When the Dead Come Calling

by Helen Sedgwick

Is Daddy coming home?

  And he is coming home, he’s here with his thick beard and his wide arms and child Dawn is scrambling up from under the table and running towards him, running toppling like toddlers do, calling Daddy, Daddy as he sweeps her up and lifts her high in his arms and he smells of the cigarette smell and she giggles.

  How is my number one girl?

  I laugh because of his funny scratchy beard, his smiling green eyes.

  Georgie feels something pushing through her veins, forcing its way to the surface.

  What can you see now, Dawn? Just describe what you see, what you smell.

  I don’t know.

  Just try.

  There’s meat and onions, in the kitchen.

  That’s good. Focus on what you can smell.

  Mummy’s cooking dinner.

  You’ve eaten your dinner now, Dawn. What do you remember next?

  I don’t want to. I don’t remember going to bed. I don’t know how I got here. It’s dark…’

  Just go with that.

  I can see the moon.

  Tell me about the moon.

  The moon is… We learn about the moon in school, big and round, that’s the moon, and the colour is silver not white, that’s what the teacher said. I thought it was white but I was wrong. I’m too cold! It’s so cold here…

  Where are you?

  At the playground.

  Tell me about the playground, Dawn.

  Daddy brings me here to play on the swings.

  Are you on the swings now?

  It’s too cold, I’m so cold and I don’t have my shoes. Where are my new shoes? I want to hold my feet, I want to hold my feet because it’s so cold but I can’t…

  Why can’t you reach your feet, Dawn?

  Someone’s holding me down.

  Who?

  They’re kneeling on my wrists … there’s a knife.

  Who is it?

  They’ve put my rabbit on my chest, my rabbit…

  Who is it?

  I don’t know, they’re all covered.

  What’s covered?

  His face, all their faces.

  Georgie doesn’t move but her hand is clasped tight around the table edge. She can see them, out of the corner of her eye. Where she doesn’t want to look.

  How did you get here, Dawn?

  I was in my bed … someone took me out of my bed… Cold hands at the back of my neck, I can’t move, can’t kick my legs…

  Who was it?

  I don’t know. There are eyes, dark eye shapes cut out of the face and I’m scared, I’m trying to kick him away but more people come.

  How many people are there?

  I don’t know.

  What can you hear?

  I can’t breathe…

  What do you feel?

  It’s getting tighter, it’s—

  Dawn, adult Dawn, is gasping for breath, choking as if being strangled, but Alexis still doesn’t stop.

  What can you smell? he says. Focus on what you can smell.

  Dawn is spluttering and Georgie can imagine her, hands clasped round her neck, kicking out in defence. A masked man kneeling on the wrists of a terrified child.

  There’s more of them, Dawn sobs, screams out. No, let me go I can’t breathe let me—

  Her voice dissolves into coughs.

  What can you smell, Dawn?

  Cigarettes…

  What else?

  Meat, meat and onions—

  On his breath?

  Their eyes…

  Describe their eyes?

  Blank circles, rips—

  Focus on his eyes, Dawn.

  Their hoods—

  His eyes?

  Green and red— I can’t breathe, it’s too tight— No! — Please help me, it hurts, it’s sharp—My neck— Help me, HELP ME!

  This last a rasp, as though Dawn is blacking out, strangled into unconsciousness.

  ‘You’re safe, Dawn,’ Alexis says at last, ‘breathe with me,’ and Georgie feels her stomach start to relax as Alexis talks her back down, helps her into the present where she is alive and safe. Except that it’s not this present. Because somewhere Dawn is hidden and in danger, or hiding and dangerous. There was a group of them, she’d said. How many? Kidnapping, torture, attempted murder – if that’s what they were trying to do. Here, in the village. To a little girl. In the playground. The feel of blood between Georgie’s fingers is so vivid for a second she has to force herself to look. Nothing. She’s here.

  ‘You did really well,’ Alexis says.

  ‘Did we get more detail this time?’

  Cigarettes, meat, onions, green eyes, red – as though they had been crying, perhaps, or sore, infected, old – more than two people, a group. Georgie was listening for the details, too. Someone placed her rabbit on her body, someone knew her, these were not strangers. She was drugged, probably, drugged then taken to the playground overlooking the beach. Strangled. Possibly cut with a knife.

  The fluorescent lights buzz above them in squares in the ceiling and the buzzing won’t stop.

  Whoever did this, they were never caught. Nothing was ever reported. Dawn escaped, or was released; she doesn’t say, and perhaps she doesn’t even know. It sounds like she passed out, from fear or lack of oxygen. She went back to school, grew up, was afraid, had nightmares of men in masks and hoods surrounding her, strangling her, and no one ever knew and there are those terrible final words, seconds before the recording is stopped and the air returns to the heavy moisture of this week, to the weight of the sea and the violence seeping through the village.

  ‘Oh God, it was him,’ she says, and it sounds to Georgie as though she has sat up, fully aware of where she is and who she is speaking to, of the danger he might be in, prophetic of what is to come.

  ‘You mustn’t tell anyone.’

  Her voice a whisper, and then it’s over.

  ‘Well, it sounds like…’ Trish says, looking from Georgie to the computer that is now silent. ‘It sounds like one of them, the ringleader maybe, was her dad. The green eyes. The meat and onion smell, from their dinner. The cigarettes. Plus he’d have had access, been able to drug her.’

  ‘We can’t know it was him for sure,’ says Frazer.

  ‘I know that,’ snaps Trish.

  Georgie is thinking, trying to think, trying to stay calm.

  ‘But there’s what happened to her father as well.’

  ‘Which is another thing we have no evidence for.’

  Georgie closes her eyes to block it out. That noise, the relentless buzzing, it doesn’t belong here.

  ‘Come on,’ says Trish.

  ‘You’re jumping to conclusions.’

  ‘She got him released from hospital so she could do what she needed to. She killed him for what he’d done to her.’

  ‘But why would she kill Alexis?’ says Georgie.

  ‘Maybe he worked out what she’d done. He confronted her or something—’

  ‘And now what, you think she’s gone on the run?’ says Frazer.

  ‘She could be scared,’ says Trish. ‘She might not have meant to do it—’

  ‘Or she didn’t do it at all.’ Even Frazer is pacing the room now. ‘I still think it’s more likely to be the racists.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Well, that,’ says Frazer, ‘is the question we should be asking.’

  Georgie doesn’t speak. There are layers of fear here, layers of violence, layers of guilt running through the village. It’s not just one thing, that’s the problem. It’s not entirely about racism – if it were, she’d have more idea how to fight it.

  ‘Look, we’ve got to find Dawn, Georgie. I’m not saying … not necessarily… But she needs help. Obviously. Would you say something, please? We’ve got to act.’

  Georgie waits for silence. Then says:

  ‘Call in Mrs Helmsteading.’

  Trish has finally run out of words.

  ‘I want her here,’ Georgie says. ‘I want her listen
ing to this, with us.’

  ‘But the poor woman—’

  ‘That poor woman was living with Dawn while this’ – Georgie gestures at the phone – ‘was happening. Get her in here. Now.’

  UNDER COVER OF STORM CLOUDS

  Burrowhead has turned a deep sinking grey by the time Simon leaves his flat and heads towards the centre of the village. It’s not just that the street lights have failed to come on – though not a one of them is lit – or that the sky is so filled with swirling cloud it’s hard to imagine any light ever getting through again. But the paving stones, cracked and weed-filled as they are, have lost that sheen they have when the sun catches them. The buildings themselves have not a hint of life about them left; nothing but brown stalks in the gardens, spindly-looking rose thorns desperately trying to reach a window’s edge and the crawling woody stalks of dying geraniums. Was it always this bad? He can’t even remember. Maybe he never saw the truth of it until right now, in the spitting mist of another dusk that’s come too soon. There are narrow alleyways leading between the buildings, dead ends where bins are stored and broken bikes and the air smells of dog piss, and in every one there are shadows. The feeble light can’t make it through the cracks between the homes.

  ‘I need to help,’ he’d said to Georgie. ‘I can help. Let me back in.’

  ‘Stay at home, Si,’ she’d said, not so kindly as he’d expected either. ‘This has got to stop.’

  It wasn’t as though he’d been calling in every hour, but he knew Alexis better than anyone round here.

  ‘You know the damage you could do to the case.’

  And he did, of course; he’d never forgive himself if the prosecution failed because of something he’d done.

  But then Alexis wasn’t just a case, was he.

  What if they never find out who it was, not for sure? What if they do? Is that a part of it, of why Georgie won’t even let him in the station; because she’s not sure what he might be capable of? A dog barks furiously in the distance, and he can’t shake this feeling of being followed, of being watched, the elongating shadows crawling right out of the alleyways and into his path. His head is splitting. He just needs something to help him sleep. Anything. That’s why he left the house; what he told himself anyway. But if Shona’s right, then that could mean his suspicions from before were wrong, that there’s a different version of the story waiting to be found. Whatever Alexis was doing behind his back, he wasn’t seeing someone else – there’s another explanation for the secrets. Something he didn’t trust Simon with. He pushes that thought away. Alexis’s office is in darkness. He stares up at the blank windows, at the emptiness emanating from the flat. He needs to get inside. But something stops him. Pulls him away. Nausea, rising, swallowed down.

  It’s a deeper kind of silence he senses then, the smell within it like a room sealed and aching with damp. Threat. Rot. The alley beside the flat, sinking out of view, and something dark pressed low against the wall. For a second he can’t breathe. The weight on his chest, like dread. What is that? Who is that?

  It’s nothing.

  Litter, maybe. Smashed glass from the bins. A dog? Pile of linen, discarded clothes…

  But his breath’s coming ragged like he’s been running, his mouth tastes bitter and his lips dry and his feet are refusing to move. How long has he been standing here? Whatever it is down there in the alley, it’s not letting him walk away. It’s dark and hunched and his legs are forced to move towards it. He’s been here before. He’s felt this fear, this horror. It’s a body. He knows it’s a body, dumped there by the bins like it’s nothing, hidden in the centre of the village, broken and crushed under some old rags and left to rot.

  Fuck, he can’t bring himself to go down there, to kneel by the body and lift up the rags and face what he needs to face next; he can’t do this any more. He could call someone. Georgie. No, he can’t call her again. He can’t move. Something flickers, the first of the street lights by the square, turning a septic yellow with a feeble buzz, but somehow it helps. He takes a cautious, silent step further into the dark. He swallows, calms his breathing some. Holds out his hand, palm open, as though it might be a dog, or a fox, a wild animal that could be soothed.

  A fox wouldn’t be staying still, though.

  A fox would be scavenging, going through the bins; there’d be the sound of claws on the stone. He edges closer. One step at a time. Nothing moves. He reaches out to the pile of clothes, takes a corner between his fingers. Pulls. More clothes underneath. He straightens up, steps closer. It’s just … it’s a pile of clothes, old sheets, torn and damp – he laughs, kneels down for a closer look: ripped sheets is all. And then he hears it. Behind him. Footsteps. He spins. Shouts out. It’s a man, dark hood, dark jeans, balaclava, running from him now and Simon is on his feet, he’s chasing, he’s yelling Stop! Police! His chest is pounding with the cold gasps he needs to make himself move but it’s instinct taking over now and this is where it’s all been leading – he’s faster and more desperate and he’s nothing left to lose.

  ‘Stop!’

  The man darts across the road, Simon follows, down Church Street, into the dark, and he’s catching up, he can feel the energy of it pounding round his body, through his muscle, through his skin and he can almost reach him – his shoulder, grab the hood, pull him round and swing. He catches him solid, on the jaw, and the man is holding up his hands and he stumbles back and Simon stumbles forwards, stands on his foot and the man falls and Simon falls with him. They hit the ground. Simon’s hands on his shoulders, pinning him down.

  ‘Who are you?’ he demands. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Please stop—’

  ‘What were you doing outside that building?’ His voice louder, shouting. ‘Why were you trying to get in?’

  Simon yanks the balaclava off his head. Sits back, startled.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Please,’ stammers Kevin Taylor, blinking repeatedly into Simon’s stare. ‘Please, I think my head is bleeding.’

  17:35

  A recording of four people listening to a recording of one woman describing how she was attacked as a child by a group of men while two dead bodies lie in the pathology lab; the layers of it. The terrible layers of it. And now she is a part of it too. Mrs Helmsteading is crying, and Georgie is there to watch.

  They asked her a few questions, when she first arrived, brought in by a stony-faced Trish. They asked her if she’d heard from Dawn yet. If she knew where Dawn was. If she knew Dawn had been in therapy with Dr Cosse. Mrs Helmsteading answered no, no, no. The first two sounded despairing. The final one, afraid. And Georgie knew she was right to bring her in, that they had to do this.

  But she could not be so cruel as to play her Dawn’s words without an explanation. So they gave Mrs Helmsteading a seat and made her some tea and told her they’d found some new evidence relating to Dawn and the recent murders. That they knew this was going to be hard for her, that what she was going to hear was horrifying. It was about the possible abduction and attack on her daughter. They waited for a reaction, but Mrs Helmsteading gave none. Her eyes stared at them blankly. Georgie wondered if it was shock. If it was the numbness which can follow pain. If she had reached some kind of threshold.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Mrs Helmsteading just kept looking at her as Trish waited for her nod.

  Together they listened to the description of the flat, the exact carpet in the room where her son was found stabbed to death yesterday morning. The derelict flat that should have been demolished but instead was left to rot.

  Trish paused the recording.

  ‘Do you recognise the description of the room?’ DS Frazer asked.

  Mrs Helmsteading nodded, her eyes down. ‘It was my home,’ she said. ‘A long time ago.’

  They listened to the description of the dinner cooking in the kitchen, of Dawn running to her father when he arrived home, his scratchy beard, his eyes.

  ‘Does this
sound like your late husband?’ Georgie asked.

  That was when Mrs Helmsteading started to cry, as she nodded her response.

  And now Alexis is guiding Dawn outside, talking to her about the moon, about the playground, and Mrs Helmsteading is making no attempt to wipe away the tears that are slipping down the side of her nose, pooling in the lined corners of her mouth, forming a drip on the underside of her chin. Now is the moment when they all have to listen together, when the truth is going to show. This time Georgie doesn’t focus on the words. She watches.

  I was in my bed … someone took me out of my bed… Cold hands at the back of my neck, I can’t move, can’t kick my legs…

  Dawn’s breath is loud on the recordings, urgent, desperate, as the men circle around her, faces hidden, masked – Georgie knows these costumes, the pointed hoods, the slits of eyeholes.

  Who was it?

  Mrs Helmsteading is turning away, like she wants it to stop, but also like she knows where it is going; she knows what will happen.

  What can you smell, Dawn?

  Meat, meat and onions—

  Mrs Helmsteading makes a muffled noise, hands clasped over her mouth.

  On his breath?

  And Georgie sees them tying a rope around a child’s neck, leering in close at her face; feels the knife at her throat, blood on her skin and she’s back there, she can’t help it, they’re surrounded, the noise of panic and fear and the white robes and the hate.

  I can’t breathe, it’s too tight— No!— Please help me, it hurts…

  Mrs Helmsteading’s eyes meeting Georgie’s, pleading, and more, accusing, but Dawn’s voice doesn’t stop, not until she’s choking and screaming and slowly brought back to Alexis’s office and her own words, Oh God, it was him—

  ‘No!’

  Mrs Helmsteading stands up, suddenly, violently, her chair crashing to the ground behind her and Georgie is here, in this room, in control.

  ‘Please calm down, Mrs Helmsteading,’ Georgie says.

  ‘No! This isn’t—’

  DS Frazer has lifted up her seat, offers it back to her.

  ‘But he’s gone,’ she says. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘He’s a suspected victim in an ongoing murder case.’ Georgie’s words are quiet and carefully paced and Mrs Helmsteading looks truly horrified then. Horrified and frail and desperate.