You Let Me In

by Lucy Clarke

  ‘Grateful to be home.’ To Mark she says, ‘I came to ask for a drink.’

  ‘Sure thing. Water? Tea? No nurses spying, so I could even stretch to a sherry.’

  She chuckles fondly. ‘Water, for now.’

  He fills a small tumbler, then helps his mother into a chair, setting the glass in front of her and placing a straw in it.

  Enid takes careful sips. ‘Sit,’ she says to me when she’s finished.

  I obey, pulling out a kitchen chair padded with a floral cushion. I look up, out through the kitchen window, guiltily aware that the view is now partially obscured by the top storey of my house.

  ‘Forgive me, but I overheard your conversation. I’m very sorry to hear about your bins, Elle. I’m sure Mark plans to apologise.’

  He looks at me. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And as for the rest of the business, did that have anything to do with you, Mark?’

  ‘No.’

  She considers her son, then nods, convinced.

  ‘Then perhaps it was your visitor,’ Enid says to me.

  ‘Visitor?’

  ‘The person who looked after the house while you were away.’

  ‘Oh yes. I rented it for a fortnight.’ Conscious of Mark’s comments about second homes, I quickly add, ‘But I won’t normally be renting it out. It was a one-off. They were a nice family, I think. I hope they didn’t give you any trouble.’

  ‘A family? I am surprised.’

  My brow dips. ‘Why?’

  ‘The place looked almost deserted. We never saw anyone using the beach. Not even a car in the driveway. I don’t know how they’d have managed without a car around here.’

  That doesn’t make sense. In Joanna’s email, she’d clearly stated that they’d be driving down from Winchester, which was why she’d asked for the key to be left out.

  ‘You saw them though?’

  ‘Only one of them. Mark and I were on the beach together, weren’t we? It was the day before … the stroke. You’d mentioned you were going away, so I was surprised to see someone at your window.’

  I freeze. ‘What window?’

  ‘At the top of the house. The glass room. It looked as if someone was standing with their hands pressed to the glass, staring out.’

  I feel the beat of my pulse in my throat: someone has been in my writing room.

  Previously

  I take the stairs, bare toes gripping the wood. Careful, careful. A trip could be nasty, if not fatal. Not a single person knows I’m here. Who would find me if I fell?

  You?

  No, that wouldn’t do at all.

  I don’t pause at the first floor – I’ve already explored each of these rooms – so I continue up the stairs until I reach the top. Stepping onto the landing area, I can see there are just two doors.

  I push open the first, which leads into a bathroom. A floating bowl-sink is set below a porthole mirror with a brass trim. Two fisherman lanterns hang from either side of it. A painted white ladder doubles as a towel rack, with perfectly folded towels in complementary tones. On the top shelf, spa products are gathered in a rope basket, the light scent of vanilla in the air.

  This isn’t the room I’m interested in, so I pull the door shut and turn my attention to the second door. Behind it lies the view that you built this house around, that you’ve shared so many times on Facebook, tempting us with a glimpse into your world.

  This doorway leads to your writing room.

  I place my fingers around the handle, anticipation hot in my throat.

  I push down – but there is no give.

  I try again.

  Locked.

  Annoyance twists in my jaw.

  I place my palms against the solid oak door feeling the press of wood.

  Now you have my attention, because I’ve started to wonder: what is inside that you don’t want anyone to see?

  15

  Elle

  ‘Writing isn’t an escape. When you look at a blank page, you are looking yourself in the eye.’

  Author Elle Fielding

  I stand at the edge of my writing room, palms placed against the cool glass, looking across the bay. The tide is out, exposing the ribbed seabed, punctuated by clusters of jagged black rock.

  I was surprised to see someone at your window.

  What window?

  At the top of the house. The glass room. It looked as if someone was standing with their hands pressed to the glass, staring out.

  When I was in France, someone else had been standing right here, as I am.

  My pulse flickers in my throat, like a stray heartbeat.

  How did they get in? I’d left the tenants a key for the main house, but I took the only key to the writing room with me.

  On the morning I left, everything had been such a rush. It’d taken far longer than I’d thought to strip and remake the beds, to empty the final shelves of my wardrobe, to scan the house for valuables and breakables. Then I’d realised that I hadn’t left any instructions, so I’d scribbled a set of notes about how to use the dishwasher, oven, and central heating system. When I’d raced to the top of the house to lock my writing room, I was already half an hour late. It was possible that in my hurry, I’d only thought I’d locked the room.

  I toy with that idea for a moment – then dismiss it. No, I’d locked it. I know I did. I can almost hear the clunk of the metal bolt sliding across, feel my hand on the heavy pewter handle checking it was secure.

  Which means Joanna – or whoever she had staying here with her – had broken in.

  I recall the message Joanna sent the day before she arrived, saying that their travel plans had changed and they’d be arriving late at night, and was it possible to leave the key in a safe place? An innocuous request, I had thought at the time.

  Yet perhaps it had been planned.

  The day after Joanna’s arrival, Fiona had visited the house to make the face-to-face introduction – but found the house empty.

  Yet, what if someone was inside? What if Joanna had been watching from the stairway window, just waiting for Fiona to leave? What if she never had any intention of being seen?

  I picture Joanna’s profile shot: middle-aged, attractive, a feathery blonde bob that looked as if it’d been created at the hands of an expensive hairstylist. A photo selected to reassure, to suggest your home would be well cared for, in safe hands.

  Now a different image forms: the silhouette of a stranger hunched in front of a computer setting up a fake Airbnb profile. It would be easy enough to type a false name into an online form, then scroll through Google images and select a photo of an unknown woman to use as a profile picture. Had this stranger then decided to add a husband and two children to the form, knowing that it would make the rental sound more plausible? Perhaps the stranger spotted that the dates were outside of the school holidays, so decided that one of the children was still in nappies, and the other would be starting school next year. Were they pleased with themselves for thinking of that?

  My heartbeat quickens as I imagine the stranger reaching the final section of the form, where it asks whether they have any information they’d like to ask the owner. Maybe they were enjoying it by then, their fingers hovering above the keyboard wondering what Joanna would say, adding a simple question, easy to answer: Do you have a high chair, or should we bring our own?

  I look through the glass wall, out to sea. Beneath its silver skin, the sea pulses with energy, lines of swell rumbling towards the shore. Seething, rolling.

  The sea stares back at me, a watchful grey eye.

  What have you seen?

  Standing here, I realise that it is entirely possible that Joanna doesn’t exist – and that someone else has been staying in my house.

  Something Flynn said resonates in my thoughts. He’d urged me to be more cautious about what I share on social media. Everything you post leaves a trace. I picture my Facebook photos and captions like a trail of breadcrumbs in a fairy tale. Have I unwittingly laid a path
that leads to my front door?

  I take out my phone and open Facebook, scrolling through dozens of previous posts until I find the one I’m looking for.

  There it is. I’d shared the flyer for the creative writing retreat in France.

  Anyone fancy joining me for a fortnight of cheese and wine? And writing. Obviously writing, too.

  The flyer shows the dates and location of the retreat; therefore, anyone would know when I was going away. My mouth turns dry.

  I continue scrolling through my feed, looking for something else.

  There. I read the caption twice, words which I’d casually typed into my phone without a second thought.

  Spent the morning photographing my house for Airbnb. Definitely deserve a glass of wine.

  I screw my eyes shut. You idiot. Any one of my followers could see the dates of my writing retreat, could work out the area I lived in, and that my house would be available to rent on Airbnb. I have more than fifty thousand followers. All it takes is one person.

  If I am right and someone has set up a fake Airbnb profile, and Joanna and her family don’t exist, the question is: Who has been staying in my house?

  In the glass wall, I see the rest of the writing room reflected behind me: my desk, the wingback chair, the bookcase, the oak trunk. There. That’s where my gaze stays.

  I stand very still, eyeing it, thinking: What do they know?

  I pace to my desk, snap open my laptop, brain firing. I’ve got to do something. I pull up the Airbnb page and scroll to the Contact Us tab. There is, of course, no phone number to call. Instead, I am directed to the Help Centre, where a series of drop-down menus fails to locate the issue I need resolved.

  My fingers stab at the keys as I type my question into a rectangular box. How do you get in touch with someone who’s rented your house – and has now deactivated their account?

  I press Submit, then push my chair back and stand. No one is going to respond to me. This sort of lack of personal communication makes me want to scream. Why can’t you pick up a phone, ask for help? Speak to a real human being. Is that asking too much?

  Disconnected. That was the word Flynn had used. He is right. The whole bloody world is disconnected.

  Airbnb are hardly going to help me track down the person who rented this house. If I want to find out Joanna’s real identity, it is up to me.

  ‘Who are you?’ I say to the empty room, spinning on the spot, as if I turn quickly enough I will catch a glimpse of them.

  I pace the length of the room, muttering to myself, ‘Why? Why were you in here?’

  As I twist back, feet pounding across the floor, my gaze meets the wooden leg of my desk, settling on the roughly carved word. LIAR.

  I’m assaulted by a memory. I try and push it down, keep it sealed, but it shoulders its way forward …

  A pile of post heaped on the doormat of my student house. A slip of cream card. LIAR slashed in red lipstick.

  I lock down the memory. In a flash, I’m pulling open the desk drawer, searching through pens, glue, Post-it notes – until I find the scissors.

  I crouch, setting one of the blades against the desk leg, scraping and scratching against the wood, digging out those grooves, sending tiny curls of wood shavings to the ground. I gouge the blade deeper and deeper, teeth pressed together.

  My breath is ragged, snatched. I work frantically, sawing metal against wood.

  I can smell the fresh sawdust tang. The veins in the backs of my hand strain against the skin.

  Liar. Is that who I am?

  That’s what people told me.

  That’s who I’ve become.

  I work faster – it needs to be gone.

  Erased.

  Finally, it’s done.

  I toss the scissors aside and slump on the floor, chest rising and falling heavily. I stare at the pale wound in the desk leg waiting to feel something – to experience a kick of satisfaction – but there’s nothing.

  It doesn’t matter that it’s gone from the desk. It’s in my head.

  I push to my feet, knowing I need to write. I need to tip out the thoughts, shake them onto the page, before they worm in deeper, feeding on the rot.

  I pull myself into my chair, open my manuscript.

  I must go back there.

  2003

  It was Elle who made the appointment to discuss her essay. She felt a small jolt of excitement when the date was set.

  The door to Luke Linden’s office was already open. She knocked anyway.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘Do you want it open or closed?’

  ‘Up to you.’

  She shrugged. Closed it. Took a seat.

  She could smell her perfume, and beneath it the faint sweetness of sun lotion. She had spent the afternoon in the park with her housemates, laughing about Louise being asked to leave the students’ union on account of drunkenness – a hard feat to achieve at the SU.

  When she looked up, Linden was watching her. ‘You’ve caught the sun.’

  She glanced down at her bare arms.

  ‘On your cheeks.’

  She placed her fingertips there. ‘Oh.’

  Her hair was loose, and she hooked it over one shoulder as she leant back in the chair. She crossed one leg slowly over the other, aware of her bare knees, tanned and smooth.

  They talked about her essay, The role of women in Shakespeare’s tragedies. Linden told her that the first draft had potential, but that she needed to be clearer in her position, write her argument with more conviction backed up by theory.

  She watched him as he talked, admiring the confidence etched into the length of his pauses. He was measured, his words well placed, the theatrics of the lecture hall gone. He leaned forward – close enough that she could smell cigarette smoke on his breath – and continued to talk carefully, as if everything they were discussing were of great interest to him.

  He was a shade too pale, she decided. His shoulders skinny compared to the boys who played sports that she hung out with. But there was something in his eyes that she liked – the way they never left hers.

  He slid the essay across the desk. ‘Let’s schedule another meeting – to see what you do with this next draft. Three weeks’ time. I’ve got a nine-a.m. slot on the Friday.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  It never got put in his diary. There was no formal documentation of it.

  But there it was, the date that would divide her life into before and after.

  16

  Elle

  In the breathless darkness of three a.m., the sound of scratching slides into my dream. I’m hurrying somewhere, feet on concrete. It’s early, the light in the dream bright and vivid. When I look down, I see the hem of a dusky blue dress grazing my thighs. My legs grow heavier, the soles of my shoes scuffing against the ground. A park. I’m in a park. I know this park.

  In my dream, I turn and look over my shoulder and see a gardener digging with a trowel, dark soil lifted from the earth, the metal scrape of the tool as it hits a stone …

  I am bolt upright in bed, mouth open, panting.

  A dream, a bad dream, I tell myself. I am home, in my bed. I am safe.

  My pyjamas are stuck to my skin. I can feel the backs of my knees slick with sweat.

  I push the duvet away and let air reach me.

  I glance at the clock.

  Three a.m. The dead of night. Hours until daylight.

  Then I hear the noise again, a low scratching. Not in my dream. In my house.

  Every cell of my skin tightens.

  I am rigid, listening. I can hear the draw of my breath, the distant rumble of the sea beyond the house as I wait for the sound again.

  Alone in the darkness, fear coils tight, squeezing my thoughts into the darkest corners of my mind.

  There. Scratching. Like fingernails against wood.

  I’m on my feet, grabbing my mobile, moving towards the bedroom door. The plush carpet is soft beneath my heels, but I move slowly, tense, waiting
for that moment of hot pain, a shard of glass against flesh.

  I am at the door, a hand pressed to the wood, breath held as I listen.

  I did my nightly check before bed. I know that the external doors are locked, the windows closed and secure. I looked behind sofas, pressed my hands against the curtains, stared right to the back of the pantry, the foot of wardrobes.

  I checked. Double-checked. There is no one in this house, except me.

  This is just the spike of my nightmare piercing into my waking thoughts.

  That sound again, scratching. Or shuffling. Beneath me. At the very foundation of the house, as if something is under it, or within it.

  Then I think of it: the wine cellar. That’s where the noise is coming from.

  I checked the door was locked, like I always do. But it’s been weeks since I’ve been inside the cellar. I prefer to keep my wine in a kitchen cupboard so that I don’t have to make the windowless descent underground. It’s too cold, too concealed. A place for moths to live and breed in the damp darkness. It was a mistake to build it in the first place. The architect persuaded me, inferring that new builds of this scale should include a wine cellar as a point of saleability.

  I know that if I want to sleep, I need to check it. I need to open that door. Look inside.

  I take a breath, place my fingers on the door handle, turning it quietly. All the while, I’m telling myself it is nothing, there is no one here, yet my heart beats furiously. I can feel the force of it as if it’s trying to burst from my chest.

  I cross the landing in darkness, then begin descending the stairs. I’m acutely aware of the danger of slipping here, alone. The thud of skull against wood. A vertiginous sensation washes over me, and I cling to the bannister until I’ve steadied myself, caught my breath.

  I make it safely to the bottom of the stairs. I still don’t want to turn on the light – too exposing.

  Tiptoeing into the kitchen, there is silence. Nothing. No noise or light from within the cellar.

  I stand in front of the door and type 999 into my phone, careful not to press call. Then I try the handle. I am thinking of moths. Their dusty, winged bodies, sealed in the darkness.