Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [50]
"Yeah," she said.
"Good. We've done okay, babe."
He didn't move from the doorway. Last thing she wanted to see right now was his sexy-messy body. Caused a tingle in her yoni just thinking about it.
She said, "Three things. You shouldn't have let Fraser see you."
"I thought you'd finished with him."
"Well, I hadn't."
"I know. I saw that. But I didn't realise at the time. Why didn't you wait till the roofies had taken effect?"
"They had."
"Not completely."
"I'm impatient, Martin." She shrugged. "Anyway, don't change the subject." She paused. "Two. You shouldn't be smoking. That's risky."
"I'm tense, you know. What's three?"
"You should have cut Phil Savage's hands off by now. What's kept you?"
"Sorry, boss."
He moved towards her, but still she didn't look up. His foot, his calf, his thigh, entered her vision. She turned away before she saw any more.
"I didn't have time." He placed his lips on her cheek, drew back. "The head took longer than I thought."
She nodded. "No trouble otherwise?"
"He never suspected a thing. Took the beer, went out like a light."
"Not like Fraser here."
"Affects people differently."
"I just wanted to slow him down."
"You did that okay."
"How do you feel?"
"Fine. How about you?"
"Fine." She closed her eyes momentarily because she couldn't trust herself not to look at him. "Where did you put Phil's head?"
"In the kitchen. In a carrier bag. I got sick of it staring at me."
She looked at him.
"The eyes wouldn't close. No matter how hard I tried. And I did. Kept at it for ages. But they kept springing open. Freaky."
"Don't be a girl, Martin."
She walked past him into the kitchen. The bag was on the worktop next to the sink, a large Evans' carrier. Martin must have got it from his mum: she was a big lady.
Effie opened the bag, lifted out Phil Savage's head by the hair. With her other hand, she gently thumbed an eye shut. When she raised her thumb, the eye sprang open. She tried the other one. Same result.
"See?" Martin said, in the doorway.
Effie hadn't known that dead eyes could refuse to close. Who knew they were so stubborn. She lowered the head back into the bag. "Back to work," she said to Martin.
She took off her clothes. Once she was naked, she opened the holdall that was resting on the counter, took out a pair of gloves and snapped them on. Put on a pair of booties. She found the spare hacksaw and rejoined Martin in the sitting room.
Martin had started on Savage's wrists. About a third of the way through the left one. The blade was sticking. She could hear it. A wet crunch. Pause. Another.
She stared into the pool of blood, her reflection rippling as Martin moved his blade jerkily through the corpse's wrist.
***
TEN MINUTES LATER, Effie was wrapping Phil Savage in a sheet she'd found in Fraser's linen cupboard. Well, she was wrapping Phil's torso in it. His head was still in the carrier bag in the kitchen.
She said, "He's heavy."
"Tell me about it," Martin said. "It was a real pain getting him into the tub."
"I'm impressed."
"You should be."
"I said I was."
"So you should be."
She looked at her boyfriend. His head tilted to the left. He was streaked with blood and sweat. The hair on his chest was matted, dried red. She looked down at her own chest.
A mess. As if she'd been given five minutes to paint the room red on pain of death. She gazed up at Martin. "You okay?" she said.
"Never better." His lips twitched.
Liar. She'd have to watch him.
After all, it wasn't as if he'd grown used to killing people. Not like Richie, Effie's big brother.
***
EFFIE HAD UNEARTHED Richie's secret early on, right after his third hit. Actually, he'd been smoking blow very heavily around that time, and although she'd noticed something was amiss, she'd never have guessed what the problem was. She didn't need to, though. He made a confession to her.
"Effie," he said, and she remembered the pub they were in, a bit out of the way, but one of the few places in Edinburgh they could find draught Beamish. They were big