the lid from the paint box and scooped out a generous amount of the white powder he had taken from the frame of North Coast Summers. His hand trembled. He chopped the cocaine into neat thick lines, the way he had seen it done on You Tube. He closed his right nostril with his index finger. He snorted one of the lines. The sudden rush surprised him. The sensation spread across his soft palate. For good measure, he gulped down a handful of the little white pills Nicolae Vladu had given him. With the surge of adrenalin running through his veins, he felt he could take on anybody.
He left the apartment with North Coast Summers under his arm and threw the set of keys into the bushes near the bank of letterboxes by the entrance. He crossed Cleveland Street against the traffic lights and looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being followed before he turned left and walked a few blocks towards the city. A police car drove slowly past and he pulled his baseball cap down low over his eyes. Head down, he continued walking through the quiet leafy streets to where he had parked his car. He opened the boot and put the painting and his bag inside. His heart was racing. He scratched his chest through his shirt then wrapped his hand around the object in his trouser pocket. When a taxi picked him up a few streets later, he slunk down low in the back seat and thought about how easy it would be this time.