The Nightmare Place

by Mosby, Steve

  Nine

  After Jane qualified as a volunteer, the sessions at Mayday fell into a familiar pattern almost immediately. While the calls varied in length and content, and there were often unpredictable stretches of boredom in between, when she could sit with a coffee and read, she quickly came to recognise the different types of caller.

  A surprising proportion were men in prison. She had no idea where they got the phones from, especially when the calls came late at night, but the conversations were often lengthy. In some ways, that was good – it made the shifts fly – but there was also the sensation that she wasn’t accomplishing much. She rarely got the impression that the prisoners were in despair, so much as bored: just lonely and killing time. But then there were few rules as to who could phone the helpline, or for what reason. If someone just wanted to chat, then that was fine.

  At least those calls were generally polite and comprehensible, whereas a small number came from people who were so disturbed that it was difficult to communicate with them at all. They usually just talked down the line at her, often in non sequiturs. These conversations all ended in one of two ways. Either the caller took offence at something perfectly innocent that Jane said, or else they hung up in the middle of an abandoned sentence, their voice trailing away, as though they could no longer remember why they had a phone in their hand in the first place.

  The rest of the legitimate callers were … lonely, Jane supposed. Some were literally alone, while others did have people around them but still felt like they were on their own. Many of them had something they couldn’t talk about hidden away inside, and keeping that thing secret hurt them. Infidelity, memories of abuse, financial pressures. Whatever it was, there came a moment when they needed to share it, so they called Mayday to talk to the only person it felt like they could: a stranger, unconnected to their lives.

  And then, of course, there were the sex calls.

  They surprised Jane in two ways. Firstly, there were so many of them. And secondly, she wasn’t as bothered or embarrassed by them as she’d imagined she would be. In fact, she became good at delivering a curt but polite goodbye, and hanging up as soon as she recognised the caller’s intentions. I’m sorry, but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that. She usually managed to inflect a little breezy jolliness into it, even when the call turned nasty.

  You dirty little fucking bitch …

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that.’

  Click.

  I’m going to find you and come all—

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that.’

  Click.

  If anything, she actually got a small kick out of that. A few months ago, she would have had trouble engaging in a conversation at all, never mind taking control of one and ending it. She was getting better. At the same time as her natural empathy helped her fade into the background with the genuine calls, she was also becoming more assertive with the time-wasters. It made her feel strong.

  Whenever she was on shift with Rachel, she usually ended up giving her a lift home afterwards. The girl didn’t live too far away – she had her own small house on the far side of campus – but Jane always offered, and Rachel always accepted. It had taken her a few lifts, with the girl chattering confidently away beside her, to realise that Rachel accepted the rides not because she needed them, but because she seemed to enjoy Jane’s company. For some reason, she thought – then told herself not to.

  One night, she talked to Rachel about the sex calls.

  ‘Why do they do that?’

  Rachel shrugged. ‘There are a lot of freaks in the world.’

  ‘Not that many, surely.’ Jane didn’t like to feel that the world was rammed to the gills with that sort of man. ‘I mean, there were three tonight, and that was just on my line.’

  Rachel considered it. ‘Yeah, but think about it like this. Imagine you’re a man who wants to do that kind of thing. You’re going to call people like us, aren’t you? People who can’t answer back. You’re not going to cold-call the police and do it.’

  Jane laughed. ‘I wish some of them would try.’

  ‘Yeah, me too. But it’s a skewed sample, is what I’m saying. It’s like asking why there are so many injured people in hospital.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Not that I think it’s particularly rare.’

  ‘You think there are lots of them?’

  It was Rachel’s turn to laugh, but it was a hollow one.

  ‘I think there are a lot of men.’

  ‘That’s harsh.’

  ‘Maybe. But I think you’d be surprised. It’s the anonymity, you know? When there are no consequences, people start acting the way they really want to, deep inside. And a lot of men want to do that.’

  That was an unhappy thought.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A million different reasons.’ Rachel shrugged again, as though the details weren’t important. ‘A lot of them, I guess you could probably pick it apart from the story they give you while they’re jerking off down the line. The things they say. But it all basically comes down to the same thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That they hate us.’

  Us meant women, Jane knew. She didn’t want to believe that, but the next time she received a sex call – one of the ones that ended with violent language and threats, the words practically spat down the line at her – she thought that, actually, there was something to what Rachel had said. The man on the other end of this line hates me, she thought. She was someone he’d never met. He knew nothing about her, beyond the fact that she was a woman, and yet a part of him really hated her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she told him, a little glumly, ‘but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that.’

  It was strange, as time went on, how at ease she began to feel in Rachel’s company. Rachel was young, slim and pretty, and she seemed enormously self-assured, from her dyed red hair to her confident manner. She gave the impression that nothing fazed her – that she could walk into any social situation and would feel immediately at home. Why she wanted to spend time with Jane still felt like a bit of a mystery, but after a while Jane convinced herself just to accept it, and began to relax around her.

  One night, she found herself telling Rachel about Peter.

  ‘We’d been together for a couple of years,’ she said. ‘I’d never really questioned it before. I just sort of fell into it.’

  ‘Was he fit?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jane laughed. ‘He was okay, I suppose.’

  ‘Scant praise there. Come on, though. What was it that attracted you to him in the first place?’

  ‘He asked me out, I guess.’

  It came across as a joke, and Jane laughed again, but there was a degree of truth to it. In hindsight, she saw how dull Peter had been, and there wasn’t much more she could say. It’s not funny, though, she thought, because it’s true. Ultimately, she’d gone out with Peter because she was grateful that he’d asked, and she’d stayed with him because she was grateful that he wanted her to. Even in the end, when he was drinking more heavily and they were hardly talking, it had been his decision to leave, and she’d been the one left upset.

  ‘What happened?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘He was always telling me how much of a pushover I was. That I was too timid.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘He was probably right.’

  The split had been her therapist’s fault, which meant, ironically enough, that it was Peter’s. Peter had always resented her father’s influence on her life, weathering his frequent visits with often visibly gritted teeth. When Jane’s father was present, Peter was always aware that he was now only the second most important man in the room. While he hadn’t been glad when the old man died, he had certainly seen it as a chance for Jane to escape that influence.

  In the most bitter argument they’d had, he’d claimed not to wa
nt a mouse for a partner. It’s always me that makes the decisions, he told her. You never seem to have an opinion. You’re always … putting yourself out for me.

  She’d been hurt and upset, but thinking about it, he was right. And so finally, more to please him than anything else, she had nervously agreed to book an appointment with a therapist.

  One evening, a short while afterwards, Peter had suggested they go to the cinema to see the latest Jason Statham film. Jane had no interest in doing that, and said so. It had been almost comical, the double-take Peter did. He really wanted to go, he said.

  I hear what you’re saying, Jane told him, but no.

  She had felt very proud as the words left her mouth. Now, she recognised the same tone of voice in the way she ended the sex calls. That evening, she repeated the phrase three times to Peter. They didn’t go to see the new Jason Statham film, and he sulked. I think you’re probably drinking too much, she told him a few days afterwards. I’m only saying it because I worry about you. A couple of months later, it was all over and he’d moved out. Apparently he had wanted to be in a relationship with a mouse after all.

  Jane laughed as she said that, and this time the humour was more genuine. Rachel gave a wry smile in return, but then shrugged again.

  ‘You see?’ she said. ‘Men.’

  When Jane wasn’t at the helpline, it came as a surprise to her that she was often physically alone without ever actually feeling lonely. The flat she’d had since leaving university had always been too small and cramped for her to live in with Peter. Maybe it had been okay to begin with, when they’d been happy pressed up tightly, side by side, but in the later stages of their relationship that feeling had reversed and the place had become claustrophobic. Without him, it was just right again, as though it had been holding its breath for months, and could now finally get the air it needed.

  Perhaps that was true of her, as well. After all this time, it was a revelation for Jane to discover that she really didn’t mind her own company. She wasn’t that bad.

  For the first time in her life, she had begun to feel free.

  Actually, it was for the first time before her life. That was at the root of the problem. She had been a dangerously premature baby, and it had been two months before the doctors finally allowed her parents to take their first – and only – child home from the hospital. She had then been a sickly infant, underweight and weak. Her parents were religious; they decided that their tiny daughter’s life was a gift from God, and responded accordingly by wrapping that life in blankets to keep it safe. They had treated her as though any little misstep might break a bone. She was not the kind of little girl who climbed trees.

  Later, on evenings when her peers and her handful of vague friends were out socialising, Jane would be in her room, studying. As a teenager, she was bookish and shy. Even at university, studying French, her year abroad had seen her father phoning every night to make sure she was okay. And until his death last year, all her bank statements had still been sent to her home address; he would open them to make sure she was spending sensibly.

  Her room-mate at university told Jane – affably, but entirely sincerely – that she really needed to tell the man to fuck off. Jane had nodded wearily: she had some sympathy with that position. But she also understood that her father was acting out of love: a crushing kind of love, admittedly – one that pressed in on her from all sides and kept her life small – but love all the same. Anyway, she found it hard to stand up to people at the best of times.

  Now, all that had changed.

  Or was changing, at least. She was self-reliant, alone but happy, and, it turned out, far more capable than she’d ever given herself credit for. It was as though she’d been standing at one end of a high wire over a canyon, afraid to step out and walk carefully across to join everyone else on the far side. Now, not only had she taken the first step, she was more than halfway across – and it wasn’t at all frightening. Even when she stopped and looked down, it didn’t remotely feel like she was going to lose her balance.

  Volunteering at Mayday had been the biggest step, of course, but it had also provided the largest reward. At worst, the shifts were challenges, and Jane had begun to realise that when you forced yourself, not only could challenges be met and conquered, but it felt good when you did it.

  And so, despite the prevalence of the bad calls, she found herself looking forward to her shifts. She was looking forward to one that night.

  Of course, right then, she really had no idea.

  Ten

  I slept fitfully after the nightmare, so got up early, and found myself arriving at the department a little after seven o’clock. The sun was just appearing above the horizon: a pale thumbprint pressed on to the sky, the edge burning where it touched the land. A new day. A fresh sheet of hours to fill. I tried to tell myself it would bring a breakthrough of some kind, but there had been too many days now, and none of them had, and I felt despondent.

  Despite the early hour, the incident room was half full. The night-shift workers were stretching, ready to get home, and several I recognised from the day team were already at their stations. None of them paid me any attention as I poured a coffee, then sat down at my desk. There was a pile of actions and reports in my tray, but I doubted any of it would be important. If there had been a key development, someone would have called.

  Obviously, I worked through it anyway. There was a note from pathology that the post-mortem was being rushed through and would take place this morning. I checked my watch. It would actually be in progress now, so fingers crossed we would have the results by midday. Forensics would take longer, of course, but the previous scenes had given us little in that regard, and I wasn’t about to get my hopes up there.

  Next, I found a compendium of witness statements, although to call them that was to mischaracterise them. It was just more of the same from yesterday afternoon: interviews with Sally Vickers’ friends, family and neighbours, none of whom had reported any concerns in the time leading up to her murder. Assuming Sally had been stalked in advance of the attack, she either hadn’t been aware of it, or hadn’t reported it to anybody. Turning a page, I was betting on the former. Our man was too careful for that …

  Or was he?

  I read the final sheet in the tray for a second time. This one wasn’t a witness statement. Some enterprising officer had dug back through reports on Sally’s neighbourhood and found something potentially much more interesting. There was a nursery at the bottom of her street, and a week ago, staff there had alerted the police that someone had been spotted loitering nearby. He was described as a physically large man, possibly in his thirties, with a beard and wild hair. A sweep was done over the following few days, and an officer had identified the individual and confronted him. The man denied he’d been in the area before, and claimed to have just stopped to check his phone while out walking. In the event, there wasn’t much the officer could do, but he made it clear that it would be wise for the man to absent himself from the area in future. But not before he’d identified him. The man had given his name as Jonathan Pearson, which had been verified from the driver’s licence he was carrying.

  Don’t get your hopes up, Zoe.

  But it was impossible not to. I turned to my computer and pulled up a search for Pearson, establishing quickly that he had no criminal record of any kind, certainly not for child-related offences. So why were you there, Jonathan? From another database, I accessed an online copy of his driver’s licence, and studied the photograph there. He was exactly as described: a full beard, and long black hair, which for this picture had been tied tightly back into a ponytail.

  I scrolled down until I found his address – and read it with a slight start. Paydale Lane. Right in the heart of the Thornton estate, where I’d grown up. Just a coincidence, of course, but not a pleasant one. I didn’t exactly relish the prospect of going back there.

  I scrolled up again to view Pearson’s face, then took a moment to stare into his eyes
. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but I felt a tingle inside.

  This is something.

  I checked my watch: just after half seven. Chris would be in shortly, and I knew I should wait for him before heading out. Apart from anything else, the thought of going into Thornton alone didn’t fill me with joy. Regardless, though, I should wait.

  Should.

  You might miss him, though.

  That was true – Pearson could be heading out to work soon. And that was really all the excuse I needed. I searched around the desk for a pen, and quickly scribbled a note for Chris.

  Time to go back home.

  As I approached it, my impression of the Thornton estate now was that it looked more like a campsite than a proper part of the city. I saw the generators first, stored in long corrugated-iron crates, behind chain-link fences topped with curls of razor wire; then came the initial spread of houses. They were uniformly ugly – flat-topped, single-storey concrete blocks, with pale faces and grey pebble-dashed sides – and weren’t so much terraced as oddly conjoined: stuck together in random clusters of twos, threes and fours. The breaks in between formed a web of thin roads and footpaths, all but indecipherable to non-residents.

  I kept to the main road for a while, driving past the face of the estate. The verges were dirty and unkempt, with circles and squares of grass missing, where the council-provided bins and poles had been uprooted. It was less than a mile, but seemed to go on for ever. Just before I reached the end, I indicated left, and took the last turning that would take me into the estate proper.

  On the journey over, I’d been trying to kid myself that it was no big deal, but of course, now that I was here, that wasn’t remotely true. The place hummed with familiarity; so little had changed that it felt as though no real time had passed. I remembered the grey fronts of the houses, cracked with disrepair and dotted with fans in meshed cages that looked scorched and burned. Broken pipes spattered water directly on to the flagstones, while sickly brown stains stretched down the walls from the rotting wooden canopies above. Many of the windows I drove past lacked curtains, and some were plastered with overlapping sheets of old newspaper. With the car window wound down, I could hear the muffled sound of televisions and radios, the louder noise of raised voices. I might as well have grown up here yesterday.