heard a noise in the kitchen. Had Rory returned home early, ill perhaps? She called out.
    There was no reply; the house was empty. Almost.
    From the threshold on, she had the thing planned meticulously. She closed the door. 
The man in the blue suit stared at his manicured hands, and waited for his cue.
    "I get lonely sometimes," she told him as she brushed past him. It was a line she'd 
come up with in bed the previous night.
    He only nodded by way of response, the expression on his face a mingling of fear and 
incredulity: he clearly couldn't quite believe his luck.
    "Do you want another drink?" she asked him, "or shall we go straight upstairs?"
    He only nodded again.
    "Which?"
    "I think maybe I've drunk enough already."
    "Upstairs then."
    He made an indecisive move in her direction, as though he might have intended a kiss. 
She wanted no courtship, however. Skirting his touch, she crossed to the bottom of the 
stairs.
    "I'll lead," she said. Meekly, he followed.
    At the top of the steps she glanced round at him, and caught him dabbing sweat from 
his chin with his handkerchief. She waited until he caught up with her, and then led him 
halfway along the landing to the damp room.
    The door had been left ajar.
    "Come on in," she said.
    He obeyed. Once inside it took him a few moments to become accustomed to the gloom, 
and a further time to give voice to his observation: "There's no bed."
    She closed the door, and switched on the light. She had hung one of Rory's old 
jackets on the back of the door. In its pocket she'd left the knife.
    He said again: "No bed."
    "What's wrong with the floor?" she replied.
    "The floor?"
    "Take off your Jacket. You're warm."
    "I am," he agreed, but did nothing, so she moved across to him, and began to slip the 
knot of his tie. He was trembling, poor lamb. Poor, bleatless lamb. While she removed the 
tie, he began to shrug off his jacket.
    Was Frank watching this? she wondered. Her eyes strayed momentarily to the wall. Yes, 
she thought; he's there. He sees. He knows. He licks his lips and grows impatient.
    The lamb spoke. "Why don't you..." he began, "why don't you maybe...do the same?"
    "Would you like to see me naked?" she teased. The words made his eyes gleam.
    "Yes," he said thickly. "Yes. I'd like that."
    "Very much?"
    "Very much."
    He was unbuttoning his shirt.
    "Maybe you will," she said.
    He gave her that dwarf smile again.
    "Is it a game?" he ventured.
    "If you want it to be," she said, and helped him out of his shirt. His body was pale 
and waxy, like a fungus. His upper chest was heavy, his belly too. She put her hands to 
his face. He kissed her fingertips.
    "You're beautiful," he said, spitting the words out as though they'd been vexing him 
for hours.
    "Am I?"
    "You know you are. Lovely. Loveliest woman I ever set eyes on."
    "That's gallant of you," she said, and turned back to the door. Behind her she heard 
his belt buckle clink, and the sound of cloth slipping over skin as he dropped his 
trousers.
    So far and no farther, she thought. She had no wish to see him babe-naked. It was 
enough to have him like thisShe reached into the jacket pocket.
    "Oh dear," the lamb suddenly said.
    She let the knife lie. "What is it?" she asked, turning to look at him. If the ring 
on his finger hadn't already given his status away, she would have known him to be a 
married man by the underpants he wore: baggy and overwashed, an unflattering garment 
bought by a wife who had long since ceased to think of her husband in sexual terms.
    "I think I need to empty my bladder," he said. "Too many whiskies."
    She shrugged a small shrug, and turned back to the door.
    "Won't be a moment," he said at her back. But her hand was in the jacket pocket 
before the words were out, and as he stepped towards the door, she turned on him, 
slaughtering knife in hand.
    His pace was too quick to see the blade until the very last moment, and even then it 
was bemusement that crossed his face, not fear. It was a short-lived look. The knife was 
in him a moment after, slicing his belly with the ease of a blade in overripe cheese. She 
opened one cut, and then another.
    As the blood started, she was certain the room flickered, the bricks and mortar 
trembling to see the spurts that flew from him.
    She had a breath's length to admire the phenomena, no more, before the lamb let out a 
wheezing curse, and-instead of moving out of the knife's range as she had 
anticipated-took a step toward her and knocked the weapon from her hand. It spun across 
the floorboards and collided with the skirting. Then he was upon her.
    He put his hand into her hair and took a fistful. It seemed his intention was not 
violence but escape, for he relinquished his hold as soon as he'd pulled away from the 
door. She fell against the wall, looking up to see him wrestling with the door handle, 
his free hand clamped to his cuts.
    She was quick now. Across to where the knife lay, up, and back toward him in one 
fluid motion. He had got the door open by inches, but not far enough. She brought the 
knife down in the middle of his pockmarked back. He yelled, and released the door handle. 
She was already drawing the knife out, and plunging into him a second time, and now a 
third and a fourth. Indeed she lost count of the wounds she made, her attack lent venom 
by his refusal to lie down and die. He stumbled around the room, grieving and 
complaining, blood following blood onto his buttocks and legs. Finally, after an age of 
this farcical stuff, he keeled over and hit the floor.
    This time she was certain her senses did not deceive her. The room, or the spirit in 
it, responded with soft sighs of anticipation.
    Somewhere, a bell was ringing...
    Almost as an afterthought, she registered that the lamb had stopped breathing. She 
crossed the blood-spangled floor to where he lay, and said:
    "Enough?"
    Then she went to wash her face.
    As she moved down the landing she heard the room groan-there was no other word for 
it. She stopped in her tracks, almost tempted to go back. But the blood was drying on her 
hands, and its stickiness revolted her.
    In the bathroom she stripped off her flower-patterned blouse, and rinsed first her 
hands, then her speckled arms, and finally her neck. The dowsing both chilled and braced