Closer Than You Think

by Darren O’Sullivan

  St Ives, Cambridgeshire

  The morning we found out there might be a copycat killer Mum, Geoff and Paul argued with me about wanting to stay at home for half an hour, and with each passing minute my conviction grew until one by one they quietened down, thinking of alternatives. Seeing I would not budge, Peter said he would arrange for an officer to watch the house, which I reluctantly agreed to. Being watched wasn’t something I enjoyed. Mum insisted they had a key so they could get in quickly, just in case.

  Once a plan of action we were all happy with had been agreed, Paul nipped into Huntingdon and bought a small camera and fixed it to the wall outside my house. He downloaded an app to my iPad which allowed me to see who was coming to the door. It also recorded the footage, just in case. He didn’t need to – having a police officer stationed outside would be enough – and when I asked him why he was going to such expense he replied that he wanted me to have some control. And he was right – as soon as I could see onto my street whenever I wanted without having to be at the door, I felt more in control. And I knew, if Paul wasn’t careful, I’d end up loving him.

  Now, a week after I stamped my feet and refused to leave, I bitterly regretted my decision. I hadn’t slept, I could barely eat and being in the bathroom freaked me out so much I had washed myself in the downstairs toilet sink, with the door left open so I didn’t feel like I was being locked in. Worst of all, I had barely been able to take my eyes from my iPad screen. I felt the need to have it everywhere with me, constantly playing, and every time someone came close to my house, I felt a spike in my adrenaline. I didn’t tell anyone; Geoff would insist I stopped and would suggest I got rid of the iPad, but it had become something akin to a security blanket. Paul, who had stayed with me since, knew I kept the iPad close but didn’t know it was having negative effect on me. I couldn’t say because he would feel guilty for installing it and Mum, well… Mum was angry with me still for not leaving with the police.

  I didn’t think anyone understood why I felt the need to dig my heels in about not leaving but Geoff told me last night over dinner that he understood, and that he would have done the same – much to Mum’s annoyance. Paul was struggling and needed more convincing. He refused to go back to work. He said he would ask for some time off, so that he could stay by my side, but I said it would be ridiculous to let everything in his life grind to a halt because of me. The police were always nearby, and no one could get near the house anyway as there were reporters lurking around, wanting to take my photo and ask me questions. I’d not been outside yet, of course. But Mum, who was back and forth from hers, told me the journalists were mainly just wanting a statement from me, something about how I’m feeling, an insider account from ‘one who lived’. They were persistent, and while invasive, they also meant I was safe – well, safer at least.

  I also told Paul I needed space, time to process how I was feeling, so I could talk to him properly and continue to build on what we shared together. Reluctantly, just as the sun started to stir, a thin orange light breaking over the horizon, he showered and dressed to drive north to work on a site three hours away. I could see as he closed the door to leave how much he hated going. And, if I was honest, I did too. But I knew I needed to face being alone at some point. He locked the door behind him, got into his car and I watched through a gap in the curtains as he backed out of the drive. A lone photographer sprung to life to take a picture, the flash cutting through the darkness like a lightning strike. Paul drove away quickly, his tail lights fading in the distance. I watched the photographer look back at the house, peering into the windows – luckily, he couldn’t see me.

  Moving to the sofa, I wanted to sit down but instead stood paralysed, knowing that I was alone for the first time since waking up to the news of the killing in Wales. The house felt quieter than usual: still, as if the air in it had died. I knew I needed to do something, so I walked into the kitchen, my bare feet on the lino sounding like a drum beating against the silence of the house. Between Mum talking, the news playing, Geoff’s heavy breathing, Paul reading aloud, I hadn’t experienced quiet for a week. Now all this background noise was gone, I became acutely self-aware – and I didn’t like it one bit. Worse still, the house seemed to notice me, and I couldn’t help but think it was listening to my every move.

  Turning on the tap to fill the kettle made me feel like I was making noise in a library. The boiling kettle came to a violent crescendo, and as I made my way into the living room to sit on the sofa, I thought the coffee in my hand would try to scald me.

  I counted the seconds on the clock ticking by, resetting back to zero every time I hit sixty. And there I stayed for hours, counting each second of each minute and resetting at zero. I slowed my breathing, focused my mind on the small things, like I had been taught by Dr Porter. I had missed the last appointment and I was hopeful I would be able to go today. But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I was more afraid of stepping outside now than I had been in the past twelve months, and felt like a failure for it.

  By the time I stopped counting the ticking clock, the sun was warming the sky and my coffee was stone cold. I drank it anyway, my swallowing loud and aggressive in the otherwise silent house. Sighing after I finished, I held the mug in my hands and noticed that the dregs of coffee in the bottom resembled the shape of a fire.

  I heard movement from somewhere inside my home. My ears strained to listen around the corners of the room and work out where the noise was coming from, while my rational mind tried to dismiss it. It was just the house shifting in its foundations, or Baloo wandering around upstairs, although I wasn’t sure if he was here or he was at Mum’s – maybe it was a bird on the roof? I held my breath… waiting for the noise again.

  There were three loud bangs, and I jumped, banging my knee on the coffee table and knocking the empty cup to the floor. Swearing, I stood, knowing it wouldn’t be anything sinister, just the door. And yet, I was so terrified I couldn’t control my body, which was now shaking. I grabbed the iPad from the corner of the sofa to look at the camera and see who it was. But the battery was flat and, putting it down, I cursed myself for not being careful with the one thing that provided me comfort. Outside, there was another knock and I clapped my hands together, trying to free myself from the fear. The copycat wouldn’t come in the morning, with the papers nearby and a police officer parked outside. And even if he did, he was hardly likely to knock.

  I told myself to get a grip.

  But still, as I approached the front door, to find out who was there, I felt like I could throw up.

  The person knocked again on the door, three loud bangs, each one vibrating through me, and I stumbled backwards, away from the door and into the archway into the living room.

  More bangs, followed by someone calling my name. But I couldn’t respond, instead I sank to the floor. Made myself small. Then, there were no more bangs, no more voices. And the house was quiet again.

  Without being able to stand, as if my legs belonged to someone else, I half-crawled, half-shuffled to the front door. I pressed my ear against the cool UPVC, straining to hear footsteps moving away. Nothing. Whoever it was had gone. I dragged myself over to the bottom of the stairs and buried my head into my hands telling myself to calm down, forcing myself to breathe. After a few minutes it worked, but just as I started to get up again a key went in the door and it quickly swung open, the suddenness of it terrifying me.

  A police officer – Jenny, I think she said her name was – came in and my face flushed with the heat of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. She noticed me jump and raised her left hand apologetically. In her right, she had a box – there had been a courier trying to deliver a parcel.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Moore, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  I wanted to say it was OK, but couldn’t. Instead I sank back onto the step and cried. I didn’t want to look weak, I didn’t want her to pity me. But the sudden shock was unmanageable. As I cried I realised, when I truly believed I was in trouble,
I had frozen like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights. Whereas once I could run, did run, I no longer could.

  ‘I’m really sorry to burst in like that and scare you, but when you didn’t answer the door I was concerned for you.’

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ I said between sobs.

  Outside I heard a commotion: a car pulling up quickly and the sound of cameras clicking, the freelance photographers hoping to get a cheque-worthy picture. Then I heard Mum’s voice telling them to get out of her way. The police no doubt called her to see if I was at hers before letting themselves into my house. She bounded through the front door, in her gym wear. They must have interrupted her doing her daily yoga session at home.

  ‘What’s happened, love?’

  ‘Nothing, Mum.’

  ‘Then why…’

  ‘I thought there as something wrong,’ Jenny said. ‘But I was mistaken.’

  ‘You were mistaken? Could you perhaps be a little more sensitive?’

  ‘Mum, she’s just doing her job.’

  ‘I’ll leave you two to it. Sorry once again, Mrs Moore.’

  I smiled to the officer as she put the box on the floor and backed out of the house, closing the door behind her. Once closed, Mum sat next to me on the stairs, her head resting on my shoulder. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Someone knocked on the door. Delivering that,’ I said gesturing to the box. ‘I panicked.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m a mess, Mum.’

  ‘I know you are, darling. I know,’ she replied in her teasing way, making me smile despite feeling I couldn’t.

  ‘Cheers, Mum. You could have dressed it up a little.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is.’

  ‘It’s shit.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘It’s fucking shit.’

  ‘It’s a massive, steaming pile of fucking shit.’

  ‘Mum!’ I said, shocked by her outburst.

  ‘Well, you’re allowed to swear.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘But nothing. Call it what it is!’

  ‘You want me to call it exactly what it is?’

  ‘Yes, let rip, love.’

  ‘OK, it’s exhausting.’

  ‘Claire, you’re safe…’

  ‘I don’t mean the copycat is exhausting. I mean living like this. I’m tired of living like this.’

  Mum lifted her head from my shoulder, and I slipped into the safety of her embrace. Eventually, she released me, and I sat up, suddenly feeling the need to nap.

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really, but thanks, Mum.’

  ‘You’re welcome. What’s in the box?’ she asked, gesturing towards the foot-square parcel I’d forgotten about.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Mum got up and moved towards it, examining the label on the top. ‘Handwritten.’

  She pinched the edge of tape and pulled, tearing it from the box. Unfolding the sides, I watched as she smiled at the contents. ‘It’s from that support group, a card from Wendy and Veronica. Are they people you know?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, relieved it wasn’t from Killian. ‘They are two retired ladies who always send me Christmas and birthday cards. They say it’s from the whole group. But it’s always just them.’

  ‘That’s sweet.’

  ‘What’s the card say?’

  Mum squinted, her glasses nowhere to be seen. After a few seconds of trying, she gave up and handed me the card to read.

  To help relieve the stress you are no doubt feeling.

  We are thinking of you, and only a message away.

  Mary, Veronica and everyone else at CMSP

  Mum slid the box open and looking inside I saw bath bombs, bubble bath, incense sticks and other things to help promote well-being. Their gift was sweet and thoughtful, but I slid the box back towards Mum.

  ‘You have these, Mum. I won’t use them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said before looking in for herself. As soon as she did, she understood. As much as I missed them, I didn’t take baths, couldn’t take baths. Every time I tried, I’d feel worse after. In a bath all you can do is look at your body, and I had spent enough of my time looking at my scars.

  ‘I see,’ she said as she made her way back to the step, her shoulder and arm in contact with mine. ‘Well, make sure you thank them, anyway.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Claire, as I’m doing something for you by taking away these horrid bath products…’

  ‘They’re hardly horrid.’

  ‘… and I will have to suffer being Cleopatra tonight in the tub, Geoff doing my bidding…’

  ‘Yuck, Mum, I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Tending to my every whim, feeding me grapes…’

  ‘Mum, stop!’ I nudged her gently. I didn’t want to know what she and Geoff got up to in their private time.

  ‘As I’m kindly doing all this for you, would you do something for me?’

  It wasn’t often Mum asked me to do anything for her, so I was taken aback; her expression had transformed from light to something serious. I didn’t know what she would ask. Was it something to do with Geoff, or money? I had none of my own, but I still hadn’t cashed the latest cheque from the group. I could give it to her rather than a charity.

  ‘What is it, Mum?’

  She took a deep breath, and just before she spoke, her lips curled into a teasing smile.

  ‘Have a shower, love. You’re beginning to pong.’

  ‘You bugger, Mum, I was really worried.’ I smelled my clothes. ‘Oh God, I do, don’t I? Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t say sorry to me, it’s poor Paul I think about.’

  ‘He’s not said anything. He should have.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s just being kind.’ She smiled at me, and I smiled back thinking just how kind he had actually been. He’d made sure I was eating, and massaged my shoulders when the tension was too much. He didn’t feel the need to talk all the time, his stillness, his silence speaking to me instead. Making me feel safe. ‘Either that or he’s gone nose blind.’

  Mum laughed too hard at her own joke and got to her feet.

  ‘Come on upstairs, I’ll put the shower on.’

  Mum led, and I followed behind her. I didn’t need to tell her that when I was feeling vulnerable, the bathroom was the most frightening place to be. She understood, probably more than I did, about the transference of trauma. And I didn’t need to ask her to sit outside and chat loudly whilst I washed. Because she had done it a thousand times before.

  Chapter 26

  6th September 2018

  St Ives, Cambridgeshire

  I didn’t want to be able to catch my reflection in the mirror, so I had to wait for the bathroom to fill with steam before I felt like I could step into the shower. Sitting on the edge of my bed I prepared myself to be in a bathroom, with the door shut, after a week of fearing it. I was grateful to Mum, who turned on the water, left the bathroom and without talking to me started to busy herself in the box room across the hall. She hummed as she pottered, giving me the space I needed but telling me she was not far away. Once I was satisfied the shower had steamed up, I slipped from my bedroom into the bathroom and shut the door. I undressed, thankful the mirror had completely fogged over. I turned the water up as hot as I could bear and scrubbed myself until all my skin was as pink as the scar tissue on my foot. As I washed myself, I could literally see the dead skin and dirt running from my body and down the plughole. Outside I listened as Mum sang to herself, loud enough to ensure I could hear her.

  Getting out of the shower I wrapped the towel around my body and with another I dried my hair quickly. Then, wiping the mirror glass, I looked at myself. Although still shaken, I looked all right. In fact, if I didn’t know what I knew, if I didn’t know who I was, I would have said I looked like anyone else. I was almost normal.

  I never thought I would think that.

  Looking at my feet
, both still pink from the hot water, I focused on the right, looking at the patch of floor where two toes should have been, and then from my toes up my calf where the skin had melted when he’d set fire to me, just before I escaped. And I realised that was normal too. Not normal by anyone else’s standards, but it was my normal. I held out my arm and looked at the scar that had resulted from my fall out of the window. I wanted to drop my towel and look at my stomach, but was worried it would be too much, so stopped myself. Sometimes, the small victories are the most important.

  I tried to understand why I suddenly felt OK with myself, and realised it was my self-preservation kicking in. I knew I still had the strength of the person who’d climbed out of that window, blood pouring from her body, trying to escape the clutches of a brutal killer. I was determined to survive, only this time, surviving wasn’t running, hiding in grass cuttings. Surviving was stepping outside. Having a photo taken. Being a real person once more. Going outside felt like a more frightening prospect than trying to escape through that bathroom window. But, I needed to. Because if I didn’t, I may as well be dead.

  Mum looked up from a book she had come across in the box room as I stepped out of the bathroom. ‘There, are you feeling better?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. Fancy going out for cake and coffee?’

  Mum’s face lit up as a smile spread from ear to ear. ‘Do I ever!’

  Chapter 27

  6th September 2018

  St Ives, Cambridgeshire

  As we left the house, the few photographers camped outside sprang to their feet. It was obvious when they heard the door open that they weren’t expecting to see me coming out. The shutters clicked as we made our way towards Mum’s car, which she had parked hastily on the drive. Mum walked in front of me and opened the passenger door for me to climb in. As she closed it my hand went up to my necklace. Front, back, upstairs, downstairs.

  Mum started to back out of the drive and, still holding the keys, I looked out, catching the eye of a photographer, knowing a picture he had taken, or would take, could well end up in a paper or magazine somewhere. And he, the copycat would no doubt see it. Startled by me staring at him, he didn’t take a photo, which allowed me a moment to wonder: if the copycat looked at a picture of me, what did I want him to see? A woman who was broken, sad and scared? Or a woman who held her head high, a woman defiantly not afraid of him? Knowing the answer straight away I smiled at the photographer through the glass. And he clicked his camera before smiling back. The world would see me, he would see me, happy, carefree. Unafraid. I wasn’t just the one who lived. I was the one who lived and wouldn’t hide. It was a small thing, but as we drove away towards the town centre, I couldn’t help but feel like I had won a huge battle. Today was becoming a day of victories.