The Doll's House by Tania Carver Read Free Book Online Page B

But she stayed where she was.
    Hugo Gwilym refilled her wine glass. Marina allowed him to. He raised his, toasted her, staring at her all the while like a hypnotist. She returned the toast.
    â€˜Now the night has become interesting,’ he said.

10
    K eith knew. As soon as he saw the house on the news, he knew. Even with the white tent in front of it, the blue sheet at the side, the glimpses of police going in and out, it was unmistakable.
    It was the death house.
    He sighed, causing pain to stab at his chest. He closed his eyes, rode it out. Waited until it had subsided, then returned to watching the TV. The reporter was standing in front of the house, heavily made up and bundled up against the cold. Fighting the urge to be somewhere warm in order to deliver a story that she hoped could make her nationally famous.
    â€˜Details are still emerging at this point,’ she was saying in reply to a studio-bound anchor, the wind taking away her breath, ‘but it’s understood that the house had been rented over the Christmas holidays to a single man. It’s still not been disclosed whether the body found inside is him or not.’
    That was all he needed to see, to hear. It set his pulse racing, pushing the blood round his body quicker. Hastening his death by a few seconds.
    Seeing this on the news, with police and reporters, made it all real. Brought it home to him. What he had done, what he was going to do, what he had
agreed
to do. And of course, what was going to be done to him. No. It wasn’t a game any more, an abstract idea. It was real. Deadly and real.
    Kelly chose that moment to enter the living room. He looked away from the TV, caught her by the doorway. The lurch in his stomach had nothing to do with his illness. She was beautiful, no doubting that. Beautiful but hard. Like a marble Rodin sculpture. She saw him watching, ditched the hardness from her features, expelled the hatred and distaste, turning on her sympathetic face before reaching him.
    Good girl
, he thought.
What I’m paying you for.
    Or what you think I’m paying you for
.
    â€˜What you watching?’ Her voice was as annoying as ever. With its doomed attempts at refinement, at forcing her West Midlands accent into shapes it wasn’t naturally meant to be in, it sounded like she was mouthing elocution exercises while gargling coal.
    â€˜The news,’ he said, the words tiring him, his breath wheezing out.
    â€˜Shouldn’t watch that,’ Kelly said, taking the remote from his lap and walking away, knowing he wouldn’t be able to follow, and even if he did would be too weak to fight her for it. ‘Gets you all excited. And you don’t want that. Remember what the doctor said.’ Her voice sing-song and patronising.
    Keith nodded. ‘Yeah.’
Bet
you
remember what the doctor said
. No sudden shocks. No excitement. With what his body had been through, it could be fatal. Surprised she hadn’t given him more shocks. That was what he would have expected.
    But he had a surprise for her. A real big shock. He just wished he could be there to see her face when she got it…
    Kelly flicked the remote at the TV. The channel changed to a late-night quiz show. Smug comedians making snide remarks about everyone and everything, the audience laughing like it had been pumped full of nitrous oxide.
    He hated it. She walked away, leaving it on.
    Bitch
.
    â€˜And put some lights on, Keith…’ Before she left the room, she switched on the overhead chandelier. He winced from the sudden glare. He hated overhead lights, had done since childhood. And she knew that, had done it deliberately. He couldn’t bear them to be on in any room he was in. He blamed his parents for that one.
    He could remember one night when he was six years old, hearing noise from downstairs, a horrible wailing sound, and getting out of bed to investigate. He found his mother in the living room, the next-door neighbour with