The Night Caller: An utterly gripping crime thriller

by J. M. Hewitt

Nia shrieked in delight.

  * * *

  ‘Nia wanted to bring you something to say thank you for sitting with her the other day.’

  As the door opened, Jade said the words she had been practising on the short walk across the street.

  Mrs Oberman looked at Jade, glanced at Nia behind her.

  ‘You’d better come in, then,’ she said.

  Keeping a firm grip on Nia’s hand, Jade stepped inside. ‘Shoes off,’ she hissed to Nia, slipping her own trainers off and making sure to leave them on the doormat.

  ‘I was putting the kettle on; would you like one?’ Mrs Oberman called over her shoulder as she headed down the hallway to the kitchen.

  Standing in the hall of the house that nobody went into, Jade let out an involuntary shiver.

  ‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’ She moved Nia ahead of her. ‘We are on our way for a walk,’ she lied. ‘Nia just wanted to stop in and give you this.’

  Nia held out her hand, presented the drawing to the older woman. Instead of looking at it, Mrs Oberman glanced at the child.

  ‘It’s going to snow,’ she said. ‘If you’re going for a walk you might want to put some gloves on your daughter.’

  Jade stifled a gasp, felt her cheeks burning. How dare she?

  ‘I will, I have them right here,’ she said, her tone triumphant as she rooted around in her bag and pulled out Nia’s tiny woollen mittens.

  ‘No good in there,’ muttered Mrs Oberman.

  No wonder nobody comes to visit you, thought Jade, spitefully. You mean old bag.

  ‘Hand it over then, Nia,’ said Jade, her tone clipped. ‘Then we have to get going.’

  Mrs Oberman took the drawing, scanned it, and suddenly, her face softened into a smile.

  ‘This is lovely, and who is this?’ she asked, and Jade winced as Mrs Oberman crouched down to Nia’s level, her knees giving off an audible creak.

  Nia planted a hand on Mrs Oberman’s knee, twirled a strand of her blonde curls with the other. ‘That’s nobody,’ she said, as though it were obvious. ‘That’s just a colouring pencil.’

  To Jade’s surprise, Mrs Oberman brayed out a laugh. It transformed her, and Jade wondered when the last time was that Mrs O had laughed like that.

  ‘She’s a nice little girl,’ murmured Mrs Oberman when she had stopped laughing. ‘Pretty, too.’

  Jade’s eyes widened. Big praise from Mrs O. ‘Thank you,’ she said, demurely.

  ‘No need for thanks, it’s just genetics, isn’t it?’

  Jade stopped herself from raising her eyes to the heavens just in time as Mrs Oberman looked up at her.

  ‘Doesn’t look like you, though, does she? Apart from the hair, of course.’

  My God, she even makes that sound like an insult, thought Jade.

  ‘Got her father’s eyes, I suppose,’ said Mrs Oberman, patting Nia atop her wiry curls and clambering up from the floor where she crouched.

  Jade frowned. ‘We have to go,’ she said. ‘Come on Nia, shoes on.’

  * * *

  When she left, heading home with a reluctant Nia, and not out for a walk like she’d told Mrs Oberman, Jade wondered about her brief interaction with the woman who had been her neighbour for ten years.

  The older woman hadn’t even mentioned Emma, or Jordan, or asked if there was any further news on his disappearance. Was she jealous, Jade wondered? Envious of the two households who lived opposite her who were more like one, single family? And they were, or used to be. The four of them, back then before Nia. Emma, Jordan, Jade and Nan. They were as one for many, many years, hardly apart.

  Except for that one summer, remembered Jade.

  And she always remembered it, because that had been the start of the change. The beginning of the end, or just the beginning, Jade was never sure on that point.

  * * *

  They’d had a chance to get out of the city. Jade’s father had a timeshare in a cottage on the Italian Riviera, and for some inexplicable reason he had offered it to Nan and Jade for the whole summer of 2013. Jade hadn’t had a holiday in years, and she hadn’t minded, because living with Nan alongside Emma had been like a constant holiday. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go away, because she knew her place here, in Salford, in the community, helping Nan, tidying the house, tending to the garden under Nan’s direction.

  A holiday would mean a new routine, away from home, and for some reason that made Jade nervous. She liked the conventionality of her life, the regularity, the knowledge of what she was doing every day. She was in her early twenties now, but still felt like that same fifteen-year-old who had come to stay with Nan all those years ago. She didn’t mind; she didn’t want anything to change. Change brought anxiety along with it.

  But Nan hadn’t had a holiday for even longer than Jade, and even then it had been caravans in Scarborough or Skegness.

  ‘Can Emma come, and Jordan?’ asked Jade, as they began to plan and pack.

  But Jordan was going on his own holiday, a whole summer in Greece, some sort of exchange, although Emma wouldn’t be getting anyone to stay at her home in return. Jade didn’t mind so much about Jordan, she barely saw him then. He was older, going off on his own, probably with his own friends who were his age, not that she ever saw any of his mates. He didn’t want to hang around with the three women anymore. There was a time, Jade had recalled, when she’d known everything about Jordan. What he was up to, how he was doing in school, who his pals were. Now, at the start of that summer, she couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen him.

  And Emma was looking forward to a summer of peace. She was going to spend her days reading in the garden with no interruption, working her shifts at the surgery. And she was going to enjoy it, she said, rather forcefully Jade thought, a whole season with no responsibility.

  Jade felt a little chagrin towards Emma then. She knew that she and Nan were included in her statement. Nan had become a little unsteady lately, and a few times Jade had had to call Emma to come and help her when Nan fell and struggled to get up.

  When the National Express coach dropped them off after a twenty-four-hour journey through France and Italy, it turned out there was another reason for Jade’s father’s unexpected generosity. He had the builders in, and not wanting to live alongside the banging and hammering and sawing himself, he had put Jade and Nan there to oversee the work instead.

  But it wasn’t too bad. The builders turned up late in the morning, and when they arrived Nan would dutifully make them tea (which they never drank) and both she and Jade would leave them to it and sit the day out in the orange groves, Nan in the shade, Jade slippery with olive oil in the baking sun.

  A new routine had been formed, and Jade began to relax, to enjoy herself. Nan encouraged her to go out at night (but not too late, she’d add, finger wagging), and Jade dared to take herself down to the bars. They liked her, the Italian men. They liked her blonde hair and brown body, and for the first time in years she began to feel like the young woman that she was. She flirted, danced, drank sweet wine over candlelight.

  She had returned home with Nan. Happy, healthy, tanned, lighter, somehow. And then once more, everything had changed again.

  * * *

  It was only their second day back; Jade hadn’t even finished unpacking her suitcase and the unthinkable happened.

  Nan died.

  Trying out some of her new-found confidence Jade went to the opening of a new bar over in Deansgate. She didn’t know anyone, but she floated through the rooms, she chatted, she drank, she lapped up the compliments that came her way, and it was like being in Italy, and she marvelled at the change in her.

  What have I been so afraid of? she thought, accepting another drink from a city worker whose name she didn’t even know.

  It was the past, she knew, the uprooting when the baby had been inside her, the disapproval aimed at her, the withdrawal of her parents at the time she needed them most. It had stunted her, she realised that now, and so she had hidden i
nside the house with Nan. She took direction from Emma, doing what she was told, and being grateful that someone was telling her what to do so she didn’t have to figure it out herself. She had remained childlike, a woman locked inside the fearful mind of a fifteen-year-old.

  But that was all gone now; she was a new Jade, after her experiences in Italy, and with her head held high, enjoying for the first time the admiring looks thrown her way, she promised herself a new start.

  * * *

  Nan was in the hallway, her feet against the front door, meaning Jade had to shove against the unknown obstacle to enable her to get inside.

  A heart attack most likely, or a massive stroke, causing her to fall from the top to the bottom of the steep staircase, said the people who took Nan away. Likely it happened at the top of the stairs, on the landing, because she had bruises where she had obviously fallen a long way.

  ‘I shouldn’t have gone out,’ Jade screamed and sobbed to Emma. ‘I knew she was unsteady on her feet, I shouldn’t have left her. I should have insisted the council give her a bungalow, I shouldn’t have left her.’

  But she had left Nan, and Nan had left her.

  * * *

  She closeted herself away in the house that would soon be taken away from her. It was Nan’s council house; a young, single woman couldn’t live there. She saw nobody, didn’t answer the door to well-meaning neighbours and friends who had loved Nan. They left casseroles on the front step, sausage rolls and pies covered with tea towels, exactly what Nan would have done. Jade cracked open the door when she was sure the visitors had gone, carried them into the kitchen, tipped the food into the bin. Carefully she washed up the plates and dishes, put them back on the step.

  Emma came, not knocking, but letting herself in through the back door. Jade tried to put on a front for her, but was grateful when Emma told her Jade could stay with her for as long as she wanted. But Jade couldn’t live at Emma’s house; if she couldn’t stay here, she didn’t want to live in the vicinity.

  Her tan faded, her new-found confidence vanished. The memory of the summer all but gone.

  One day Jordan came, with a pile of fresh laundry that Emma must have taken, washed, dried, ironed, folded and told her son to return without Jade even knowing.

  His presence woke Jade for a moment as she studied him, standing in the doorway of the living room, looking around for somewhere to put the washing basket.

  ‘Jordan?’ she said, amazed, shocked, because she hadn’t seen him in ages, in months and months, and my God, how he had changed.

  Like she had been, he was deeply tanned, and belatedly she remembered he had spent the summer in Greece. And before that, well, she couldn’t recall when she had last seen him.

  ‘I heard about Nan,’ he said, as he sat down, uninvited.

  She pulled her knees to her chest, tucked her chin in, regarded him warily.

  Out of the washing basket he produced a bottle.

  ‘Ouzo,’ he said, shaking it a little.

  He poured it. She drank it. He didn’t. And the more she drank the clearer her thoughts became, and the bolder she got.

  ‘I have to leave here, they’ll kick me out of this house, my home,’ she said. ‘If I still had my baby, they would probably let me stay.’ She put the glass down, it slammed onto the table. Jordan filled it to the top. ‘But I don’t have my baby, do I?’

  Her tone was accusing, she knew that much. But Jordan was unflinching. She sank back into silence.

  Suddenly he was by her chair, kneeling, and his hands were on her face, smoothing back her out-of-control curls. She felt his lips, on her forehead, on her cheeks, on her lips. She gasped into his open mouth.

  She slid off the chair, pulled him onto her on the floor, relished the weight of him.

  What is he – eighteen, nineteen now? The thought was fleeting, the quick sum she did in her head enough to reassure her that it was okay, that he was an adult, that this wasn’t wrong. It just seemed wrong for an instant because she had known him, hated him and loved him in equal measure since he was a little boy.

  Later he took her to her bed, laid her down. She reached out for him, but he just placed a tender kiss on her hand before he left.

  Jade slept then, for the first time since Nan had died.

  She’d thought it was the end. The end of an era, the finish line of the life she knew and loved.

  Turned out, it was just the beginning.

  Thirty

  DAY SEVEN

  All the way to the police station Emma couldn’t stop looking at Lee.

  ‘I knew nothing of this, of you,’ she said. She knew her tone of voice was harsh, accusing almost, and to counteract it she touched Lee’s arm. ‘I’m just… really surprised. I had no idea.’

  ‘He didn’t want anyone to know,’ Lee replied, and he sounded wounded, deeply hurt.

  She pondered his tone, recalled his earlier words, how Jordan had been a good actor. Was Lee an actor, too?

  ‘I wouldn’t have cared. It wouldn’t have made any difference to me.’ She stopped, pulled at the sleeve of his coat. ‘Did he ever mention his father? Did Jordan ever talk to you about Martin?’

  He shrugged, shook his head. ‘No, he never spoke about any of his family.’

  His answer stung. Before she could ask anything else, Martin moved to walk beside her.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Nope, not really.’ She turned to him, let the tears spill over before wiping them away with her scarf. ‘I thought it was bad enough, what happened, but to find out I knew nothing about him, absolutely nothing, and you turning up, and Lee. I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘He was a kid, he kept his private life private, teenagers do that.’

  The tears were gone, the now quick to rise anger replacing the sadness. ‘What would you know?’ she snapped, rudely.

  ‘If you’d have told me about Jordan, I’d know a lot more than I do now,’ he retorted.

  She opened her mouth to snap once more at him, to yell, to pummel at his chest. She closed it again; he was right. She had deliberately kept him out of both her life and Jordan’s, but not because she wanted it that way; it was to protect her son, which only bought her back to her original question again, that Jordan had somehow found out who Martin was, and had approached him, and had been shunned.

  ‘If we’re going to tell the police everything, they’ll do the maths, they’ll realise how old you were, how old I was when I got pregnant.’ She chewed on a glove, watched his face carefully. ‘You could get in trouble.’

  He started to walk again, she ran to catch up to him.

  ‘I don’t think they’ll care too much about something that happened twenty years ago,’ he said.

  Lee, clearly fed up of waiting for them to catch up, wandered back to them. ‘What happened twenty years ago?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course they will!’ exclaimed Emma, ignoring Lee’s question. ‘I was sixteen! All these sex scandals, all the historical abuse stuff that’s been in the news lately, of course they’ll care!’

  ‘Abuse?’ Lee wrinkled his nose, looked from Emma to Martin. ‘Are you saying… did you…’ he broke off, turned to Emma, put his hands on her arms. ‘Did he rape you?’

  ‘Jesus!’ Martin exploded.

  Emma shook her head, her hair flying. ‘Oh God, no, no, Lee, it wasn’t like that, I knew exactly what I was doing.’ She stopped, took a deep breath, looked into the lovely, dark, soulful eyes of the young man in front of her. How could Martin doubt this boy? How could she doubt this boy? ‘Martin was my teacher.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Martin said again, a mutter this time, and Emma saw the cords standing out in his neck.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Emma, but Martin was already on the move, walking ahead now.

  ‘Your teacher?’ Lee put an arm around her, they picked up their pace again.

  Emma resisted the urge to rest her head on Lee’s shoulder. Instead she nodded, grimly.

  ‘I was young, stupid, but
I knew what I was doing.’

  ‘Yeah but, if he was your teacher, that means he knew exactly what he was doing, too,’ said Lee.

  ‘It’s not like that, it was different, special,’ she said. All the words spoken by girls the world over. ‘And I got Jordan, and he was worth all the trouble.’

  ‘Emma Robinson is here.’ Paul slipped into Carrie’s office and closed the door behind him. ‘And the father, and another lad.’

  ‘A friend of Jordan’s?’ Carrie was hopeful. The search for Jordan Robinson’s mates had so far proved fruitless.

  Paul’s eyes glinted, and the corners of his mouth twitched. Carrie knew that look. It meant there was news, something previously unknown. She sat up straight, folded his arms.

  ‘The lad is Jordan’s boyfriend,’ he said.

  Carrie stood up. Boyfriend… She looked up at Paul. ‘Did we…?’

  ‘Did we know he was gay?’ He shook his head, continued, ‘even the mother didn’t know until this boy turned up on the doorstep.’

  ‘Something else the parents didn’t know.’ Carrie raked her hands through her hair. ‘Take them into suite three. The mother first, then I’ll speak to the other two.’

  As she walked into the outer room, she nodded a greeting to Martin and let her gaze linger on the boy. He looked remarkably like the missing Jordan, she noted as she strode through to the suite where Emma was already seated.

  ‘Tell me what’s been happening,’ she said.

  ‘Lee said he is Jordan’s boyfriend.’ Emma’s words were blunt, assertive. ‘The Pusher is targeting gay men, we all know that. And now it looks like my son was gay.’ She maintained eye contact, challenging Carrie.

  ‘Okay,’ Carrie said, remaining cautious. ‘But this is news to you, this is something you didn’t know?’

  She shook her head. ‘All these people, Lee and Martin and the baby—’ she broke off, scrubbed at her face with her hands. ‘These people who were not in our life, and now, suddenly they’re here.’ She breathed in deeply, locked eyes with Carrie. ‘I don’t know what to think anymore.’