The Strangler's Daughter

by Amy Cross

  Why did Mum write a phone number at the bottom of an article about a murder case?

  I glance back at the house, to make sure that Dad's not watching, and then I carefully tear the number away. I drop the rest of the newspaper back into the container, and then I head inside.

  Dad's still upstairs, so I head to the front room. I know I shouldn't sneak around, but I really want to know what was going through Mum's mind in her final days, so I very carefully grab the phone and dial the number on the piece of paper. Whatever this number is about, it's definitely scribbled in Mum's handwriting. She must have thought that it was important.

  “Hello,” an automated voice says, on the other end of the line, “you've reached the National Anonymous Crime Reporting Network. If you have information about a crime and you want to provide it to police anonymously, wait for the beep at the end of this message and then state the information clearly. If you need to re-record your message at any time or for any reason, press the star button on your handset or mobile telephone. Your name and phone number will not be linked to any information that you provide.”

  I wait, and a fraction of a second later there's a loud beeping sound.

  Realizing that I'm being recorded, I cut the call. My mind is racing as I start worrying that someone might trace the phone number, but then I remind myself that the message specifically said that all calls were anonymous.

  Staring at the phone, I can't help wondering why Mum had written down a phone number that's used to report crimes.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Today

  “Are you going out again tonight?” I ask as we sit at the dinner table.

  I wait, but Dad doesn't answer, not immediately. Looking over at him, I can't shake the feeling that he seems distracted. Is he worried about the police maybe connecting those other murders, or is it just that he's in pain?

  “Um, no,” he says, not looking at me as he gathers some food onto his spoon.

  He seems unenthusiastic about eating.

  “We can watch a film later, if you want,” I tell him. “I can find something that you might like. I know most of the stuff I watch isn't really to your taste.”

  Again I wait for a reply, and again he seems to be off in his own world.

  “Yeah,” he murmurs, glancing at me. “Maybe. Let me see. I might want to read.”

  “Okay, that's cool too,” I say, and to be honest I'm just relieved that he's staying home. Maybe this latest rush of activity is over and he's not going to hurt anyone else, at least for a while.

  I watch as he eats.

  “Hey,” I continue after a few seconds, “I was thinking. Do you remember that conference you went to in Birmingham last year?”

  He looks at me, and I can immediately tell that I've got his attention. I'm already starting to think that it was a mistake to bring this up, but I want to watch his reaction. I've seen characters do this on detective shows, and they always seem to get to the truth.

  “It's nothing, really,” I say, hoping to stop him getting suspicious, “I was just thinking about how I had to be at home alone that night and, um...”

  Damn it, I didn't think this through enough. I'm nowhere near as smart as the people on the shows I watch.

  “I was just thinking about how I put the washing machine and the dishwasher on right before I went to bed,” I continue, “so that I wouldn't hear creaking noises late at night while I was in bed. And I was thinking that maybe, if you go on any other conferences any time soon, it might be nice to get a cat.”

  It might be nice to get a cat?

  I don't know where that idea came from, although now I come to think of it I think maybe a cat would be nice. It's always good to get new friends.

  “You want a cat?” he says, clearly surprised by the suggestion.

  “I wouldn't mind a cat,” I reply.

  This conversation isn't going the way I'd hoped.

  “Do you think you could look after a cat?” he asks.

  “I think so,” I reply. “It'd be hard at first, raising a kitten, but I could read about how to do it and it's not as if I don't have the time. And it'd be an outside cat, so I suppose we'd need a cat flap. I suppose it might be quite expensive, though, so I understand if you don't want to do it. Then again, I could get a part-time job to pay for it.”

  “You?” he replies, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Get a job?”

  “You always said that maybe one day -”

  “That's completely out of the question, Lisa.”

  “I was only thinking of something small, like working in the shop.” I pause as I realize that this conversation has developed in ways I couldn't possibly have anticipated.

  “We've talked about this before,” he replies. “Lisa, you do very well when you go out and get shopping during the day, but you're just not equipped to work an actual job. You don't understand how people are, you'd get flustered. You'd be good at something that just involved working with things , maybe in a back room, but you'd be terrible at working with people. And unfortunately, here in Forkworth, there really aren't any jobs that wouldn't involve some degree of customer service.”

  “I saw the pub's looking for a new cleaner. Couldn't I do that?”

  “It's really not feasible, darling. If you think it through, you'll see that.”

  He gets back to his food, as if he thinks the matter is closed, and I try to work out why I wouldn't be able to do the cleaning job at the pub. I clean our cottage twice a week, and Dad never complains, so I figure it'd basically be the same if I just went and did a few hours at the pub. I think the poster mentioned eight hours a week, which should be more than enough to pay for raising a cat.

  Wait, did I even want a cat in the first place? I don't really remember how the conversation got to this point.

  “We're fine as we are,” Dad tells me, “and you don't have to worry about me going away to any conferences.” He glances at me. “I won't be doing that again.”

  “You won't?”

  “I'm at the stage in my career now where conferences are more trouble than they're worth,” he explains. “The days of me going away on short trips are over, Lisa. I want to focus on the work I can do at home. That sounds good, doesn't it? I know you never really liked being home alone, and now you won't have to. At least not so often.”

  I manage to force a smile, even though deep down I'm really not quite sure what to feel.

  “Now finish your dinner,” he adds. “You don't want it to get cold. Then I'm going to do some work for a while, and you can watch whatever you want on the TV. Doesn't that sound like a nice evening?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ten years ago

  “Hey, Grandma.”

  She turns and looks up at me, and she looks genuinely surprised to see me. The pub is pretty busy, and I'm not sure that I'm strictly allowed to be in here. Michael spotted me when I came through the door, but he seems to be tolerating me for now. I've been getting some pretty weird looks but, now that I've found Grandma having dinner in one of the booths, I feel a little more comfortable.

  “Lisa,” she says, “I...”

  She stares at me, before gesturing for me to join her.

  “Please,” she adds. “Are you hungry? Let me get you something to eat.”

  “I ate at home, thank you,” I reply. “I told Dad that I wanted to get something from the shop. I can't stay too long.”

  “I'm so glad you came,” she says, reaching across the table and taking hold of my hands. “Lisa, I haven't seen as much of you as I'd have liked. It was always so hard getting down here, and -”

  “Am I stupid?” I ask.

  She opens her mouth to reply, but then she hesitates. I can see a hint of tears in her eyes.

  “No,” she says, “Lisa, no... Why would you ask such a question?”

  “I know I couldn't breathe when I was born,” I tell her, relieved that I can finally ask someone about my past. “I know I had a rope around my neck, a... somet
hing.”

  “Your umbilical cord was wrapped around your neck, yes,” she says. “There were some delays when it came to getting it off, so the flow of blood to your brain was briefly interrupted.”

  “And that's why I'm stupid.”

  “No!” She squeezes my hands tight. “The doctors who examined you explained that there was potential for some damage, but -”

  “Dad told me that I was damaged,” I reply, interrupting her. “He told me that it's permanent, that it's why I'm... different.”

  “Your father tends to deal in absolutes.”

  “He wouldn't lie to me. He never has.”

  “The interruption to the flow of blood was very brief,” she says. “Believe me, I read up about it at the time, and it's very hard to say whether there was any actual damage. But you're a beautiful, smart, funny girl and you mustn't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “You're my grandmother,” I reply, “you have to say that. But if there's damage, then there's damage, and no amount of words can change that.” I pause as I realize that this is my chance to ask all the questions that have been building up in my head for all these years. “Is it possible,” I continue cautiously, “that maybe there's some damage to my brain that makes it harder for me to judge situations properly?”

  “I don't understand what you mean, darling.”

  “Is it possible that I might see things differently?” I ask. “That I might see people differently? That I might miss things that other people would notice?”

  “What do you think you've missed?”

  “That's just it,” I reply, “I don't know, but I'm worried that there's something.”

  “Is this about your father?”

  I look down at my hands, and I immediately realize that this might be some kind of a giveaway. When I look back at Grandma, I can tell that she's noticed my reaction.

  “Mum made a phone call,” I say, “right before she died. At least, I think she did. Or if she didn't, then she was going to. I don't know exactly, it's really confusing, but she wrote down a number.”

  “What kind of number?”

  I reach into my pocket and take out the newspaper scrap that I rescued from the recycling. I hesitate, still wondering whether or not I'm doing the right thing, and then I slide it over to her.

  “What is this?” she asks, clearly confused. “I don't understand, Lisa. This seems to be something to do with someone who was murdered.”

  “That's Mum's handwriting at the bottom,” I tell her. “I'm certain. And when I called the number, it connected to some kind of police place where people can leave tips about crimes.”

  “This murder happened a long way away,” she replies. “Why would your mother have known anything about it?”

  “That's what I was wondering,” I explain, “and I couldn't help thinking that maybe someone else, someone more normal than me, might be able to figure it out.”

  She stares at the newspaper scrap, and I can tell that her mind is racing. I half expected her to dismiss all my concerns, to tell me that I'm being dumb, but if anything she seems to be taking my ideas very seriously. In fact, she's taking them so seriously, I'm starting to get a little scared.

  “It is Mum's writing, isn't it?” I ask.

  “It certainly is,” she replies, before glancing at me. “You were right to bring this to me, Lisa. Did you mention it to your father?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don't know,” I tell her. “I think he already saw it. He's the one who put it into the recycling, so... I guess there was no point showing him again. He obviously doesn't think that it's important.”

  “If your mother called this number,” she says cautiously, “the police will have a record.”

  “The number says that it's all anonymous. That means they might not know that it was Mum, doesn't it?”

  She pauses, before folding the scrap of newspaper.

  “I want you to not mention this to your father,” she says. “That's not a bad thing, Lisa, so you don't need to worry about it. You just told me that he threw it away, which means that he has no further interest in it.”

  “But -”

  “Just promise me you won't tell him that we had this conversation,” she adds, and she reaches over and squeezes my hands again. “Promise me, Lisa. I know you're an honest girl, and I need to know that you can keep this little secret.”

  “Okay,” I reply, even though I feel really wrong. “I promise.”

  “It's just for a few days,” she says, as she looks down at the folded piece of paper. “I just need enough time to look into a few things.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Today

  “You don't get it!” he shouts angrily, storming into the room. “You've never understood any of this, have you?”

  I nibble on my chocolate bar as the camera switches to a shot of the show's main detective. She's my favorite character at the moment, but she looks shocked by the other detective's outburst.

  “I need you to follow the rules on this case,” she tells him, sounding a little uncertain. “Tom, this isn't the time to be going off on some flight of fancy.”

  “If we follow the rules,” he replies, “we're never going to catch the Screwdriver Slaughterer.”

  “If we don't follow the rules,” she says, “we might catch the bastard and then have to let him go. We need to make sure that we're iron clad on this.”

  “We both know that Edward d'Armsford is the killer. The son-of-a-bitch billionaire tech CEO uses his company's software to cover his tracks.”

  I take a bigger bite from my chocolate bar, just as I hear a thudding sound coming from somewhere else in the house. I look over my shoulder, wondering what Dad's up to in his office, but there are no more odd sound and after a few seconds I turn back to the screen.

  “You need to learn to trust your gut feelings more, Catherine,” the male detective is saying. “It doesn't matter how many people tell us the rules. It doesn't matter what Calhoun or McDermott or anyone else says. Sometimes you just have to listen to that little voice in the back of your head that's telling you something is wrong.”

  I swallow hard.

  I have a voice like that sometimes.

  “If we give in to emotion,” the other detective says with a sigh, “we're little better than animals.”

  “You know that what we're doing is wrong,” the male detective snarls. “You know it, you can feel it deep down, so why are you going along with it? You have to do the right thing eventually, Catherine. The longer you leave it, the worse it's going to be at the end, so why not just be brave now? Do the right thing today! Don't let yourself be talked out of it, take the initiative and -”

  I mute the TV as I turn and look once again toward Dad's office. I'm sure I've heard several more bumps over the past minute, and sure enough a minute later I hear another faint thudding sound. When Dad works in there, he's usually completely quiet save for the times he emerges to make another cup of tea. Tonight seems different somehow, and – although he always tells me to never disturb him while he's working – I want to make sure that he's okay.

  I get to my feet, and then I un-mute the TV. I figure it would be good to have a little noise in the house, so that Dad can't hear any creaking floorboards.

  “The worst thing,” the female detective is saying as I creep around the sofa and head toward the corridor, “is that I agree with you. I know the rules, but I also know the difference between right and wrong. And sooner rather than later, I'm going to have to make a stand, aren't I?”

  Reaching the door to Dad's office, I find that it's slightly ajar. I can't hear any noises from the other side now but, as I lean closer, I see that Dad's standing at the desk. He has his back to me, and he's leaning over a mound of paperwork that has been strewn everywhere. There's more paperwork on the floor, and I realize that he seems to have shoved a lot of things off the side of the desk, the way people do in TV shows when they're really
angry.

  He reaches down and touches the side of his left leg, as if it's sore or painful. He seems to be rubbing a patch just below his hip, and that worries me. He's definitely not well, so why won't he admit that to me? The only possible explanation is that he doesn't want to scare me.

  “Damn it!” I hear him snap, and I instinctively pull back.

  I hesitate, before hurrying to the sofa and sitting down. As I do so, I look over my shoulder, just in time to see Dad stepping out of his office and limping through to the kitchen. I want to go after him and ask what's wrong, but of course I can't possibly do that. If Dad knew that I'd been sneaking about, he'd be furious. He's always hated it when people do things like that.

  “If you know that something's wrong,” the male detective is saying as I turn back to watch the TV, “then how can you go along with it? Don't wait for someone to confirm what you're feeling. Have faith in yourself. Do the right thing.”

  The female detective seems torn, as if she can't decide.

  “I will,” she says, although her voice is trembling a little. “You're absolutely right. I'm going to follow my instincts from now on.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Ten years ago

  “You're going to have to be brave today, Lisa,” Dad says as he kneels in front of me. “You've never been to a funeral before. They're tough at the best of times, but today...”

  He stares into my eyes, and I know I can't look away. He thinks I won't be able to handle this, he thinks I'm some kind of idiot who'll crumble as soon as we reach the church.

  The worst part is, he might be right.

  “A lot of people are going to want to talk to you,” he continues, “and you have to be polite to them, even though they're all gonna say basically the same thing. Can you do that?”

  I pause, before nodding.

  “The good news,” he continues, “is that after the funeral, life will be normal again. That's something to look forward to, right?”

  ***

  The coffin looks so big.

  Standing in the doorway, I look along the aisle and see a white coffin standing at the far end of the church. I've seen coffins in TV shows and films before, but it's strange to see one now and know that my mother's resting on the inside. I guess I thought the coffin would be plain and simple, but it has an ornate lid and I can't help wondering why Mum needed one that's so large. I guess maybe Mum was just a little bigger than I realized.