The Crocodile Hunter by Gerald Seymour (best summer reads of all time txt) 📕

save some tea for him. He held the lead, let it dangle and swing, kept it prominent, and started to walk towards the second turning on to the right, a cul-de-sac, where Cameron Jilkes had once lived. He looked around him, and he whistled sharply.

She came down the stairs. A light was on on the landing above her.

Cammy had waited, waited some more, had considered whether to turn and head away, and had rung the bell again.

A man walked along the road towards him. He wondered if that were her husband. Had kept walking and had ducked his head so that his expression could not be seen: none of his business if Victoria, number 8, had a visitor on a wet night at that late hour. Cammy had not hidden, had no longer cared whether he was seen or not. Another man had brought a dog out, last comfort stop for the night, and Cammy had seen the animal oblige and it had crossed the concrete strips where the car was parked and had gone on to next door’s handkerchief of grass and had squatted there. All that while he was waiting. He saw her shape. Heard her voice.

A whisper, hissed and barely audible, “All right, all right, I’m coming. Leave your key somewhere? Don’t ring it again.”

A bolt drawn back, a key turned. His mum locked the front door, and the back door, only from habit: used to say, “Nothing in here worth pinching so I’m not making this into Fort Knox.” Vicky had the full works on the door. It was opened. She looked into his face. She wore an ankle-length nightdress, prim and too old for her, had a robe over her shoulders but hanging open. Her hair fell loose on to her shoulders. No recognition but not much light was on his features. Modesty made her clutch at the robe and pull it across her.

A nervy frown and a sharp query, “Yes?”

Cammy did not answer her but did the smile. What had won him through bad times, what had left Vicky – years before – chasing after him. Did it slow and measured and he saw the realisation dawn on her. A hand up to her mouth and a little squeal and her eyes widening. Another frown as if indicating that her memory of an old face, one from a few years ago, might deceive her. A blink, because she might have been already asleep, and one hand still over her mouth and the other dropping its grip on the robe and wiping at her eyes, and her face all clean and shiny, her make-up washed off. He tried to recall how it had been, the last time he had seen her . . . remembered his excuses, a headache, an early start at work. And in his room, under the mattress were his airline ticket and enough cash, US dollars, for the one-way trip, and his passport. Probably he’d have said, “See you, love, I’ll call you.” Left it vague, but didn’t have the recall.

Her mouth was wider and her hand no longer covered it and the robe sagged open.

Gasped, “Fuck me, fucking hell. Cammy . . .”

And his smile grew because in this street, in this house, he doubted she ever used that language. Wouldn’t have done “dirty talk” here, the way they had. Not that he did dirty talk where he’d been. The guys would not have liked it and Ulrike would have hissed that the language was “out of order” . . . Then anger on her face, her lips pouting and accusation welling. And she had cause to bawl at him, even if she woke the baby, took a foot back, no slippers, bare feet, burgundy-painted nails, and kick him hard in the shin, to turn him around and shove him through the door, and slam it, bolt and lock it. The anger faded, and she must have been deluged with questions she wanted to ask, and then – perhaps – thought, “Fucking inquest, what for?” Cammy had not touched a woman in the years since he had taken the train out of Canterbury and gone to the airport, and had never thought he needed to because he was with his brothers, was never alone. The rain fell on him, and the wind blustered around him and through the door and cannoned into her and flattened her nightdress across her chest and waist and thighs.

Did not know what to say, so said nothing.

Her call. Stay or go? He did the smile, and she went through the emotions, then jerked her head. Two steps forward. She closed the door behind him. Seemed to quiz him; How long? Mouthed an answer; A couple of hours. Standing there, facing each other was time wasted.

She said, “Fuck, and I’ve missed you, you bastard.”

There were prints on the wall of the hallway, and he stepped around a buggy, and carpet on the stairs, and a pseudo antique table with a phone on it. If she had stayed with him, if he had not taken the ride to the airport four years before, if they had shacked up together, then it would have been in a couple of rooms, a bed-sit, and a kitchen in the corner, poky space, and watching the pennies let alone the pounds. Now she had a tidy home, and she had done well if that was what mattered to her . . . She had his anorak off, dropped it on the mat. Then had his jacket off.

Extraordinary how Cammy made it up the stairs because by the time he reached the last step, his clothing was scattered. All he’d done was the laces of the brogues, and her fingers had careered over his body. Belt loose and trousers dropped, and the shirt heaved off and two buttons broken, and his T-shirt and him kissing her, full on. He finished it, took off his own socks . . . she said, an afterthought and not important, that her husband was on a work thing, staying over.