The Night Caller: An utterly gripping crime thriller

by J. M. Hewitt

  ‘We had some great times, us and the boys,’ said Tina. Her eyes darkened suddenly as she lowered her gaze. She breathed deeply before grinning at Emma. ‘The holiday camp, that chalet we stayed in for a week.’

  Jade watched as Emma’s lips quivered in an attempted smile. ‘You cooked that fish, the place stank all week.’ Emma’s hand worked at her necklace, twisting the gold chain around her fingers. ‘It was brilliant, though.’

  ‘We’ve got good memories.’ Tina’s voice broke. ‘I’ll never forget them, our amazing times, the four of us, you and me and the boys against the world.’

  Jade felt a cracking sensation inside her chest. She wanted to shout at Tina, You’re deluded! If your memories are so damn good why are you no longer in Emma’s life?

  ‘So,’ Tina said, brisk and business-like, her whimsical tone gone. ‘What has happened, Em? Why the hell did Jordan kill himself?’

  Emma visibly jolted, hot coffee sloshing onto her hand.

  ‘Why do you say that? Is that what they’re saying?’

  Tina backed up a step. ‘Is it what who are saying?’

  ‘Whoever told you that.’ Emma stopped, blinked and narrowed her eyes. ‘Who said that to you?’

  Tina shook her head vehemently. ‘No, I just… presumed. I’m sorry, Em. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘Why would Jordan kill himself?’ Emma’s tone was icy, cold. It sent a chill through Jade. The hard, tough Mancunian was coming out, a side of Emma that rarely showed itself, and only ever to people who deserved it, like old Mrs Oberman over the road.

  ‘I didn’t mean…’ Tina stopped, sighed and drew Emma away from Jade into the lounge. ‘Sit down, tell me everything.’

  Jade listened with one ear as Emma explained about the canals and the most recent incident that had been on the news, every day on TV she had seen the railings where Jordan had gone in. How could Tina not know all this already?

  ‘I don’t know how – why – anyone could have done this to Jordan, he was the nicest…’ Emma took a deep, shuddering breath in as she paused. ‘He was the best boy,’ she finished, simply.

  There was a moment of calm, of silence, before Tina spoke up.

  ‘Sweetie,’ she began, ‘surely you’ve considered the possibility that it was suicide?’

  ‘Are you sure I can’t get you a coffee, Tina, or a tea perhaps?’ Jade asked, a hint of desperation in her voice, a need to keep the peace. But her question, asked in her small voice, went unheard and unanswered as Emma leapt to her feet.

  Tina, perched on the side of Jade’s sofa, held up a perfectly manicured hand. ‘Don’t, Emma. All this about him being attacked, pushed, it just puts the community on edge…’ Tina faltered, perhaps seeing the fire in her former friend’s eyes.

  Jade took a few steps back into the kitchen, her fingers to her lips now. She wanted to grab Tina, tell her to shut up, shoo her out of the door and tell her never to return.

  Emma spoke, so quietly nobody heard her. Tina craned forward. ‘What?’

  ‘He wouldn’t kill himself!’ Emma’s voice was shrill, loud. Jade cringed back against the worktop. In the silence that descended she closed her eyes.

  CRACK!

  The noise was a memory, the wet sound of a smack against concrete. For a second Jade thought she’d been transported back in time. Her eyes flew open, darted around the room before her gaze landed on the two women.

  Tina still sat on the arm of the sofa, Emma was still in front of her, but now Tina held a hand to her left cheek.

  ‘I think you should go,’ said Jade, and her voice, firm and serious, didn’t sound like her own. ‘Please, leave.’

  Tina didn’t argue; instead, she grabbed her bag and with her hand still clamped to her face she backed out of the room. Jade waited until she heard the front door close before going over to Emma.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, anxiously.

  Emma lowered her eyes. ‘He wouldn’t kill himself. He wouldn’t hurt himself, he wouldn’t hurt anything.’

  Jade found herself unable to nod along with Emma’s lie. She said nothing. The quiet of the room stretched on.

  ‘But… but he did hurt people.’ Emma slowly raised her head to stare at Jade. ‘Didn’t he, Jade?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jade whispered, hardly able to believe they were talking about this now, after all this time.

  Emma hung her head. ‘My God, Jade, what do I do?’

  Jade touched Emma’s shoulder. ‘About what? What do you mean?’

  Emma took her hands away from her face. Her eyes, to Jade, were filled with more pain than she imagined anyone could ever live with.

  ‘About all the… things he did.’ Emma paused, exhaled, deep and long and loud. ‘Do I tell the police?’

  There was no eye contact now. Emma looked away, tucked her chin into her chest. But Jade could see the red of her face, flushed with embarrassment, or guilt perhaps.

  Jade sat back beside Emma, stared at the wall, the memories rising, too hard, too much.

  * * *

  It was the height of summer: Nan was taking her afternoon nap, Emma was at work, Jade was watching Jordan while he played in the garden. Jade’s being there meant that Emma didn’t have to find a babysitter during the holidays, something that she seemed to struggle with. She enjoyed spending time with Jordan, he seemed calmer out of school and even let her look at some of his drawings occasionally. She figured it was all good practice for what was coming. Her bump was showing now, her pregnancy at five months, and she was finally letting herself look forward to the future. Thanks to Emma’s insistence she had school work to be getting on with, and when she returned after the baby was born, she would be allowed to sit her GCSEs. A year late, but better than not at all, Nan had retorted.

  She hadn’t seen her parents since she arrived, nor the baby’s father. Calum… she missed him, a little bit, but not as much as she thought she would. She had thought he was wonderful, being a year older than her she had thought he was a man. But the way his own parents stonewalled him and the way he had not fought for her told her that he was simply a boy.

  How life changes, she mused, rubbing some more baby oil into her bump.

  ‘Jade!’ Jordan’s shout interrupted her reverie and she sat up, shading her eyes from the sun.

  ‘Jordan! What are you…?’ Her words trailed off, trickled to a stop as she hauled herself to her feet to get a better look. At last she found her voice again. ‘Get down from there!’ she cried, finally pinpointing him on the flat roof of the shoddily constructed extension. ‘It’s not safe up there, you know that roof leaks, it could collapse at any second!’

  And just as the words left her lips, they both heard a distinct crack. Jordan, standing atop the old roof, jolted, his arms going wide to steady himself.

  ‘Shit,’ Jade hissed, and then to Jordan, ‘stay there, I’ll get the ladder.’

  Swearing to herself, Jade picked up the ladder from the side of the shed and dragged it across the grass. If anything happened to him while she was in charge… As she pushed the ladder against the side of the extension and clambered up, the repercussions if Jordan should injure himself whizzed around her head. If they found out she was supposed to be looking after him when he got hurt, they might decide she wasn’t able to look after her own child when it was born.

  ‘Jordan, come over here, climb down in front of me,’ she ordered as she reached the top of the ladder.

  Peering over the guttering, she could see the split in the old asphalt roof where he stood. He was staring at her, his cheeks flushed, his dark hair flopping into his eyes. He bounced up and down, and Jade shouted in anger.

  ‘Stop it, you… don’t be a little shit, Jordan, get off there, right now!’

  Dropping to his hands and knees he crawled towards her, an infuriating smile on his face now. ‘Come and get me,’ he taunted, adding, ‘fatty!’

  Gripping the asphalt and gritting her teeth, Jade clambered onto the roof. ‘Come on Jordan, that’s enough,’
she moaned. ‘Just come down now.’ Fear took over from anger, as she turned away from him and peeped over the edge.

  She groaned. Shouldn’t have looked down, should have just grabbed him—

  Before she knew it, the ground was suddenly a lot nearer than it had seemed a second ago. Jade’s hands went to her belly and she drew her legs up and in, an instinctive reaction to curl herself into a ball to try to protect the—

  SMACK.

  The noise was like a wet balloon bursting upon impact.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  And then the stomach pains began.

  * * *

  Her parents were there when she woke up. Her mother’s face, peering down at her, fingers plucking at the white sheet, pulling it up around Jade’s chin.

  Jade shoved the sheet and the well-meaning hand away. Looked over her mother’s shoulder, saw her dad, standing with his back against the wall, staring around the room, his gaze fixing on anything other than his daughter.

  ‘What happened?’ she murmured. Even as she spoke, her hands went to her stomach, a hiss of relief whistling out between her lips as she found the bump still there.

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  To Jade’s surprise it was Nan’s voice. She swivelled her head, saw her little old Nan perched at the other side of the bed. She slipped her hand down and rubbed her belly.

  ‘It’s gone, darlin’,’ said Nan in her no-nonsense way.

  Jade looked down the bed again, could clearly see the bump.

  As though knowing what her granddaughter was thinking, Nan pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘Gone,’ she repeated.

  And even though the bump was still there Jade knew that it was empty. She flicked her eyes over her parents, knew what they were thinking, probably her Nan too; it’s for the best.

  And maybe it was for the best. For them. It felt like a lie to admit it was best for her.

  Childishly Jade turned on her side, buried her face in the pillow.

  ‘You really don’t remember what happened?’ Nan’s voice, insistent, came at her again.

  Jade shook her head.

  But that too was a lie. She did remember. She remembered everything.

  Twelve

  DAY THREE

  ‘You don’t need to tell the police anything,’ Jade said, eventually, when their inaction began to sound louder than the silence. Her words were blunt and dull. ‘Jordan is a missing person, his past doesn’t matter anything to their investigation.’

  ‘But all the other stuff, the… the…’ Emma couldn’t seem to finish her sentence. Jade frowned, wondered what the words were that Emma couldn’t say. The baby, perhaps? The bloody mess that had been Jordan’s school friend’s face after a birthday tea? The cat, stiff and wet, eyes open but soul departed?

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jade. ‘It has no bearing on… what’s happening now.’

  But Emma wasn’t listening anymore; she had pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and was stabbing at the screen.

  ‘Who are you calling?’

  ‘The policewoman,’ replied Emma, and at Jade’s questioning look she explained, ‘That detective who’s dealing with this, I need to ask her why people think Jordan killed himself.’

  ‘It wasn’t people, it was one person, Tina,’ replied Jade.

  Emma covered the mouthpiece with her hand, even though nobody had answered. ‘I need to talk to her anyway, I told her to fuck off the last time I spoke to her.’

  Jade raised her eyes, offered Emma a weak smile and retreated to the bottom of the stairs. At least Emma had been diverted from the subject of Jordan’s wrongdoings. That wasn’t a place that Jade wanted to go: it would change everything. It would take away everything she and Emma had had between them, before.

  ‘Nia,’ called Jade up the stairs. An urge, overwhelming, to see her girl, to touch her, to remind herself that her own baby was still here, wasn’t lost in some hellish water like her friend’s son. ‘What are you doing up there? Come down here in the warm.’

  * * *

  As Emma waited to be connected she watched little Nia traipse down the stairs to be scooped up by her mother.

  Her thoughts turned to Tina, and as if to remind herself, she felt pins and needles in her palm.

  I slapped her, she thought. I slapped my oldest friend around the face. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

  She watched as Jade walked past her, Nia in her arms, and was relieved when they vanished into the kitchen. She couldn’t look at her friend, not right now. It brought back too many memories.

  Jade was round at Emma’s. It was the first time she’d been out since the loss of the baby. They were chatting about everything and nothing, at the kitchen table like always; Emma averting her eyes as Jade sat down, leaving a gap so her bump didn’t nudge the table edge. Instinct and muscle memory on Jade’s part, before she realised that she could now wedge herself tightly in.

  Jordan coming into the kitchen like a ghost, stopping short at the sight of Jade. Jade, up until then talking to Emma, had fallen silent. She looked down at the table top, but not so quickly that Emma didn’t see the sudden tears in her eyes.

  Jordan, departing without a word. Leaving the room like a whispered breath.

  Emma moved quickly to stand behind Jade so her friend wouldn’t see her face, sure that her knowledge that this was somehow Jordan’s doing was written there for the whole world to see.

  The short drive from the police station to the crime scene passed in silence. Leaving Paul to lock the car, Carrie strode to the waterside. There, she paced the canal, up and down, stopping occasionally. She looked at everything from every angle. Paul watched her, taking everything in, probably hoping to get tips from the master. But she wasn’t the master, was she? If she was, this man would have been behind bars already. Instead, the Pusher had eluded them time and time again.

  The mobile pulsed against her hip in her pocket. She pulled herself back from the edge. The police tape flapped in the breeze alongside the flowers that had been bound crudely to the metal poles. Carrie reached out and gripped a ribbon as she answered the call.

  ‘Emma, hi, how are you?’ Carrie’s voice was as brisk and professional as ever in spite of how their last conversation had ended.

  ‘DS Flynn, I… I should say sorry for…’ Emma tailed off and was silent so long that Carrie glanced at her phone to see if the call was still there.

  ‘No need, how are you?’

  But Emma had no time for small talk as she ploughed on. ‘You said someone had pushed Jordan, into the canal—’

  ‘We said there were witnesses who heard a splash, but no one has confirmed that they saw him go in, so we can’t be sure,’ interrupted Carrie.

  ‘Oh.’

  The voice, her very presence faded again. Carrie waited.

  ‘The news,’ Emma blurted. ‘I saw it on the news just before you came round. I wanted to ask you about it, have you arrested anybody? Do you really think it happened that way, or do you think he… he…’ Once more her words vanished. Carrie wondered what she had been about to say: fell? Jumped?

  ‘We are still looking into all witness accounts, localised CCTV.’ Carrie deliberately kept her voice cautious. She glanced at her watch. ‘Actually, Emma, I’d like to talk to you some more. Are you at home, can we come over?’

  Emma ignored the question, pushed on with her own thoughts. ‘You said the divers were concentrating on canals further away, can you tell me where? I want to go there.’

  Carrie clapped a hand to her brow, shut her eyes. This mother needed to let her do her job, and not get in the way.

  When she opened her eyes, Paul was in front of her, a questioning look on his face. Everyone had questions, and they were all directed at Carrie.

  She turned away from Paul.

  ‘We don’t have divers there, we are just putting out a report to the police further down, around the Mersey, the officers are speaking with fishermen, boatmen… Emma, ar
e you still there?’

  She gazed at the screen again. This time the call had been ended.

  ‘The mother?’ Paul asked, and they began to walk again as Carrie nodded grimly.

  ‘We need to pin her down, Paul. Everyone we’ve talked to has had little to say about Jordan. I want to talk to her, find out everything about him I can. It’s not normal for a young lad like that to be so… under the radar.’

  Paul nodded. ‘Maybe it’s a family trait, to be so private. She sent the FLO away, you know. Dina’s still on standby, though.’

  Carrie turned her attention back to the canal. On a morning like today, it was miserable. A low mist shrouded the surface of the quay. It was early, and bar a few distant joggers, nobody else was out and about yet. A lot of the surrounding areas had been built up, turned into restaurants or bars, but the abandoned warehouses, weeded over, their walls punched with broken windows and graffiti, still gave the canals an air of forgotten mystery.

  Smashed-down doors gaped like wide-open mouths. Carrie gazed at the needles that littered the entrances. They lay on dark stains which could be anything from blood to faeces. She looked away over the water, stretching into the distance, to where it turned off into dark alleyways where the towpaths were narrow and there were no fences to safeguard pedestrians. She gazed up in the direction of her own simple but spacious apartment. She thought of all the nights she had spent on her balcony, staring into the darkness, wondering if that night would be the night she caught him in action. But she never had.

  She laid a hand on one of the railings now. They were here, lining this canal, the handrails, but they had not saved Jordan, nor any of the others who had gone in before him.

  * * *

  ‘I still think about the time when we thought we’d caught him,’ said Paul.

  ‘The Pusher?’ She nodded, remembered it well and often. It went back even further than the time of Ashlan Patel. It was the uncertainty, the lack of answers, the failure, that made her chest pinch and her heart contract deep inside.