How to Play Dead

by Jacqueline Ward

She smiles.

  ‘Bloody hell. I wasn’t sure which way it would go.’

  ‘Me neither. He’ll be bailed but I don’t think he’ll be back. Unless he comes to Perps.’

  I need to face this. I need to go and tell Carole that my situation has escalated. Just like Sally’s situation, this has dragged on and on and I need to hand it over. I don’t care if I have no ID. I’m going to insist. I wait at the bus stop and watch as the policewoman who will take Sally’s statement arrives. I go over the details of what I will say in my head. Danny texts me, a short interlude in my worry.

  Morning, love. Two weeks to go. Every day is a day closer. I love you xxx always xxx

  I deliberate about telling him what I am about to do, telling him what has happened. But I know that it will be better if I can keep this to myself, just report it. Hand it over to someone who can deal with it.

  I don’t text him back. I just get on the bus and watch the backstreets of Manchester turn into the modern new builds of Central Park and the police station. I’ve been here many times before with women who are finally making statements or answering bail themselves because sometimes they are implicated in crimes that are associated with their partners. Even if they have been forced to cover up for someone, in the eyes of the law they are still complicit, which makes their torment twice as bad: a criminal record for something that they were forced to take part in.

  I swing through the double doors and sit in the foyer waiting my turn at the front desk. My phone pings. Of course it does. In the back of my mind I already know it will be him. I know he is watching. I go up to the desk and stand at the end, with my back to the window, so he will think I am talking to the desk sergeant. Instead, I am breathing deeply to stop my insides shaking, the fear building inside again.

  I have to open the message. I have to know what it says before I reach Carole. A man and a woman are arguing with the desk sergeant over access to their friend who is in a cell. With shaking hands, I tap the phone buttons.

  I’M WATCHING YOU. YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID.

  I flick up the screen to the accompanying picture. It’s a video. It’s me and my children leaving my home this morning. I mentally check my actions. I am sure that I checked for any unusual cars or people. Is this someone I know? I spin around but there is no red car. I leave the police station and I hurry along the road back to the bus stop. My children. He’s watching my children.

  I’m so preoccupied that I don’t sense someone behind me, someone following me, until it is too late. I don’t hear the footsteps, quicker in a split second, until I am walking in the space between the terraced houses, the scrubland where a mill used to be, where buddleia is growing wild between the self-seeded saplings make an enclosed space.

  I hurry up, telling myself now that this is nothing, that it’s just someone late for work hurrying behind me. I half run but he is behind me, his hand over my mouth. Leather gloves. His grip is tight. I struggle, pulling away, my scream muffled by his hand firmly over my face. He’s tall. All I can think is that this isn’t Jim. It can’t be. Jim wouldn’t wear leather gloves. And his shoes: black, shiny shoes. It all happens in a split second, and then my instinct kicks in. I’m looking at his shoes because I need to locate his foot. As he drags me towards the trees I resist and I stamp on his foot. His grip softens and this is my chance. I elbow him and suddenly he lets go.

  I do not turn around to see where he has gone, because I know he ran into the trees. I heard the snap of the branches, loud in my danger-sensitive ears. Instead, I run and run. I can still smell the leather and taste my fear. Eventually I stop. This is it. He is watching me. He is taking photographs of me. And now he is trying to hurt me. That uncertainty has gone. I shudder. My lungs hurt. I slow down and walk the rest of the way – all I can think of is SafeMe and safety. I bend over to recover and try to calm myself. What was he going to do? Where was he taking me? And what for? My God.

  I head for a bus stop and sit down in the shelter, so I can think about what to do next. I can feel my body tense, the anxiety shifting gear.

  Pay for what I did. Who would go to these lengths? It seems risky for someone who already has form in violence against women to do this. My mind slips over the edge of the current vista of angry men and scans wider possibilities.

  There is suddenly a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Pay for what I did. I didn’t tell anyone. I never told anyone what happened to Alice. What he did. The leather gloves. And Alice getting into his car. Then she was gone. The questions.

  I panic. I feel my breath quick and fast. It was all so long ago. And I kept my word. I never told anyone what he did. I text him. Even this feels strange. Personal, now. Yet it can’t be. Can it? He is buried deep in my memory. But it suddenly strikes me that he is capable of this. My hands are shaking as I text.

  WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

  I stare hard at the vista and think of Sally. She faced Jim, risking everything. But he’s got me. My children are in that picture. My children are everything to me and he obviously knows it. My phone pings again.

  WHY NOT?

  I’m cornered. I can’t risk telling Carole now because whoever this is knows where I live. He knows where my children live. He’s got me. And if it is who I think it could be, I already know how dangerous he is. I’m more fucked than I thought I was. I need to think.

  I go back to work and do as much as I can in this state of mind, telling Janice that I am doing admin as I watch the clock creep towards five. Then I go home and chat to Donelle, who tells me she is thinking of getting her own place. That she’s asking her guy to move in but he’s saying it’s too early. Why doesn’t she stay with him, at his place? I smile on the surface but inside an invisible hand is twisting my gut and I am shaking.

  There is never really a time when I ask myself why he is doing this. Because I know what people are capable of and sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes it is pure badness; most times it is complete self-interest. Going to such lengths to have other people live life the way they think it should be lived. To curtail someone else’s freedom and to manipulate them into a position where they have no choice but to comply. This is what he is doing to me.

  I can’t decide if my new suspicions about this – that it is someone from long, long ago – are real or just a figment of my fear-induced paranoia. I thought it was over. I thought those horrible events would never crop up again. Maybe I am wrong, but I have a niggling feeling. Pay for what you did. But I didn’t do anything. And I never told anyone. I never told anyone it was him who took my best friend. And more.

  Tanya

  Diary Entry: Wednesday

  I am off work again. But Al has gone to work at the normal time. Last night he came home at the usual time too. Despite the fact that I could hardly move, he expected me to make dinner and we ate it in silence.

  I could feel his eyes on me. At one time I would have thought he was concerned, even sorry. He used to cry and apologise and beg for forgiveness. He would claim that he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. I was caught up in it and I still am most of the time.

  But I have this clarity. I don’t know if it’s the diary or another episode of my madness. Am I really going crazy? I know what will happen. Once, years ago, we had what I thought then was an argument and I just walked out of the house. He’d told me I couldn’t watch TV any more. That it was making me into a slut. I was young and stupid and I was striding down the road.

  When I heard him behind me I even smiled a little. He didn’t want me to go. He loved me. He wanted me back. He caught my arm and he looked at me. His face was gentle and he held me tight. I held him back.

  ‘Come back,’ he murmured in to my ear. Everyone argues, I reasoned with myself in that moment. He does love me. He held out his hand and we walked back to the house. Once inside, he kissed me and hugged me and I thought that we were going upstairs to make love. But he guided me to the spare room — my room now. We went in and he shut the door behind
him.

  That was the first time. He pinned me against the wall by my throat and hissed in my ear, ‘Think you’re clever? Eh?’

  I struggled, of course, but he’s strong. I managed to kick his shin and he was hopping in the spot, still holding me.

  ‘You fucking bitch. You’ll pay for that.’

  He kicked me back. I felt the contact then a sharp pain. I screamed. ‘You’ve broken my leg.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Try that again and I’ll break both your legs. You’re going nowhere.’

  I screamed more. I was screaming, ‘Help me.’ But he had his hand over my mouth and was unbuckling his belt. No one came to help me. No one could hear me.

  My leg wasn’t broken, but there was a huge black bruise that took weeks to fade. Before it did there were more incidents, more arguing. The more I annoyed him, the more he kicked me and punched me. Then he would plead for forgiveness. He would cry and hug me and tell me that we would have a child, a son. That we would be married.

  So now I am risking everything. It’s that or live like this for ever. I sent that letter. I have no way of knowing if anything will happen over that, but I don’t regret it. Someone should know what he is like. I have no idea how this will play out. I know full well that he could snap at any moment and the best thing would be to keep quiet until I see a way out.

  But I can’t endure one more night like the other one. I’ve tried to see it as ‘role play’, as Al described it to me the first time. ‘Harmless fun’. The girls in the videos look like they are enjoying themselves. Sometimes. But I’m hurt. And it gets worse every time.

  I have to do something. I know I keep saying it, but it’s finding the right moment when the blinds are up and he is in the shower. When he has become complacent. But I must not become complacent myself.

  I can hear him downstairs now. The shutters are rolling up and light floods into my bedroom. I listen, frozen to the spot. He is in the kitchen, running the tap. Filling the kettle. He is early. He will have seen that I haven’t even washed the breakfast dishes yet and that the washing machine is full of dirty clothes. He is at the bottom of the stairs.

  I have to stop writing now and hide the diary. I am so scared.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Day 13

  Day 13, babe. Less than two weeks then we can lie in bed eating toast and drinking tea I love you x always x

  Danny’s text comes mid-morning. The morning routine went without a hitch, despite my mind being entirely elsewhere. I had lain awake most of the night, wishing Danny was getting into bed and spooning me, his breath gentle as he fell into a deep sleep. We are one day closer to our goal and I should be deliriously happy that he’s doing this for us. Instead, I am seething.

  I fume. Scared as am, I cannot just leave this alone. If Sally can stand up to Jim, I can do this.

  I write it down in my diary and mentally run through the police response if I report it now. There is no law against sitting in your car on the street. He grabbed me, but I have no witnesses and I have no idea who ‘he’ is. Just like Carole said, the most they would do is go and have a word with him. He would show them the texts and say I’d been texting him, it was a misunderstanding. Just a bit of fun. Sure, he would leave me alone now.

  Fuck. I flick back through the diary where I have written detailed notes and think about my mother’s she’s got a good imagination line which she constantly chided me with as a child and wonder what he can really do? All he is good for is standing in the shadows and creeping around at the back of pubs. Sending texts and pictures. But the kids. He’s taken photographs of my children.

  I have to go round to the accommodation to collect some worksheets from the warden and I pull on my coat, hands shaking. I slam the office door and set off, head held high, just in case he is somewhere watching, taking time to stop and talk to Malc.

  ‘Jim not been back, then?’

  I know he hasn’t but I need to make myself visible. Show I’m not fazed by him. Watching.

  ‘Nah. He’s been bailed. Reckon he’s gone home. Close call, though.’

  I shake my head. ‘We knew it was coming. Good for Sally.’

  I am smiley and animated when all I feel like inside is, Fuck you. I know he is watching. I can feel him on the edge of my consciousness. Malc nods but he doesn’t smile.

  ‘Yeah, good for her. As long as he doesn’t turn really nasty.’

  In the normal turn of life what happened yesterday would have been nasty enough. But we both know if Jim had wanted to hurt Sally, right there and then, he would have done. Next time it could be much worse. We know Jim was bailed and told to go back to Gloucester. To the family home. He was told that Sally was being rehoused in Manchester. That she was seeking an injunction. But we have no way of knowing if he was listening.

  Just like I have no way of knowing if my stalker will turn into a violent psychopath instead of just keeping it mostly psychological. Just. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s the constant pressure. I laugh at the thought and keep my chin up as I walk up the road, past the pub and Jim’s empty seat in the window. I cross over like I’ve not got a care in the world and walk around the bend towards the warden’s flat. I ring the bell and wait, looking up the road. Looking for him. Finally, the shift warden, Carla Groves, opens up and I go in. I stand by the window and wait for her to fetch the paperwork, all the time looking for him looking at me.

  ‘Here it is.’ She breezes in and I turn to smile at her, but then I see it. A huge wide-screen TV in the adjoining room. She follows my stunned gaze. These flats are sparsely furnished from secondhand donations and the TV looks entirely out of place, almost filling the whole length of a wall. ‘Oh, that. Yeah. All the flats got one. Arrived this morning. Early on.’

  I fume. It’s obvious what this is.

  ‘So who let them in? You?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, Sheila. She was waiting with the key. She told me you knew about it.’

  Frank. I remember his parting comment: I could completely refurb this place. The Xboxes. Huge TVs for everyone. He just doesn’t fucking get it, does he?

  ‘Well, you should have checked. Did you sign for them?’

  She looks sheepish.

  ‘There was no signature. Just these blokes who brought them in from a van. Four of them. All the ladies seemed very pleased. With the TVs. And they all had a cup of tea with the blokes who brought them.’

  I roll back the CCTV and watch as the women come out and stand watching as four burly guys wheel the TVs in. Frank isn’t there, which is a relief, but I see Sheila in a slightly different light as she directs the proceedings, the guys deferring to her. She is in charge, and, just for a second, I wonder if she has ordered the TVs. She must have money because she pays her own rent. Unlike the other women here she is self-funded and not on benefits. And for another second, as she slips the guys tips in the form of ten-pound notes with the same movement as him, the line between her and Frank is blurred.

  They all go inside. I fast forward to see the guys emerge with Sheila, chatting to her and pointing at the van. The van pulls away and she lights a cigarette, watching it as it goes down the road. But my attention is drawn to the space where the van had been. I backtrack the footage to just before the van arrived at 7.35 and it wasn’t there then. I go back to eight-fifteen, when the van leaves, and there is the red Skoda. Empty. I watch, panicky, thinking now that I have completely got the wrong end of the stick and that this isn’t his car at all. That I have imagined it and I am going mad. Then I remember the car outside the gate at SafeMe. The registration is the same. My blood runs cold. This isn’t an opportunist at work. This is more than some messages. If his car is parked outside my work, where is he? This is more than a disgruntled ex. An angry perp. He is planning something. He is calculated. But he is also taking chances, grabbing at me in broad daylight.

  This is someone unhinged. Something shifts deep inside me, a memory of a time when I felt this way before. When I knew w
hat was happening really, and I failed to act. Look what happened then. Look what happened to Alice. And to me. I always put that bit to one side, because compared to Alice and all the newspaper reports and scandal, it was nothing. But it’s a kind of deep instinct, a knowledge that something is bad.

  I feel sick to my stomach. Like so many times time before, usually in that mellow space between sleep and awake, I’m back on that narrow path. The moorland where we would run, arms outstretched. The path up to the pond where Alice and I used to splash around as kids, where we sunbathed as teenagers. I am hormonal angry and pathetically naive. In a car with my best friend’s boyfriend. He came between us. I would show him. I would save her. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not after what he did to me.

  I usually wake up screaming. But now I simply add him to the long list of terror. It sinks slowly into the thick soup of my fear and dread across the years. It couldn’t be him, could it? After all this time.

  Tanya

  Diary Entry: Thursday

  I’d gone downstairs to pre-empt the problem.

  ‘I’m still ill.’

  He had stared at me.

  ‘Right.’

  I moved towards the sink to start the dishes but he stood in my way.

  ‘What have you been doing all day?’

  I stared at the floor.

  ‘Sleeping. I don’t feel right, Alan. I think I need to go to the doctor’s.’

  He was nodding. I thought for a minute he was going to get his car keys and take me. Instead he just stood aside. I ran the hot tap, squirted the washing-up liquid. Went through my usual routine of fantasising over finding something heavy enough to hit him over the head with. Planning my escape.

  He went upstairs. I stood very still and listened. If he went into my bedroom and searched it and found this diary … No. He went into his room. The TV was on loud and I could hear a voice but not the words. I washed the dishes and reluctantly started the washing machine — that meant I could not listen for footsteps behind me. I prefer it very quiet.