Maria Frankland
The Man Behind Closed Doors
The Other Side of Domestic Bliss
First published by Autonomy Press 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Maria Frankland
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Maria Frankland asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition
Cover art by Darran Holmes
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This book is dedicated to those men and women
who have suffered at the hands of a partner
who is supposed to have loved and cherished them.
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Prologue
Dogs are good at keeping secrets. That’s because they can’t talk. I used to get told off for talking all the time. Now I’m told off for not talking. People keep asking questions. About what I saw. What I heard. How I am feeling. I don’t want to talk anymore. I wish they would all leave me alone.
The girls at school have stopped trying to play with me and be my friend. That’s because I don’t have my mummy and daddy. I’m different from them. But I have my dog. She’s my best friend. I can talk to her just by thinking things, so I am able to tell her everything.
Chapter One
His fingers probe her wrist and he gulps bile, retching with the stench of blood hanging in the heat of the June night. “My wife’s been stabbed!” Paul slithers down the front of the cooker next to where Michelle is slumped on the tiled floor, amidst blood-splattered cupboards.
“In the chest. I don’t know.” He’s gabbling into his phone. “Michelle Jackson. Yes, there’s a pulse. No bubbles from her mouth. The knife’s stuck.” Reaching up, Paul drags a towel from the worktop, bringing a shower of cutlery down. He wraps the towel around the impaled knife, his chest thumping. She goes limp. He feels for a pulse again, his blood-soaked hands smearing against her wrist. “Paul Jackson. Summerfield Holiday Park, Filey. I don’t know!” He hauls himself back up and glances out of the window. “There’s a silver Ford Focus outside.”
He strokes the hand on which Michelle wears her rings, then lets it flop back to the floor. This isn’t happening. He glances back at the lounge. “No, nothing’s been taken … Emily, stay in there. Close the door. Daddy’ll be there soon.” Avoiding the seeping blood, he rises and lurches towards Emily’s bedroom door along the hallway, broken glass crunching under his feet. “Yes, I’m still here. It’s my little girl. Six years old. No, I don’t know what she’s seen.”
“Daddy!”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
Paul peers around Emily’s door. He decides not to go in, covered in her mother’s blood. The room is in semi-darkness so hopefully she can’t see it. She peers at him above the pillow she is clutching to her chest. “It’s alright, it’s going to be alright, Daddy’s here. Mummy’s going to be fine. The ambulance people will be here any minute. Emily?”
She says nothing. Probably in shock.
He wants to go to her, comfort her but to cover her in blood isn’t the best course of action. “What happened?” He tries to disguise the urgency in his voice towards his daughter. “Tell me.”
She is trembling. He should go back to the kitchen but can’t bear to. What if Michelle has died? She didn’t look good. No, he’s best staying with Emily. He can pretend for a moment that his wife isn’t half dead a few feet away.
“Come here girl.” Carla, their Spaniel, slinks from under the bed and cowers at Paul’s feet. “They’re coming!” He pulls back the hallway curtain in response to the shrieking sirens, before darting back to his wife. Michelle has slid further to the floor, her hair fanned around her. He kneels at her side.
“Mr Jackson?” Within moments, two paramedics stand at the cottage doorway into the kitchen. “If you could move aside for us please.” They approach Michelle and squat either side of her. “Mrs Jackson, I’m Joel, a paramedic for the ambulance service, and this is my colleague, Marvin. We’re here to help you. Can you hear me?” His gaze flicks from Michelle’s ashen face to Paul’s. “What’s happened here?”
“I found her.” His own voice sounds alien to him. “Emily, stay in your room.” He notices the door twitching along the hallway. “I’ll be back in a minute.” The red-haired paramedic pulls items from his bag and cuts Michelle’s blouse open with scissors.
“You found her?”
“I don’t know what happened, we had a row, I left her to calm down, and then I came back … this is how I found her!”
Paul leans against the door, watching as they inspect the protruding knife. Becoming faint, he crouches against the wall. He has never seen as much blood in his life. The voices of people gathering outside swim around him.
“We need to stem this bleeding then we can move her.” Marvin tugs a radio from his belt and Paul notices how freckly his face is. “I’ll let control know what we’re dealing with. This should be left in situ.” Marvin points to the knife.
Paul follows Joel’s diverted glance back to the door where two police officers now stand, one male, one female. “Mr Jackson?” The man crosses the threshold towards where Paul slumps. “I’m DC Calvert and this is my colleague, PC Bradshaw”. The weight of his hand rests on Paul’s shoulder. “I need to take a few details from you.”
“I need to be with Michelle. How can I leave her after what…”?
“Let the paramedics do their job. She’s in good hands.” He frowns at one of them. “Remember this is a crime scene.” He gestures towards the medical equipment littered around them. “Make sure the weapon is bagged, as soon as you’re able to.”
Calvert glances towards the door where another police officer has appeared out of the darkness outside. “Put the cordon round,” he commands of his colleague.
“Sir.”
“And when you’ve done that,” Calvert continues. “Don’t touch anything. I want you to radio through. We need the forensics down here. Tell them we’re dealing with an aggravated assault with a weapon.”
“Sir.”
“My daughter!” Paul gestures towards the bedroom. “She’s in there. I can’t leave her – she’s only six.” He looks in turn at them all. “She was asleep.” He’s aware of their possible judgements of him, yet their expressions are not giving anything away. “I should never have left her!”
“PC Bradshaw will take care of your daughter whilst we talk to you.” Calvert nods to his colleague.
“What’s her name?”
Paul is marginally reassured at the voice of the female officer with a blonde ponytail poking out from under her hat. “Emily.” Paul sees her now, she’s opened her bedroom door and stands, shivering in her pyjamas. He wants to scoop her up and make it all better. “Will it take long … your questions, I mean? I need to see to my daughter and go to the hospital with my wife.” The female police officer walks towards Emily and Paul feels anxiety
rising in him like vomit.
Calvert turns to him. “An officer will go with your wife. I’m going to read you your rights and then we’ll head to the station. We can record your interview and then depending on the outcome of that, we’ll have you straight to the hospital. I’ll drive you myself.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“Yes. Paul Jackson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of attempted murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something which you may later rely on in court.” His voice is robotic. This is something he’s clearly said countless times before. “Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Can I have your mobile phone please?” His tone becomes more conversational. “You’ll get it back after the investigation has been conducted.”
“Attempted murder? But…” Paul’s attention is averted to the paramedics as they manoeuvre Michelle from the floor to the stretcher. He cannot tear his gaze from her face, and he wonders if he will ever see her again.
Chapter Two
Paul grips the table, his knuckles whitening.
“The date is Monday, June the eleventh, and the time is twelve twenty am. My name is DC Joseph Calvert, interviewing officer and I am conducting this interview with my colleague DC Alan Whitaker. For the benefit of the tape can you both confirm your presence?” He nods to Paul first.
“Paul Alan Jackson.” This is surreal. Paul can’t believe where he is. Any moment he will wake up to find Emily and his dog bounding into the bedroom and he will be telling Michelle about the awful dream he’s had.
Calvert nods to his colleague.
“DC Alan Whittaker.”
“DC Whittaker will be taking notes and assisting with the interview.” Calvert turns towards Paul. “Can you confirm you do not wish to have a solicitor present?”
“No, I don’t.” Paul clears his throat. “I want to get this over with and be with my wife.” Glancing around the confining green walls, he ignores the nagging voice that says of course you need a solicitor, you idiot. His work colleague, John, who is a solicitor, is going to kill him. Part of him has decided he doesn’t want anyone to know of his predicament; this is coupled with the certainty that he can sort it out himself.
“Well, as I have already outlined, you do have the right to request a solicitor, and, we would strongly advise that you exercise this right. If you change your mind at any time, we will simply stop the interview. You are being interviewed under caution, the interview is being recorded and I am now going to remind you of your rights.”
Paul digs his nails into the fleshy part of his opposite hand. This is not happening. The same robotic words as before swim around him.
“You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something which you may later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand your rights, or do you need them explaining?”
“I understand.” Paul has heard them often enough on TV. He’s gone dizzy again. His anxiety levels and the temperature of the room are conspiring against him. He hopes he can hold up without inadvertently saying the wrong thing.
“Paul Jackson. We have arrested you on suspicion of the attempted murder of your wife, Michelle Jackson. Earlier, you made a three nines call to our service, which we attended, to find you at the property covered in blood, whilst Michelle lay, seriously injured with a knife wound. No one else was in the property at our time of attending apart from your young daughter. On checking police records, we have found that our attendance has been requested on three other separate occasions for domestic incidents. Do you understand why we have placed you under arrest?”
“Yes.” He can hardly say no, can he? Paul can tell by the way they are looking at him that he’s already hung, drawn and quartered.
“In that case, I would like you to tell us, in your own words, precisely what happened today. From waking up this morning to the time when you made the three nines call.”
Paul closes his eyes momentarily whilst bringing the day’s events to mind. Had it really only been that morning?
Emily had danced around in bare feet, up and down the sun-drenched lounge of the holiday cottage, waving her spade. “Can we go to the beach? Can we? Can we?”
“Emily, give it a rest!” Michelle had laughed from behind her novel. “Blimey, I wish I had a bit of your energy.”
“Shall we meet you down there?” Paul suggested to her as he pulled some towels from the bottom of a suitcase. “Give you a bit of peace to read your book?”
“Sounds excellent.” Michelle extended her legs. “It’s fab not having to think about work. I’ll be down to the beach in a bit. When I’ve had a shower and put my face on.”
“You don’t need make up to look gorgeous!”
“Ah, you old charmer.”
“Don’t be too long or I might have drunk all the tea. You will come, won’t you?” he added as he filled the flask in the adjoining kitchen. Often, she would leave them to it, then complain afterwards she had been ‘abandoned.’
“Course I will.”
Laden with bucket, spade, windbreaker and camping chairs, they were dragged down the slope towards the beach by an enthusiastic Carla. Today was a good day, they were on holiday and they were getting on well.
Record temperatures in UK beat those in Malta! Paul folded his newspaper and placed it behind his sleeping dog. He scanned the vicinity for Emily, spotting her as she raced towards him, her bucket brimming with shells.
“These are for my sandcastle,” she dropped to her knees. “Are you going to help me?”
“In a minute. Let’s record you building it to show to your mum.” It irked him Michelle was missing this. “Careful Emily!” He flicked sand out of his hair.
“I thought Mummy was coming. When will she be here?”
He followed Emily’s gaze towards the path they had reached the beach by. Families basked contentedly behind windbreakers, chatting, sharing a picnic or having a snooze. Others played cricket or flew a kite. His was the only ‘family’ with no woman present. He ached to his core yet, couldn’t be sure if it was Michelle he was missing or the idea of her.
“She might come soon.” Paul reached forward and tickled Emily’s ribs. “Come on. Race you down to the water. I’m off to paddle.”
Another hour passed. The sandwiches were eaten. The tea and squash were drunk. They gathered up their beach gear and hauled themselves up the steep slope, back towards the holiday park. “Carry me Daddy.”
“You must be joking. I’ve got all this to carry!” Paul then paused at the ice cream van to give in to Emily’s next lot of pleading. He noticed his wife, sitting alone, nursing a glass of wine in the beer garden at the end of the road in which they were staying. Something inside him sank when he saw the expression on her face.
“Mummy!” Emily shot towards her, throwing herself beside her mother on the bench. “You should see my sandcastle. Daddy’s taken a picture.”
Paul dropped their stuff at the side of the table and glanced around the empty beer garden. “Where were you?” He hoped he was keeping the irritation out of his voice. “I thought you were going to join us?”
“Sounds like you’ve been fine without me.” She fastened her dark hair into a bun.
Paul detected an antagonistic undercurrent in her voice, however, he couldn’t read the expression in her eyes as she was wearing sunglasses. “Are you going to buy me and Emily a drink? I don’t think I’ll have enough money on me.” Resentment stole over him. He was always having to ask her for money. This had been fine in the beginning. Both their salaries were paid into a joint account. Michelle was frugal, sensible and things got paid on time. Paul had always been renowned for being useless where finances were concerned. At first, he’d thought it was quite romantic to have all their resources pooled. But he’d soon got fed up when she questioned every penny he spent. She’d gone ballistic when he had suggested opening a solo
account for his salary to be paid into. It wasn’t worth the hassle of the arguments so he went along with her demands. Anything for a quiet life.
“You can go to the bar then. I’ll have another one.” She smiled at her daughter’s ice-cream stained face as she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a tissue. “Look at the state of you!”
“How many have you had Michelle?” This was a dangerous question, he knew that. Once she started drinking, she couldn’t stop. He stared at her blue painted toenails as he waited for an answer.
“Only the one.” She adjusted the parasol over them all. “Another won’t hurt. Stop nagging at me, will you!”
Paul rose from the table and wandered over the grass, vowing to buy her a small wine, mixed with plenty of ice and soda water.
It was relatively quiet apart from the sound of distant seagulls. “What are we going to do for the rest of the day?” Paul asked as they sipped their drinks. “We could have a drive out somewhere.”
“Can’t be bothered.” Michelle screwed her mouth up. “I’m OK here. Pack it in Em.”
Paul glanced towards Emily who was blowing bubbles into her drink using her straw. “But we’re supposed to be on holiday. Emily’s bored. We can’t stay here all day.” He tried to keep his voice steady but was inwardly seething. Couldn’t they do anything without her getting sozzled? When was she going to put Emily first?
“Why not?” She shrugged then added a flourish of her arm. We can do what we want. Like you said, we’re on holiday.” Her voice was cheery. “I’ll have some of that sun cream.”
He watched as she slathered it onto her freckled shoulders before gesturing to him to rub it in on the back of her neck. “Can you give me some more money then?” This could go either way. She would be glad to be rid of them or might start a row. “We’ll get out of your hair for a couple more hours.” He tapped Carla’s head. “Carla will keep you company, won’t you girl?”
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