The Death Knock

by Elodie Harper

  By the time she reaches the end of the post, Frankie’s stomach is churning. Just as Jamie Cole had abused Hanna, the poster’s comments, pawing and picking at the teenager’s words, are another violation.

  ‘You fucking bastard!’ she says, staring wide-eyed at the screen.

  ‘Badmouthing me again? The Yarmouth job wasn’t that bad, surely?’

  She turns round to see Charlie standing behind her chair. ‘No, it’s not you for once. It’s that blog I told you about. It’s fucking awful.’

  ‘Budge over, then,’ he says. She gets up so he can sit down, then leans over to watch him read. Perhaps because she had been infected by the blog’s bile, it comes as a strange relief to see the disgust on his face. But what was she expecting? The MRA are a weird minority; most men aren’t like that. ‘Jesus,’ he says at last. ‘I feel like I need a shower. That really is revolting stuff.’ He shakes his head as if to rid it of the blogger’s words. They both pause for a moment, staring at the screen. ‘This looks like a credible threat to me. Do the police know about it?’

  ‘According to Hollie, Hanna complained but the police couldn’t take it down. So it’s been sitting online for nearly a year. She even had to change her name over it.’

  ‘We certainly need to ask the police if this website is forming part of their investigation. If we can confirm that, I’ll feel happier sticking our necks out to lead on it.’ Charlie moves the cursor, slowly scrolling through the text. ‘Do you want to see if there’s any mention of Sandra Blakely or Lily Sidcup on here?’

  ‘You’re still convinced it’s the same killer?’

  Charlie sighs. ‘I know you’re all saying I’ve got carried away on this one, relying on my famous intuition.’ He stops scrolling and swivels his chair to face her. ‘But seriously, the answer’s yes. Three women strangled and dumped in a matter of months. Let’s face it, Norfolk isn’t normally that eventful. And after reading this, there’s obviously some local guy wandering about with a massive grudge against women, and against one of our victims in particular. Not like the nationals would have reported on a sexual assault case in Yarmouth, this guy must have sat in on the trial, or read about it in the local papers.’

  ‘But maybe he’s only connected to Hanna?’

  ‘Well, I guess someone will have to go through the blog to see if any of the other women’s names come up.’ He looks at her pointedly.

  ‘What? No, you’re joking, that’ll take hours! There isn’t even a search bar.’

  Charlie presses Command + F and a search box pops up on the screen. He shakes his head at her. ‘Call yourself a reporter? There you go, get cracking.’

  Ava

  When he’s gone the first thing I feel is relief. His weight was unbearable. I couldn’t feel it, not physically, but it left me doubly hemmed in, by the nearness of his body and his stare. Yet when I’m alone, it’s even worse.

  What if he never comes back? What if he leaves me to starve in here? I start hyperventilating. I don’t mean to, but I can’t help myself. The sense of physical containment in the box is agony; I feel like I’m buried alive. I try to stay calm, but there’s a loud buzzing in my head and bright spots before my eyes. I wonder what happened to the other women, the ones before me, and the fear is so intense I’m suffocated by it. I start screaming and find I can’t stop. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to die, I can’t bear it, I have to get out.

  I don’t know how long I scream and punch against the box, but I stop when my throat is burning and the pain in my hands starts to cut through the terror. My nose is almost blocked from all the crying and I have to blow it against my shoulder. With a flush of embarrassment, even though there’s nobody here to know it but me, I realise I’ve wet myself. But the itch of the denim, damp and stuck to my thighs, is nothing compared to the pain that seems to be raging in every joint of my body.

  This is how people go mad says the voice in my head. Distance yourself. I try to imagine myself in one of my psychology lectures at uni, hearing Professor Marks talk about the rational observer, the technique you encourage patients with anxiety to develop so they can step outside their own situation. I feel a tiny flash of calm, all too brief, like the beam from a lighthouse at sea. I close my eyes and breathe out, trying to calm down. The desperation to escape is so fierce it threatens to drown out every other thought with its incessant, beating drum, but I can’t let that thumping noise in my head dominate. At this moment, escaping is out of my control. All I can control is how I react to my situation. Even though it doesn’t feel like it, I still have some choices.

  An image flashes into my mind. My brother Matt lying in bed, looking away from me as I hold his hand. I hear my own voice, talking to him. I’m trying to sound sympathetic, but the bitterness cuts through, its ice beneath the water’s surface.

  ‘Only you can control how you feel, Matt. When you decide to feel better, you will.’

  No wonder he told me to fuck off.

  I almost smile. Then the thought of what he must be feeling at this minute, and what his anxiety might be doing to him, hits me like a punch to the chest. I can’t think of Matt, I have to think of myself. I have to plan how I’m going to stay alive.

  ‘I’m going to survive,’ I say aloud. ‘I’m going to get out of this box.’ My voice sounds croaky from the screaming. I carry on, speaking more loudly. ‘I’m not going to let that fucking bastard win. I’m going to get out of here and I’m going to survive. The police are going to find me. It will happen.’

  That makes me feel a little better. I decide to go through what I know, checking it off, trying to look for clues. I’m in a box. It seems pretty solid, no chance of punching my way out. I heard a bolt, so even if I managed to get out, I’m still locked in. No point wasting any more energy thumping away; I will need every bit of strength to get through this. The man who’s put me here claims he is a serial killer. My breath starts to accelerate at that and it takes a huge effort not to give in to panic. But I’m not dead. He doesn’t mean to kill me, not yet. He said something about a fear experiment, a trial that the other women failed. I’m not sure that makes me feel better.

  Deliberately, like a person with vertigo standing at the edge of a cliff, I look over into the abyss. All my worst fears are there. Rape, torture, physical pain. Death. I step back. If I spend too long staring all that darkness in the face, it will swallow me. I can’t allow myself to go mad with terror. My only goal is to survive, and I will endure anything to get out alive. There’s no point thinking about what I might have to suffer until it happens. The box is bad enough.

  Finally, steeling myself, I think of him. The eye against the slats, the voice. I have to turn him from a monster into a man. It’s going to be hard. The only way I might manage it is if I pretend I’m studying him. I’ll have to pretend he’s a patient and I’m treating his psychopathy. I almost smile. Perhaps I’ll write a paper on all this one day. I try to imagine Professor Marks asking me about him. What did his behaviour tell you about who he is? He likes power and control, that’s a given. He likes fear. I remember the way he poured the water, as if it were some sort of reward for my behaviour. He likes to manipulate. And then a thought comes that gives me another tiny prick of hope. He likes talking.

  Engaging him, keeping him entertained, that’s my biggest chance. Whatever he says to me, I mustn’t let it throw me. I have to use it as a weapon to discover who he is.

  The effort of staying calm has exhausted me. I’ve never been so tired. Somehow, in spite of the fear and the pain, I drift off to sleep.

  It’s completely black when I wake. My thighs are icy cold and sting from half-dried pee, and my body aches from twisting and hammering at the box. But all of that discomfort fades when I realise what has woken me. The sound of a bolt scraping back. Adrenalin hits me and I gasp. A click, then light brings the slats back to view. I’d forgotten how close they are to my face.

  ‘Wakey, wakey.’

  The light dims as he covers the box. He�
��s lying on top again, his mouth wet and pink against the gap. And his eyes.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. Even I’m shocked by how normal my voice sounds. ‘What’s up?’

  The mouth purses in surprise. I almost laugh. ‘It’s like that, is it?’ He sounds annoyed and my momentary buzz at having wrong-footed him is snuffed out by anxiety. He likes control. He won’t like to be laughed at. I’m furious with myself.

  ‘Can’t you sleep either?’ I say, hoping my tone sounds sympathetic.

  ‘I ask the questions,’ he snaps. I say nothing, but in spite of my fear I feel contempt for him. For his pettiness. The eyes continue to stare at me. ‘I came to give you something.’ My heart quickens, wondering what game he is playing now. I say nothing. ‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’

  I pause, wondering what sort of trap this might be. ‘If you’d like to tell me,’ I say at last, knowing I can’t refuse. In answer I hear a patter on the box. At first I think it’s more water, then I realise he’s dropping shards of glass. Some fall through the gaps, landing on my clothes and my skin. I scream in shock. ‘Stop it! What are you doing?’ A sliver lands on my mouth and instinctively I brush it off, cutting my finger. I whimper, raising my hands to protect myself.

  ‘That’s you, Ava, that’s you,’ he says. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you for a while. Didn’t you notice?’ The glass is still falling. I have no idea what he’s talking about. This seems to make him furious. ‘Jesus, you women. How fucking stupid are you? The tokens I left you, bitch. The tokens.’

  I force myself to think and suddenly understand. ‘What? The jam jars and things? That was you?’ I remember the first box arriving. I thought the glass had broken by accident on the journey. It was a jam jar full of wild flowers, posted to me at uni in a cardboard crate, soaked through with water. No message, just a small blank card of a Greek vase. My friend Jon had laughed about a secret admirer. In the second box the glass was intact, but the flowers had died. A bit creepy, but nothing too frightening. I had meant to mention it to Professor Marks when I next saw him. I certainly didn’t call the police. The sender had probably misjudged how much water the flowers needed, I thought.

  Except he hadn’t.

  ‘For saying you’re a fucking university student, you’re a lot denser than Hanna. She understood right away. She knew what my gifts meant.’ Then he laughs. A creak and he has swung himself off the box. He is light on his feet, and I can hear him skipping about on the hard floor. ‘Whose grave am I dancing on? Is it Hanna’s? Or yours? Who shall I lay flowers for?’

  I feel too sick to reply. I cry silently while he capers around me. Then there’s a splintering crunch and I realise he’s taken a crowbar to the lid. I scream and cover my eyes, terrified he’s going to smash the metal into my head. Instead I feel his hands on my wrists, yanking me upwards. He’s pulling me out. Glass falls from my clothes and my hair. My limbs are numb and cramped and I stagger, falling into his arms in a parody of a rescue. Too weak to stand, I let him lead me over to the corner of a small, concrete room, where there is a pile of blankets. I collapse onto them. Beside me is a dirty glass of water. My heart leaps, my throat is so dry and sore. I snatch the glass and drink before he has a chance to take it away.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he asks. Looking up, I see he’s standing over me. His ski mask is thickly padded, distorting the shape of his face into a monstrous ball. It hides everything except the wet lips and his eyes. Behind him I can see a door. There’s a bulging plastic bag dumped in front of it. I wonder what might be inside.

  He pushes his shoe towards me. At first I flinch, thinking he’s going to kick me, then I realise he’s nudging a Tesco sandwich in my direction. It’s egg mayonnaise. I rip the wrapping off and eat it. The bread is cold and soggy, but I have never been more grateful for the taste of food.

  He watches me eat. ‘Nice?’ he says.

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ My voice is small but the words come out automatically, politeness an instinctual reflex, like breathing.

  He turns and walks back towards the shattered box. I see it’s a roughly made, coffin-shaped crate, the sort you might find in a shipping container. Briefly, I imagine charging him from behind as he bends to pick it up, wresting the crowbar from him, smashing his face in and escaping. I even try to flex my legs to stand, but realise almost immediately that I don’t have the strength. I can’t move. There’s a deadness in my limbs and every part of my body hurts. Instead I just watch.

  ‘So here’s the thing,’ he says. ‘Why don’t we have a little trial without the box. See how you behave.’ I wait for him to say more but now he’s standing with his back to the wall, unlocking the door behind him without looking at it. He manages the manoeuvre in a deft and practised motion. With a sense of dread, I realise he’s done this many many times before. Still looking at me, he drags the box with him into the darkness and slams the door shut.

  Frankie

  ‘I can’t believe the lawyers wouldn’t let you say anything on the show last night,’ says Gavin.

  Frankie glances at him, his hair ruffled by wind blowing through the small opening in the car window as he drives. ‘Well, we could say we understood the police were looking at threats made to Hanna online, just not as much detail as Charlie wanted.’

  She leans back, shifting her weight. The drive to Wells-next-the-Sea is Norfolk at its most rural. They are cruising across a bright green horizon, flat fields rolling out so far into the distance it’s impossible to imagine their end. The round flint tower of the church at Little Snoring is the only punctuation mark in view. It gets steadily taller as they approach, the narrow windows a reminder of its ancient function of defence rather than prayer.

  It had been a bit disappointing that the lawyers were so nervous of the blog. There was much hand-wringing about Ofcom and the possibility of prejudicing any trial, which seemed far-fetched given the blog was anonymous. Still, it means even Charlie hasn’t felt able to coax a day three out of Hanna Chivers’ murder, particularly as they couldn’t find any mention of Sandra Blakely or Lily Sidcup on the Killing Cuttlefish forum. This came as something of a relief to Frankie, who has found the blog hard to evict from her thoughts.

  At least today she doesn’t have to drive to the job herself. It’s even worth putting up with Gavin’s Édith Piaf CD blaring out as they hurtle over the country lanes, just to put her feet up. Frankie’s least favourite part of reporting is all the miles she has to cover. ‘Lunch in the fast lane’, as Gavin calls it.

  ‘Nice day for the seaside,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah, we should have time to grab a sandwich on the seafront before heading back,’ Frankie says, watching the gravestones as they pass. Édith’s jaunty harmonica is starting to jangle her nerves. ‘What do you reckon is the deal behind this couple we’re interviewing?’

  ‘Bit creepy if you ask me,’ says Gavin. ‘Not sure blokes like that deserve a second chance.’

  They have been assigned a domestic violence story. The boyfriend has reformed thanks to therapy, and now the couple want to tell the world that abusers can and should seek help. ‘I know what you mean,’ she says. ‘But then again, at least it shows he knows it was wrong. And better that than just repeating violent behaviour. After all, what are you going to do with people who’ve abused their partners? You can’t just chuck them on the scrap heap of life forever, people do learn from their mistakes.’

  ‘Would you be with Jack if he was a reformed wife-beater?’ asks Gavin, glancing over to look at her. She doesn’t answer. He nods. ‘Exactly.’

  The flat is in an alley off Straithe Street. They navigate their way down the narrow road towards the harbour, Gavin nearly knocking over a mass of bright plastic buckets and spades for sale on the tiny pavement. He hefts the tripod higher over his shoulder.

  ‘Just here,’ says Frankie, guiding him into a small cul-de-sac. There’s barely room for them both and the camera kit. Weeds sprout up through the tarmac. The wall on their left seems to be the back of a shop, boxes
of stock blocking its windows. She heads to the door on their right and knocks. A hand-written sign declaring ‘NO JUNK MAIL!!!!!’ is stuck in its dusty windowpane. They wait. The place is quiet save for the cries of seagulls wheeling and calling overhead.

  ‘Maybe you should—’ Gavin starts, but before he can make his suggestion a shadow appears behind the grimy glass. There’s a sound of multiple locks and the door opens.

  ‘Are you from the Eastern Film Company?’ A woman blinks at them from the doorway. She has sandy hair and eyes so pale it’s hard to tell the colour.

  ‘Yes that’s right. I’m Frances, this is my colleague Gavin.’

  The woman opens the door. ‘I’m Debbie. Come in.’

  They follow her through a tiny dark hallway into the front room. Frankie nearly chokes on the overpowering smell of air-freshener. It’s a cheap chemical one, sickly sweet, and makes the room feel stale. Gavin looks round for somewhere to put his tripod down, but the room is stuffed full of knick-knacks and cuddly toys. Shelves of shiny porcelain cherubs and fawns simper at Frankie from the mantelpiece, and she nearly trips over a large stuffed bear with ‘Hug Me!’ stitched across its stomach. Unlike the dusty front door, this room is meticulously clean.

  ‘I’ll go get Martin,’ says Debbie. ‘Make yourselves at home.’

  ‘Blimey,’ whispers Gavin when she’s gone. ‘Got enough stuff, haven’t they? Not sure how we’re going to film in here. If I move, I’ll break something.’

  ‘We’ll have to stick them both on the sofa,’ she says. ‘There’s nowhere else. Perhaps if we move this bear . . .’ She picks up the massive soft toy and is in the process of trying to ram it into an armchair when a voice makes her jump.

  ‘Moved in for a hug already?’

  She turns round, the bear in her arms. A thin man is smiling at her from the doorway, holding hands with Debbie. ‘What? Er, no, just trying to make space for Gavin’s camera,’ she says, embarrassed to be caught in the act of rearranging her host’s living room. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’