Snowflake Read online

  The lounge window was open. I had left it open. I had stupidly left the lounge window open. Was he inside the flat? This flat? My flat? I crept back to the door to the lounge and put my ear to it. I could definitely hear some sort of movement. I willed myself not to panic, took out my phone, dialled 999 but didn’t yet press the call button. Cookie was asleep in the lounge. If a crazed naked man was in there, she was in danger. It didn’t really cross my mind that it might be a sane naked man. I’m not sure there are such things.

  I risked opening the door a crack.

  Oh, God! He was there! A white and – oh, yeah – definitely naked torso moving slowly across the room.

  I hit the call button and backed away.

  “I think there’s an intruder in my flat,” I said, when I got through. “I mean, I know there’s an intruder in the flat.”

  In a voice that suggested they received naked intruder calls all day long, the operator asked me for the address.

  “Can you get out?” he asked.

  “No, not without going past where they are,” I said.

  “Try to secure yourself or hide,” said the operator.

  “But my friend is in the lounge.”

  “Secure yourself and hide. We’ll be there very shortly.”

  Secure myself and hide? Even if there was somewhere to hide in the kitchen, could I leave Cookie in the clutches of a nude lunatic? Of course not. I crept back to the door and peeked through the gap. The lounge was empty and there was Cookie’s foot poking over the edge of the sofa. I had to go and wake her. But I needed protection.

  I momentarily considered the bread knife but then the headline ‘LOCAL WOMAN SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR UNPROVOKED NUDE STABBING’ flashed through my mind and I thought better of it. A non-lethal bludgeoning weapon would be much better.

  Ten seconds later, armed with a rock-hard loaf of bread, I crept into the lounge. No. No naked men lurking in corners. He must have moved on. My limbs shivering with fear, I took hold of Cookie’s knee and tried to shake her awake.

  She gave a small grunt and shifted position.

  “Wake up, damn you,” I hissed.

  “Nnnh. It’s just a little egg,” she murmured and rolled over.

  “Shit.”

  There was the sound of something being dropped. The door to the largest bedroom, which opened directly onto the lounge, was open! There! This was an old building with many of the original features, including interior doors with locks and bolts. All I needed to do was to pull the door closed and lock it and the man would be trapped until the police arrived.

  “You can do this,” I told myself.

  I stole quickly across the room and tugged the door shut. It was stiff, so I leaned back to get the catch to engage. The handle rattled from the other side as I turned the key in the lock.

  “You’re trapped now, mofo!” I shouted and turned away from the door.

  And, as I did, I realised I had trapped my onesie in the door. A section of leg material caught in the gap.

  The man started to pound on the door from the other side. I’m not normally one for whimpering but I let out a trembling cry.

  “Cookie! Cookie, wake up!”

  “I’ll be your momma bear,” she replied, sleepily.

  I wasn’t being subtle any more, I bellowed at the top of my voice, but she slept on.

  The pounding continued, shaking me with each blow. It was a solid door, but I could hear a splintering sound coming from somewhere. I had to get away. There was only one solution and I had no choice. Down came the zip and I wriggled free. I headed across the room, intending to wake Cookie or roll her out of the flat if I had to. I hadn’t gone two steps when the door gave way and the man burst through like that man with the axe in that film. You know the one. I turned to him with my only weapon: the remains of the indestructible loaf. I whirled around and summoned my meanest roar. I’d often practised facing down a bear. I like to imagine I’d send a grizzly packing by acting like its mean older brother, so I channelled that skill now. I tried to make myself as big as possible, raising my shoulders and lifting my arms. I let out a primal roar of pure, bear-flattening rage and swung the loaf with all my might at the attacker’s head.

  The bread connected with his head with deadly, bone-shattering force and he dropped like a stone. My arm even ached from the impact.

  Two thoughts collided in my mind: the first was that I’d surely killed him. The second was that he looked familiar. Bizarrely familiar.

  The doorbell rang.

  His face was one I’d seen in the very recent past.

  There was a thump at the door.

  “Police! Open up!”

  In fact, his face was my own creation. Robert Pattinson’s eyes. Ashton Kutcher’s smile. Channing Tatum’s jawline. He was teen Lori’s dream man, so very recently cast into the fire.

  “Holy balls of fucking fire!” I exclaimed.

  How could this be possible? He was a made-up fantasy picture, and yet he was here, in the flesh. Completely, nakedly, in the flesh, lying unconscious at my feet. Naked. I gawped for a long moment, utterly unable to process what might be going on.

  Thump! Thump! “Open up! Police!”

  “Coming!” I shouted.

  I’d whacked him good across the temple but he wasn’t dead. His chest was moving. As were his lips.

  “This is the police! Are you okay in there?”

  “Just give me a minute!” I yelled back. “Come on,” I said to the impossible naked guy. “Look lively. The police are going to drag you off if you can’t be a bit less... less naked for one.”

  Of course, I was naked too. I ran to the smashed bedroom door. He’d come straight through the door, leaving the lock and handle intact. My onesie was still firmly trapped and the door key was gone.

  “Open the door immediately!” yelled the police.

  “I need clothes!” I hollered back.

  I grabbed the small, expensive and fire-damaged rug from the pile of other generally fire-damaged things and fashioned a very primitive dress from it.

  “We will break this door down!”

  “Two seconds!”

  I snatched up one of the brass dish ornaments for the man on the floor who was in the same predicament as me. I looked at the dish and considered what I’d seen. I raised my eyebrows and swapped it for the biggest one.

  “Here you are, cover yourself up,” I hissed as I rushed past him, thrusting the bowl over him.

  I went to the door, carefully arranging the rug dress so that it covered what I needed it to. Movement wasn’t easy. I opened the door.

  Another familiar face, though this lady-wildebeest one wasn’t handsome and it certainly wasn’t pleased to see me.

  “Miss Belkin,” said the sergeant.

  “It’s Sergeant Fenton, isn’t it?” I said. “And Constable…”

  “Stokes,” he offered.

  Sergeant Fenton gave me a long look. “You called to report an intruder?” she said.

  “I did, yes,” I said. “I thought there was an intruder, but I was mistaken.”

  Sergeant Fenton exchanged a glance with Stokes.

  “You were mistaken?” she said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” she said and stepped smoothly past me into the hallway.

  “Very sure.”

  “You’re here alone then?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m wearing a bowl on my willy,” said a voice from the lounge.

  “Alone apart from, you know, the people who are here with me,” I said. “It was all a bit of a mix-up, which I would explain, but it’s stupid and dull. There’s no need for you to stay, to be quite honest.” I started to make dismissive flappy motions with my hands, but then I realised that there was a very real danger of my rug dress falling off.

  “I think we’d prefer to have a look around,” said Sergeant Fenton. “I need to satisfy myself that you’re not acting under duress.”

  The police
officers entered the lounge and gazed at the scene. Cookie still lounged in her seat, snoring now. The man from my picture sat opposite, with a mixing bowl covering his groin. He smiled a perfect smile.

  “Evening, sir,” said Sergeant Fenton, entirely unfazed by the naked hunk. “Has there been a fire in here?” She indicated the charred scatter cushions and general disarray.

  “Yes, just a little accident,” I said.

  “You’ve burned your hair.”

  “I can smell cannabis,” said Constable Stokes.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” I said, thinking on my feet. “It’ll be the cushions. I always think that burning fabrics smell a bit herbal, don’t you?” I picked one up and inhaled deeply. That was a mistake, as it made me cough violently and I momentarily lost my rug. I scrabbled to retrieve it.

  “So, what is the perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this then?” asked Sergeant Fenton. “What was it that caused you to call the emergency services to say that there was an intruder?”

  “I heard a noise,” I said with a shrug. Keep the lie small and real. Would she accept that? Of course, she wouldn’t.

  “Go on,” she said, “were you alone at that time?”

  “Well no, Cookie, was here, but she’s a very deep sleeper,” I said, indicating my snoring friend.

  “That’ll be the herbal cushions,” said Sergeant Fenton with a raised eyebrow. “Go on, what happened next?”

  “Well, after I called, I realised that it was simply my boyfriend, who had dropped in unexpectedly to surprise me with some naked cooking!” I laughed. “Isn’t he sweet?”

  I wasn’t sure that ‘sweet’ was in Sergeant Fenton’s vocabulary. I wasn’t sure that ‘naked cooking’ was the sort of activity she acknowledged or approved of either. She gave us all a long hard look. “So, your boyfriend,” she said to me. “What’s his name?”

  Uh-oh. Whatever I said, she might try and check it out, but I had to say something. Robert Pattinson’s eyes. Ashton Kutcher’s smile.

  “Robert,” I said.

  “Ashton,” he said.

  We spoke at the same time and it really didn’t look good.

  I looked at him. He looked at me, all smiles.

  The doorbell rang. Stokes went off to answer it.

  “Ashbert!” I cried out suddenly.

  “What?” said Sergeant Fenton.

  “Ashbert. It’s a standing joke. Silly nickname. I call him Ashbert because it’s cute and dorky.”

  “Amazon delivery,” said Constable Stokes.

  “What?”

  I went out into the hallway. A delivery guy slid a huge box across the threshold.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “There’s five more,” he said and continued to unload his trolley.

  “Mind if I take a look?” asked Sergeant Fenton.

  “What?” I said.

  “In case it’s something… herbal.”

  I wanted to say no, but a small mewling sound was all that would come from my mouth as it dawned on me what this was. She tore open one of the boxes and pulled out a display pack of condoms. I saw her lips moving as she did some rapid mental arithmetic. Twenty condoms in a pack. Over thirty packs in a box. Five boxes.

  “We have a lot of sex,” I heard myself say.

  Sergeant Fenton gazed once more around the room and pursed her lips.

  “I think I’ve seen enough,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said in emphatic agreement.

  “Whatever it is you’re doing here,” she said. “I don’t want any more calls about it.”

  Chapter 7

  An alarm woke me. It wasn’t a gentle electronic warbling like my own alarm clock. You see, the problem with sleep is that’s it’s one of the best things ever but you’re never awake to enjoy it. My clock’s alarm is lovely; it wakes you up just enough to remind you that you’re sleeping and then lets you get on with some serious snoozing.

  But not this alarm currently assaulting my ears. It was like one of those old-school ones with bells on the top, designed to give you a heart attack. The worst part of it wasn’t the loudness, although it was making my teeth bang together with the vibrations, it was the fact that I just couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I jumped out of bed. Ah, yes. The bedroom in my brother’s flat. I had just spent the first night in my new prison, my first night in exile. I was in the room with my boxes of belongings, and I briefly wondered if there was an alarm clock in one of them, but no, it was coming from all around me. I ran out of the bedroom and found Cookie still sleeping soundly on the settee.

  “Wake up!” I howled and gave her a good shake. “Can’t you hear that godawful noise?”

  “Mmmf,” said the sleeping Cookie. She was sleeping through this! I was a good sleeper but Cookie took it to the next level. If sleeping was an Olympic sport, she’d oversleep and fail to turn up to the event. They’d have to come round to her house to give her the medal.

  “I need to turn the alarm off!”

  My words were lost in the noise of the alarm, I couldn’t even hear them myself, but then, remarkably, the noise stopped.

  “Would you like to disable the alarm?” came Lexi’s voice.

  “Yes! Yes!” I pleaded. After a few moments, I had recovered sufficiently from the trauma to wonder what had just happened. “Lexi, who set that alarm?”

  “Last night, you said that you needed to be out to start a shift at the museum at six o’clock. You have forty-five minutes to prepare yourself and the walk is estimated to be fifteen minutes.”

  While part of my mind did the sums and realised that I was awake at the ungodly hour of five o’clock, the other part was processing what Lexi had just said.

  “You listen to everything that we say in this flat and then act on it if you think you can help?”

  “Yes, that’s my job.”

  I put a cushion over the nearest sinister black cylinder and wondered how best to keep Lexi’s electronic nose out of my conversations. Cookie was stirring now.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “It’s a new dawn on a new day,” she said and looked around. “Possibly it’s even before the new dawn.”

  “Yeah, Adam’s nosy robot set an alarm for us.”

  “I don’t need alarms,” she said. “I allow my natural circadian rhythms to wake me.”

  “Nah, I reckon it was the alarm.”

  “The body knows what it wants.”

  “Your body wants you to get up at five in the morning?”

  “My body doesn’t want to get fired.”

  Cookie got to her feet. She had slept on a cushion with a heavy brocade and she now had a pattern of flowers and oak leaves imprinted on the entire side of her face.

  We might as well get ready and go,” she said. First dibs on the bathroom.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Er, before you go, do you remember anything weird about last night at all?”

  “God, yeah. That bread recipe has never failed me before. I think your brother’s flour might be past its best.”

  I nodded as she left the room. Surely, I hadn’t made up all that mad stuff from last night? But it was mad stuff, wasn’t it? We set the living room on fire. Cookie passed out on the sofa. A naked man climbed up the fire escape and into the flat. Not just any naked man, but my dream man – well, my teenage self’s dream man. I trapped him in the bedroom. He broke out. We were both naked. I knocked him out with burned bread. The police turned up, the same coppers I’d met earlier that day. I pretended the man was my boyfriend and all was going well until an Amazon delivery guy turned up with three thousand condoms.

  It had to be a dream. My perfect man in the flat. Both of us naked. And I whacked him with a big hard phallic loaf. That was some deeply Freudian stuff.

  I knocked on the bathroom door.

  “Mmm?” said Cookie.

  “Have you ever had penis envy?” I called through the door.

  “I’d like to be able to write my name in the snow.”
/>   “Right.”

  “But I’d be constantly worried about getting it trapped. You know, in an automatic sliding door or something.”

  “Does that ever happen?”

  “If it did, would a bloke tell you?”

  I shook my head. So, was it real or was it a dream? I had brought a man to life. My ideal man had appeared naked in my brother’s flat. Whichever way I phrased it, it sounded like a crazy dream. He wasn’t here now, but my crazy dream had an answer for that one too: I’d told him I was tired and that he had to leave. He wanted to stay but I flippantly told him to return only if he had a big pile of cash in one hand and a Quattro Formaggi in the other.

  I decided to distract myself with a little bit of tidying up. The first thing that needed to be tackled was that sausage. I had to face up to the fact that it wasn’t the gourmet delicacy that I’d been looking forward to. It was, in fact, a rotten sausage. I was almost grateful for the fact that no breakfast was available, because eating was going to be out of the question while the smell of it persisted. I could have found it blindfold; the intensity increased as I approached the kitchen. It sat on the counter, with a couple of bluebottles circling around it. Where had they come from? It was tempting to open a window and just throw the sausage outside, but of course Adam would get an alert and phone me up again. I slid it into the kitchen bin instead, making sure I didn’t touch it. The smell didn’t diminish at all when I closed the lid, but hopefully it would settle down during the course of the day.

  Tidying up. Tidying up. What else could I do without breaking into an actual sweat?

  I pulled the cushions and the rug away from the mess of the fire. Some of them were seriously singed. I divided them into two neat piles: those that could be put back on the sofa and those that I might have to bin and find replacements for on the internet. I was feeling more than a bit guilty about the mess I’d made in Adam’s flat. Well I could do one thing that he’d asked me to do. “Take care of the rocks,” he’d said. I’d get them all in a big box and toss them into the rubbish bin outside. I looked around and in the hallway I found five large boxes of condoms.