Never Look Back

by Clare Donoghue

  As she sat back the knotted muscles at the base of her neck throbbed. She couldn’t avoid looking sideways at herself in the large mirror on the opposite wall. Her hair looked awful; split ends stood straight up from her head as if she had been electrocuted. She touched her cheek. It was hot but her reflection showed no warmth, no life at all. The black jacket she had chosen hung off her bones. She knew she had lost weight but until now she hadn’t realized quite how much. Her skinny jeans were baggy, excess material folding around her thighs.

  She turned away, rested her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands, tunnelling her vision. All she could see was the edge of the note and her diary. She began comparing her handwriting to his. Their W was the same, with a slight curve on the final upward stroke of the letter. The depression left by his pen and hers matched. Both were deep, cutting scratches on the page.

  ‘Miss Grainger . . . apologies . . . Sarah.’

  She looked up and saw Bennett’s boss, the tall detective inspector.

  ‘My name is Detective Inspector Mike Lockyer. We met last week.’ He walked into the room, closed the door and took a chair opposite her. The sound of the metal chair legs scraping on the tiled floor sent a shiver right through her. She sat back and looked at him and then at the door. Where was Bennett? She reached out her hand as if in slow motion, and he took it, applying only the slightest pressure. It looked as if he was wearing the same charcoal suit she had seen him in last week. She could see that his shirt hadn’t been ironed, the creases not quite hidden beneath his jacket. He looked tired.

  ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Sergeant Bennett will be along shortly,’ he said.

  ‘OK.’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘I would like to ask you a few more questions,’ he said, taking a notepad and an expensive-looking pen from his jacket pocket. It was the kind of gift you received from a not-so-close friend on a significant birthday. His fortieth maybe.

  ‘Sarah?’

  She realized she was just staring at his pen, not speaking. ‘Yes. That’s fine.’

  ‘How you are feeling?’

  She looked at his face, his eyes, his mouth. There was no hint of a smile, or humour. He was really asking her how she was. Other than Toni, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked her that. ‘I’m . . .’ She wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘I’m OK . . . I’m tired. I’m scared.’

  ‘I understand. It must be very difficult for you. I want you to take your time. If you need a break, please do ask. We’ll do this as quickly as we can. I appreciate how distressing it must be to talk about what is happening.’ He nodded his head and rested one hand on the desk, palm down, fingers splayed, as if reaching out to her. His voice was soft, his words gentle. Despite herself she felt the tears coming. She swallowed them back and looked up into his face.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  She watched as he reached into his jacket again and pulled out a handkerchief. He passed it to her and smiled. Such a simple gesture; but at that moment it felt like the first time in her life someone had shown her any kindness. The Grainger family were tough. You didn’t cry, you didn’t shout. Nothing warranted a scene, an unnecessary show of emotion. ‘Buck up,’ her father would say, ‘worse things happen at sea.’ He had been repeating the same phrase since her childhood. It had never made sense when she was a little girl, running to her father when she had fallen and scraped her knee, and it didn’t make sense to her now. She took the handkerchief and held it under her eyes. It smelled of washing powder. She hadn’t seen anyone use an old-fashioned-style handkerchief in years. Her grandfather used to have one. With a loud snort he would pretend to blow his nose, the crisp white material flapping around his face. It used to be their in-joke.

  ‘Can I get you anything? A glass of water . . . tea?’ he asked.

  Sarah composed herself. ‘No, I’m fine. Thank you.’ She pushed her shoulders back and placed her hands in her lap, pulling the handkerchief between her fingers. It felt soft.

  ‘I’ve read Sergeant Bennett’s report from your meeting last week. Is this the note you received?’ he asked, pointing at the piece of paper on the table.

  ‘Yes.’

  He turned it around to face him, barely touching the edges. He studied it and made some notes before pushing it away with the end of his pen. ‘When did you receive it?’ he asked.

  ‘Saturday evening, the day after I saw Sergeant Bennett and talked to you,’ she said.

  ‘At what time, approximately?’

  ‘About six o’clock. I called Sergeant Bennett. She phoned me back yesterday to say she wanted to see me this morning.’

  ‘That’s right. OK. What I would like to establish today is what has occurred, in what order and, if possible, why.’

  ‘I don’t know why . . .’ She felt her chest tighten. She didn’t know if she could go through it all again. She took a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling.

  ‘It’s all right, Sarah. In your previous statement you said contact began approximately six months ago. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes. Like I told Sergeant Bennett, I didn’t notice at first. It was just little things. Phone calls. Someone ringing my doorbell. My car was tampered with.’ She watched as he made scribbled notes. His handwriting was worse than hers. His other hand was at the nape of his neck, pulling at something beneath his shirt.

  ‘When you say “tampered with”?’ he asked, lifting his pen as an accompanying gesture to his question.

  ‘It was nothing really,’ she said, feeling weak. ‘Scratches, messing with my wing mirrors, stealing my hubcaps. That kind of thing. One of my neighbours said it was probably just kids.’

  ‘Which neighbour?’

  ‘Ash, he lives five doors down. I don’t actually know his surname. But groups of kids hang around the corner shop in the evenings. He said it was probably them mucking about.’

  ‘Did you report any of this?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I didn’t. These things happen, don’t they? There was never any significant damage. Kids get bored, nothing else to do, so they . . .’ She trailed off. Her explanations sounded ludicrous but he was writing furiously in his little notepad. Maybe he was writing, ‘This woman is an idiot,’ over and over again in shorthand.

  ‘Sarah . . .’ he said.

  She looked up. Again he stretched out his hand on the table top. ‘It’s all right. In cases like yours it is quite common for the individual not to realize what is happening. As you say, you shrug off one incident, you shrug off another. You were not to know, and indeed we don’t know that these incidents are related,’ he said. She noticed his hand go up to his chest again, to touch whatever lay beneath his shirt.

  ‘But, if I had reported it. If I had told someone then, maybe none of this would be happening. I let this happen.’ She covered her face with the handkerchief, shaking her head.

  ‘No, Sarah. This individual who has, for whatever reason, taken it upon himself to harass you is at fault. He is the one who is in the wrong and he has broken the law.’

  Sarah looked into his eyes. They did believe her. They were going to help her. Relief flooded through her body.

  ‘When did you change your car?’ he asked.

  ‘Four months ago, in October.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, as he scribbled down another illegible note. ‘In your meeting with Sergeant Bennett, you said that you received a phone call where the caller said your name. This was also in October? This was the point at which you realized there was a problem?’

  ‘Yes, yes. He just said my name, nothing else.’ The sound of his voice was still as fresh in her mind as if it had happened yesterday.

  ‘And you didn’t recognize the voice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you have no idea who this man might be?’

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘So, other than the phone calls, ringing your door, the incidents with your car and the note, you have never had any ot
her contact with him? You have never seen him?’

  ‘No,’ she said, thinking about the seven minutes of tape she had of the man sitting in his car outside her house. ‘No, I have never seen him.’ This was hard enough. If she brought up the video he would probably have her committed.

  ‘It was after the telephone call that you spoke to Peckham police, to . . .’ He flicked to the back of his notebook. ‘Officer Rayner?’

  ‘Yes. He told me to keep a journal, to record all the phone calls, the knocks at the door. Officer Rayner wasn’t . . . he didn’t seem . . .’ She searched for the right words. She didn’t want to be sent away. ‘He didn’t believe me.’

  ‘It’s OK, Sarah,’ he said, his eyes soft, understanding. ‘At which point would you say that matters escalated?’

  ‘Only in the last couple of weeks. I used to get calls once a fortnight, maybe once a week. But then he started to call every night and then last week . . .’ She could barely stand to think of that night. ‘He called five times in one night, all through the night.’

  ‘And this was Thursday the 23rd of January. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, he left a voice message. I played it to Sergeant Bennett . . . he said . . . it was difficult to hear but he said something about someone being cold and helping, I can’t remember exactly.’ She stopped speaking, unable to continue.

  ‘I’ve heard the message, Sarah. It’s all right.’

  Sarah tried to speak but her mouth had gone dry.

  ‘You’re a freelance photographer, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, for the last five years, give or take,’ she said, her eyes stinging.

  ‘What kind of clients do you normally work with?’

  His voice was calm and restrained. She wanted to shout, to scream that she didn’t want to answer any more questions. She wanted to lie down and sleep and when she woke up she wanted all of this to be over.

  ‘Sarah?’ he prompted.

  ‘I work in the City . . . solicitors, accountancy firms, advertising agencies, large corporate companies, mainly,’ she said, swallowing a rush of bile that was swamping her mouth.

  ‘I see. And are you registered with a local doctor?’ he asked.

  She finally cleared her throat and answered, ‘Yes, Dr Yermolov, Nunhead Surgery.’ What did all this have to do with anything?

  ‘Are you currently taking any prescription medication?’

  ‘No . . . I mean, I was prescribed some Vistaril to help me sleep, but I haven’t been taking it.’ Was he checking that this whole thing wasn’t some elaborate drug-induced hallucination?

  ‘Have you had any medical procedures in the last twelve months?’ he asked.

  ‘I . . . no . . . I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.’ She didn’t understand any of this.

  ‘I mean any surgical procedures,’ he said, his pen poised over his notebook. He looked uncomfortable.

  ‘No. I haven’t.’ She slumped forward and rested her arms on the desk. Without the table she was sure she would just slither to the floor, a boneless, empty shell. She was so confused. So tired. They had barely talked about the note or what it meant but she was already exhausted to the point of passing out, right here, in front of him. Would he leave her to sleep or pick her up and carry her to another room, where she could lie down? She imagined his strong arms around her, protecting her.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Sorry, yes?’ If he had been talking, she hadn’t noticed. Her mind was wandering. She couldn’t stay focused.

  ‘Sarah?’

  She dragged her eyes up to meet his.

  ‘I think it’s time we took a break. I will send an officer in with some tea. Would you like something to eat?’ He was already standing. She couldn’t look up, her head felt too heavy. ‘I’ll get some sandwiches sent down for you. There’s always some left over from the morning briefing. I’ll be back with Sergeant Bennett shortly. You relax for a minute.’

  Before she could say anything he was gone. She let her head fall onto her arms. Her eyelids were so heavy, her mind drifting as she fell asleep.

  Lockyer walked away from the interview room. Sarah Grainger was a totally different woman to the one he had met last week. Had she been that thin? There was an almost waxy sheen to her skin.

  The calls had escalated after Katy’s murder, that much was clear. The tech guys had tried to put a trace on the number without success. Triangulation only worked when the phone was in use and so far it hadn’t been. All they could tell Lockyer was that it was a standard pay-as-you-go mobile phone. There was no way to track the purchase back to its owner.

  The five calls in one night had happened the night after Debbie’s murder. Hodgson’s face flashed into his mind and he heard Phil’s words in his head: ‘He may not have killed like this before but he will have practised. I would imagine that he started with scaring young women. Nothing major, jumping out of bushes or following them home, so they knew he was there.’

  But Grainger’s stalker had been following her for six months, she hadn’t had an abortion to his knowledge and she was, more to the point, still alive. Something about her case didn’t quite fit but that didn’t stop Lockyer quickening his pace. He wanted to speak to Phil and he needed to get permission to arrange some surveillance. He needed to get it sorted now, before Sarah left the building. The threads of this case were multiplying, flying as the momentum increased but, as yet, nothing felt strong enough to hold on to.

  19

  28 January – Tuesday

  Something was wrong. Why was she here again? His hands closed around the bars surrounding the police car park. The metal felt cold but the action was familiar. He had stood right here not four days ago, watching her walk in and waiting for her to walk out again. The blare of a dozen car horns sent fresh pain into his head. He felt unsure.

  What could she possibly gain from coming here? He had thought it might be some kind of game, something private between them, but he didn’t feel confident about that any more. She seemed to have forgotten that he was the only one who could help her, the only one devoted only to her. He felt his cheeks heating at the lie. Of course, there had been others, but none of them had compared to her. He crossed the busy road, ignoring the shouts when his elbow struck a car’s wing mirror.

  The smell of grease was overwhelming as he passed a string of takeaways. Each was serving foods from different parts of the world and yet they all smelled the same. He swallowed and covered his mouth with his hand. The crush of Lewisham’s pedestrians was too much. He stopped and stood, his back pressed flat against the window of a betting shop. The grey of the pavement was barely visible beneath dozens of feet. He looked up at the sky, the clouds heavy and white. The snow the weatherman had promised was on its way. But that wouldn’t slow London’s pace. Nothing did. He closed his eyes, assaulted by the sheer volume and variety of noises. People talking, shouting, screaming. Cars revving, their horns blaring, their exhausts rumbling. As he listened he began to be able to pick out individual sounds, the minutiae of London life. Someone ordering fish and chips, a small child pleading for a bag of sweeties. And then a voice he knew, a sound so beautiful it made his heart ache.

  ‘. . . A bottle of Jack Daniel’s, please.’

  It was her; but where was she? He opened his eyes, his head snapping forward. He looked around him but there were bodies and machinery everywhere, blocking his view. His blood was pounding in his ears as his excitement began to build.

  As he turned towards the police station he saw her. She was standing between some parked cars, her head bobbing from side to side as she looked for a gap in the traffic to cross. He stumbled out of his hiding place, reaching out to her as he got closer, but at the last moment she stepped out, jogged across the road and was gone behind a line of buses.

  He was left only with the sounds of Lewisham, hard and angry.

  20

  30 January – Thursday

  Lockyer bent down, took his house key out of his left sock and let hi
mself into the flat. The run had made him feel better. Just being out in the fresh air, even if it was freezing, had helped to clear his head. Snow had fallen overnight but it hadn’t really settled. The streets on his circuit still looked grey.

  He walked through to the kitchen, poured some coffee beans into the grinder and set it for twenty seconds. As he picked up his dented silver coffee pot he thought again about replacing it but he couldn’t. It made two perfect cups and kept the coffee warm. He ran the pot under the hot tap while he waited for the kettle to boil. His favourite mug wouldn’t fit on the pine stand by the sink, so it had pride of place on top of the microwave. He filled his mug and left it to cool. Bobby loved to drink coffee but he wasn’t allowed to have it hot, just in case he spilt it on himself. Lockyer realized he would be lucky to fit in a visit this week. He picked up his mobile from the kitchen counter and pressed speed dial four.

  ‘Hello, Cliffview.’

  Just hearing Alice’s voice made him smile. How could one person be that cheerful? It wasn’t natural. ‘Hi, Alice, it’s Mike,’ he said, resting his hand against his mug, glad of the heat. He was sweating but his hands were freezing.