The Strangler's Daughter

by Amy Cross

  I wait, listening to the sound of him entering the hallway, and then I hear the front door bumping shut.

  And then silence.

  I think I made it without being spotted.

  I'm ever so slightly out of breath from running up here, but I barely dare breathe now. My door is open just a little, and I stand completely still and silent as I wait for some indication of what Dad's doing down there. By now, he should be taking off his coat and shoes, but I don't hear him doing that at all. Instead, it's as if he's simply standing in the hallway and not doing anything. Why would that be the case?

  My heart is racing.

  Things aren't making sense.

  In my mind's eye, I imagine Dad standing down there. I left the light off, and I don't think he's turned it on, so he must be standing in darkness. There's a large mirror on the wall opposite the stairs. Is he staring at his own reflection, or is he listening for any sign that I'm awake? I feel a flicker of fear in my chest as I realize that maybe I was a little hasty just now. Maybe he did somehow see me.

  Moments later I hear a creaking noise, and I realize that he's going through to the kitchen. The board right in front of the kitchen door has been loose for years, since even before Mum died. I hear a distant click, which must be Dad switching the kitchen light on, and then I hear the tell-tale sound of one of the chairs being pulled out from the table. That means he's sitting down, which seems odd. Wouldn't he get himself a drink first, and maybe even something to eat?

  What's he doing?

  I need to know.

  None of this is normal.

  I should just get into bed and wait until morning before I try to find anything else out, but I know I won't be able to sleep. I'll just end up having another one of those nights where I stare into darkness while trying various positions, and then morning will come and I'll be exhausted. If I just knew for certain that Dad's walk had been nothing more than a simple walk, I'd be able to sleep easily. I need to see what he's doing down there in the kitchen.

  I need to be brave.

  I pull the door open and step out onto the landing. I suppose I can always claim that I got up to use the bathroom, or to get a glass of water, so I start very carefully making my way down the stairs. I feel so incredibly nervous right now, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that nothing's wrong, and by the time I get down into the hallway I feel as if my heart is set to explode. Still, I take a couple of steps toward the kitchen door, and I stop just short of the creaking board as I peer through.

  Dad's sitting at the table, staring at his own hands. He's slowly closing and opening his fists, and he seems fascinated by the process. I watch him, fascinated by the sight of him, until – as if he noticed something subconsciously – he turns and looks straight at me.

  We stare at each other, but I can see from his stony-faced expression that maybe my fears were justified after all. I step forward, and the board creaks under my bare right foot as I step into the doorway. My heart is pounding in my chest, but I know now that I can't simply get a glass of water and pretend that's all I came down for. I have to face the truth. From the look in his eyes, I think he knows full well what's coming next.

  “Dad?” I say cautiously. “Did it happen again?”

  Chapter Six

  Ten years ago

  “Can I watch TV?” I ask, as I sit on the end of the bed in the hotel room and stare at the blank screen on the wall.

  When Mum doesn't answer, I turn and look over at the bathroom door, just as she comes out. She's dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, and I see that she's cleaned away most of the mascara. When we checked into the hotel a short while ago, she had mascara all around her eyes and smeared down her cheeks. I could tell that the guy on the reception desk knew something was wrong, but he didn't ask any questions.

  “Sure you can, honey,” Mum says, going to her bag on the bed and reaching in to search for something. “What whatever you want. Nothing that costs, though.”

  “Okay.”

  “I've got such a headache,” she mutters.

  I grab the remote and press to turn the TV on, although I'm a little annoyed to find that it doesn't work. I try again. The red light flashes at the bottom of the screen, but nothing else happens. I try several more times, mashing the button down harder and harder, but the whole thing seems not to be working.

  I want to feel normal, and watching TV makes me feel that way.

  “Mum,” I say, “can you call reception and ask them to come and fix the TV?”

  She doesn't say anything. I turn and look over at her, and I see that she's staring at her phone again. I crane my neck a little, and I can just about make out the number 999 on the screen. We're not sick, and there's no fire, so she must be planning to call the police, although I don't understand why she'd do that. I wait, but she seems indecisive. She taps to connect the call, but she only lets it ring for a fraction of a second before cutting it off. She hesitates, and then she turns to me.

  “Just try to make it work,” she says. “You're a smart girl, I'm sure you'll figure it out.”

  As she walks past me, I try the remote control again, but it's still not working. I get to my feet and head over to take a closer look at the TV, and then I lean around the back to check the wires. I've sometimes managed to fix things at home when the TV and the Sky box won't talk to each other, but this set-up looks a little more complicated and I'm worried that I might accidentally make things worse. I crane my neck to get a better look at all the wires, but I genuinely don't quite understand what they're all for.

  And then I hear a bumping sound.

  Leaning back from behind the TV, I see that Mum's leaning against the wall. She has her back to me at first, but slowly she turns and there's a strange, slightly bewildered expression on her face. She stares at me, and then she lets the phone slip from her hand.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She simply stares at me, and then she lets go of the wall and takes a single, faltering step toward the bed. She's swaying slightly, as if she's not really very steady on her feet, and then she stops again.

  “Mum?” I say cautiously. “What is it?”

  She looks down at the bed, as if she's completely confused, and then she turns to me. Her lips tremble, as if she's about to say something, and then she looks up to the ceiling. She stares at the light fitting for a moment, before tilting backward and falling. Her head bangs hard against the side of the dresser, and then she lands hard on the floor.

  Chapter Seven

  Today

  “You don't know what it's like,” he says, staring at his hands as we sit opposite one another at the kitchen table, “to have this... need ... trapped in your soul. This physical yearning, this hunger, this sense that you'll die if you don't somehow find a way to feed it. No-one could keep it inside forever, Lisa, it has to come out occasionally, it just...”

  His voice trails off.

  I don't know what to say.

  “It has to,” he continues eventually. “It just has to.”

  He slowly closes his fists, and then he waits briefly before opening them. He seems obsessed by the sight of his hands, and when I look at them I realize that they seem almost larger somehow. Stronger. They look like hands that could cause real damage to someone. Like hands that have been used for something serious. Like hands that could crush stone.

  “Where did you go?” I ask.

  “Kemberside,” he replies, looking at me again. “I took the car, I went quite a way away. Don't worry, I didn't do it close to home. That'd be risky.”

  “Kemberside's not that far,” I point out.

  “It's far enough, Lisa. Don't split hairs.”

  “I thought you were gone for quite a while,” I tell him. “I didn't hear the car, though.”

  “I parked it a little way off earlier,” he explains. “In the afternoon. I thought back then that maybe I might need it.”

  “So you were planning to do this all day?”

  “
No, absolutely not. I just felt... I knew I might weaken.”

  “So when you said you were going for a walk,” I continue, “you meant it?”

  “At the time.” He pauses. “As soon as I was outside, though, I knew what I was really going to do. I'm sorry, Lisa, I'd never lie to you. It's just hard to be honest with other people when you're lying to yourself.”

  I take a deep breath. I want to run upstairs and hide in my room. That's what I did ten years ago, when this last happened, but now I'm twenty-five years old. Being twenty-five means I'm an adult, which means it's harder for me to run away from the truth. At the very least, I need to understand exactly what Dad did tonight, and why? I can't just let him fob me off and tell me to go to bed.

  “So you went to Kemberside,” I say cautiously. “How long were you there for?”

  “An hour, give or take.”

  “And what did you do there?”

  He meets my gaze, and it's almost as if he's about to admonish me for asking such a stupid question. Or maybe he just knows that I've guessed exactly what he did there.

  “I parked,” he says, “and I waited.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  He nods.

  “And?”

  I wait, but it's as if it hurts him to speak.

  “Was it a woman?” I continue. “Was it a woman, walking alone?”

  He pauses, and then he nods again.

  I close my eyes. In a flash, I imagine the sight of Dad sitting in his dark car and watching a woman walk past. Kemberside is a very rural place, a tiny village, much smaller than where we live. There are really only two roads there at all, plus a gas station and a supermarket a little way out of town.

  I open my eyes.

  Dad's staring at me.

  “You don't need to know about it,” he says. “Not the details. Just... stay away from the news for a few days, okay? Just keep yourself to yourself and it'll die down pretty quickly. Everything's going to be okay if you just forget about it.”

  “But this woman, did you -”

  “I don't want to talk about it, Lisa,” he says, interrupting me. He leans back in his chair, and he seems more animated, as if he's shifted up a gear or two. “I didn't want you to know at all. I thought I'd just come in and go to bed, and we'd wake up in the morning and you wouldn't suspect a thing.” He pauses. “That's how it used to be. What were you even doing, creeping about late at night?”

  “I was just a kid then,” I remind him. “I didn't notice things as much when I was fifteen.”

  “You did eventually.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I did.”

  He's staring at me with accusing eyes now, as if he thinks that it's my fault for noticing what he was doing all those years ago. And, to be honest, maybe he's right. If I didn't know, I'd be so much happier.

  We sit in silence, and I'm starting to realize that this is probably all the information I'm going to get. I remember having a similar conversation ten years ago, when Dad last did something like this. Back then, he reassured me over and over that it would never happen again, and I believed him. I was fifteen, and I was easily influenced, but now I'm older and I feel like I should say something more. At the same time, I want to do what I did ten years ago. I want to take his word for it, and I want to forget.

  “Just keep quiet about everything, okay?” he says, with a hint of fear in his voice. “No-one can know about this, Lisa. Can you imagine what would happen if I got taken away? Can you imagine what your life would be like? You can't live alone, you're too... Well, you know what I mean.”

  I stare at him, and then I nod.

  He's right.

  “I've got it all under control,” he continues. “I just had to let it out again, just once, just for one night, but it's back under control now. That's all you need to focus on. Now our lives can go on as normal. I just need you not to stress me, Lisa, because it's stress that brings all of this bubbling back up.”

  I pause, and then I nod again. Ten years ago, similar words made me feel so much better. Now, however, something's different. Now I can't help wondering exactly what Dad did tonight, and who he did it to. For some reason, I can't help wondering what she looked like. What was her name? And what did he look like, while he was doing it to her? Was he smiling? Was he snarling? Was his face blank?

  “Go to bed, darling,” he says. “Go to bed and tomorrow everything will be alright. I'm sorry if I woke you, that wasn't my intention. Just go to bed now and I promise things will seem fine in the morning. We'll go right back to how things have always been. We'll try to have some fun, to take our minds off it.”

  I hesitate, before realizing that maybe he's right. After all, he's always been right before. I get to my feet, but as I do so I scrape the chair legs against the floor. I flinch and look at Dad, expecting him to make some kind of comment, but instead he simply offers me a fake, weak smile. He must be really preoccupied, because ordinarily he gets really annoyed by the sound of chair legs scraping on the floor. He usually tells me to be more careful.

  I turn and head to the doorway.

  “You know I love you, Lisa, don't you?” he says.

  I stop and look back at him.

  “It's you and me against the world, right?” he continues. “You remember that, don't you? Of course you do. Goodnight, darling.”

  I stare at him.

  “Goodnight, Dad,” I say after a few seconds. “I love you too.”

  As I make my way upstairs, however, my head is swirling with all sorts of thoughts. Ten years ago, this was easy. Ten years ago Dad calmed me down and made everything seem okay, with mostly the same words he used tonight. Why is it different this time? Is it just that I'm older? Dad always says that I'm a little slow in the head, that I shouldn't expect myself to react the same way other people would react. As I reach the top of the stairs, however, I stop as I realize that I can hear a strange sound coming from downstairs.

  Turning, I look down toward the hallway, and I have to listen for a couple of seconds before I realize exactly what I'm hearing.

  Dad's crying.

  I don't remember him crying much before, the last time that this happened, but I suppose maybe I just didn't notice. Or maybe he hid it from me better. Now, however, I can really hear him sobbing, and I have to hold myself back from rushing down to comfort him. Again, that's something that I would have done when I was younger, if this situation had arisen, but something's very different this time. In fact, I think I'm starting to realize that I have changed over the past decade. Despite everything Dad has ever told me, I've actually been able to grow up. And now, as I stand and listen to him continuing to weep, one thought among all the others seems to be becoming the loudest in my head.

  Dad has started killing again.

  Chapter Eight

  Ten years ago

  The guy at the reception desk is tapping at his phone as the doors slide open and I step through. He glances at me, then he looks back at his phone, then he looks at me again.

  “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “I...”

  I'm really not sure what to say. I suppose I should tell him about Mum collapsing, and about the fact that I've tried to wake her up and that I haven't had any luck. I should tell him that I couldn't find a pulse when I checked the side of her neck, but for a few seconds I'm not really sure how to get those words out. Or, rather, I don't want to say the words because I don't want them to be real. I get things wrong so often. Isn't it possible that I'm wrong again?

  “Can I get you anything?” the man says. “Does everything work in the room?”

  I stare at him.

  “The TV doesn't work,” I say.

  He stares back at me.

  “Right,” he says. “I don't know how to fix that, I'm just the -”

  “And my mother collapsed.”

  I wait.

  He continues to stare at me.

  “She's on the floor,” I continue, as I notice that the light above me is buzzing qu
ite loudly. “I can't get her to open her eyes.”

  “When you say she collapsed,” he says cautiously, “what exactly do you mean?”

  “I think she needs an ambulance.”

  I wait, but he seems a little unsure as to what he should do next.

  “I think she needs an ambulance,” I say again.

  “Did something happen to her?” he asks.

  “I told you, she collapsed.”

  He hesitates, and then he turns to the phone and starts dialing. He's keeping a curious eye fixed on me, as if he's still not quite sure about what's happening. I get the feeling that maybe he hasn't been working here very long, that maybe he's not quite sure of his duties and responsibilities.

  “Yeah, hi,” he says, before turning away from me slightly, “this is Alex Richmond at the Bell Road Hotel in Kemberside. I need an ambulance for a guest who's fallen ill, please.”

  As he continues to talk to the person on the phone, I look over my shoulder toward the stairs that lead up to the first floor. I want to believe that Mum's going to be okay, that even now she's sitting up. Maybe she'll be mad at me for fetching help, but I really don't think that I could have done anything else. I hear the guy at reception asking me some questions, but I ignore him as I think about Mum on the floor in the room. This whole night is really strange, and I genuinely don't know what's happening. I wish I could be smarter. I wish I could be like everyone else.

  I hear a clicking sound, and I turn to see that the guy has put the phone down.

  “They're on their way,” he says, and then he stares at me for a few more seconds. “Hey,” he adds, “is there anyone you want me to call? A family member, maybe?”

  Chapter Nine

  Today

  “Come on, Lisa, this'll be fun,” Dad says with a grin the next morning, as I follow him across the village green. “You spend every morning watching TV. Let's do something different for a change.”