Trap Door: the creepiest psychological suspense you will read this year

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  When my eyes focus, I understand why the dog’s acting as if it knows me. That’s because he does. Hanging from his collar is a silver tag. On it is his name.

  ‘Ray,’ I say with astonishment as I sit up.

  Ray is Philip’s dog.

  For a moment there’s no sense of danger. No fire or smoke. Simply me and Ray hugging, a moment shared between friends who have been separated for too long. He’s a Yorkshire terrier who looks like he’s sporting a brown beard. Still as bouncy but the age is plain in his coat. So it wasn’t Scrap after all, but Ray. What I don’t understand is why is Philip’s dog here? And where exactly is here?

  I look around as Ray licks my bruised hands. I figure out this must be where Michael’s mum is staying at night. I come full circle again – why would she have Philip’s dog? But that’s the least of my worries; I need to get out of this burning building. Dancing in a frenzy as he barks, Ray follows me as I run over to the window. Throw it open and fill my lungs with fresh oxygen. Then I prepare to scream with all my might.

  I hesitate as I peer down. There’s no-one on the street below to shout out to. What makes my scream die is there’s no sign of smoke or flames flicking and blazing from the building. On the other side of this apartment, a quick scan through those windows shows there’s no sign of fire there either. Perhaps it went out? Or perhaps there was smoke without fire. Michael playing more of his dirty games with me, except this time I suspect I was meant to be knocked out of the game for good with no way of getting out from the basement. He obviously doesn’t know the secrets of this former sweatshop as well as he thinks.

  My natural instinct is to hunch low to pick Ray up and get out of here as fast as possible. Michael’s mother could be in this flat somewhere. But it’s silent apart from Philip’s dog and me. A quick tour of the flat shows no-one else is around. I take my chance and search the rooms while borrowing her charger for my phone.

  There’s very little in the way of personal effects. The flat has an air about it that suggests someone’s moved in for a while with no intention of staying permanently, almost like a hotel suite. At first my search is determined and savage. I throw things around and rifle through a sideboard in the hunt for information that would bring me closer to Michael and his mother. And Philip.

  But there is none.

  In the compact bedroom, the wardrobe holds a selection of clothes that are a mixture of smart-professional, some more classy, but all are expensive. A rummage through her bedside drawers draws a blank. I yank the mattress off her bed to see if anything is tucked away from prying eyes. There isn’t.

  Ray watches me and looks worried as if he knows that this search isn’t the right thing to do but loves me too much to say so. I look at his soft face that’s rumpled by age but which I remember so well.

  He follows me into the kitchen and becomes excited when I take down tins of doggy food from a cupboard and whimpers with disappointment when I put them back. Michael’s mum can’t have gone far. Even the wicked witch of the east wouldn’t leave Ray in here to starve. I conjure up her weeping in the night, Ray’s wailing. Two tortured souls together. Actually, three of us if you count me too.

  My hunt loses momentum. So I find out who Michael’s mum is? So what? According to my dad, she was Danny’s secretary with whom he had an affair and then kicked to the kerb. Of course there’s no evidence that’s true. I don’t believe my dad anymore. Anyway, what’s a picture of her going to prove? That Michael has a mother? What’s a name going to mean?

  My search grinds to a halt. I pick up Ray and carry him to the front door of the flat. Of course it’s locked. Behind it is the staircase that leads down to the first floor and Michael and Joan’s offices. There’s no way out through there. That means going back the way I came. I hesitate. My arms tighten around this gorgeous generous dog. What am I going to do with Ray? I can’t take him down through the trap door parallel universe that runs through the walls. Or keep him in a locked basement full of smoke.

  I place him on the ground and lie on my belly so that I’m eye-to-eye with my tiny friend. ‘Listen, Ray, I’m going to have to leave you here for now. But I’ll come back for you – is that all right?’

  He doesn’t seem sure as his tongue caresses the tip of my finger before I scramble to my feet. I collect my phone and open the door in the living room that leads back to the basement. With the light from the room, it’s obvious there’s a simple pulley to open the trap door that I thought wouldn’t open. When I open it, Ray becomes frantic. He barks at me and scampers off towards the bedroom. He howls. What’s the matter with him?

  In the bedroom, I find Ray standing over a small photo frame, its glass lying scattered on the floor. I must have knocked it off without noticing during my search. Inside is a photo.

  It’s an intimate family photograph with a lush English garden as its backdrop. It’s springtime. Roses are blooming and fresh green leaves hang lazily from trees. At the front are two small boys smiling as if no-one’s told them yet that the world is full of invisible trap doors. One is Michael. The other… My breath sticks way deep in my throat. Philip. The other is Philip. Standing behind them and slightly to the left, with a tenderly and motherly hand on each of the boys’ shoulders is their mother.

  Joanie.

  Forty

  Joanie is Philip and Michael’s mother.

  Michael is Philip’s brother.

  Joanie’s got Philip’s dog living with her upstairs, which is where I’ve left him.

  It’s a triple whammy! Still no link to my dad other than what he told me.

  The unframed photo of Joanie, Michael and Philip is like dynamite in my hand. I pin it next to the adult picture of Philip on the wall. I’m back in the storeroom. Surprise, surprise! There’s no more smoke. Michael probably rented a smoke machine like you get in a theatre to scare the crap out of me. Not just Michael, I remind myself, but Joanie too.

  A wave of sorrowful despair descends over me. That Joanie was no friend at all. She played an on-point game, I’ll give her that. The Stare comes back to me. The way her dead-eyed gaze bore into me with such hatred as if she wanted to lunge forward and squeeze the very light out of me until I was a limp lifeless shell slumped in my chair. Why? I still can’t make head nor tail of her motivation. Is this part of her and Michael’s revenge against Dad, as he claims, for an imagined slight against Danny? No. The hate she threw at me was very very personal. Why would a woman who I’ve only just met hate me so much?

  I round on Philip’s pinned photo on the wall. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about your relationship to Danny? That he was your father?’ My words are heated. For the first time I’m pissed with him, crazy angry. Then my tone drops with agonising heartbreak. ‘I didn’t drive you to kill your dad, did I?’

  But I know it’s true. It leaves me wretched and aching. I know what Danny was, but to push a son into killing his own father. I’m not religious but even I know that’s one of the most abhorrent sins. Don’t go there, Rachel. Sensible inner me is back. You never told him to do anything. Philip did what he did because it was the right thing to do. Sometimes only a wrong can make it all right.

  Still, it’s a weight I carry across my slumped shoulders. I pivot from Philip’s face. My first instinct is to confront Dad – again – this time about why he deliberately rubbed out Philip in his telling of Danny’s story. Didn’t mention that Philip was Danny’s son. Michael’s brother. Lies, lies, and more damned lies.

  Something else occurs to me. What if Dad was trying to save me from further hurt about Philip? Hiding the fact that he has the blood of a man who preyed on women running through his veins. I’m so confused about Dad’s role in all of this.

  My head’s pounding, so I dose up with two squirts of weed oil and down a BB. Then I make my way to the courtyard in the back. The grill is still blocked by the vehicle, so I stand in the ink-stained gloom. I move closer until I’m caressing the length of my faithful rope. The air from outside still seeps through, wrap
ping me in a cocoon of cold that makes me run my palms up and down the frozen skin of my arms.

  I’m praying that this hostile air will help me. If air’s coming in, it means something else can travel in as well. The waves, or whatever they’re called, I need to use my mobile phone. I was in such a twisted state earlier my brain wasn’t able to make the connection. The connection. Now that makes me smile although I know I have no business doing that in this terrible situation.

  I take out my mobile. Two-bar reception. I pray hard it’s enough to connect to Keats. I do a mighty jubilant air punch when the dialling tone buzzes in my ear. Come on, Keats, answer the bloody phone. It keeps ringing and ringing and…

  ‘Keats, I’ve figured out what’s going on.’ I don’t give her an opportunity to speak. ‘I managed to get to the room upstairs.’ I don’t go into the ins and outs of how I did it. ‘I found a photo of Michael with Joanie and Philip. Joanie’s their mother. She’s been in this with Michael from the beginning—’

  Keats manages to finally jump in. ‘I know—’

  ‘What?’ I freeze in stunned shock.

  ‘I tried to call you, but your phone was only going to voicemail.’ Of course it had; I’d been inside the building where my mobile has zero reception. ‘Joanie’s been playing a very dirty game. Pretending to be your mate while in league with her eldest son all the time.’

  My bewildered thoughts turn back to Keats. ‘How did you join the dots of Joanie being the mother of Michael and Philip?’

  ‘Your house. They all lived in your house—’

  ‘What? Michael, Philip and Joanie?’

  I hear her ragged breathing and the sound of cars. ‘I can’t talk much now.’

  ‘Where are you?’ My racing mind goes through what she’s just told me like an archaeologist sifting through the bones of my past. I join more dots. Dad’s friend who needed to sell his house must’ve been Danny who had housed his secret family there. But why make them leave?

  ‘I’ve borrowed another car.’ I wonder whose car she’s taken this time. ‘I’m on my way to Surrey.’

  A frown drags my brows down. ‘Surrey? Why are you going there?’

  ‘I’ll explain everything tomorrow.’

  That gives me an attack of the nerves and leaves me feeling frustrated. ‘Why can’t you tell me now?’

  ‘Because I want to make sure I’ve got this totally right.’ There’s a hitch in her voice, an awkward change of pace. ‘I can only tell you if I’m absolutely sure. There’s something else I need to tell you.’ I wait. ‘Michael has put the company into liquidation. I got a text from him where the upshot is I’m sacked. If he’s fired me I suspect he’s given the zombies their marching orders too.’

  ‘I never got a text from Michael.’

  Keats audibly inhales. ‘That’s what I thought. Don’t go anywhere near those two lying bastards. I want you to get out of there now. Do you hear me, Rachel? Get out of there. I’ll call you in the morning at eight…’

  The line goes dead. I call and call Keats but I can’t get her back.

  I rush into the basement to use the one and only landline on Keats’s desk. I stagger to a stop. The phone on her desk, any of the desks, is gone. I was in such a mad panic earlier I never noticed. Did Michael and Joanie sack their so-called workforce because they knew they were going to trap me down here? Alone. No means of escape. Was their intention to block the back exit and the trap door, to leave me buried alive here to die slowly day after day?

  But I know something that those two morons don’t – I have found a way out of here. In fact I’ve discovered another way to get out too. I suspect this building is filled with many secret exits and entrances. I pack up my gear in a rush. Pull down Philip’s photo. Hesitate as I place the one of his evil family on top. That doesn’t feel right somehow. I didn’t want Michael’s and his mother’s contamination to touch him. So I shove Joanie’s photograph to the bottom of my rucksack.

  I pick up my empty bucket, hooking its handle over my shoulder. My rope hangs from my neck in the position of a snake waiting to be charmed. I look the picture of A Wayfaring Stranger.

  I head into the star trap door again. However, when I reach the second level, instead of going up, I deviate sideways along a dark passage. I might be wrong about this but on the journey down from Joanie’s hideout upstairs, I caught a glint of something shiny standing out in the heavy darkness. If I’m right…

  The claustrophobic foreboding I get from being trapped is still there, but it’s not as all consuming. Who would’ve thought I’d have Joanie and her son to thank for that. Still, I condition my mind and set it to think that the absence of a light doesn’t matter.

  Light doesn’t mean air. Light doesn’t mean air.

  Carefully I set one foot after another. The atmosphere here is dank, the same frostiness I felt run over the back of my neck the first time I stood in front of this building runs over and in me now. An intense musty smell stings in the inside of my nose and mouth, making me cough lightly. I hope there are no rats. A shudder snakes through me. I know they’re God’s creatures too, but if one of those critters comes my way I’m prepared to use my feet and penknife. The shine of what’s ahead of me comes closer. Closer still. Finally I reach it. Look up. There are two of them, square metal handles sitting side by side. I think it’s another trap door.

  The position of the handles confuses me for a time. Why would there be two of them alongside each other? Only one way to find out. I grasp them and push up. Nothing happens. My brain goes into solving mode. I think I’ve got it. I pull both handles sideways in opposite directions. They slide, until hidden, under another floorboard. I look through the rectangular opening; it’s the reception area upstairs. How ingenious is this. Why this former sweatshop has an array of different-shaped trap doors I don’t question, what I do is carefully lever me and my belongings out.

  I remain frozen, listening for noises above stairs. When all I hear is an unsettled hush, I quickly glance around the reception area. How I once found this bright and comforting I will never know. There’s a small wooden cupboard over the trap door, its weight holding the door in place, ensuring I couldn’t lift it. I don’t touch it. Let mother and son think I‘m still imprisoned down under.

  As I head off to the door, my feet suddenly drag as a daring thought – or stupid, it depends on how you look at it – hits me. If Joanie and Michael have indeed got the most evil of intentions towards me, they’d think I’m still here with no way to get out. But I know different; they don’t. What if the safest place for me to be is the most unsafe place of all?

  I go back into the newest secret this building has given me. Curve my fingers around the handles. Snap shut the trap door.

  Forty-One

  I haven’t even tried to sleep for the remainder of the night and the awakening of the early morning. I’ve been resting with my back against the ice-drenched wall, my penknife at the ready in my hand. It’s nearing eight. Time for me to go into the courtyard in the back and wait for Keats’s call. That’s if the reception is being kind to me. If that fails I’ll have no alternative but to make my way out, using the sliding trap door where I’m assured the phone will connect.

  The damn car is still on top of the grill. It can’t be legal the way it’s parked. Why hasn’t a traffic warden alerted the authorities to tow it away? The wardens are usually red-hot in pursuit of their job in this area because it’s the gateway to the City and the trendy shopping areas of Spitalfields, Petticoat Lane Market and Brick Lane.

  The phone rings. I breathe a long sigh of blessed relief.

  I get straight into it. ‘Tell me what you’ve found out.’

  Silence. Then, ‘You’re still there.’ Not a question. I picture Keats’s chin shoving down as she grinds her teeth.

  I fob her off. ‘Look, I don’t have time to explain. Just take my word for it.’

  Silence again. Then the clap-clap-clap of her stomping feet. ‘I’ve reached Surrey. I know exactly wh
at’s going on.’ She sounds breathless, like she’s running or has been running.

  The beat of my pulse joins in her short-winded rhythm. I don’t like what I can’t see on the other end of this call. ‘Keats, what’s going on?’

  ‘I can’t…’ She seems very nervous. ‘I think someone’s following me.’

  I gasp and choke in one fluid motion. I have to lean my back against the wall for support. ‘Who? Why?’ The volume of my voice twists higher. ‘You have to tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I’m hiding in the car park. Or maybe I’m being paranoid.’ I sense her shake her head. ‘Which wouldn’t surprise me because I slept in the car last night here.’

  ‘Where’s here?’ Just bloody well tell me, I want to scream.

  It’s as if she hasn’t heard my question. ‘I’m on the move again because I think I shook the guy off?’

  ‘Do you mean Michael?’ I can’t think of another ‘he’ it could be. Did he figure out that Keats was helping me? What’s he planning to do if he catches up to her?

  ‘Dunno,’ is the terse response that flies back. ‘Just wait for me to get outside then I’ll fill you in.’ Her breath catches. ‘It’s an ugly story, Rachel. Real ugly.’

  The sudden rush of the noise of a car in the background obscures what she’s saying. ‘Speak up, I can’t hear you.’

  ‘I can–’

  The sound of that bloody car keeps cutting up her words. ‘Speak louder—’

  ‘Rachel, you need–’

  The car’s closer now, I hear its engine breathing heavily in the background. There’s the screech of rolling tyres on the road.

  The tone of Keats’s voice changes becoming high and panicked with dread. ‘What the–?’