by Holly Seddon
On aching legs, Marianne drags herself from the bed and out into the cold morning of the lounge. As she picks up the chair and sits down carefully at the table, her throbbing eyes zone in on Greg’s laptop. Not opening it now seems like the easiest thing in the world. So why couldn’t she have left it alone last night? Other grieving spouses would have left it alone. Noah would have left it alone.
But for Marianne that great ghoulish box has been opened, its hinges bent and lid torn off. Greg was emailing his ex and going on the dark web, in secret. And now she’s been left here by herself to fight whatever is coming, without knowing why it could be coming. Or when. Or if.
And even while she’s having these thoughts, trying to tie things together in some kind of logical bow, a tickertape in her mind is running on loop: ‘This can’t be real, this can’t be real, this can’t be real.’ Because it can’t be real, surely? Normal people don’t end up on hit lists.
*
With the phone still plugged in, she searches for the number of her local police station. Instead, there seems to be a central phone number for non-emergency calls. What’s more of an emergency than death? And yet, to call 999 would seem insane.
She taps in 141 on her keypad first – not sure if that even blocks your number anymore – then adds the rest. She’s placed in a queue, muzak grinding her hungover head.
A woman eventually answers with a gentle Welsh accent as she reads from her script. Finally: ‘And how can we help?’
Marianne swallows. Where to start? ‘It’s about …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, it’s about a threat to my life.’
‘If you’re in immediate danger, you need to end this call and dial nine—’
‘No, I’m not, I mean, I don’t know when … or if …’
‘Can I take your name and the address where you’re currently situated?’
‘No, I’m sorry, you can’t. I need to be anonymous.’
‘Madam, we can’t help you if we don’t know who you are and it sounds …’
‘Are you recording this?’ Marianne says suddenly.
‘Well, yes, calls can be recorded for training purposes, I did say that at the—’
‘Can you stop recording it?’ What if someone is tracing this? What if someone can hack into these recordings?
‘I can’t control that myself, I’m afraid, but it is only for internal use. Why don’t you tell me why you feel your life is in danger?’
‘OK. This will sound nuts, but I saw something on the dark web. Something that said an assassin’s database had been hacked and you could search it and see if you were on it.’
The woman is silent.
‘And I searched my husband’s name first, he died last year, but he wasn’t on it.’
‘Sorry, are you saying your husband was assassinated?’ There’s a crispness to the voice now.
‘No, my husband was killed in a road accident but I searched my name – and my name was on there.’
‘Your name was on an assassin’s database on the dark web?’ The incredulity is barely disguised. The woman’s voice has grown louder and Marianne imagines colleagues craning their necks to hear.
‘Yes,’ Marianne says. ‘And I don’t know what to do. I’m worried that if I go to the police station, they’ll know and it’ll make it worse.’
‘Who will know?’
‘The assassins.’
‘The assassins,’ the woman repeats.
Marianne ignores her tone. ‘But if I go to the police station, what would happen?’
The woman pauses. ‘Well, they’d take a statement first. Though you would have to give your name to them. And they would take down the details of why you think you’re on an, um, an assassin’s database …’
‘Forget it.’
As Marianne cuts off the call, she hears the tiniest shard of laughter. Because of course this is hilarious. It’s downright absurd.
I must be losing my mind.
Sam
There’s plenty to work with here. A small flat over a disused café. A second-hand car with a poor safety rating for frontal crashes. A teacher who takes the same journey to and from work every weekday. A widow, sleeping alone at the back of the building. I already know more than enough, but in this bone-tired state I can’t get loose or sloppy. I’m too close to the finish line.
Targets are, luckily, just as prone to sloppy moves. Especially the ones who think nothing bad could ever happen to someone like them. Just because it hasn’t so far.
They say the turkey always feels safest right before Christmas.
Marianne
Marianne has hardly lived a controversial life. The standout ‘drama’ of her youth was her father upping sticks and pissing off. Which is about as bog-standard a trauma as you could find. You could probably have skimmed a stone across the beach of her Devon town and hit someone else in the same situation.
She’d headed for the city as soon as she could, driven away from, rather than to, something. Never really knowing what her ‘something’ should be. After university she’d drifted into teacher training, finding out she was good at it. To her relief and dismay. She would never set the world alight. Ambitious within her job, sure. But far from ruthless.
Did she piss off the wrong people at university? Not that she could imagine, and not in ways that would come back to haunt her decades later. Maybe a parent at school? It feels like a huge leap.
Marianne Heywood is a good teacher, with a comfortable life, a recent tragedy and the optimism of a new relationship. And one secret, sure, but hardly a murderous one. More embarrassing than anything. But still, not something she would want anyone to look into lest they think it suggests worse secrets to be found.
She looks again at Greg’s laptop. Greg had no powerful friends. But did he have enemies of some kind? Did he stick his nose into the wrong place? She thinks of the activist message board, of his frustrations with how slowly he could work. Did he cut corners and take risks in his desperation to make things better?
‘Greg,’ she whispers, looking through to the bedroom, to his empty side of the bed. ‘Did you do something really fucking stupid?’
Outside, the grey sky gives way to yellow and a steady rumble of traffic drags night into day. Greg’s notepads still litter the dining table, his bag is still propped up against the bed. Traces of him are everywhere. Maybe it’s time she looked more closely at them. At him, and her memories of who he was.
Her life could depend on it.
*
Compared with Noah and his neat angles and designer sofa, Marianne’s flat looks like it’s been burgled. If things work out between them, she will need to up her tidiness game. Would there be any space in Noah’s house for her bric-a-brac? For the detritus of her life?
Greg’s notepads sit on the dining table, the ‘stuff drawer’ in the kitchen bulges more than it ever did and as well as books, the bookcase is filled with newspaper supplements, old diaries, unopened post.
She opens the curtains and the yellowing light picks out every dancing dust particle and misplaced fibre. It feels noisy, a cacophony of things to deal with, and for a brief moment Marianne imagines herself throwing a match at the lot of it and walking away.
Instead, she makes a coffee and pecks at her first nauseating cigarette. She doesn’t hoist up the kitchen window like she normally would and as she paces, she tests again that she locked her front door properly last night. Then Marianne pulls on her softest clothes and pushes Greg’s shirt, dank with her night sweat, into the washing machine with the rest of the dirty things.
She looks at the pile of notepads again, imagines for a moment that she can pick out the fingerprints, the dust of her late husband. No, not ‘late’, no euphemisms – Greg hated euphemisms. Her dead husband.
Who will clear away her rubble, when she is dust?
Her best friend from school still lives in Devon, their Sliding Doors lives creating a wedge. When did Marianne last go to see Nina? She�
��s met her daughter only a handful of times. And Jane from uni, now living in Dubai and working in an international school. If Marianne called her, as she had after Greg died, Jane would tell her to drop everything and fly out. But she wouldn’t mean it. No one really means that.
Abi at work, probably the closest to a friend in the staffroom, is the head of safeguarding. There’s no way Marianne can mention anything that involves the dark web. She’d be suspended.
Would it fall to Noah? Not if anything happened now, it’s too soon. And god, no one deserves to go through that twice.
With a surge of energised panic, Marianne clears her own mess. Shoving rubbish and bits of paper into a bin bag, while making a pile of everything she finds that belonged to Greg. It fast becomes a chaotic little shrine – receipts and shopping lists, torn out news articles that mean nothing to her. And the notepads, of course.
The first bin bag is already bulging, split down one side by the sharp corner of an ignored envelope. She imagines her own skin splitting, slashed by a knife. Marianne squeezes her eyes shut but the image remains inside her lids, only now a rusty zip in her flesh is being slowly, callously teased down so that the very meat of her is raw and exposed.
She works harder, faster, trying to outrun the images. Outside, clouds tumble and make way for slashes of rain. It turns the pavements dark grey and paints the roads black. Inside, she works with a fever. Stuffing and piling and sorting like a factory robot. Only when everything has been arranged into a teetering tower of Greg’s shrapnel and four straining bin bags of her own junk, does she stop. More coffee, more smoke.
Her head bangs a relentless march as Marianne sorts through the scraps of paper and junk on the bookcase where fiction should be. The box file catches her eye on the top shelf. It was bought by her mum, she remembers her sorting paperwork into it. A pretty floral design she would never have chosen. Like the flowers on his coffin that she didn’t choose either. Like the flowers she’s sure his mum leaves by the grave she tends up in Scotland, where Marianne cannot bring herself to go.
She drops the folder on to the table where it coughs up a cloud of dust.
*
The box file is at odds with the scrappy pile of notepads and paperwork. It had been tucked up there on the shelf all this time like a security camera.
The inquest into Greg’s death happened during a school day and despite protests from her mum, she’d gone to work instead of attending. It was too painful, too final. At work, things felt almost normal. She could pretend that at the end of the day he would be there waiting, with a home-cooked meal and years and years of in-jokes and unspoken knowledge. An inquest would have stolen that away.
Greg’s father had flown down from Scotland. She could picture him in court, cutting the same shape as his son. Narrow-boned and attentive, with his notepad in hand. Losing himself in the logistics. But Marianne and her mother-in-law stayed away, separately. Every fresh detail was a grain of salt pressed into their raw grief. They knew plenty already, more than they wanted to know. The thick tyres on his narrow chest. The slim bones of his hands, pulled apart. The way his bicycle looked, bent into outsider art by the impact. The lack of CCTV. ‘A surveillance black spot’, almost unheard of in London.
She catches sight of her pale, haunted reflection in the windowpane and jumps. There is no one else here, no one can get in, but her skin prickles as if she’s being watched.
She carefully opens the box file. It’s full of papers, some of which Marianne has seen before. Letters from the life insurance company. Copies of police reports and statements. A coroner’s report and a death certificate. The end of a whole life summarised in just a few pieces of paper.
Paperwork was never Marianne’s forte, she had enough of that at school. Greg took care of everything, jokingly pushing forms in front of her to sign like he was the harried secretary of an important CEO. ‘Time is money, Marianne, just sign the thing!’
And then her mother had taken his place in the immediate aftermath. It would fall to her mum, wouldn’t it, if something were to happen to Marianne. She casts a guilty eye at the bags of unopened letters. Right now, no one is on top of things.
There’s a copy of a claim form that Marianne remembers having to sign sometime after Greg’s funeral. Her mum’s curly handwriting, spelling out Greg’s name, the cause of death, the policy number. Love displayed through diligence, the only method her mother knows. The life insurance policy they were claiming on is here too. Where had her mum found that? The memories from that time are patchy and pockmarked.
Next, there’s a letter explaining that the pay-out would be made to the deceased person’s estate. It sounds so formal and fancy, so at odds with Greg. His prized possessions were his old vinyls and the wedding ring that she now wears on a necklace. She touches it gingerly. He’d practically vibrated with nerves and excitement when she first pushed it onto his finger, in front of bemused friends and family who didn’t understand the choice of music: ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ performed by Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsborough. The breathless French duo singing of the kind of wild love Marianne and Greg had then. A love that would outrun everything.
God, they were young.
Marianne picks up the policy document again. It’s a straightforward life cover policy, enough to pay off the mortgage and keep the lights on if one of them should die. No, wait. She looks closer; this isn’t a joint policy, this is cover for Greg alone.
She looks again at the date. It was taken out just a few days before Greg died.
Sam
I clean and polish my tools for what I hope is the last time. Soaking them in vinegar, then applying baking soda, then lemon juice. Drying gently with a brand new cloth, firm and deliberate strokes. The way I was taught long ago.
I take my time over this. Knowing I will dispose of all of these soon means it’s even more important to do a perfect job.
Afterwards, I inspect my work, holding each item up to the light with gloved hands. Appraising, as coolly as I can, while trying to find fault. I fix a tiny spot of rust, repeating the vinegar stage. Then I pack them all into their holder, slide it into my pocket and head for the door.
I know everything I need to know about the target in theory. It’s time to get practical.
Marianne
The life insurance policy droops in her shaking hands. Marianne looks again at the date. A dark, urgent vein opens up inside her, poison working its way through to her mind. She tries to ignore it but she can’t, it blooms across her skull. Did Greg know he was going to die?
‘Stop it!’ Marianne calls out before she can stop herself. None of this can be true, none of it. It’s a hoax. An accident killed Greg and no one will kill her. It was prudent to take out life insurance, and normal. Greg was normal! Even as she tells herself this, an itch creeps up her limbs, deep under the skin where her fingers can’t scratch.
Marianne closes her eyes and pictures her thoughts as a nest of ribbons, all knotted together. With her mind’s eye she teases one loose, pulls gently at the biggest, rawest one. Greg’s death. She keeps her eyes screwed shut, her feelings at arm’s length. Greg died and it was an accident. An official accident. The police said so, the coroner agreed and the insurance company had no reason to quibble.
She wraps her cardigan tightly around herself but still feels cold, frozen to her core.
*
As she stands up to make another strong coffee, her knees buckle. How different things had been when she woke up at Noah’s.
Only yesterday but already another lifetime. Noah. She thinks of his breadth, his solidity. His whole life, his whole purpose is to look after his daughter, Daisy, and keep her safe.
Who will keep me safe?
Certainly not her dad. Long dead and long useless before that. Greg could never understand her disinterest in his offers of comfort on the anniversary of her dad’s death. She tried to explain, ‘I don’t miss what I never had.’ Tried to understand that when Greg pictured dads, he obvio
usly pictured his own. Nevertheless every year, Greg was always ready with cuddles and comfort. Just what she could do with now. And home-cooked food. Nurture and nourishment. The basics, more important than anything.
She hopes that she and Noah could become each other’s safety. That out of their cautious beginnings, taken slowly for Daisy’s sake and theirs, they might build something new and lasting. Marianne dares not admit it to anyone, but she pictured them as a family one day. Maybe even growing that family. Maybe. Hopefully. A second chance she didn’t ask for but was holding tentatively nonetheless.
Greg had always been adamant that he didn’t want children. The world was too crowded and too cruel, he’d said. She’d agreed in principle, more or less, pushing down the small voice inside her. The one that said maybe she would like to have a child … and maybe all the good things that still exist in the world are worth sharing. And then her twenties ticked over to her thirties and she started to press her fingers against his certainty, feeling if there might be any room for compromise. There wasn’t, nor was he prepared to even talk about it. It remained an unresolved argument right up until he died.
She orders a takeaway curry through a delivery app. Her hangover and blood sugar crying out for carbs, fat and spice. Technology has enabled her laziness but the tech world is far from a passion. It’s more a necessary evil and always, she blanches, more Greg’s area than hers. After he died, it took months for her to work out how to use the cable box, realising that she’d deferred to him in so many ways she’d become childlike.
Outside, the wind whips the building. The old window frames rattle like teeth. She’s never been scared in Hackney before, not even when someone was mugged just outside. Now every time she catches her reflection in the window she jumps. Today is a house-of-mirrors version of her and Greg’s happiest days. Tucked in the flat, no work and nowhere to be, comfy clothes and a takeaway on the way. That feeling of not being needed anywhere else and of having everything you want right here. This cramped, messy flat had once been the place where they could both fully exhale. A fortress for two. She’d have taken that feeling over any level of wealth or status, they both would.