STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Five                                                                                                Part Eight

 

                     The underground sped down its black tunnel.  Joe closed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts, but they only rattled and jolted with the train and would not be gather.  The train stopped and exchanged passengers.  Joe saw that it was a quarter past twelve by the platform clock, but he did not know to which day the time belonged. He knew that after this killing there was only one more.  He promised himself that everything would be fine once the killings were done.  He wished he could be sure of his promise.
                     The train drew into High Street Kensington station.  He got off, walked up the stairs, past the barriers and through the shopping arcade where a million people walked through him, their unfocused images came at him too fast and made him giddy. He got out of the arcade where the low light, shop windows and clean tiles had closed him in.  But out in the sunlight and the cold air the flow of air was just the same, they marched on him, stern and forthright while Joe shrank away.   The High Street was full of colours, the colours in shop window displays, the colours of the cars on the road and the big red buses, the colours of people's clothes.  The colours were too many and too bright, they added to his disorientation.  He panicked as a loud whirring vibration came up from behind him.  A roller skater appeared from nowhere, a tall slim negro in tight red and white trousers, head phones and a Walkman clipped to his belt. He circled Joe three times and each time Joe saw his own fear reflected twice over in the black mirrors of the negro's shades.  Then he was gone and weaving his speedy way up the High Street, twisting and turning, cutting his way through the crowds.  Joe's panic dissolved into paralysis and vacancy.  His head was light, he forgot his fear, he forgot everything.  He waded his way mindlessly up the street, he saw his feet and legs walking, but had no sensation of his own movement and did not know whether he walked fast or slow.  He lost all feeling and although he was tense and shaking with the cold, his flesh could not feel it.
                         He found the door he was looking for next to a fashion boutique.  He looked at the nylon haired mannequins in their expensive and fashionable clothes.  They did not look back at him, their impassive gaze went over his head and he was glad to be unnoticed.
                         He pressed the bell marked ' Sutcliffe '.  The entry phone was answered immediately.
                         " Yes. "
                         It was a woman's voice, sharp and edgy.
                         "Uh, Jemima ? "
                         "Yes! "
                         "It's Joe.  I've got something from Jason. " 
                         The door buzzed so Joe pushed it open and went inside.  He climbed the carpeted stairs and found the flat door ajar, so he went in.
                         "I'm in the kitchen. "she shouted.
                         Joe's feet sank deep into the cream shag pile as he crossed the living room to another opened door from where her voice had come.  The fitted kitchen was in marble and black wood.  It was spotless.  Jemima sat at a glass topped table, her tools laid out in front of her, ready and waiting.  A new syringe in a sealed, plastic  package, a silver spoon, a gold lighter, a strip of black Velcro to tie her arm and a bottle of sterilised water, all in a line, neat and orderly.  And in the middle of the table was the cash in new, crisp ten pound notes.  She wore a pinstriped skirt and a black bra.  Her blouse and jacket were draped over the back of her chair.  Se had ivory skin and long , black shiny hair.  She looked at Joe accusingly, her eyes were fierce and dark as ebony.
                                                                                                         " About bloody time !"
                           He said nothing.  He took the cash and gave her the paper fold.  She opened it and began the procedure.  She was dextrous and precise.  Joe leant against the wall and watched her in wonder and in sorrow.  She was very beautiful.
                                                                           " If Jason sends you again, don't be so bloody late.  I've got a business to run, I've got appointments to keep. "
                          She looked up at him and saw the sorrow in his eyes.  She regretted her harsh words ,
                          " I'm sorry, I'm edgy.  I just need the smack that's all. "
                          Joe nodded and shrugged his shoulders as if to say he understood, but he didn't.  He had never understood Roy being wasted and humbled in a mindless squalor of dirty needles and fixing in toilets and he understood Jemima even less with her wealth and her clean, orderly life.  She looked healthy except for the track marks on her arm and the hunger in her eyes.
                         " You look as though you could do with some yourself. "  she said.
                         She put some powder in the teaspoon with a few drops of water.  She mixed it with the end of the needle, then heated the spoon over the lighter.      
                          " No, I never use the stuff. " said Joe. 
                         She looked up quickly, dismayed.  She uttered a quick " huh " of disbelief that Joe did not understand, having forgotten his weight loss, faded eyes and pale face.
                        " Why don't you sit down anyway ! " her impatience had returned and her words sharpened again. 
                        " No thanks !" Joe didn't want to watch.
                        " Well bugger off then. "
                        Jemima turned her attention to the teaspoon and Joe went into the living room.  It had a light, airy feel to it. Abstract paintings hung on white walls. There were two low settees in soft, white leather and a low, glass coffee table on which her handbag lay open on its side, credit cards and lipsticks spilling out of it. 
                       He looked out of the back window.  A black mini was parked in a side street on a single yellow line, a warden stood over it and wrote out a ticket.  Joe put his head back round the kitchen door,     
                       " Is that you mini out the back, the black one ? "
                       " Yes, why ? "
                       " You just got a ticket. "
                       "So bloody what. "
                       The tie was round her arm, she was waiting for the vein, needle at the ready.  Joe left her to it.  He didn't want to witness her last and lethal fix.
                       There were black silk sheets on a king sized bed in a bedroom of pale grey that led into a bathroom of dark speckled cork tiles and a sunken bath of jade green.  Joe turned on the gold taps and watched the falling ribbons of soft, clear water fill the bath.  He undressed, took his cigarettes and lighter and eased himself down into the hot water.  He thought that these were the surroundings and the life he wanted when he inherited Clare's three million.  So he pretended that this was where he lived and tried to imagine that this was his life. He tried to feel what it felt like, but it felt like nothing and the nothingness frustrated and disturbed him.  The more he tried to relax the tenser he became.  He chain smoked and let the ash and dogends fall into the bath where they floated and danced on the movements of the water.  He got out and dried himself.  He was angry because to bathe in hot water in a  deep sunken bath was nothing.  He lay on the bed and rolled around in the silk sheets, trying desperately to feel the sensations of wealth and luxury, but they only felt cold and slippery and made him cringe. He felt his nerve endings tingle and his tension grew until it was unbearable.  He leapt off the bed and dressed quickly.  Luxury and good taste meant nothing to him, he couldn't feel life through them, he couldn't feel their worth and neither were they any good to Jemima now that she was dead.                   
                      He looked at her dead body in the kitchen.  She sat on the chair, her legs stretched out and her head dropped forward so that her long black hair hung down over her face.  But for the needle in her arm she looked like on of the mannequins from the shop downstairs that had yet to be properly dressed and positioned. 
                      Joe went back into the living room and took the car keys from her handbag.