The Death Knock

by Elodie Harper

  Caz fast-forwards to the end of the interview. She comes back in at Frankie’s question.

  ‘How did Ava seem that night?’

  ‘Well, she and her friends had had a few, let’s put it that way. Pretty raucous. I’m not saying women bring attacks on themselves, of course not, but they would have been defenceless, you know?’

  There’s a pause in the recording, which Frankie doesn’t fill. The camera stays on Brett’s face. His expression is sorrowful, but watching it now, she thinks his sympathy looks contrived.

  ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s not surprising somebody with an agenda might pick them off.’

  ‘That’s the bit,’ Kiera says, waving her mug at the screen. ‘Stop it there.’

  ‘An agenda,’ Caz says, pulling a face. ‘What an odd word to use.’

  ‘I know it’s a strong soundbite,’ says Frankie. ‘But aren’t we sounding a bit victim blaming by running that?’

  ‘We’re making him sound bad, not them,’ Kiera says. ‘Although if they are some silly little slappers who had one too many, no point in us beating around the bush.’ She looks at Frankie, her mouth twisted in displeasure. ‘Journalism isn’t about sparing people’s feelings because you don’t want to be mean. You should tell the truth regardless.’

  ‘But it may not be the truth,’ Frankie says. ‘That’s my point.’

  ‘Really, Frances, you’re a hack, not a bloody vicar,’ Kiera snaps. ‘Stop trying to ruin your own story. I can’t think why Charlie has been indulging this ridiculous attitude for so long. Anybody would think we were in a convent not a newsroom.’

  There’s silence in the small room. Frankie can see Caz hunching over her keyboard with embarrassment, clearly wishing she could disappear. Her own chest feels tight. She knows she ought to give in, but she can’t. ‘In that case, I don’t think we should stop there. We need to include my question afterwards when I ask him if he had reason to dislike either of the girls.’ Frankie feels uneasy thinking of his reaction, the intense way he looked at her. She won’t admit it to Kiera, but she’s staring to feel nervous of Brett Hollins.

  ‘I don’t think it adds anything, it was just some tedious to and fro between the pair of you about nothing.’ Kiera stands up. ‘I think I’ve hand held you enough for one day. Use those two clips. And don’t fuck the rest of the report up.’

  The door closes softly behind her, leaving them in the sound-proofed room. Caz lets out a sigh. ‘Blimey. What a bully.’

  ‘Yup,’ says Frankie, trying not to feel too disappointed Caz didn’t stick up for her while Kiera was still there. ‘She certainly is.’

  ‘Do you think he did it?’ Caz asks, gesturing at the screen. ‘Hell of an exclusive if he did.’

  ‘I hope not,’ says Frankie, with a lightness she doesn’t feel. ‘He knows where I work.’

  Watching the report on TV with the rest of the team leaves her with an unpleasant aftertaste. The tissue of innuendo, the awkwardness of her attempt to diffuse Brett’s victim blaming, and the nagging feeling he may have invented the creepy figure at the bar, all make Frankie uncomfortable. On the other hand, Kiera loves it. It’s the most enthusiastic debrief the boss has given since she arrived, and when she smiles it almost looks genuine. Putting up with all that unpleasantness in the edit suite seems to have been worth it.

  Frankie is sitting at her desk, staring at the blank computer trying to work up the will to get up and leave, when her phone bleeps.

  Can’t stop thinking about you. When are you free? I’d like to see you again . . . And not just on my TV. B xx

  Her face flushes red, though there’s nobody but her to see Brett’s text illuminate the screen. She glances over at the newsdesk where Kiera is talking to Charlie, gesticulating about something. It’s not only her boss’s fault that she hasn’t yet told Brett she has a boyfriend. Although she’s ashamed to admit it, part of her has been flattered by the attention. He’s ridiculously good-looking, after all. But even if she didn’t love Jack, or have a general aversion to cheating, something about Brett doesn’t feel right. The predatory way he looked at her, his cavalier attitude to Ava. It might be nothing more unsavoury than the bullshit of a player, but she doesn’t trust him.

  She swipes across the phone, opening her messages, finger hovering while she thinks of a reply.

  Hi! Glad you liked the report. We might want to do a follow-up at some point so will be in touch. Frankie

  She reads it again, trying to imagine his reaction. It’s not the first time she’s tried to avoid an awkward situation by pretending it didn’t happen; she hopes Brett is smart enough to get the message. She presses send and stuffs the phone in her pocket, swings her bag onto her shoulder and walks out.

  Jack is waiting for her in reception. He’s chatting to Ernie at the front desk when she walks in. ‘There she is.’ Ernie nods at Frankie, proprietorial, as if she’s a wayward daughter. ‘Take care of her.’

  ‘Thank God you’re OK,’ Jack says, squeezing her tight in a hug. They walk over to his car and Jack opens the door for her. ‘That blog really freaked me out.’

  ‘You’re not the only one.’

  ‘I hope you mentioned that creepy Brian guy to the police,’ he says as she buckles herself in. ‘Ernie just told me all about him, said he’s a menace, wouldn’t put anything past him.’

  Frankie sighs. ‘Zara thinks he’s harmless, and it’s her he’s obsessed with, not me.’

  ‘Yeah well, we can’t be too careful, especially with the follow-up,’ he says, turning the key in the ignition. ‘I hope to God the police are going to take it more seriously. They sounded hopeless at that meeting you had earlier.’

  ‘Follow-up?’

  Jack looks at her, his face falling. ‘I thought the police would have told you. I thought they’d be all over it.’

  ‘All over what?’ He doesn’t say anything. They’re not moving, still parked outside the newsroom with the engine running. ‘All over what, Jack?’ she says again. ‘Is there another post?’

  ‘Not a post, no, there’s been a reply.’

  ‘A reply?’ She digs into her handbag and gets out her phone, clicking open the Internet. ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Don’t look at that.’ He snatches it off her. ‘Let’s wait until we get home.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ she shouts. Between Jack and Ernie treating her like a medieval maiden she’s starting to feel claustrophobic as well as afraid.

  ‘OK, sorry.’ He turns off the ignition. ‘But you don’t want to be reading all the stupid comments,’ he says. ‘I really thought the police would have said something, I’m so sorry you’re finding out from me.’

  ‘Finding out what?’

  ‘It might be a spoof,’ he says, still clutching the phone as she tries to wrest it off him.

  ‘Jesus, Jack!’ she says. ‘Just give me the bloody phone!’ He hands it over and she loads the blog, scrolling down below the line. The words RAPE THE FAT CUNT leap out at her and she hands it back, feeling sick. ‘Actually, you’re right. Just point me at the comment you mean, I don’t need to read all this.’

  Jack flicks down through the posts, then puts his finger over one. ‘There,’ he says, and she leans over to look.

  Many thanks to @Feminazi_Slayer2 for the tip-off. I currently have my hands full, but it’s an interesting thought. I’m never one to ignore a plea to fight the Gynocracy. I will see what I can do.

  @The_Norfolk_Strangler

  ‘That’s got to be a joke,’ says Frankie. ‘It can’t be him. I mean look at the sign off!’ Despite her bravado, the blood is buzzing in her ears.

  ‘That’s what I said. It could be a spoof,’ says Jack, putting a hand on her knee. ‘Though I guess if it’s him, he has to sign off somehow, he can’t use his real name.’

  Frankie reads the message again, and this time she starts to feel truly afraid. It’s not like the other comments surrounding it, full of violence, swearing and hyperbole. But the understateme
nt seems more menacing. After all, why would a real killer need to vent his rage in words? ‘Let’s just get home,’ she says.

  Back at the flat Jack goes straight to the kitchen to make dinner, instructing Frankie to sit on the sofa and relax. Fat chance of that, she thinks. Calling DC Avery on the journey back has gone some way towards reassuring her, but not much. He told her they were almost expecting a troll might appear online claiming to be the killer in response to Feminazi Slayer’s appeal. Part of her wonders if he said it to make her feel better. Even if it’s true, she wishes he had warned her in advance. She picks up the post from the mat and flops down on the cushions with a glass of wine. There’s a card from her mum, a water bill and another flier from the antiques shop. She turns it over. They must have money to burn sending out so many. She looks at the image again and does a double take. The crack in the vase has grown. She remembers the first one being just a hairline at the top, but this goes much further down, into the body of the alabaster. There’s even a chip in the vase’s lip.

  ‘Jack,’ she says, holding up the card. ‘Do you know which place this is from?’

  ‘That vase picture?’ he says. ‘No idea. There was one the other day too, but I chucked it. Bit annoying there’s no address so we can’t get taken off their mailing list.’

  Frankie stares at the card. Her pulse racing. It’s nothing, she tells herself, the blog’s just upset you. ‘Don’t throw the next one away, OK?’ she says, wishing her voice didn’t sound so wobbly. ‘There’s something weird about them.’

  Jack comes and sits beside her, taking the card from her. ‘You don’t think it’s anything worrying?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, tears spilling over her cheeks. ‘I don’t know. Probably not. It’s just been such a stressful day and I can’t fucking believe that awful website’s still up.’

  Jack holds on to her while she cries and strokes her hair. ‘It’s all right, it’s going to be all right,’ he says. ‘Listen, Frankie, I’ve been thinking. Would you like me to try and find out where this website is hosted?’

  ‘Seriously.’ She sits up. ‘Could you do that?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But I could try.’ He looks a little shifty. ‘And if I can’t manage it, I know people who probably could.’

  Frankie thinks about his chess games with nameless players in Russia and South America. She wonders what else he gets up to online. ‘Would you get in trouble?’

  ‘No,’ he says, not very convincingly. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then yes. Please try.’ She hugs him tightly, feeling a surge of gratitude. ‘I’m so lucky to have you.’

  Ava

  ‘Are you lonely, Ava?’

  His voice, which has invaded my dreams too often, feels close. So close his breath is on my cheek. I startle awake. His face is just inches from mine, pale circles of skin around his eyes in the ski mask. I scream and lurch backwards. How did he sneak in here without my hearing him?

  ‘Shhh, shhh,’ he says, pressing a black-gloved hand against my shoulder, pinning me against the wall. ‘There, there, no need to be jumpy. I just thought you might be lonely.’ He sits back slightly. ‘I get lonely.’

  The fear that I’ve shoved to the back of my mind and tried to bury there crashes into my consciousness. It’s like being hit over the head with a rock. He’s going to rape me. ‘Please no, please don’t, you don’t have to, there’s no need, just please, please . . .’

  ‘Please what?’

  I hadn’t realised that my gabbling was outside my own head. We stare at each other. I notice he’s holding a torch in one hand and the overhead light is off. Leave me the fuck alone! I want to scream. But I can’t say that, I need to placate him. ‘I just don’t know you very well.’

  He shakes his head. ‘Pathetic. Even covered in piss, stinking like a dustbin, you think a man might be interested. That’s all you bitches have to offer, isn’t it? But it’s a sick delusion. The same age-old lie that you’re all irresistible.’ He flips the torch up and shines it in my eyes, making me blink and squirm. ‘Women are unbelievable. All you have is a few years of being able to paper over the cracks, persuade guys you’re not totally fucking disgusting, before your tits start to sag, and your faces fall to pieces, and yet you still think this little window gives you the right to rule the whole fucking world.’ He rests his arms back on his knees, bouncing the torch against one ankle so that the light lurches crazily back and forth. ‘It never enters your stupid skulls that men might have other things to think about, does it? That some of us might see through you? You’re just silly little children.’

  Still shocked from being dragged from sleep, I struggle to follow what he’s saying. Other things to think about? Perhaps he’s not going to rape me. Unless this is all an elaborate bluff. ‘That’s interesting,’ I lie. ‘In what way are women like children?’

  He sighs. ‘You wouldn’t understand. That’s the point.’

  Keep him talking! ‘I could try.’

  ‘All right then.’ He nods. ‘How about this? Everything in life is run for your benefit. Men protect you, look after you and you’re just ungrateful and whine for more. Like spoilt brats. And it’s not good enough to be fawned over at home, you also want things all your own way everywhere. Demanding that you can have babies and still get fucking promoted. It’s a sick joke, it really is.’ He shines the torch in my face again. ‘But woe betide any poor bastard who points this out. The Feminazis will make sure his life’s ruined.’

  I’m sitting with a man who locks women up for kicks and he’s telling me he feels victimised. It would almost be funny if I weren’t so frightened. ‘Do you think it was better before? In the past,’ I say. ‘When men had more control over women.’

  ‘Control over women?’ He laughs. ‘Well, that’s a joke. Study your fucking history! Women have always been children, and men have always had to run around after them.’ He shrugs. ‘Though I guess in the past there was more recognition of this.’

  ‘But you must have met some nice women,’ I say, keeping the conversation going, as if this is a sensible exchange and he’s not a psychopath. ‘Some you thought were OK?’

  He rolls his eyes. With the rest of his face blacked out by the mask, the gesture is especially hard to read. ‘Is this the point where you ask me about my mother, Ava?’

  ‘I don’t know. I could do,’ I say. ‘But it might be a bit of a personal question.’

  He stares at me. ‘Full of surprises, aren’t you? You’re a hard nut to crack.’

  ‘I’m just a person. Like you are.’

  ‘Don’t give me that.’ He smacks the torch on the floor and the light lurches, plunging his face into shadow. ‘I’ve got all the cards here. You’re just a desperate little slag, scrabbling around hoping I don’t kill you.’

  It takes everything I have not to start crying. ‘It’s true you do hold all the cards,’ I say, my voice quavering. ‘But even so, we’re probably more similar than you think. Everyone has things in common.’

  ‘Really?’ He flips the torch up and grins at me, his teeth shining white in the dark. ‘You think we’re similar? I don’t think so. But you remind me a bit of someone else. Do you want to know who?’

  I can tell from the way he asks the question that I’m not going to like the answer. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘Hanna. That’s who you remind me of. The last one I had here. She was a tough nut to crack too. But she did in the end. You all do. You all end up begging and pleading to stay alive, as if that’s going to make any fucking difference.’

  Sitting here with him, talking about my own impending death, is so horrific it feels unreal. I’m so frightened that I’m starting to lose any sense of my fear, like freezing to death but slowly feeling less cold. ‘It was just one moment out of her life,’ I say, daring for once to contradict him. ‘Just one moment when she begged, when anyone would beg. It doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘Perhaps. But she’s still dead, isn’t she?’

>   He means to scare me, and he has. But I sense there’s something behind his words besides the threat. It’s the way he keeps mentioning her by name. ‘You miss her, don’t you? You liked Hanna. You miss her.’ His silence suggests that I’m right. ‘What was she like? She sounds like a nice person.’

  ‘She was nice,’ he says. He darts a quick look at me. ‘Nice for a slag, anyway. She’d had a shitty life. It was one of the reasons I picked her. I thought we might have something in common. Not a privileged bitch like you.’

  ‘What had happened to her?’

  ‘She grew up in foster care. Mum was a junkie. A couple of years ago she got assaulted by some lad in a club. I thought that was a lie. So many of you women lie about that shit. But after getting to know her, I think maybe Hanna wasn’t lying about it after all. It’s hard to say.’

  Listening to him talk about Hanna, his voice gentle as if we’re reminiscing about a friend rather than someone he murdered, I feel my chest tighten. What good is it going to do me, even if I get him to like me? Hanna must have tried the same thing and it didn’t save her. Tears prick at my eyes. The thought of her trapped here, alive, hoping to escape, after whatever she had survived before, is unbearable. I wish I could reach her, hold her hand, make us both feel better. But she’s dead. ‘That sounds very sad,’ I manage at last, my voice hoarse.

  He shrugs. ‘Well, we all have to die sometime.’

  ‘I still think it’s sad,’ I reply, clenching my fists, not trusting myself to say more. Rage is stirring beneath my fear and I mustn’t start shouting at him.

  ‘Don’t be sad for me.’ He stretches out a hand to touch my arm. It takes all my willpower not to flinch. ‘After all, I’ve got you now.’