The Death Knock

by Elodie Harper

  ‘I’m sorry Rach, that’s bollocks,’ she says. ‘If it’s any consolation that means she’s dropped my interview with Lily’s parents without even telling me.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Rachel sniffs. ‘Never mind. Let’s face it, none of it really matters, does it? Those poor parents, what they’re going through. Puts it all in perspective.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘There’s one thing, before I forget,’ Rachel says, tapping her arm. ‘There are reporting restrictions about Ava’s brother Matthew.’

  ‘What restrictions?’

  ‘He’s not to be mentioned, apparently. Not sure why.’

  ‘Bit weird,’ Frankie says, then remembers Laura’s remarks about him having depression. ‘Maybe it’s his health. I think some local rag blabbed his medical history.’

  ‘Don’t ask me, I’m the newsroom dullard.’ Rachel shrugs. ‘Just passing it on.’

  Caz scrolls back through the footage with the cursor. Frankie sits beside her in the edit suite, sipping an instant coffee.

  ‘You sure we’ve got time to listen to the whole thing?’ asks Caz. As she scrolls back through the rushes, Ava Lindsey’s parents flash and flicker on the screen. Frankie has already watched the family’s press conference at an edit machine in the newsroom. After speaking to Lily’s parents in the morning, witnessing the Lindseys’ grief was especially gut-wrenching. Frankie wanted to scream at the killer, just let their daughter go, you bastard! But all she could imagine in response was the mockery in the posts of @Feminazi_Slayer2.

  ‘They spoke for ten minutes max,’ she says. ‘I’ve already written a rough version of my voice-over, it’s only about twenty seconds long.’ She holds up a print-out of her short script as evidence. ‘I’m leaving the other two minutes to the parents, better for the viewer to hear from them than me.’

  ‘Right, let’s have a listen, then.’ Caz presses play. Frankie sits poised with her notepad. They watch the screen as DSI Nigel Gubberts leads Ava Lindsey’s stricken parents into the room. There is a barrage of silver flashes, and frantic clicking, like a swarm of insects descending. Ava’s mother is supported into her chair by a female police officer.

  ‘The first bit was just Gubberts introducing them,’ says Frankie. ‘We can skip that.’ Caz scrolls through until the camera zooms in on Ava’s father. ‘Yep, go from there.’

  Eric Lindsey’s eyes are red-rimmed and he’s clutching a piece of paper, which he looks down at from time to time while he speaks. ‘The last few days have been a nightmare—’ He stops, swallowing. ‘We keep hoping we will wake up, that none of it’s real. But Ava’s still not home.’ He starts to shake, crying silently. After a pause, busy with more flashes, he starts speaking again. Every now and then, his voice dips and quavers. ‘Ava is a lovely girl. Kind, compassionate. She wouldn’t hurt anybody. We just want her home. Please, just let her come home.’ His face crumples and his wife Celine takes his hand. Ava’s mother is dry-eyed, her face immobilised by pain. Eric Lindsey starts speaking again. ‘We would just like to appeal to anyone who thinks they might know where Ava is. Please think of your own child, or someone you love. Think how much you would want them home, safe. And then please, we’re begging you, please call the police.’

  ‘Ava darling, if you are watching this, we love you.’ Celine Lindsey starts speaking. She has no notes and stares straight into the lens of the camera as if the intensity of her willpower will bring her daughter home. ‘We are thinking of you, every minute of the day. Be strong, my angel. We are all waiting for you. We love you. Ne quitte pas, chérie, reste forte.’

  ‘That’s it,’ says Frankie. ‘They didn’t take questions.’

  ‘Jesus,’ says Caz. ‘How awful. Poor sods.’ The Lindseys’ grief has blasted into the edit suite, their anguish too vast to fit the small room let alone the confines of a two-minute TV report. But Frankie will have to try.

  ‘Right,’ she says, looking at her notes. ‘We’ll start on the natural sound of the press photographers, a couple of seconds of that.’ Caz’s fingers fly over the keyboard as she speaks, cutting the report as Frankie speaks. ‘Then my script over the parents arriving: It’s been too long since the Lindseys spoke to their missing daughter, but they had a message for Ava today. Then cut straight to the mother talking. In words Ava darling out words every minute of the day.’

  ‘Don’t you want all of the mother?’ asks Caz. ‘I thought that was the most moving bit. I don’t think the accent was too strong, I know Charlie worried it might be. Though I didn’t get her remark at the end. Was it French?’

  ‘We’ll use all of her clip, just split it in two. I was going to run the last section right at the end of the report.’ She looks at Celine Lindsey, frozen on Caz’s screen. There is a fierceness to her face she hopes her daughter has inherited. ‘And yes, the last line was French. She said, Don’t give up, sweetheart, stay strong.’

  After the edit Frankie feels emotionally wrung out. The grief she’s witnessed, tangled together with her own fears, feels like a physical knot being pulled ever tighter in her chest. She pays little attention to Kiera’s debrief, which is as critical as ever, but when the boss has left, she heads over to Charlie to talk about the Sidcups. ‘Are we running the report tomorrow, then?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘We can try.’

  Frankie frowns. Charlie normally has absolute discretion about what goes into the programme. ‘I can’t drop them. They told me they feel like Lily is being dismissed by the media, as if she’s not worth anything. If we don’t run their interview, we’ll just be reinforcing that feeling.’

  ‘I know, I realise that.’ Charlie sits back in his chair, running a hand over his eyes. He looks exhausted. ‘But Kiera really isn’t that keen.’ He catches sight of Frankie’s expression. ‘Look, I promise at the absolute worst we’ll run it this weekend, OK? We won’t drop them.’

  ‘OK.’ Frankie’s mobile, which she’s holding, vibrates. It’s an unknown number. ‘Thanks, see you tomorrow.’ Walking away from him, she answers the call. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Frances, it’s Dan Avery. Hope I’m not disturbing you.’

  ‘Not at all. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Have you got access to a computer?’

  Frankie heads over to her desk and moves the mouse, waking up the screen. ‘Sure, what is it?’

  ‘There’s a post underneath that blog about you on Killing Cuttlefish. I’m sorry to ask you to look at it again, but I want you to scroll down to the bottom of the comments. There’s a short video that’s been posted by @Feminazi_Slayer2 and I want you to tell me if it’s the same video as the one you saw on Lily’s Facebook page.’

  Frankie does as he asks, trying not to read the comments as she scrolls through them. She stops towards the end. @Feminazi_Slayer2 has posted a gif. It flickers black and white. The background looks like velvet drapery. A crystal vase falls and breaks, the shards smashing outwards, sharp and cruel. Then words appear, one after the other over the broken image, the red typeface getting bigger each time. Curiosity. Killed. The. BITCH.

  ‘Have you seen it, Frances?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, her voice hoarse. ‘It’s exactly the same as Lily’s video. Except for the message. I think that’s just for me.’

  Frankie

  At home she watches the TV, trying not to see the blog on Jack’s laptop out of the corner of her eye. He has angled it away from her so she can’t see the screen but she knows it’s there. He wants to take over checking the site, as well as trying to crack it, so she doesn’t have to look at the hateful thing. After @Feminazi_Slayer2 posted the gif of the vase smashing, he tells her, several others have uploaded the same image. This doesn’t initially make her feel better, but Jack explains that means it might just be a meme, some weird MRA reference rather than a message from a killer. Other discoveries are less reassuring. It seems Feminazi Slayer is spawning copycat haters. The person who posted the YouTube video of Ava, @Anabolic100, has now written a blog about Frankie t
oo, though Jack reassures her it’s more a rant against female TV reporters in general. And whatever nastiness Frankie attracts, the greatest volume of bile is reserved for the murdered women. Like wasps swarming for a feed, the poisonous posts multiply, each more callous than the last. ‘Listen to this one,’ Jack says. ‘It’s by some weirdo called @CuckOff. Where do they get these names from? Anyway, Mr CuckOff thinks the women have been bumped off by feminists, just to generate hatred of men! Can you believe it? How crazy are these guys! He’s probably lurking on another site somewhere, claiming 9/11 was pulled off by the CIA.’

  In the end Frankie goes to bed to escape her boyfriend’s commentary. She’s grateful he is trying to take it off the Internet, but in the process, the website seems to be becoming an obsession. By the time he comes to bed, Frankie is asleep. She feels guilty the next morning, seeing the dark circles under his eyes. He can’t really afford to spend all this time helping her out, the least she can do is appreciate it.

  ‘I think it might be a VPN,’ he says to her over breakfast. He looks at her blank face. ‘A virtual privacy network. The site seems to be hosted abroad, somewhere that doesn’t have a disclosure agreement with the UK. Otherwise the set-up of the site itself is quite straightforward – it’s just a host, anyone can post their blogs on there, and they all go in the timeline. You can click through by section, most popular, most controversial, that kind of thing, but it’s not curated very heavily. In theory you or I could post something on there if we joined up. Not that we’d want to,’ he adds quickly, seeing her horrified face. ‘But what’s really annoying is the website protects all the bloggers from being identified too – once you join you’re protected by the VPN.’

  ‘Oh right,’ she says. ‘That sounds difficult to crack. Sorry it’s causing you such stress.’

  ‘I’m more worried about you,’ he says, stirring sugar into his coffee. ‘Do you have to go in to work today? Can’t you call in sick or something?’

  ‘I really can’t,’ she replies. ‘What am I going to do, just disappear until the guy’s caught? That could be weeks, or even months.’ She doesn’t add that the idea of being alone in the flat all day frightens her more than going to work and keeping busy.

  Her phone rings on the counter, lit up with the newsdesk number. They both stare at it. ‘I wish they wouldn’t do that. Calling you at home so you can’t even eat your sodding breakfast in peace,’ Jack says. ‘Can’t they wait until you get in?’

  Frankie sighs and takes the call. ‘What is it?’ she says.

  ‘Frances, this is Kiera.’

  Frankie hops off the stool, unconsciously standing to attention when she hears her boss’s voice. Her bad-tempered greeting had been for Charlie. ‘Oh, sorry, hi,’ she says.

  ‘There’s some breaking news on the serial killer story,’ Kiera says. ‘I want you to go to the police presser, it’s at nine thirty.’

  ‘Oh God, they’ve found Ava, haven’t they?’ says Frankie, her face draining of colour. She’s never met the psychology student but this almost feels like a personal bereavement. ‘She’s dead.’

  The conference room is packed. Frankie has got there early and sits at the front, waiting for the police to arrive. She’s avoided talking to people and is sitting right behind Gavin and his tripod. It’s not only that she’s depressed at the thought of Ava’s death and it feels too sordid to speculate about where they found her body; after the blog post she feels oddly sensitive and exposed, as if a layer of skin is missing. She wonders if any of her fellow hacks have seen it. It’s infuriating, but she can’t help feeling ashamed and embarrassed, even though she knows it’s not her fault. She keeps thinking of the horrible Photoshopped image, the harpy with the pendulous breasts.

  ‘Mind if I sit here?’ It’s Luke Heffner. He’s already moving Gavin’s bag off the chair next to her before she has a chance to reply.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she says.

  ‘Well, this is exciting,’ he says. ‘Must be the biggest story on your patch since Ipswich.’

  She scowls at him. ‘Hardly exciting, is it? A load of dead women,’ she says, although part of her feels the pricking of guilt. All journalists have a morally queasy relationship to murder stories, and she understands Luke better than she’d like to admit.

  ‘Oh come on,’ he replies, his cut-glass voice drawling out the vowels. ‘No need to play Mother Teresa with me. You’ve been all over the story. Must make a change from the pumpkin shortage for Halloween you lot normally cover at this time of year.’

  ‘You’re such a dickhead,’ Frankie says, the words out before she can stop herself.

  Luke laughs, not in the least offended. ‘Takes one to know one. And well done with that blog exclusive by the way. Though I’m sorry about the aftermath. Now that guy really is a dickhead.’

  Frankie couldn’t feel more winded if he had just slapped her. ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Afraid it’s one of the first things that come up when you google your name.’

  ‘Well, that’s fucking fabulous.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I can’t see it making the news. Sad-sack blogger slags off local reporter for calling him out. Not exactly Hold the Front Page, is it?’

  Luke’s rudeness makes her feel oddly better. She quite likes him as a sparring partner, and at least he doesn’t seem to have spotted the poster claiming to be the Norfolk Strangler. Before she can ask him what he was doing googling her, the investigation team walk in and the room of jabbering hacks falls silent. Then there’s the familiar crescendo of clicks. Frankie flips off the lid of her pen, notebook poised.

  Nigel Gubberts looks as if he has aged ten years since the last conference. The barrage of silver flashes illuminates every crease on his grey, sleep-deprived face.

  ‘Thank you all for coming. As you may have gathered we’ve had a development in our ongoing investigation.’ He pauses. ‘I’m sorry to report that another woman from the Norwich area has gone missing.’ There’s muttering. It’s not what his audience was expecting. The clicking and flashing accelerates. ‘A young mother has not been seen for more than thirty-six hours and we understand her disappearance from her home is entirely out of character.’ He looks behind him, as a colleague flashes a photograph up on the screen.

  Frankie gasps. She knows that face.

  ‘Amber Finn is a twenty-four-year-old mother of one from Costessey,’ says DSI Gubberts. ‘She works part-time at a supermarket and is also a sex worker . . .’

  Frankie feels the warmth of Luke’s breath as he moves close to her ear. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘I interviewed her on Monday,’ she whispers. Her ears are ringing. She can’t quite believe this is happening.

  ‘Christ,’ he says, leaning back, his eyes lit up with anticipation of all the moving footage of the victim that’s going to be at his fingertips. Top story on the ten. He’ll be furious when he finds out Amber was shot anonymously.

  Frankie can see Nigel Gubberts looking at them both and turns red. She wonders if he knows about the interview and blames her for Amber going missing. ‘We understand Amber was very selective about her clients and about arranging childcare,’ Gubberts continues. ‘She saw clients in daylight hours and has never before failed to pick up her daughter from nursery. When she failed to turn up on Tuesday afternoon, nursery staff immediately reported her missing.’

  In her mind Frankie goes frantically over the interview. She and Gavin were so careful. Surely the grey wall couldn’t have identified Amber’s house? And they didn’t even film her in profile, she was just a shadowy blob. But the killer must have watched the report and recognised her. Anything else is too much of a coincidence. She thinks of the plastic toys in the corner of the room, of a little girl now missing a mother, and feels sick.

  Waiting for the press conference to end is painful. She doesn’t ask any questions; she doesn’t have the stomach for it. There’s no need in any case, as Gubberts gets such a comprehensive grilling from everyone else. She learns that
Ava’s body has not been found, which is a departure from the killer’s previous MO. The police say they are working on the assumption she is still alive, and making every effort to find her, though none of the journalists sound convinced by that theory.

  When the questions are finally over, Frankie darts out of her chair, trying to grab Gubberts’ attention. A press officer blocks her way.

  ‘No one-on-ones,’ he says. ‘You got the briefing.’

  ‘I don’t want to ask him anything,’ Frankie says. ‘I need to give him information. We interviewed the victim last week.’

  The tall man scrutinises her for a moment. ‘Wait here,’ he says. He heads out of the door where Nigel Gubberts and his team have just left.

  ‘Franks?’ says Gavin. She can see from his expression he shares her anguish. ‘We were so bloody careful. This can’t be linked to the report, it can’t be.’ Luke Heffner is hovering expectantly by Gavin’s elbow.

  ‘What did the guy say?’ he asks.

  The press officer sticks his head round the door, gestures to Frankie and Gavin to come over, and she obeys, conscious of all the curious eyes on her back.

  They step into a corridor, where Gubberts is waiting. ‘Frances,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘And Gavin. What can I do for you both?’

  ‘We interviewed Amber last week,’ says Frankie. ‘It was anonymous, she wouldn’t have been recognisable, but we thought you should know.’ Gubberts is looking at her without much affection. On a personal level, their interviews have always been civil, but she knows there’s no love lost between the East Anglian Constabulary and the press. ‘You can obviously have the full tape and the report if you need it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘I think we may have seen it. That the one where she said Donald Emneth was a dirty sod who tied women up?’