a place like this (parts 3 & 4)

three

they were suspects and everyone was suspicious;

the corridor was typically full, malevolent eyes and listless eyes and crazed eyes and suicidal eyes,
Nathan was alive to any sign of threat, it could come from anywhere at any time, and perhaps it was here now, in the form of these three men, arranged like a triangle pointing at Nathan, one in front, two behind, menacing, striding purposely towards them, brushing aside anyone in their way, anyone at all,
anyone like Adam, who bustled his way through the corridor, sticking posters here and there, simple drawings of redundant creatures, poor Adam fighting his cause, a funny little man, all bad posture and squint, barely noticing anyone or anything, engrossed in his campaign, until these three beasts slammed him into the wall, yet even this barely distracted him, he carried on soon enough, barely pausing,
as for the men, they hesitated not at all, and Nathan was now sure they were coming for him, absolutely sure, sure as sure is, sure as Stella was lying dead in his room, sure as anyone can be sure of anything, they had only one intention, immediately he gave Beth a little nudge, but she had already seen them, and she whispered to him to stay clam,
but staying calm mostly consisted of holding his breath, which he only realised he had been doing when the men passed without so much as a glance in his direction, and he found himself winded and red-faced;

the bell rang and the lift doors opened, there were at least a dozen people inside, Beth reached across to the pad on the wall and pressed the button to take them to B3, which would have been third down from the ground level, if there had been a ground level, but there was no ground level;

a precautionary measure, you understand;

an arm was flung between the doors as they were closing, causing them to creak open again, Nathan was revisited by panic, which had its hand firmly on him, running its icy fingers over his neck and down his spine, but it was another false alarm, it was just an old boy, ninety if he was a day,
but this old man still had his wits about him, he forced his way in, past Nathan, who registered a disapproving look from the old chap's direction and was overwhelmed by a need to make an excuse for himself,
he knew his appearance was less than satisfactory, he reeked of anxiety, guilt even, his hair was already matted despite the shower he'd taken not an hour previous, his forehead was sweaty and uncomfortable,
- Sorry, Nathan said,
the word creeping out uninvited,
and it must have come out all wrong because Beth shot him a cautionary look and the fat women next to him murmured something and edged away and he could do nothing but look at the wall and think of Beth and try to remember fucking her the night before, it was the only thought he could summon that didn’t make him want to confess to the lift that he killed Stella, to say anything, anything, to dispel the anticipation of being exposed, for everyone knows the senses are at their height not when an event is upon us, but when it looms ahead of us, in the near future, and Nathan was uncomfortable looking ahead at the best of times;

and poor Nathan, he wasn’t like Beth, she was a do-er, the kind of girl who craves purpose,
there are some like that in a place like this, people who spend their days looking for ways to occupy themselves,
many don't have the vocabulary to express their emptiness, they experience unlabeled sensations, tugging at their guts, craving stimulus like a plant craves light,
longing without any idea what they are longing for,
but not Beth, for her dead Stella presented an opportunity, a call to action, you could even say that the tragedy was beginning to bring the best out of Beth;

the lift began to descend, it was nineteen floors to B3, and they stopped at every one, people got in, people got out, the whole while Nathan stared at a single section of the red and gold floral design on the back wall of the lift, the garish shapes and colours seeming to dance to his panic,
the lift groaned and juddered, it had definitely seen better days, and for a while all Nathan's hopes were pinned on some cable snapping, on the metal box falling, crashing down all the way to B5, and exploding on impact;

relief, relief, relief;

but it was not to be, and by the time they had reached B3 he had calmed down considerably, having averted his gaze from the ugly walls to Beth's eyes, which seemed completely tranquil, and for a moment he was adrift, his attention totally focussed on trying to tap into her calm, to take some for himself;

and when the doors opened he was so lost in her gaze that he almost forgot to move,
it was Beth who reacted the quicker, reaching over and tugging Nathan gently by the sleeve;

B3 was where the odds and ends were, it was not sectioned like some of the other basement floors, rather it was one vast space, filled with all kinds of things, many of which had lost their purpose, or their purpose had already been forgotten, and all these things were piled or stacked or dumped here and there, loosely it could be said that like kind was with like kind, but that wouldn't be entirely true, for as Nathan and Beth saw;

there was a screwdriver in with the coat hangers, a marker pen in with the pins, boxes of staples in with the shower curtains, and so on;

Nathan observed with some relief that there were very few people around, a couple of scrawny men struggling with a mattress in one corner, an elderly woman rooting around in the walking sticks for one that felt comfortable, a few others here and there, but it could have been a lot worse;

and then he heard Beth's voice call out,
- Over here,
and when he went over and saw what she was holding he thought he would throw up once again because what Beth was suggesting was as unthinkable as it was patently necessary;

there in her hands, lifted to chest height, was a brown suitcase,
and the suitcase was probably half as wide as Stella;

four

the lift arrived and took Nathan and Beth and the suitcase back to the seventeenth floor, nobody asked about the case, it would have been unusual if they had, and anyway Beth had already briefed Nathan on what he was to say if asked,
they were moving in to the same room and the suitcase was to help them shift things around,
and it was entirely plausible, people may be privately surprised that a girl like Beth had decided to settle, but ultimately few eyebrows would be raised;

the seventeenth floor was even busier than before, but this time, invigorated by a sense of purpose, and reminded once again that some unknown they could be coming for Nathan at any time, the pair strode through to his room, slipping in quickly, before anyone could take too close a look inside;

Nathan's apartment was identical to the thousands of others in this place, a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, but time bred idiosyncrasies, either as a result of wear and tear,
a broken hinge here, a damaged light fitting there,
or through improvements or alterations made by the resident, as here, in Nathan's living room, where the ceiling was a web of dots and lines, telling a story only he could understand, expressed in his own language;

and under these constellations Nathan and Beth opened the suitcase wide, and dragged the body to the middle of the living room;

and when dead Stella was next to the open suitcase it meant everything was set up and all that remained was to put her in;

- What was she like? Beth asked,
- You knew her, said Nathan
- Not really, said Beth;

on reflection, Nathan wasn't sure he knew her either, he called her his ex but she wasn't,
not really;

- She looked mostly sad, said Nathan,
- She looks calm now, said Beth,
- She looks fucking butchered, said Nathan;

there wasn't more to be said so they got on with it,
with Beth at the foot end holding the ankles and Nathan and the head end holding under the armpits, they counted to three and lifted dead Stella into the case, putting her down in such a way that her backside was against one end and her feet against the other, a perfect fit, sitting upright;

- Ready?
Beth leaned over and took hold of dead Stella's hair,
- You push forward against the spine, I'll pull down, she said;

but it didn't work, Stella would go so far and no further,
- You're holding back, Beth said,
and it was true, he was, for all his words and thoughts dead Stella wasn't wholly dead, she wasn't wholly lacking in she-ness, she was still Stella enough to warrant not being folded in the middle,
- She's so fucking cold, Nathan said,
letting go of the body altogether;

Stella sprung back and fell to the side, where she lay hanging over the edge of the case,
- Shit, said Nathan,
sitting on the sofa,
- I can't do this, he added;

- Fine, said Beth,
- Then I will, she added;

Beth moved to where Nathan had been, grabbed fistfuls of hair and straightened dead Stella up again,
- Here goes, she said;

she stood and put the heel of her right foot in between Stella's shoulder blades, then, after taking a series of deep cheek-puffing breaths, she let out a low guttural grunt and shoved forward with her right leg as hard as she could;

there was an chilling crack as the spine gave way, and lo, the body was folded in two,
and if Stella's eyes worked, they would have seen the blackness of the bottom of the suitcase, but thankfully they did not, they did not, they did not;