Home for Truths: The stand-out domestic suspense thriller for 2020

by Alan Agnew

  I make myself a sandwich and a coffee for lunch, bypassing the shelf full of beer in the fridge, I need a clear head. For some reason I am nervous when I telephone the police, I do not want to give them my identity for risk of association. I want information, very personal information and I call the non-emergency number to ask how I could go about seeking confirmation of any convictions for an individual.

  ‘Yes sir we can help, the process is straight forward’. The operator has a perfect telephone voice, a comforting middle-class English accent straight from the Home Counties, no danger of anything being lost in translation.

  ‘Two processes, depending on if you are a potential employer or public service official with good reason.’ I hesitate, unable to justify either. The operator fills the pause, recognising I am in unchartered territory.

  ‘You will, of course, need to complete a request form for either.’ Mayday Mayday.

  ‘And of course, provide the necessary evidence of being the employer or public service official.’ I am sinking.

  ‘The person of interest will also receive a notification. We ensure a transparent process.’ Sunk.

  ‘I just need to know what the Police have on somebody.’ I plead, hearing the desperation in my voice.

  ‘Another option available is the subject access request from the Data Protection Act 2018, giving you the right to ask if the police hold any personal data about you.’ Her accent begins to irritate me, sounding monotone without emotion. Computer says no mentality.

  ‘But that is based on my record only, I want to check up on my neighbour.’ As I say this out loud, I know how ridiculous it sounds, and I hold my phone away from my ear poised to slam it down hard.

  ‘Do you believe your neighbour possess a threat to a child sir?’

  ‘Yes. More than just a threat, spending hours alone with him, grooming him.’

  ‘Anyone who looks out for the welfare of a child can enquire. It is known as Sarah’s law. To apply for a disclosure of the information, you will be interviewed face to face by a Police Officer who will need to verify your information about the child in question, and we aim to respond within 45 days. You say your neighbour spends time alone with the child, was this recently?’

  ‘About 30 years ago.’ My voice slows and tails off as I put down the receiver.

  I open a beer, justifying that my pursuit for the criminal check will be an online activity going forward, without the need to talk to anyone and certainly not face to face. My searches take me to an online form for the ACRO (criminal records office). I can request any police records against my name, except I don’t use my name, I simply log in as Donald. I do not get very far when I am requested to send in a scanned copy of a driving license and proof of address, the other details I can fake, such as a signature. I will also need to check his date of birth. Thankfully, I know how and where to access this information. I just need Donald to leave the house.

  I need a break from the screen and drive into the village. I buy my lottery ticket for tonight, always the same numbers combining the birthdays of Jimmy, myself, and Caroline. I pop into a new posh deli that has just opened in the high street; they still have balloons on the counter from their grand opening three days ago. I scan the shelves, astounded at the prices. I assumed local produce would be cheaper, fewer transport costs, as all we hear in the news is the rising cost of logistics. I treat myself with a homemade cottage pie to be warmed in the oven, not microwave, and a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. It is the weekend, after all.

  I could have eaten at the best restaurant on the high street for the same price of my meal to be heated at home but eating out for one is not appealing. I sit in the deli and have a coffee, taking the chance to check my phone - you are never alone with a phone - no notifications on Facebook. I also look up Fergal Finley’s number to try and contact him again. His address is listed and on my way home. I decide to call in, more personal I conclude.

  Marlborough Court is old money. The private road boasts around 15 significant detached properties, each sitting in an elevated position from the road and most hiding behind big iron gates. Thankfully number seven does not, although I still choose to leave my car on the street and walk the 30 yards up to the door. The house is double fronted, huge bay windows with ivy growing up the façade. Two identical black BMWs sit on the drive. I ring the doorbell and take a step back to read the various warnings that door to door sellers are not welcomed, how I have entered a neighbourhood watch area and how I should smile as I am on camera right now. I suddenly become conscious of my appearance, I have made little effort with my attire, to shave or to even flatten my hair since the funeral, and the red warning light must be flashing as they observe me at their front door on camera.

  Mr and Mrs Finley open the door wide, standing side by side, looking surprised to see somebody standing the other side even though I rang the bell.

  ‘I am sorry to disturb you, my name is Phil Jenkins. I used to go to school with your son, and I have just returned to the area and only just found out about his passing.’

  Mrs Finley looks to the ground, the mere mention of her son passing no doubt opening wounds that will never heal. Mr Finley looks at me closely as if trying to place my face or name.

  ‘So you were you a pal of wee James?’ he asks further qualifying my intrusion, spoken in a soft Edinburgh accent.

  ‘We went to the same school, Bayswoth, I was a bit younger, but he was good pals with my older brother, Jimmy Jenkins.’

  ‘Jimmy Jenkins,’ Mr Finley’s eyes widened as he repeats the name, ‘Poor Jimmy Jenkins, who took his own life while at the school?’ he asks.

  I break eye contact and clear my throat. ‘Yes.’ I say, unable to find more words. Fergal raises his eye-brows, without a trace that of awareness of his forthrightness, he leans into me trying prize more out of me. ‘He was my brother, and the truth is, I am trying to find out more information about him, maybe even find out why he did what he did.’ I still struggle with the word suicide.

  With a pained expression and gasp, Mrs Finley taps him on the arm. She shoots him a lethal glare before turning to me tenderly. ‘I am Daphne, and this is Fergal. You better come in for a cup of tea.’

  Chapter Eighteen – 11 days after

  Daphne sets down the tray of china cups, sugar bowl, milk jug, over-sized teapot, and shortbread biscuits. The room is adorned with framed photographs and portraits all depicting happier times of graduations, weddings, christening’s and a 70th birthday party. I sit on the edge of the Great Chesterton sofa, besieged by cushions. Fergal and Daphne take an armchair each, the glass coffee table between us, the formalities complete it seems.

  ‘A tragedy what happened to wee Jimmy, hit the school hard for many years after, cracking wee footballer too,’ Fergal says, with a faraway look in his eyes as he reminisces. ‘They still have a plaque up at the school, a memorial stone.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ Why didn’t I know that? Did mum and dad go to the unveiling of the plaque or was it after we left so just dad? I should feel pride that his life was recognised by the school my thoughts are cynical, imagining it as a peace offering.

  ‘And what about James, is there also a plaque for him?’ I ask.

  ‘No, James had left Baysworth a couple years before, he was on a gap year when he passed,’ Daphne answered.

  Of course he was. I naively think of him as fourteen just like Jimmy, forgetting life moved on. I picture the newspaper headlines appearing just a month before his death. ‘May I ask, how did James die?’

  Fergal edged forward in his seat. ‘A jet ski accident in Thailand, the silly wee boy was showing off and came off the thing hitting his head on some rocks.’

  I could see him keeping the traditional stiff upper lip, but also see the emotion creeping into his eyes.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss, I see even now it still is difficult.’ I want to ask more about the school, about the allegations, but I see the emotion building.

  We ta
lk more about mundane topics like the traffic in Baysworth. As I stand to leave, Daphne offers me a window. ‘You said that you were interested in knowing more about your wee Jimmy, what are you looking for exactly?’ I know what to say but hesitate before sitting back down recognizing their fragile state.

  Joining my hands together and bowing my head as if in prayer before I answer. ‘Do you know if he was happy at school?’ I lift my eyes to see them look at each other confused by my open question so personal.

  ‘What I mean is.’ I can’t expect them to know Jimmy’s state of mind, I don’t even know if he and James were close. ‘As I was clearing out the house Mrs Finley, I found an old newspaper article in my dad’s possessions.’ I glance at Daphne who sits motionless. ‘It reported on sexual abuse investigations against the teachers of Baysworth Secondary, and it was around the time Jimmy took his own life.’ I keep my head bowed this time imagining they are hearing this for the first time, imagining they meet each other’s gaze.

  I feel Fergal’s hand on my shoulder before I hear his voice. ‘There was some talk of Jimmy changing schools the year before, but the newspaper thing was just a crazy crank call, nothing to it.’

  I stare up at Fergal, shocked by his instant dismissal, disappointed too, ‘Its time I left, thank you for the tea, Mr and Mrs Finley,’ I stand and let myself out, feeling lost in a world I do not know. I need to get home.

  Through the door, I charge straight for my laptop and check my Facebook notifications, desperate for another try. I have one new friend, Victoria Dobson. Alongside the announcement of our new friendship is her profile picture, short blonde hair, a gold cross around her neck resting on a light blue polo-neck jumper. Her picture is not in an exotic location, and neither is she hanging off a guy, just her looking straight into the camera, it could easily be a passport picture, a beautiful passport picture.

  I click on her page and scroll through her Facebook life. It is very unassuming, much like my own. She was the author on very few of the updates, mostly tagged by others at volunteering events, church groups, and hiking trips. I reply to her thanking her for accepting my request and explaining that I am trying to make sense of some articles and stories I have read from the time she and Jimmy were at school together, inviting her reply or meet up for coffee.

  I gulp my Chateauneuf du Pape like its Ribena rather than a 50 quid bottle of wine. I torment myself by relaying back the conversation with Mr and Mrs Finley. I must have looked so desperate asking them about Jimmy’s state of mind and blurting out the newspaper headline. I could see Daphne’s pained eyes as I tossed in my grenade, digging up memories of her son and then taking flight. I pour the last drops from the bottle with my cottage pie still warming in the oven. I hear a door slam next door and run to the window catching sight of Donald reversing down the drive.

  The adrenaline shot is intense, the opportunity to take back control, not having to rely upon others as I put shoes on and walk over the drive to next door and tilt the plant pot. I feel around as I did before but cannot see it, I lift the plant pot and move it over to the side using the torch on my phone to look again. There is no sign of it. Damn it.

  Of course, it’s the weekend, no builders needing access today. What if in the future he is always home to let them in, I feel desperate, my access cut off. I need to get into the house, I need his identification to check his criminal history, and I need to be his nuisance, to play with his mind. I think of Jimmy, and I think of his shed. I walk round to the back, to his shed. The padlock fuels my anger, who locks a shed in a tiny cul-de-sac? I take a couple of steps back and stare at the scaffolding, wanting to tear it all down. His security lights are already on inside, and I notice an upstairs window open nestled in amongst the scaffolding. Can I do this?

  I climb the ladder and bend under the imposing metal bar at the top, probably the same bar the builders leap over five times a day, but I am a bottle of red and four beers down. I look down at the muddy wooden plank still damp from the earlier rain and creep over to the window. I reach my hand inside to lift the catch extending as far as it will go. It still looks a tight squeeze, and the window frame is beginning to rot, I could just as easily pull the whole frame out and just step in. I hoist my left leg through, balancing on the bed beneath, then shuffle my leg across the bed, so my other leg is up tight against the outer wall, all I have to do now is lift it, and my weight will carry it through.

  I pause for a second imagining I must look a complete sight sitting half in, half out of a window, doing my version of the splits on top of an old rotting window frame damp against my crotch. I stand on the bed and lift my leg in, suddenly aware all my weight is on one foot and balancing on a springy bed I crash to the floor. My drunkenness hits me as lie motionless on the floor, the soothing carpet cradling my head. My new relaxed state triggers me to jump up shaking myself from sleepiness.

  The room is empty bar the single bed. I walk into his dark bedroom and empty the contents of a bottle of pills and then another, swapping the contents over without looking at the labels. One mischief down, what next? I walk around upstairs, my mind suddenly blank. Last night while lying in bed, I could not sleep for the hundreds of ideas that I had to disrupt the house, but now I can’t recall a single one. I walk down the stairs and see his desk remembering I need his identification.

  The lamp illuminates the contents of the drawer, and I pull out a bank statement and credit card application form that is half-filled in, importantly with his date of birth. I feel my head spinning and think back to the red wine and dinner, except I did not eat it, shit. I left it in the oven. Black smoke is probably filling my house now, creeping out of the windows, creating a spectacle. I rush to the door only pausing as I see his wallet on the kitchen side, I open it up and pull out his driving license and a credit card shoving them into my pocket, I open the front door, eyes focused on my house looking through the windows for any sign of flames before running back across the driveway.

  The moment I open the front door the acrid smell hits me, I run straight to the kitchen and swing the oven door open, the heat hits me flush in the face causing me to spring backwards on all fours. I collapse to the floor staring down at the burnt cottage pie, a perfect metaphor for my life right now, the heat remaining etched on my face.

  ‘Everything okay, Philip?’

  The voice behind me makes me jump and snaps me out of my self-induced despair. Donald is standing in my kitchen. ‘I just got home, and noticed the door was open and of course smelt the burning so rather fearing the worst I just walked in,’ oh the irony, and I allow myself a chuckle in my head.

  I focus back on Donald who stands over me perplexed. ‘Yes, all fine thanks, just lost track of time in the bath and then-’

  ‘But, you are not wet,’ he interrupts.

  Why did I say bath, why did I need to say anything? I could have just said mind your own business, get out of my house.

  ‘I dried myself and got dressed before realising I had the oven turned on too high,’ I begrudgingly elaborate before finally picking myself up.

  ‘I always set the timer on my phone when cooking,’ he says, turning to leave—my phone. My hand goes to my pocket; it is empty. I walk through to the hallway, no sign there either. The last time I remember having it was….shit! I must have left it in the upstairs room next door; when I fell off the bed, I was using it as a torch. My mind racing a million different thoughts, how can I justify myself coming into his house and going upstairs to retrieve it?

  I can think of nothing. He is across the driveway; he puts his key in the door and walks in, slamming it shut behind him. What now?

  A footprint, a misplaced remote control, a window left ajar, they can all be dismissed as old age forgetfulness, can be blamed on the builders if necessary, but my mobile phone sitting in his guest bedroom? I need to retrieve it.

  I have entered his house twice, but this is a different ball game. I see him through the window in the kitchen, so stand and hold back, too risky now
while he is moving about. I sit down outside my front door and try to formalise some sort of response if we were to come face to face inside. The only response that makes any sense is a physical one, can I do this? One right hook, left jab, boot into the body. I feel no aggression even going through these motions in my head, only fear. I stand to attention when his kitchen falls into darkness and watch him moving through his house to the living room. I edge a little closer to watch him sit down in his armchair with a tray of food and switch on the television. Ha, so he found his remote control.

  This is my chance, with the television blaring out some old war film, straight in, straight out. I walk to the back of the house which is now lit up like floodlights on a sports pitch. I move slowly, hugging the wall. Above me, one room shines a white light out into the night sky, my phone torch facing upwards illuminating the room like a beacon. I climb the ladder as I did only an hour before, each step causing a noisy clunking sound, I duck again under the bar at the top, so much harder in slow motion.

  I shuffle across the plank of wood unable to avoid the nuts and bolts sprinkling down to the concrete below. I stand outside the open window, determined not to repeat my mistakes of earlier but think of no other way to enter. I repeat my method, this time more slowly. I pull my second leg in as if in slow motion, sinking slowly to my knees on the bed to at least keep upright. My phone sits in the middle of the room as if a centrepiece. As I go to turn off my torch, I catch a glimpse of the bed; the single duvet ruffled and as I go in closer, stained mud from my footprints. I slap away some of the dried mud and turn over the duvet taking care to straighten it out. I take my right shoe off and stand my foot on the mattress next to the pillow for leverage.