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Back The Family Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (117)
  1. Also by
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Epigraph
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
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  114. 109
  115. 110
  116. Teaser chapter
  117. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

He imagined a garbage truck rolling up the road, tipping over on its side and crushing them to death, their arms and legs as mangled as the spokes of their bicycle wheels. Or looping rope around their scrawny little necks and letting them swing from the branches of the hornbeam. Death by long drop or suspension? A severed spinal column or slow strangulation? Slow would be better, he decided. More time for regrets.

He finished making the bed and hovered at the top of the landing. Someone laughed again, boyish with a hint of cruelty. He was looking straight down the valley of the stairwell when the letter box opened.

“Hey, Ol’ Man Lovell. You killed your wife yet? Did you bury her in the garden?”

The flap shut, and he trapped and held his next breath. There would be more. And so there was.

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re The Doll Maker. Are you going to give us some ickle-wickle dolly-wollies, you fucking sicko? Or are you going to murder us?” It was a teenage boy’s voice. He laughed again, and Lovell recognized in it a kind of shocked delight.

Trefor freed the air from his lungs and contemplated his next move. He needed to leave for work. He had orders to fulfill, and he was behind. Perhaps he should chase them up The Avenue. Give them a scare. But the last time he’d done that, they’d stuck soiled sanitary napkins to his windows. After a day in the sun, the odor had made him gag as he’d cleaned up the mess.

The tips of the boy’s fingers appeared in the mouth of his front door. Trefor frowned. What were they up to? Muffled conversation and an exclamation of disgust. A giggle, but stifled, as if Trefor would hear, open up and demand to be in on the joke.

He took a step down the stairs, intending to confront them.

Bunches of dried lavender that hung from the banister brushed against him, sending tiny, fragrant flowers tumbling over his shoulders. His wife, Annie, had loved these vibrant blooms before she’d left him, and so he’d placed them in every room.

A small envelope—the padded type, thick with Bubble Wrap and about the size of a birthday card—dropped through the letter box, the sound breaking open the silence of the house.

WIFE KILLER was scrawled across the front.