The Death Knock

by Elodie Harper

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ says Debbie, looking flustered. ‘There’s far too much junk in here anyway.’

  ‘Poor Huggles,’ says the man. ‘Not sure he’ll appreciate being called junk. He was a present from our first date.’ He’s obviously trying to be funny, break the ice, but nobody laughs and there’s a mortifying silence. ‘Here, I’ll put him out of the way.’ He steps forward and takes the bear off Frankie. ‘Would you both like tea or coffee?’

  ‘A tea would be lovely,’ says Gavin. ‘White, no sugar.’

  ‘Same for me, thanks,’ says Frankie.

  ‘We really should have a clear-out,’ says Debbie, when Martin’s gone. ‘My son hates all this stuff.’

  Frankie isn’t sure what to say to that so she just smiles.

  ‘You all right to sit on the sofa, sweetheart?’ Gavin says to Debbie. ‘We’ll get the shelves in the background, give the shot a bit of depth.’

  By the time Martin comes back in with the tea, Gavin has managed to rearrange the furniture so that Frankie is perched on a tiny stool by his tripod with the correct eyeline for Debbie and Martin on the sofa.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Frankie, taking the teas. ‘Are we all right to get the interview out of the way?’

  ‘Sure,’ says Martin, sitting down close to Debbie and taking her hand. ‘Bit nervous about this.’

  ‘Everyone always is, but it’s not live,’ says Frankie. ‘Anything the pair of you are unhappy with, you can stop and start again.’ She looks down at her notepad. She hasn’t written down any questions; she almost never does, preferring to let the interview unfold like a conversation. ‘So the first question’s easy, can we have your names for the tape.’

  ‘I’m Martin Hungate and this is Debbie Richards.’

  ‘And Debbie, what was Martin like before he got help?’

  ‘Well, it was awful, wasn’t it?’ Debbie looks at Martin for confirmation and he gives her hand a squeeze. ‘It was great when we started going out, but then he just seemed to get angry and resentful. Not letting me do stuff, calling me names. Just constant belittling basically.’

  ‘And Debbie’s too kind to say,’ says Martin. ‘But I could be violent too. Only once or twice, but it’s never acceptable. I know that now.’

  ‘When you say violent . . .?’ Frankie leaves the question hanging, unfinished.

  ‘Kicking and biting,’ says Debbie, going red, as if she’s the one who is ashamed.

  ‘That must have been awful,’ Frankie replies, trying not to look too surprised. She hadn’t expected biting. A row of fairies is staring at her behind the couple’s heads; her eye is drawn to the bright red smiles and tiny white teeth on their china faces.

  ‘I’m so ashamed,’ says Martin, who, unlike Debbie, isn’t blushing. ‘It was the last incident that made me realise there was something really wrong with me and I needed help. We were at a restaurant, having a row, and I slapped Debbie and kicked the table over.’

  ‘I suppose with other people seeing what was going on, you knew you had to tackle it. It couldn’t be kept secret any more. Is that why you went for help?’ Martin looks at Frankie as if he’s seeing her for the first time. She meets his gaze. An unpleasant current passes between them.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘That’s not why. Debbie told me she was leaving me, and I knew I had to change. I knew how much I loved her, and that she deserved better.’

  ‘He’s a completely different person now,’ says Debbie, placing a hand protectively on her boyfriend’s knee. ‘That was two years ago, and I don’t think we’ve rowed since.’

  ‘And what sort of form did the therapy take?’

  ‘Some of it was together, as a couple, and some of it was just me addressing anger issues. But the main thing,’ says Martin, ‘is getting you, as an abuser, to accept full responsibility. So you can’t make any excuses. None of it was Debbie’s fault, it was entirely down to me.’

  ‘It’s great that it’s worked for you as a couple,’ says Frankie. ‘But some people are saying this sort of therapy shouldn’t be made part of public services. That it’s wrong to focus taxpayers’ money on abusers rather than on women’s refuges or things like that. What would you say to that?’

  She has addressed the question to Martin but it’s Debbie who answers. ‘Well, I think this is still about protecting the victims of domestic violence,’ she says, her tone sharp. ‘I was the victim here, and now my life is much better. So if people say targeting the abuser isn’t helping the victim, they should think again.’

  Martin smiles, putting his arm around Debbie, giving her shoulders a squeeze. ‘I don’t think I can add to that,’ he says.

  Frankie breathes in the sea air, feeling the salt scour the last of the air-freshener from her lungs. She and Gavin sit on a bench, eating chips in the sunshine. They had persuaded Martin and Debbie to come out to the quayside for the rest of the filming, and Gavin got a few shots of them walking hand in hand beside the water.

  ‘So what’s the verdict, Gav?’

  ‘She seemed a nice lady. Not so sure about him.’ He makes a face. ‘Biting?’

  ‘I know, that was an awkward moment, wasn’t it? Poor Debbie.’ Frankie takes another mouthful of hot, vinegary chips. She keeps meaning to eat more healthily – her jacket’s getting rather tight – but life always feels too short to pack herself a salad in the morning. ‘Thought she made a good point though, that his therapy helped the victim in this case.’

  Gavin sniffs. ‘Maybe. But I still wouldn’t fancy a pint with him.’

  Frankie stares up at the sky, its vast expanse of blue softened by a few trails of white cloud. In the breeze, she can hear the tinkle and creak of the boats’ masts. She’d like to spend all day here, walk up towards Holkham beach. She looks over at Gavin, sees he’s finished his chips and takes a final mouthful of her own.

  ‘Guess we’d better get back,’ she says, scrunching up the greasy paper. ‘But can we give Édith a rest this time? Please?’

  The weather is still fine when Frankie finishes work, and Charlie lets her head home early before the end of the programme. The first few autumn leaves lie on the path and she scuffs at them as she walks, wondering if the new boss will be as accommodating about working hours when she arrives; Kiera Williams is due to take over tomorrow. It’s been an uncertain time in the office. The company’s last boss David Hall had been hugely popular, and his retirement, though expected, was greeted with dismay. Frankie had half thought Charlie might apply for the top job, but he told her he was too much of a hack to become a manager. He’s already met Kiera, but was unusually tight-lipped when asked what she was like. ‘Very corporate,’ is all he said.

  Frankie reaches her building and feels a surge of happiness to be living here in this spot, right on the river. She takes the stairs at a run, but it seems that she’s less fit than she thought because by the time she reaches the third floor, she’s out of puff. She leans against the door, searching for her keys. To her surprise she can hear Jack’s Pavarotti CD playing. She hadn’t expected him back this early. She lets herself in and finds him sitting at the breakfast bar, bent over his computer. When he isn’t staring at plants, Jack is forever playing online chess with strangers in Russia or Brazil, or doing maths ‘for fun’. She’s not too sure about all of his activities; he’s very keen on Internet security, and once accessed their neighbours’ data accidentally because the firewall he had put round his own data was apparently a bit too strong. It all sounded rather like hacking to Frankie, but she doesn’t know enough about it, and as a naturally nosy person she’s probably less shocked by the idea of Jack snooping than she should be.

  ‘I didn’t notice the time,’ he says, getting down from the stool and going over to give her a kiss. ‘I meant to watch the show tonight, I almost never catch you on TV. How was it?’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t miss much. It was a piece on domestic violence.’

  Jack pulls a face. ‘Charlie sends you to all the fun stuff, doesn’t he?’

 
‘That’s just news, I’m afraid,’ she says, though in regional telly that isn’t strictly true. Her friend Rachel, another reporter, seems to get wall-to-wall punting trips and stranded seals.

  She wanders over to the counter and picks up the small pile of post, leafing through the papers. There’s their energy bill, which Jack has already opened, a flier about pizza deliveries and a postcard. It’s black with a photo of an exquisite alabaster vase, almost translucent, just a hairline crack along its lip. It looks like something from a museum, Ancient Egyptian or Roman; she’s not sure of her history. She turns it over but there’s nothing, just a sticker with her name and address. It must be a flier from an antiques store she thinks, turning it over again, though it seems odd not to give any details.

  ‘What’s that?’ Jack asks, standing at her shoulder.

  ‘Just a couple of circulars,’ she replies, gathering the card up along with the pizza flier and dropping them both in the bin. ‘Do you fancy walking down Riverside and eating out tonight? It’s a lovely evening.’

  ‘That sounds brilliant,’ Jack says, putting his arms round her. Frankie smiles at him, the strange card already forgotten.

  Ava

  Nineteen and a half steps long, seventeen steps wide. That’s how big my cell is. I don’t know what that is in metres; I was never very good at maths.

  I have walked it over and over, counting and counting and counting. After being cramped up I was worried about getting my strength back and desperate to move about. The weakness in my legs is improving now the circulation’s come back, but I’m still really sore, and the cuts on my knuckles throb. It was such a relief at first to be out of the box, to be able to move, but now I feel like I’m just in a bigger box.

  Even when walking makes me dizzy I don’t stop. I have to keep moving to stay warm. This place is so cold. I’m grateful I wore a jumper to the bar that night. I shuffle round and round, wrapped up in the dirty blankets like a tramp, muttering to myself. The blankets are scratchy and have an animal smell – I think it’s horse – which makes me feel oddly comforted. It takes me back to the stables my grandparents rented out, the last working part of their run-down farm. They weren’t sentimental people, but my grandfather loved horses. Children, not so much. He horrified Matt and me when we were small, the way he’d stalk across the fields with his gun, aiming at rabbits. Sometimes I hear his voice, harsh and long dead. Pull yourself together, girl!

  I’ve found talking to myself helps, though it’s an effort to think up new words. Instead I recite the entire Anglican Communion Service. I haven’t been to church in about five years, yet the prayers have somehow stayed with me. We used to sing it every Sunday, Matt and I, in the High Church that reminded Mum of her Catholic roots. And He shall come again in Glory, to judge both the quick and the dead: Whose Kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son . . .

  I don’t believe in any of them, as it happens, but chanting it in the singsong melody is soothing. It stops my mind from juddering to a halt altogether.

  As I walk, my eye is constantly drawn to the door. I know the feel of every inch of its horrible surface. Rough, unforgiving, solid. I’ve thrown my full weight at it, kicked it again and again, rattled the handle until I thought it would fall off. But I always come off worse, the door isn’t budging. It doesn’t even have a deadlock, just a simple Yale, with the latch to open it on the outside, like a sick joke. When I finally accepted defeat, I cried, resting my cheek on the wood, sobbing my heart out. The door absorbs kicks and tears with the same indifference.

  So I avoid it on my endless journeys round and round. Every now and then I stick out a hand to touch the wall with my fingertips. It’s concrete, the surface uneven, as if the cement was slapped on without much care. It’s cold.

  There’s one part of the wall I don’t touch. I always move my hand when I reach The Stain. It’s a brown mark, almost human-shaped, and has acquired capitals in my mind. The sight of it turns my insides to water. It looks so like a person, bent with pain. Sometimes when I look at it, I imagine I can hear someone else. I know it’s only my own breath, laboured from fear, but I can’t shake the feeling it’s one of the others. That she’s still here, somehow. Still trapped here after death. I try to practise professional detachment, find it interesting that even when there are real horrors to be faced, my mind creates fanciful ones. But I still take care not to touch the dark mark as I pass.

  At the top of the wall opposite the door is a small grille. It filled me with hope at first. I spent God knows how long jumping up trying to see through, shouting for help. But the only thing it brings me is an icy draught. The silence is profound. No sound of the street, no cars or voices, the heavy nothingness of the countryside. When day comes, I see there are wisps of grass at its edge, which makes me think I must be in a field somewhere. Underground. A tiny shaft of light comes through at what must be late afternoon and I move across the room with it, so the light falls on my face.

  I think of my family.

  It makes me cry whenever I imagine their worry, the desperation they must be feeling about what’s happened to me. Then the frustration at being trapped in here, at being unable to go to them, tears at my chest like a dog in a cage.

  Instead I make an effort to remember the fierceness of my mother’s hug, the way she never gives in. I know she won’t give up on me. Every minute I’m here, she’ll be thinking of me, willing me home. I try to send her messages in my mind: I’m here, Mum, I’m here, I’m alive! Some part of me believes she can hear. I think of my dad trying to keep it all together, saying trite optimistic things that drive everyone mad. And Matt. I don’t like to think of his reaction. So I relive funny moments; the impressions he did of the teachers when we were children, the practical jokes he played, pushing each other on the swing. I stop the action in our late teens, before the depression took hold, and then replay it.

  And I believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins . . .

  Hunger makes my stomach growl. My body craves a proper hot meal, but I’m not as starving as I might be. The bag by the door had food in it. Four more egg sandwiches and seven apples; not very filling but better than nothing. And there’s water. I try to ration myself, leave at least some of the apples, as I don’t know how long he will be gone. I think of the hideous puffball mask and don’t know what’s more frightening: him coming back, or being abandoned until the food runs out. Don’t think of that. I quicken my pace, shuffling round in another lap of the cell.

  My favourite part of the room, after the grille proved a dead end, is the light. The electrics are crude, the wiring snaking up the wall over the cement, but there’s a switch by the door and when I press it, a single bulb lights up in the centre of the ceiling. It means I never have to be in the dark. That counts for something.

  I’ve had to use the bucket, adding to the stink in the room. It’s a relief to have one, I suppose, but when I pick it up to use it, I realise it already smells bad. That’s when it hits me. Somebody else has used it before. One of the other women.

  And I look for the resurrection of the Dead, And the Life of the world to come. Amen.

  On my hands and knees, I find traces of them on the filthy floor. Hairs. Some long blonde ones, and some dark brown. I lay them across my palm. I stare at them and the terror is so absolute I feel numb. It cuts me off from my own body as if it’s somebody else’s hand they’re resting on and it’s somebody else in this room, living this nightmare. I can hear breathing, whistling with panic, and I don’t know if it’s mine.

  Frankie

  Frankie is already near Cambridge, on her way to film a story at the city’s Science park, when her hands-free set rings.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I need you to turn round.’ Charlie’s voice crackles over the speaker. ‘The police have called a press conference. Major new development in the Hanna Chivers enqui
ry. This is it. They’re going to announce it’s the same killer. Network news are on their way.’

  ‘Blimey. Great first day for the new boss.’

  ‘Yes, well, make sure you don’t fuck it up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Always happy to oblige.’ Charlie rings off. He’s joking about the new boss, she knows that. But it’s not the most encouraging remark.

  Frankie parks badly, taking up a space near the door marked POLICE ONLY, one wheel over the white line. She’s running late, every minute of the long drive across three counties adding to her stress levels. She hopes the presser hasn’t already started.

  At the reception desk, she rummages for her ID, out of breath, hair plastered over her face.

  ‘Frances Latch, Eastern Film Company. I’m here for the press conference on Hanna Chivers. I think it’s being held by DSI Nigel Gubberts?’

  ‘Fill this out please,’ says the woman at the desk, handing over a security pass form. Frankie writes her details in a barely legible scrawl, slinging the pass over her neck. The woman points down the corridor. ‘Second door on the left.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She hurtles into the presser just as Nigel Gubberts walks in. It’s a typical police meeting room; pale blue walls, boxy corporate chairs, no distinguishing features. But unlike the usual half-empty seats in a regional HQ, the place is packed, unfamiliar journalists from network news crowding out the local hacks. Frankie slinks into a space at the back, squeezing past Malcolm, the man from the Press Association.

  ‘Late again, Frankie?’

  She pulls a face and dumps her bag. At the front she can already see Gavin set up with his tripod, filming. His grey hair is askew at a mad angle and he’s stuck himself in prime position, a couple of national cameramen standing well back, out of the way of his sharp elbows. Frankie smiles to herself, knowing there’s one part of the news gathering she doesn’t have to worry about. Then Detective Superintendent Gubberts starts speaking.