Kiss Kiss Read Free

undergraduate. Come over here now and sit next
to me and warm yourself in front of this lovely fire. Come on.
Your tea’s all ready for you.” She patted the empty place
beside her on the sofa, and she sat there smiling at Billy and
waiting for him to come over.
      
He crossed the room, slowly, and sat down on the edge of
the sofa. She placed his teacup on the table in front of him.
      
“ There we are,” she said. “How nice and cosy this is,
isn’t it?”
      
Billy started sipping his tea. She did the same. For half a
minute or so, neither of them spoke. But Billy knew that she
was looking at him. Her body was half turned towards him,
and he could feel her eyes resting on his face, watching him
over the rim of her teacup. Now and again, he caught a whiff
of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her
person. It was not in the least unpleasant, and it reminded him—well,
he wasn’t quite sure what it reminded him of. Pickled
walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital?
      
“Mr Mulholland was a great one for his tea,” she said at
length. “Never in my life have I seen anyone drink as much
tea as dear, sweet Mr Mulholland.”
      
“I suppose he left fairly recently,” Billy said. He was still
puzzling his head about the two names. He was positive now
that he had seen them in the newspapers—in the headlines.
      
“Left?” she said, arching her brows. “But my dear boy, he
never left. He’s still here. Mr Temple is also here. They’re on
the third floor, both of them together.”
      
Billy set down his cup slowly on the table, and stared at his
landlady. She smiled back at him, and then she put out one
of her white hands and patted him comfortingly on the knee.
“How old are you, my dear?” she asked.
      
“Seventeen.”
      
“Seventeen!” she cried. “Oh, it’s the perfect age! Mr Mulholland
was also seventeen. But I think he was a trifle shorter
than you are, in fact I’m sure he was, and his teeth weren’t quite so white. You have the most beautiful teeth, Mr Weaver,
did you know that?”
      
“They’re not as good as they look,” Billy said. “They’ve got
simply masses of fillings in them at the back.”
      
“Mr Temple, of course, was a little older,” she said, ignoring
his remark. “He was actually twenty-eight. And yet I never
would have guessed it if he hadn’t told me, never in my whole
life. There wasn’t a blemish on his body.”
      
“A what?” Billy said.
      
“His skin was just like a baby’s.”
      
There was a pause. Billy picked up his teacup and took
another sip of his tea, then he set it down again gently in its
saucer. He waited for her to say something else, but she
seemed to have lapsed into another of her silences. He sat
there staring straight ahead of him into the far corner of the
room, biting his lower lip.
      
“That parrot,” he said at last. “You know something? It had
me completely fooled when I first saw it through the window
from the street. I could have sworn it was alive.”
      
“Alas, no longer.”
      
“It’s most terribly clever the way it’s been done,” he said.
“It doesn’t look in the least bit dead. Who did it?”
      
“I did.”
      
“ You did?”
      
“Of course,” she said. “And have you met my little Basil as
well?” She nodded towards the dachshund curled up so comfortably
in front of the fire. Billy looked at it. And suddenly,

he realised that this animal had all the time been just as silent
and motionless as the parrot. He put out a hand and touched
it gently on the top of its back. The back was hard and cold,
and when he pushed the hair to one side with his fingers, he
could see the skin underneath, greyish-black and dry and
perfectly preserved.
      
“Good gracious me,” he said. “How