A Face in the Crowd: An absolutely unputdownable psychological thriller

by Kerry Wilkinson

  ‘The food really is good,’ he reiterates.

  ‘Thank you.’

  There’s more silence and then Harry breaks it in the worst way. I guess things are flatlining to such a degree that there’s nowhere else to go. ‘What’s your favourite movie?’ he asks.

  I have a momentary panic in which I can’t think of any movies other than Face/Off – not because I love it, more that it was on television the weekend before last. I’ve not been to the cinema in years.

  ‘You first,’ I reply.

  ‘Die Hard,’ he says in a flash.

  ‘That’s a good choice,’ I say, playing for time.

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Probably The Jungle Book.’ The cartoon version is the first film I can remember seeing as a child.

  I wonder if Harry will follow it up, but he nods along. At least I didn’t claim it was Citizen Kane or something like that.

  ‘Favourite song?’ he asks.

  This one is easy, but there’s a stumble as I find myself glancing towards the door. ‘“Rocket Man”,’ I say. ‘By Elton John.’

  ‘That’s an interesting choice.’ For a moment, I think he’ll tell me his but instead he asks: ‘Why?’

  I suddenly feel on the spot and vulnerable. As if revealing this information is too personal, like he’s asked for my PIN. ‘I used to listen to it a lot when I was a kid,’ I say. ‘I don’t know where I first heard it, but it was probably Mum. I used to dream of being an astronaut: saying goodbye to everyone and flying off to the moon, or Mars, or wherever.’

  Harry has paused with a forkful of fish halfway to his mouth. ‘Do you still dream of that?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  He puts the food in his mouth and starts to chew. I find myself wondering when I stopped thinking big. Whether it’s something to do with me, or something that all children outgrow. He tells me his favourite song is Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ and it’s hard not to pull a face. I’ve always hated it, probably because I associate it with terrible singers shrieking out karaoke versions.

  We go back and forth, talking about books, television shows, comedians, sport and other things. It does make conversation, but the one thing of which I’m certain at the end is that we have almost nothing in common.

  As Harry sorts out his desserts, I leave a plate of leftovers for Billy. He barely raises his head but does sit up enough to slowly start to eat. I sit on the floor next to his bed and gently rub the area behind his ears. It is still three days until Bonfire Night but that doesn’t stop a steady stream of fireworks fizzing into the air outside. Each bang pricks Billy’s ears, but he doesn’t hide behind my legs in the way he has before.

  Harry soon brings over his volcano cakes, looking over them proudly as if he’s just given birth to twins. He talks me through the ingredients and how he makes them every Christmas. ‘Or for special occasions,’ he adds.

  We might have little in common, but there’s no question that Harry’s Gran knew what she was doing when she came up with the recipe. The chocolate is so gooey that my tongue sticks to the top of my mouth and I’m left gasping for a drink.

  When we’re done, Harry insists on doing the washing-up, while I dry and put things away. We talk on the sofa for a while, but it’s hard to remember what about, even as the conversation is happening.

  ‘What are you doing on Bonfire Night?’ he asks.

  ‘I’ve got to look after Billy,’ I reply.

  Billy watches us, apparently aware his name is being used. He’s finished the scraps of food and licked the plate clean.

  ‘It must be hard at this time of year when you have a dog,’ Harry says.

  ‘It used to be one of my favourite times of the year,’ I reply. ‘Perhaps my overall favourite, even above Christmas. I loved it all as a kid. That was before trick or treating was really a thing – but we’d go to different firework displays. I used to score them out of ten and keep everything in a notebook so I’d remember.’ I laugh slightly at my own nerdiness. It feels like a lifetime ago.

  ‘Don’t you like it as much now…?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because of Billy?’

  ‘It’s when Ben died.’

  There’s not a lot to say after that. It’s hard not to hear the bangs overhead and remember the policeman coming along the path to confirm what had happened. Perhaps I’m too honest for my own good, or maybe it’s a get-out because it doesn’t feel as if Harry and I have connected. There was a definite spark with Ben. Sometimes, when Billy dashes to meet me at the door, his tail wagging, his tongue lolling, I wonder if that’s how I used to be with Ben. There was an excitement at having waited a whole day to see him and I was a tail-wagging puppy.

  Harry nods along as if he understands and I wonder if he feels the lack of connection, too. Sometimes, things are what they are.

  We talk a little more, but there’s no substance. Before long, we’re on about the weather forecast and how it would be nice to have a white Christmas this year.

  Eventually, Harry says he has to go. ‘Gotta be up early,’ he adds.

  I give him back his crockery and insist he doesn’t leave all the alcohol, then I lead him the few steps to the front door. As soon as I open it, we both stop. The melodic piano opening of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ has just started from the door across the hallway.

  Harry turns between me and the opposing flat. I don’t know what to say but, seemingly, neither does he. The hairs on my arm have stood up.

  ‘Shall we do this again?’ he asks, not mentioning the coincidence of the music.

  It would be brutally easy to say ‘no’, but I fudge it instead. The lack of chemistry could be because we’re at my flat, with no space and no atmosphere. It was almost certainly a mistake to invite him here. ‘We’ll figure something out,’ I reply.

  Harry nods and I grab my phone, then we head downstairs to the front door. He says goodnight and leans in as I go to turn. He almost ends up slamming his forehead into the bridge of my nose and then we eye each other, curious as to the other’s intentions. In the end, he gives me a peck on the cheek and then heads out.

  The door opens and closes, allowing a blast of cold and sulphur into the hall. It’s only a moment, but enough for me, so I hurry back up the stairs. As I reach my apartment, Elton is still singing from the one opposite. He’s up to the second or third chorus and I hover between the two flats, unsure what to do. The sheer coincidence of it leaves me gnawing my fingernails. I step towards my own door and then briskly change my mind, spinning on my heels and knocking lightly on Jade’s old flat.

  I wait for a moment, holding my breath, and then knock a second time. Louder this time. ‘Hello,’ I call.

  No answer.

  ‘Could you turn the music down?’

  I wait, unsure what to do next, when my phone starts to buzz. It’s Unknown once more and I’m lost staring at the screen until the caller rings off.

  Back inside my flat, Billy has picked himself up from his bed and is ambling around the apartment sniffing the furniture. I crouch and ruffle his ears.

  Perhaps it wasn’t only me who felt no connection.

  The number 24 bus is packed when I get on. It’s busier than it was on Friday when the money ended up in my bag. People are getting off, but it’s like a clown car because the amount on board doesn’t seem to be decreasing.

  As I finally get in front of the driver, I reach into my purse, but my pass isn’t there. My stomach sinks once more as I thumb through the other compartments searching for it. It’s then that I look up and realise the driver has disappeared. Confused, I turn to see where he’s gone, but there are only empty rows of unused seats. I try to breathe, but the air is stuck and, when I look down, I realise my feet are bare. I’ve forgotten my shoes. Not only that, I’m wearing nothing at all. I cover myself with my arms and it’s then that everything begins to buzz. My entire body is shaking involuntarily as the entire world rumbles.

  My eyes open suddenly into the gloom of
my room. My phone is vibrating across the desk, the light flashing on and off. Through the confusion of sleep, I see the number being displayed on the front and press the screen to answer.

  It’s a woman’s voice: ‘Hello? Is that Lucy Denman?’

  ‘Who is this?’ I croak.

  ‘My name’s Alison and I’m a nurse at the casualty unit,’ the voice says. ‘We’ve had a patient admitted and he’s given us your name and number.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Wednesday

  It’s hard not to wince as I peer closer at the gash across the back of the patient’s head. The medical staff have done a great job to clean and stitch it, but underneath the bandages, it is still a horror story. They’ve had to cut away some of the hair and the slash stretches from one ear across the back of the cranium almost to the other.

  ‘The police think it was a pole or bat,’ Harry says, with an unerring cheerfulness.

  He leans forward again and pulls the hair apart to give me an even better look. The darkened reddy-black of the blood has blended with the purply-yellow of the welt to create something that looks like it should have an eighteen certificate attached.

  ‘What does it look like?’ he asks.

  ‘What do you think it looks like?’

  He presses the dressing back onto his head and leans onto the pillows that are propping him up.

  ‘I think it’s going to give me a rugged handsomeness.’

  ‘It’s on the back of your head.’

  He manages a laugh and then pouts a lip as he draws a circle in the air, indicating his face. ‘I’ve already got it going on here, now I’ve got it going on back there, too.’

  I laugh as well, though it’s hard to see the humour. I’m chilled simply by looking at it. There are more grazes on the side of his face from where he presumably hit the pavement.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘I was walking home and there were these six burly blokes,’ Harry says. ‘They said, “Give me your volcano cake recipe,” and I said, “No, I’m taking it to the grave.” Then they said—’

  ‘Can you not joke about this…?’

  The smile slips from his face and I wonder if I should have let him continue. Humour might be his way of dealing with it.

  ‘Sorry,’ I add.

  He shakes his head a fraction but then winces. ‘I shouldn’t have asked the nurse to call you,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t think of who else to call. My family live nowhere near and, if I’m honest, I don’t have a lot of friends in town. I didn’t realise how late it was. Everything was a blur.’

  I take his hand and squeeze. ‘I’m glad you called,’ I say.

  He bites his bottom lip and glances past me before taking a breath. ‘I don’t know what happened,’ he says more quietly. ‘I was most of the way home and the next thing I know, I’m in an ambulance. I’ve got a massive headache and the paramedic says it looks like someone attacked me.’

  I shiver at the thought and he definitely sees it: ‘What?’ he asks, eyes widening.

  There’s a moment in which I almost tell him the truth about the similarity of it all. How many coincidences can stack together until it’s clear there’s no chance involved?

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘It’s just hard to imagine someone doing this…’

  I wonder if he’ll see through the explanation, but he moves on. ‘The police think it’s random,’ he says. ‘They asked if I’d made any enemies and all that, but there wasn’t a lot I could tell them. They said something about it being a CCTV blind spot where I was, though they’re going to go door to door to see if anyone heard or saw something.’

  ‘Were you robbed?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head and flinches once more. ‘No. My phone and wallet were still in my pocket.’

  We sit quietly for a moment and I’m not sure what to say.

  A glimmer of a smile flickers across Harry’s face, but it’s not matched by his eyes. ‘You’ve not got any crazy ex-boyfriends, have you?’

  I blink. ‘No.’

  Because we haven’t had enough, there’s another awkward moment. It feels like there’s a valley between us.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I think the painkillers must be wearing off. It was probably kids having a laugh, something like that.’

  Everything’s always blamed on kids, as if the young people are inexplicably more feral than they were when we were that age. One generation always blames the next because it’s easier to punch down.

  I sit at Harry’s side for a while as the nurse comes around and checks his bandage and the stitching. She takes his temperature, pulse and blood pressure and then, unexpectedly, says he can be discharged if he wants. Harry seems a little surprised, but I get the sense the hospital needs the bed. He agrees, probably because he doesn’t want to spend any more time here than absolutely necessary.

  She tells him he has to take it easy. No alcohol, nothing strenuous or stressful. If he’s feeling dizzy, he has to stop whatever he’s doing and, if it doesn’t clear, he has to call either NHS Direct, or 999. It strikes me that if a person is disorientated, using a phone might be a problem – but I guess other people know best.

  Harry asks if he’s allowed to sleep and she takes the question with a smile, saying it’s a myth that patients with concussion or head injuries have to be kept awake.

  There are forms to fill at the front counter, a prescription to take – and then we’re on the kerb outside, shivering in the early morning darkness. I wave across to one of the taxi drivers and then help Harry into the back.

  ‘Blimey, mate – what happened to you?’ the driver asks.

  Harry gives a brief rundown – stranger with a bat or pole from behind – and then tells the driver his address. We sit silently in the back together, listening to the sound of early morning talk radio. It’s worse than I could have imagined, with every mad opinion amplified by the lunacy of the callers who are awake at this hour.

  The driver stops on the corner of Livingstone Street after Harry tells him it’s close enough. It’s a strangely unique thing to taxi journeys in that passengers say anywhere in the vague region of the destination is ‘close enough’. Boats don’t just dock anywhere in the general vicinity of a port and pilots don’t set down planes at any old airport because it’s sort of there.

  Either way, I take Harry’s arm and help him onto the kerb. He leans into me and I almost overbalance until I press back onto the adjacent wall to support both our weights.

  ‘Which one’s yours?’ I ask.

  He points to an apartment block at the end of the street and we set off hobbling towards it, as if we’re in a three-legged race. Harry groans under his breath every few steps, but, when I ask if he’s in pain, he insists he’s fine. He is a man, after all. I can imagine someone like him in a war zone having their leg shot off, only to turn around to his comrade and say that there’s no need to get a doctor involved.

  When we reach his building, we stop next to the doors at the front and he nods towards the dimly lit lobby within. ‘This is me,’ he says. ‘I’d invite you in for a brew but I’m probably going to get some sleep.’

  ‘Will you text me when you wake up?’ I ask. ‘Let me know you’re okay…?’

  ‘Of course.’

  We stand for a moment and then, stupidly, and for a reason I can’t quite fathom, I kiss him. Before I know it, he has a hand on my lower back and the other cradling my neck. He pushes back into me and presses his lips to mine.

  It’s me who pulls away first and we stare at one another in the gloom. I don’t know what to say, so he speaks instead.

  ‘That was nice,’ he says.

  ‘It was.’ I’m not sure I mean it but I have to say something. It wasn’t bad.

  He nods and then turns on his heels. ‘I do need to sleep, though.’

  ‘You should.’

  ‘I’m going to let myself in via the back. There’s a second lift that opens up next to my flat.’

  Harry gives a little w
ave and then disappears around the side of the building. I watch him head between a pair of bushes and continue on around to the corner of the block. He’s barely out of sight before I have my phone in my hand and I’m googling ‘Alex Peterson’.

  Nothing is forgotten in the twenty-first century. If it happened, then it’s on the internet forever. The browser blinks and then the headline is there in front of me.

  MAN GUILTY OF ASSAULT

  I click the link, though the details of the story are worryingly familiar. The guilty man is my former boyfriend’s younger brother.

  Ben’s dead younger brother.

  The specifics are as precise as I remember: Alex Peterson once went to prison for hitting a man in the back of the head with a bat.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I read the story through once and then return to the search page before reading a couple more with similar details. In essence, it’s relatively straightforward: Alex broke up with his girlfriend. She started seeing someone new and then, after dark, Alex smashed the man in the back of the head with a baseball bat. It happened around half a mile away. He ran off, but there was a witness who identified him. It seems like charges were downgraded from attempted murder to actual bodily harm and, somehow, he got away with a three-month sentence.

  There’s an emptiness inside me after reading and re-reading the details. Should I tell Harry? Or the police? On its own, it’s nothing but, bundled with everything else, it is one more coincidence on a growing stack.

  Alex Peterson is dead, after all. I’ve been going to memorials in which his name is read out for five years now.

  It’s only as I’m trying to look for more information about other attacks that I realise I can no longer feel my fingers. I could call another taxi, but it’s hard to justify more money for that – and it’s too early for buses – so I walk instead.