The Death Knock

by Elodie Harper

  ‘OK,’ says Dan. ‘Well, keep your wits about you. I also wanted to let you know that the major crime unit are taking apart Donald Emneth’s computer right now, looking for any links to the website.’

  ‘I thought they weren’t pursuing it as a major line of enquiry?’

  There’s a pause. ‘Well, it’s obviously not the only reason they’re looking at his online history,’ he admits. ‘But I’ve asked them to keep an eye out for links to the blog too.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Also, have you ever come across Grant Allen?’

  ‘The Justice for Jailbirds guy? Why, what about him?’

  ‘I think you might want to check into his background, maybe look at his online history too. It seems he went to Jamie Cole’s trial, which means he would have had all the details about Hanna, just like the blogger Feminazi Slayer did. He also keeps calling the newsroom asking to come on the show and hasn’t been too pleased that I’ve said no. He rang just this morning, asking for me.’

  ‘Was he threatening in any way?’

  She thinks about the rasping voice on the phone. ‘No,’ she admits. ‘Just rude.’

  ‘Sounds about right. Grant’s not known for his manners. But if he’s not threatened you, that doesn’t sound too out of the ordinary. Our Mr Allen’s always trying to get in the papers. He’s also very litigious, so mind how you go.’

  ‘Is there no way you can question him?’

  ‘Not really, no, not unless you’ve got something more to go on,’ says Dan. ‘We can’t just go taking people’s computers apart on a punt, there’s got to be a good reason to suspect them. Sorry if that sounds harsh,’ he adds, perhaps hearing the pompous tone in his own voice.

  ‘And the fact he went to Jamie Cole’s trial to provide the guy with back-up support doesn’t give you enough to go on?’ Frankie asks.

  ‘It’s interesting,’ Dan says. ‘And definitely worth bearing in mind. But no more than that right now. It’s not as if Grant’s made any secret of supporting Jamie Cole – it’s not as if he makes a secret of anything, the man’s a total loudmouth, as I’m sure you’re aware having spoken to him.’

  Frankie glances round the green. There’s nobody within earshot. ‘What about his son?’

  ‘The lad that killed his girlfriend? Living somewhere under a new name, I believe.’

  ‘Couldn’t you find out who he is?’ There’s a long silence. ‘Dan? Are you there? I just thought if anyone fits the bill for Feminazi Slayer, it’s him. He killed his girlfriend by smashing a vase of flowers over her head, and a smashing vase is the image left online for Lily and now for me. And then I’ve been getting those weird cards, and Hanna got glass in the post . . .’ She trails off, not wanting to say her idea out loud. The police have arrested Donald Emneth after all, and Dan’s not going to want to hear her theory about an alternative killer.

  ‘Zachary Allen’s new identity is protected by court order, only a handful of people know who he is.’ Dan sounds angry. ‘And even if I found out, can you imagine what would happen if I leaked that to the press? I’m amazed you’d even ask.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Frankie says. ‘I didn’t mean for you to tell me. I meant could you find out, as in you, the police, investigating the case!’

  ‘Oh right,’ says Dan. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Never mind,’ says Frankie. ‘Probably just a “punt” as you’d call it.’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry not to be more helpful,’ says Dan. ‘Genuinely, I am. Keep me posted on Grant Allen, let me know if he contacts you again. But for now, let’s see if Donald Emneth’s computer throws anything up.’

  Frankie says goodbye and stuffs the phone back in her coat pocket, disappointed. It’s not that Dan’s said anything unreasonable, but she was still hoping for more. After their last meeting, she had started to see him as an ally. She sits for a moment, looking out at the green without seeing it, lost in her thoughts. Then a movement catches her eye. There’s a figure in a woolly hat and a dark duffle coat, standing near the cathedral doors. It’s too far away to see clearly, but she gets the feeling whoever it is, is watching her. She stands up, and walks swiftly to the archway. With a sidelong glance, as if she’s admiring the cathedral, she looks back. The figure in the duffle coat is heading towards her across the green.

  Her heart beats faster and she quickens her steps. She can hear her heels ring out on the tarmac, echoing against the ancient stone as she walks under the shadow of the arch. On the other side she turns a sharp left and waits round the corner, watching to see if the figure in the duffle coat comes out. Two minutes pass. Three. There’s nothing.

  Frankie walks back into the cathedral green, trying to look casual. A couple of students are now sitting on her bench and she can see a woman walking a dog. But no sign of the figure in the coat. Whoever it was must have walked the other way.

  ‘You’re going loopy,’ she says to herself, angry at being spooked. She crosses the road, heading back into town, resisting the temptation to turn round and check if she’s being followed. In Tombland she darts into a sandwich bar to pick up the coffee she promised Zara. There’s a short queue. She’s watching the barista prepare another customer’s order, thumping out the old grains into the waste, when a soft voice by her ear nearly startles her out of her skin.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

  She turns round to see Brett Hollins behind her. He’s wearing a shirt with the same carefully ironed collar she remembers from the bar, and a distressed leather bag hangs over one shoulder. He’s also standing far too close. ‘Where did you spring from?’ she says, relieved to notice he’s not wearing a duffle coat.

  ‘Sorry, did I give you a fright?’ He looks amused rather than apologetic. He places one hand on her upper arm, and gives it a squeeze. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  There’s no room to step backwards and Frankie’s too embarrassed to ask him to remove his hand so she squirms slightly and he lets go, nudging against her breast with his palm as he moves away. She feels the blood rush to her face, not quite certain whether or not he did it on purpose.

  ‘What’ll you be having?’ It’s the waitress, but Frankie is still staring at Brett. He looks particularly smug, obviously mistaking the reason for her blush.

  ‘I think it’s your turn,’ he says.

  ‘Right, sorry, um, two lattes please,’ she splutters, irritated that she’s the one who’s embarrassed. ‘I don’t think much of Schopenhauer,’ she says to him, aware after she’s said it that this is a ridiculous remark to make out of nowhere.

  ‘Really? Why not?’

  ‘He was a massive sexist, that’s why.’

  ‘He was a man of his time.’ Brett looks sidelong at her. His brown eyes remind her of a fox, sly and inscrutable. An image from Killing Cuttlefish, her own face transposed onto a harpy, flashes into her mind. Could this man have set up the website? Or worse? She can feel her palms sweating. She’s desperate to get away. ‘And really,’ he continues, ‘it would be an anachronism to judge him. By today’s standards everyone back then was sexist.’

  ‘He was born after Mary Wollstonecraft, so that’s no excuse.’ Frankie takes the coffees off the waitress, one in each hand, and looks up at him, her chin jutting out with fear and anger. ‘And you must know sexists today still look up to him as if he’s some sort of hero? There’s even an entire website named after that horrible essay he wrote on women, and the whole thing’s stuffed with hateful misogynist posts.’ She holds Brett’s gaze, watching him as she speaks, trying to judge his reaction.

  He smiles and reaches forward to push a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing her cheek. ‘What an extraordinary woman you are.’

  She flinches. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she says, much louder than she intended. She’s aware of the waitress and other customers staring. It’s Brett’s turn to turn red. She leaves him standing by the counter and rushes out of the café, spilling some of her drinks as she bangs the door open.

  Ava
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  Daisy is the best thing to happen to me since I was kidnapped. I feel guilty even thinking that, but it’s true. The relief of being with somebody kind and having somebody sane to talk to is overwhelming. I know she’s as helpless as I am, more so now her hands are tied, but somehow I feel safer with her here.

  We have tried our hardest to get her hands free, but she was right; even taking the skin off, the cable tie won’t fit over her knuckles. I’m currently trying to work a metal hook free from Daisy’s left shoe. If I can rub that against the plastic for any length of time, I might be able to snap it. We both need our hands free if we’re to stand any chance of overpowering him.

  Our plan is for me to stand behind the door when he comes in and try to grab him round the neck from behind, while she kicks him in the nuts. Not especially original, but we’re short of options, and this is something we could attempt even with her hands tied. Part of me is reluctant even to try. If we fail, I don’t think he will be as forgiving as last time.

  ‘When you’ve tried to get to know him,’ Daisy says, ‘have you seen any glimmer of empathy, anything at all?’

  ‘I think he liked Hanna. The girl here before us,’ I reply.

  ‘The dead one? Well, that’s brilliant.’ She pulls a face, and though it’s not funny we both laugh. ‘Oh God,’ she says, flopping her head back against the wall. ‘This can’t be real, it can’t be happening.’ She sighs, closing her eyes. ‘I should be on shift right now. There’s a mum who had post-natal depression with her first baby and she’s pregnant again. I’m meant to be seeing her today, or at least I think it’s today, if today is today. Shit, you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. I’ve completely lost track of how long I’ve been here. ‘I’ve probably missed the deadline for my coursework.’

  She snorts. ‘Think the university will let you off?’

  I think of Professor Marks and go cold. ‘He imitated my tutor. Fat Head, I mean.’ That’s our new name for him. Daisy thought of it. ‘I don’t think he is Peter Marks, not really, but sometimes I don’t feel totally sure. It’s hard to be sure of anything in here.’

  ‘Jesus! What does this guy want,’ she says, her mind, like mine, constantly revolving around the man who’s keeping us here. ‘Is it sex? I mean, has he . . .’ She trails off, a mixture of fear and sympathy in her voice.

  I shake my head to reassure her. ‘No, not at all. I don’t think he’s interested.’ I look down at my vomit-stained front and my filthy jeans. ‘Not sure why. I look irresistible right now.’ There’s a touch of hysteria to the laugh that follows, but even so, laughing at him is making me feel better. ‘Actually I think women disgust him. Not just sexually, in every other way too. He just hates us.’

  ‘Do you think there’s a pattern?’ she says. ‘Why he’s picked us in particular?’

  ‘Not the first women, I don’t think. He just refers to them all as “the whores”, they don’t even get names. But Hanna he always refers to by name, and me.’ I think of the way he says my name – Ay-vah – deliberately stressing the first syllable, as if saying it gives him extra control over me. ‘And he claims he was stalking me for a while.’

  ‘God, how creepy. I wonder if he’s been hanging round the hospital, round any of my pregnant women. What a bastard.’

  Her brow crinkles with concern and I love her even more, knowing that even here, in this awful place, she’s thinking of her patients. ‘He told me a lot about Hanna,’ I say. ‘I think I know why he targeted her. It’s because she got a guy banged up for sexual assault. That and he felt they’d both had a hard upbringing.’

  ‘That’s weird. He kidnapped her because of something they had in common?’

  ‘I think he went for me because he didn’t want to sympathise. He’s always going on about how privileged I am. And over-educated. Comparing me to Hanna.’

  ‘So, we’ve got a woman who gets a man sent to prison, a smart university student and a midwife. All stuff, I guess, that he wouldn’t like. Unless the whole thing is just opportunism.’

  If he’s been stalking me, I know there’s something else he might hate. ‘Also, I’m a lesbian,’ I say, blushing slightly, though my face is probably too filthy to show it. I hope she doesn’t look at me differently now she knows, that I haven’t ruined things between us. But why should she? After all, I haven’t added the part that might make her uncomfortable: and I think you’re beautiful. ‘Fat Head’s not mentioned it.’ I shrug, as if it’s no big deal for me to have told her. ‘But I know being gay doesn’t tend to earn you many friends with misogynists.’

  ‘We’re never going to know, are we? I mean we could just go round and round and round and still have no clue why the fuck he’s doing what he’s doing.’ She closes her eyes again and I think she’s on the verge of tears.

  ‘We’re going to get out,’ I say, my voice much firmer than I feel. ‘We’re going to get out and the police are going to catch him.’ Still, Daisy doesn’t say anything. ‘Let’s not talk about him any more,’ I say. ‘Tell me about you instead, tell me what it’s like to deliver a baby. Talk me through the whole thing.’

  ‘No two births are the same,’ she says. ‘And yet they’re all the same. The wonder at the end of it. A whole new life.’ She smiles and I feel that I’m seeing her as she really is, as her friends outside must see her. ‘I’ve only been a midwife for five years, but however long I do this job, I can’t see it ever getting old. I mean the shifts are bloody hard and exhausting, but it’s the birth itself I’m talking about. The elation at the end, when you hold the baby, look at him or her and think, that’s it, little one. You’re in the world. It’s your life to live now.’ Daisy starts to cry, silently at first, then she’s howling. I shuffle over, put my arm around her. I feel bad for upsetting her, though I know it’s not my fault. ‘I want my own baby, Ava. I want to hold my own baby. But that’s never going to happen for me now, is it? He’s going to kill us. That’s it, I’ve had my life, it’s all led up to this, and I don’t get to have my baby.’

  She’s crying so hard and I don’t know what to say to her. I can’t offer her empty words, promising her that she’s going to have a child one day, she’ll be a mum, it will all be OK. Her words tear at my own heart, ripping it apart as I think of all the things I desperately want to do. All the places I want to travel to, the moments I want to share with my friends and family, all the love and adventure. Even just to feel the breeze on my face, to see the sky, to be free to walk out of the door. I start sobbing too. We sit there weeping, her head resting against my shoulder, filling the room with our grief and fear.

  Frankie

  Jack’s breath comes slowly, his chest rising and falling. He’s fast asleep. Frankie leans over to the side table, pressing a key on her phone so that the blue light illuminates their dark bedroom. 5.12 a.m. She’s been awake for the past two hours.

  She resists the temptation to speed the remaining hours until daylight by surfing the Internet. Her eyes are already burning. Above her the overhead light casts a slight shadow on the ceiling. It’s strange, she thinks, how the blackness of night always contains further darkness, once your sight adjusts to the gloom. She tries to lull herself to sleep by keeping her breathing at the same steady pace as Jack’s. There was another card waiting when she got home. A chunk of the vase is missing now, its mouth a jagged ring. It’s sitting on the breakfast counter, face down, but the image is seared into her mind. Her breath speeds up and she wills herself not to panic. I’m safe, she tells herself, I’m safe here. Jack promised her he’d drop it off at the police station for Dan on his way to work.

  She told him all about Brett last night, admitting that she and Zara had gone to see him at the bar on Saturday. He teased her, said he didn’t mind, that he was sure Brett wasn’t dangerous just keen, but she didn’t like the way she caught him looking at her later when they were watching telly. She thinks he’s disappointed. If they weren’t both so stressed by the blog and the postcards, she suspects he wo
uld have let his anger show.

  Brett has texted her twice. One a huffy message apologising ‘if she got the wrong idea’ and the other telling her she intrigues him and asking her out for a drink. Frankie hasn’t replied yet; Jack asked her to ignore him. She feels a bit embarrassed by her reaction in the café – perhaps Brett didn’t deserve to be shouted at – but her nerves are frayed and his pushiness is not reassuring. She can’t be sure Brett doesn’t wish her harm, whatever Jack says.

  The shadow on the ceiling lengthens as minutes then hours pass, and light starts to seep through the curtains.

  In the newsroom Frankie feels barely awake. She sips her third coffee of the morning and tries to read the papers online, to see how they’re covering Donald Emneth’s arrest.

  It’s not a pleasant sight. The tabloids have pushed their reports to the far side of lurid. Strangler Arrest is the headline on one, above a screen grab of him aiming a kick at Gavin, mouth open and eyes crazed. She wonders if Emneth’s chances of a fair trial really have been diminished, as Grant Allen claims. Although she hates to agree with the newsroom’s most irritating caller, she thinks he may have a point.

  ‘We’ve got someone on the line who wants to talk to you.’ She looks up to see Emma from the planning desk hovering nearby. ‘Have you got time to take it?’

  ‘Not bloody Grant Allen again!’

  ‘Who?’ Emma looks puzzled. ‘No, this guy’s called Simon. He’s calling about another missing woman. Sounds very upset.’

  ‘Sorry, yes, of course I’ll take it,’ she says. Emma goes back to her desk and buzzes the call through. ‘Frances Latch here. How can I help?’

  ‘She’s gone and they’re not listening to me!’

  The voice on the line is shrill with distress. This doesn’t sound like a prank call. In spite of her exhaustion, Frankie’s senses switch to high alert. She tries to focus all her attention. ‘Simon?’ she says. ‘Is that your name? It’s OK, I’m listening. First of all, who’s gone missing and for how long?’