In Bloom

CJ SKUSE is the author of the Young Adult novels Pretty Bad Things, Rockoholic, Dead Romantic, Monster and The Deviants and the bestselling adult novel Sweetpea. She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has first class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children, and, aside from writing novels, works as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © CJ Skuse 2018

CJ Skuse asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008216740

Praise for CJ Skuse

‘If you like your thrillers darkly comic and outrageous this ticks all the boxes.’ The Sun

‘This isn’t a book for the squeamish or the faint-hearted … think Bridget Jones meets American Psycho.’ Red

‘This darkly comic novel…has the potential to become a cult classic.’ Daily Mail

‘Sweetpea hits all the right buttons. A dark, twisted read about a female serial killer with dollops of humour, sarcasm and a lightweight approach…keeping you gripped and on the hook, both smiling and squirming.’ Maxim Jakubowski, Lovereading.co.uk

‘You MUST read this book especially if you like your (anti) heroes dirty-mouthed, deadly and dark, dark dark. ADORED IT.’ Fiona Cummins, author of Rattle

‘This book is OUTRAGEOUS.’ Compulsive Readers

‘This anti-hero is psychotic without doubt, sexually voracious and incredibly funny.’ Shots magazine

For Matthew Snead. From a distance,

you’ve been an excellent cousin.

‘The odour of the sweet pea is so offensive to flies that it will drive them out of a sick-room, though not in the slightest degree disagreeable to the patient.’

– A TIP FROM The 1899 Old Farmer’s Almanac

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Epigraph

Sunday, 24th June – 7 weeks pregnant

Monday, 25th June – 7 weeks, 1 day

Thursday, 28th June – 7 weeks, 4 day

Sunday, 1st July – 8 week exactly

Monday, 2nd July – 8 weeks, 1 day

Wednesday, 4th July – 8 weeks, 3 days

Friday, 6th July – 8 weeks, 5 days

Monday, 9th July – 9 weeks, 1 day

Friday, 13th July – 9 weeks, 5 days

Monday, 16th July – 10 weeks, 1 day

Friday, 20th July – 10 weeks, 5 days

Monday, 23rd July – 11 weeks, 1 day

Wednesday, 25th July – 11 weeks, 3 days

Saturday, 28th July – 11 weeks, 6 days

Tuesday, 31st July – 12 weeks, 2 days

Wednesday, 1st August – 12 weeks, 3 days

Saturday, 4th August – 12 weeks, 6 days

Tuesday, 7th August – 13 weeks, 2 days

Wednesday, 8th August – 13 weeks, 3 days

Thursday, 9th August – 13 weeks, 4 days

Friday, 10th August – 13 weeks, 5 days

Saturday, 11th August – 13 weeks, 6 days

Sunday, 12th August – 14 weeks exactly

Monday, 13th August – 14 weeks, 1 day

Thursday, 27th September – 20 weeks, 4 days

Friday, 28th September – 20 weeks, 5 days

Saturday, 29th September – 20 weeks, 6 days

Tuesday, 2nd October – 21 weeks, 2 days

Thursday, 4th October – 21 weeks, 4 days

Friday, 5th October – 21 weeks, 5 days

Saturday, 6th October – 21 weeks, 6 days

Thursday, 11th October – 22 weeks, 4 days

Tuesday, 16th October – 23 weeks, 2 days

Friday, 19th October – 23 weeks, 5 days

Monday, 22nd October – 24 weeks, 1 day

Thursday, 25th October – 24 weeks, 4 days

Monday, 29th October – 25 weeks, 1 day

Wednesday, 31st October – 25 weeks, 3 days

Friday, 2nd November – 25 weeks, 5 days

Saturday, 10th November – 26 weeks, 6 days

Sunday, 11th November – 27 weeks exactly

Wednesday, 14th November – 27 weeks, 3 days

Friday, 16th November – 27 weeks, 5 days

Wednesday, 21st November – 28 weeks, 3 days

Friday, 23rd November – 28 weeks, 5 days

Monday, 26th November – 29 weeks, 1 day

Tuesday, 27th November – 29 weeks, 2 days

Thursday, 29th November – 29 weeks, 4 days

Saturday, 1st December – 29 weeks, 6 days

Sunday, 2nd December – 30 weeks exactly

Wednesday, 5th December – 30 weeks, 3 days

Saturday, 8th December – 30 weeks, 6 days

Thursday, 13th December – 31 weeks, 4 days

Tuesday, 18th December – 32 weeks, 2 days

Thursday, 20th December – 32 weeks, 4 days

Sunday, 23rd December – 33 weeks exactly

Monday, 24th December – 33 weeks, 2 days

Tuesday, 25th December – 33 weeks, 3 days

Wednesday, 26th December – 33 weeks, 4 days

Thursday, December 27th – 33 weeks, 5 days

Friday, December 28th – 1 day post-partum

Extract

About the Publisher

Sunday, 24th June – 7 weeks pregnant

KNOCK KNOCKKNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

So there I was, red-handed, red-faced, naked and straddling a corpse. His body is covered in my DNA so even if I did toss him over the balcony onto several parked hatchbacks, the evidence would lead straight back to me.

KNOCK KNOCKKNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

‘Jesus Christ police have got loud knocks. Okay okay okay okay think whatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdo?’ Prison is a no no. I’ve seen Orange is the New Black. I can’t do all that lesbianing. It looks exhausting.

ANSWER THE FUCKING DOOR!

‘Yeah, I guess I’m gonna have to, aren’t I?’

I fling on my dressing gown and tiptoe across to the bedroom door. The knock comes again and I jump a clear foot in the air.

For crying out loud, Mummy. This isn’t just about you now. You’ve got me to think about. Answer it and tell them you can’t speak to them now.

‘Oh yeah they’re gonna love that, aren’t they? “Sorry, Sarge, could you pop out for a couple of doughnuts while I dispose of this corpse I’ve been sleeping with, then do feel free to come back with your Marigolds on and have a good root around?” It’s not gonna wash, Foetus Face.’

KNOCK KNOCK.

Right well that knocking is getting right on my tits now so just answer it. You’ll think of something.

I’ll admit, I’d have been lost if it hadn’t been for that little voice from beyond my own vagina telling me what to do. I tiptoed across the cold floor.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

The words ‘shit’ and ‘creek’ spring to mind and there ain’t a paddle in sight. ‘Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!’

Damn stupid to kill him here in the first place. What was I thinking? Must be the start of ‘Baby Brain’. That’s what I’m going to blame it on anyway.

Don’t you lay this shit on me.

How did I think I was going to get a six-foot Australian man-child out of my flat, along the hall, down two flights, across the car port and into my tiny car without being seen by some busy-body with a nose for cadavers? I’ve told you what to do - cut him up! Fortunately AJ wasn’t decomposing quickly – I’d drained him out over the bath before I left for the hen weekend. This slows the process down. I saw Dad do it once through a warehouse window – him and his associates, all in balaclavas.

Not just a pretty face, am I? *wink emoji*

Anyway, my heart’s pounding and my mouth’s all dry but the situation is what it is. There’s no escape. The knock echoes once more, I take in a deep lungful of air, prepare my best ‘shocked and saddened’ face and open the door of the flat.

And it’s Mrs Whittaker.

I let out my deep breath. Our kleptomaniac neighbour who gets more Alzheimersy each time I see her usually annoys the knicker elastic off me with her unsolicited visits, but today I could lick her bristly mouth.

‘Hello, Rebecca,’ she says.

My name is Rhiannon but nobody ever gets my name right. Even at school. Even when I got famous, few news editors could spell it. I get it – people are stupid. I let old Whittaker off a bollocking for the simple fact that she isn’t wearing latex gloves or brandishing a search warrant.

‘I’m popping into town in a bit to do my big shop and I wondered if you wanted anything. I know your young man’s away at the moment.’

The implication being that I, as a young woman alone, can’t cope. Bless. She’s eyeballing the room over my shoulder, as usual, obviously wanting to come in and snoop for unattended objets d’art.

‘Ah that’s nice of you, Mrs W,’ I say, keeping an eye out for cops on the stairs. But there’s nothing and no one.

I think briefly about sending her on a mission for a Dyson noise-less power saw but feel it will garner too many questions. ‘I think I’m okay, thanks.’

‘When’s your young man back? France, isn’t it?’

‘No, Holland. He’s gone to watch the football.’ I haven’t got time to go into details about Craig’s arrest and subsequent charge for the three murders that I actually committed so I leave it at ‘Yeah, he’s having a great time, seen some clogs and stuff.’

‘Bet the flat’s felt ever so empty without him. I know when my John died…’

She witters on for three minutes about how long it took to come to terms with her husband’s passing and I’m going ‘Mmm’ and ‘Aah’ in all the right places, but my mind is going in a hundred directions. When’s she going to leave? When are the police coming? Where am I going to cut him up?

As I’m standing there, a bubble emerges from my think tank.

She’s going out. Her apartment will be empty for hours.

If I can drag AJ’s body downstairs into her flat, it will leave my flat clear for the police. If this is my rescue boat it has some huge holes in it, but you can’t look a holey old boat in the mouth, can you? So I start rowing.

‘Okay I better be off to get my bus,’ she says.

‘Actually, I do want a couple of bits and bobs if you don’t mind,’ I say. ‘I’ll just grab the list. Come in.’ She can’t resist a root around my nick-knacks.

Parking her in the lounge, I retreat to the kitchen and locate the bottle of cooking oil under the sink. I break the seal and pour it down the plughole. She’s pootling about beyond the partition wall, commenting on how warm it is with our underfloor heating. Her block heels click towards the record player.

‘Yeah, here we go,’ I say, joining her in the lounge – the empty oil bottle trailing by my side. She’s nosing through Craig’s vinyl, lifting out Listen Without Prejudice and trying to pick off the HMV sticker that had been on there since Craig bought it. She doesn’t see what I’m doing.

‘It’s only this cooking oil actually. We’ve run out.’

‘Rapeseed oil.’ She frowns, putting George back in the stack and taking the bottle from me to squint at the label. ‘Where do you get that?’

‘With the other oils. If you can’t find it, don’t worry …’

‘Oh I’ll find it. I like a quest,’ she says, smiling so toothily I fear her falsies are gonna shoot out of her mouth. ‘I never cooked with this before.’

‘It’s so good for you,’ I say, surreptitiously parroting the label blurb. ‘I think it has the lowest amount of saturates of any other oil on the market and no artificial preservatives, and it’s kind to cows and stuff.’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ she smiles again as I guide her back towards the front door. ‘Might get some myself. It doesn’t make chips taste funny, does it?’

She walks on ahead of me, right into my oily trap…

WALLOP

She goes down like a perv priest on a preschooler, but to my chagrin doesn’t bang her head. I rush in and do it manually, grabbing her ears and yanking her skull back for hard contact to ensure disorientation.

‘Ooh! Ow! Ooh! Ooh, what’s happened? My head! Ahh, my arm! Where am I?’ she gabbles on, flailing about like an upturned tortoise.

‘Oh dear, it’s all right,’ I say, dialling 999. ‘You must have slipped. I’m going to put you in the recovery position now…’

‘Oh it hurts. Oof! Oww! Owwwww!’

‘That’s okay, pain is good. Pain means it’s getting better.’

With her settled as comfortably as she can be on her side in front of the afternoon film – Calamity Jane – I go to my room and wrap my secret love in the sheet he’s lying dead on. There’s a thump when he hits the rug.

‘What was that?’

‘I dropped something,’ I say to the back of her head as I drag AJ’s body across the lounge floor behind her. Doris Day dances about on a counter. Crazy bitch.

Whittaker keeps trying to look back at me. ‘I’m in so much pain, love.’

‘Ahh lie still, Mrs W. The ambulance is on its way. You’re going to be fine but you have to stay still. You could have a broken… primula.’

Could not think of the name of that bone. Damn baby brain.

It’s not my fault. You got yourself into this mess.

I’m sweating like a pork chop as I drag my human fajita through my door and downstairs to Mrs Whittaker’s flat, bundling it inside with seconds to spare. I hear the quick pad pad of shoes down the corridor and I look up to see Jonathan Jerrams careering towards me, arms out.

‘Rhiannon!’ he yells, barrelling into me at speed.

Old Mr and Mrs Jerrams bring up the rear, apologising in his wake.

Jonathan’s my self-appointed ‘best friend ever’ because of something I did for him over two years ago. I saved his life. Sort of. There used to be a guy of no fixed abode who’d hang about the concourse shouting abuse at residents, tipping over bins and stealing bikes. He wore a pig mask to frighten people – I nicknamed him The Notorious P.I.G. Anyway, he picked on Jonathan something chronic because Jonathan has Down’s syndrome and he could get money out of him easily. One day, The P.I.G. threw an apple core at Jonathan’s head as he was coming back from feeding the ducks – one of the few solo pursuits his parents afforded him – and I saw it happen.

It’s one of my rules – defend the defenceless. I had no choice.

So immediately after the apple-flinging, I strode up to the P.I.G., snapped the mask from his face and yelled ‘If you don’t disappear I will visit you in the dead of night and cut your real fucking face off.’ Got spit in his eye and everything. I eyeballed him until he looked away, got onto his bike and sped off, laughing like it didn’t matter. Clearly it did. We never saw him on the estate again.

For ages after, Jonathan left me presents outside my door, sent random cards and flowers, then Craig got jealous and asked him to stop. Now it’s tackle hugs and proclamations of love across the car park.

‘We’re going to the zoo, we are,’ says Jonathan, rocking to a tune only he could hear; trouser hems flapping in the breeze.

‘How lovely,’ I say, wiping facial sweat on my dressing gown sleeve.

‘I like animals, I do.’

‘Yeah, so do I. They’re great, aren’t they?’

The Jerramses laugh for no apparent reason.

Jonathan prods Whittaker’s door with his spoony digits. ‘What’s in there?’

‘I’m watering Mrs Whittaker’s house plants. She’s gone into hospital.’

‘Oh dear,’ says Mrs J. ‘What’s happened?’

‘She had a fall.’

The Jerramses accept this. Whittaker’s a proper Weeble, always falling over – usually in the stairwells. Most residents have had to carry her flabby arse up two flights before now. It’s like a rite of passage in this place.

‘Where’s your dog?’ Jonathan shouts, two feet away.

‘Tink’s staying with my parents-in-law,’ I tell him.

‘Do you like my t-shirt?’

He opens his jacket to reveal a Jaws t-shirt with a sizeable belly underneath and a bolognaise stain on the neck. Why do people who look after the disabled never dress them in good clothes? It’s always cheap Velcro shoes and washed-out charity shop threads that never fit. The shark glared at me, teeth gleaming. It didn’t have as many calcium deposits as Jonathan.

‘Nice,’ I say. ‘You wear it well, JJ.’

I’m still sweating like I’m at hot box yoga even though all I’m doing is talking – meantime I have a corpse mouldering in one flat, a broken pensioner in another and a police forensics team arriving any second. It’s only when I’m making my excuses I realise my dressing gown has opened and boobage is on the prowl. Old Jerrams can’t take his eyes off them. I have to say, it’s a big turn on when he looks up my dressing gown as I’m climbing back up the stairs.

‘What are you doing, Rachel?’ Mrs Whittaker calls out, scaring the crap out of me. I’d forgotten she was still there in front of Calamity Jane. Doris and some other tart are singing about a woman’s work never being done.

Too fucking true, Doris.

‘Just went to see if there was any sign of the ambulance.’ I mop over the oil puddle with a bleachy dishcloth. ‘You all right there while I get changed?’

‘Oh yeah, you carry on love, don’t mind me.’

I change my bed, turn the mattress, Febreeze the room and open both windows. When I’m changed, I go in and sit next to Whittaker and watch a bit more of Calamity Jane ’til the ambulance comes.

‘I’ll water your house plants, don’t worry,’ I call after her as they stretcher her into the lift. ‘And I’ll call Betty for you. Leave everything to me.’

It’s minutes between the ambulance leaving to the police drawing up. I’m on the balcony, chewing a Dime bar. Three be-suited people – a tightly-bunned black woman and two men, one tall, blond and erect; the other like the short tubby guy in Grease who’s about forty years too old for high school. It’s then time to get into character as the wronged girlfriend of a serial killer.

I’ve learned a lot from watching those Crocodile Tears docus on YouTube. It all comes flooding back, like an old First Aid course when you have to treat a casualty. Not that I’ve ever had to. Or would, let’s face it.

I’ve remembered the key points about lying to police and they are these:

1) Strong emotional displays – dead giveaway.

2) Micro-expressions – Keep gestures to a minimum. Rubbing one’s face denotes self-comfort/lying. Stillness/shock are natural responses.

3) Shaking hands – good, if you can manufacture it. Luckily, my hands were shaking efficiently – the adrenaline of my frantic lunchtime running round hiding corpses and maiming pensioners.

4) Script – less is more. Any idiot who killed his wife and went on TV to beg for help in ‘catching the bastard’ always makes the same mistake – their dialogue is too prepared. Sandwich the lies between truths – I was on a hen weekend, Craig did call me from Amsterdam to say he’d been arrested, he did habitually use pot to relax. Then the lies.

5) Co-operation – do everything they say without hesitation.

The detective leading the investigation, DI Nnedi Géricault from the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol, interviews me with DS Tubby Guy from Grease. The blond guy dons gloves and snoops around the flat. They have had to get a warrant which is presumably why they have taken so long to get here. Thank Fuck.

‘Do what you need to,’ I say, still in utter shock and bewilderment, fiddling with the solitaire on my fourth finger.

I tell them I’m pregnant and that I have high blood pressure – a half-truth so they’ll treat me with kid gloves. Works like a charm.

‘We’ll keep it brief today as clearly it must be a stressful time for you,’ says Géricault.

‘I can’t believe it,’ I keep repeating. ‘Please tell me this is a mistake.’

If there’s one thing I’ve always been able to do well, it’s cry on demand. I learnt from an early age that people soften when you turn on the waterworks – nothing too dramatic, just some light sobbing at the right moment and you’re laughing.

Internally, of course.

‘I’ve known the guy for four years,’ I wail. ‘I live with him. I sleep in the same bed as him. I’m having his baby. How the hell is he supposed to have killed three people behind my back? It makes no sense.’

‘Would you like some water?’ Géricault offers, motioning to the blond in the kitchen. She has a couple of fingers missing on her left hand – the fourth and fifth are stumps. I wonder if they’ll find AJ’s blood spatter in the grouting. You’ll only see it if you’re looking for it. And this isn’t a crime scene.

Yet.

‘How long will this take?’ I ask, glass shaking in my adrenalized grip.

DS Tubby Guy from Grease says ‘It’ll take as long as it takes.’ I’m so thankful I pay my taxes to keep his ass in cheap suits.

As it turns out they stay around two hours forty minutes. They ask all sorts of questions – questions they already know the answers to, like where Craig is right now and where his van is and even questions about my dad’s well-documented vigilantism.

‘Craig didn’t know my dad for long. He didn’t know about what he did in his spare time. He wasn’t one of them.’

‘How can you be sure?’ asks Géricault.

‘I guess I can’t,’ I shrug. And they ask no more about it.

They say I’ll need to move out for a while. I inform them that Craig’s parents Jim and Elaine have said I can stay with them. They take Craig’s laptop and his pot in evidence bags, some of our kitchen knives (not the Sabatiers of course as those babies were hidden in advance) and his spare tool box from the cupboard outside our bedroom.