Dead Silent

by Neil White

  Frankie looked into the shower and saw a pink plastic razor, and he held the blade up to the light to get a view of the stubble under the blade. He smiled as he thought of her under the water, running the blade up her leg, naked.

  He was aroused, his breaths shallow as he put the razor back.

  He moved into the bedroom. He had been saving it. No, more than that. He had been savouring it, his favourite part. He knew how to be silent, how not to leave traces, how to make his footsteps silent as he crept upstairs. Sometimes he would stand at the end of the bed, just watching them sleep, and if they slept naked, he found it hard to control himself, knowing that all that prevented him from touching was a thin sheet.

  He had almost been caught a few times, but he always knew his exit, moving swiftly and quietly, so they were never really sure in their half-sleep whether he had been there.

  If it was too hard at night, then he would visit during the day, when he knew they would be out. He tracked their movements, made notes, so that he knew their work patterns. He knew how to open windows or doors, he practised at his own house, and the ones at the back were always the least secure. He was never in there long, but he liked to lie on their beds and take deep breaths into their pillows, so that he got closer to them than he could get with a camera lens. If they weren’t there, they wouldn’t know, and so it didn’t matter.

  He went through their drawers if he was alone. A bra or freshly washed underwear, the cloth between his fingers, rubbing gently. Sometimes, he found sex toys. He liked that. Once he was finished, he was gone. Just a quick check that he had put everything back, so that they would never know when they climbed into bed that he had been there, his head on their pillow.

  Her bedroom was dominated by the double bed, with an old wooden wardrobe in one corner and a dresser in the other. He tutted when he saw that a hairdryer had been left plugged in. That could be dangerous. More than that, she would bend down to unplug it and see him, because he knew where he was going to be when she came home: under the bed.

  He pulled his camera out of his pocket and took some pictures. There was no shutter sound—he had chosen one he could disable, and with a slow shutter speed, so that he could take pictures without a flash. He had learnt to hold the camera steady so that there was no shake.

  But all that was for later.

  He checked his shoes for dirt and, when he was sure that they were clean, he climbed onto the bed. He lifted the ski mask and buried his face into each of the pillows. He could tell which was hers from the traces of perfume.

  Frankie reached across to a small set of drawers by the bed. The top drawer was as he thought it would be, filled with her underwear.

  His cheeks burned up. He rummaged in the drawer and came out with some knickers, silky and blue. He took off his glove and felt the cloth between his bare fingers, shiny and cold. As he settled into her side of the bed, he tugged at his belt with his other hand.

  This wouldn’t take him long.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Susie grimaced as she went into her room.

  ‘People pay to stay here?’ she asked, looking around, her nose crinkled. ‘I don’t know why they made it non-smoking. At least it would disguise the smell.’

  I couldn’t argue with that. She had the room next to mine, both identical small spaces decorated in woodchip paper, with a single bed against a window and a narrow track of worn-out carpet leading to the door. It smelled musty, like too many sweaty feet.

  ‘It doesn’t look like he’s treating you that well,’ I said.

  Susie sat down and started to lift up the blanket.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said quickly. When she looked up, I smiled an apology. ‘You’ll get a better night’s sleep if you don’t see what’s under there,’ I said. I pointed towards a door. ‘At least there’s a bathroom,’ and I stepped into her room to click on the light. An extractor fan roared into action and a yellow bulb cast a dusty light over a toilet and a small shower, the curtain stained with mould at the bottom. I conceded defeat. ‘If he sticks to his promise, maybe I’ll treat you to a night in the Savoy.’

  Susie looked around, unimpressed, and then said, ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t think he’d make you wait. Perhaps he’s getting scared. It’s a big change to his life.’ When I didn’t respond, she tried to sound more cheery. ‘So, what do we do for the rest of the evening?’

  ‘We separate,’ I said. ‘Claude’s made me wait, and so I’m going to look round a few old haunts, find a few old friends. What about you?’

  Susie looked hurt for a moment as she got the hint that I was planning an evening alone. ‘An early night, I suppose,’ she said, looking down at her pillow.

  ‘Good,’ I replied, and then I turned to go.

  I felt a twinge of guilt, but this was a business arrangement anyway, not a date. More than that, the plans I had for the evening couldn’t involve Susie. Or, at least not with her knowledge.

  As I went into my own room, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out quickly, hoping it would be Laura, but saw a London number on the screen. I took a guess, and got it right.

  ‘Hello, Harry.’

  ‘Any joy?’ came the reply, his voice gravelly, interspersed with wheezes.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to wait for Claude to show himself, and he seems shy at the moment. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.’ I clicked off the phone.

  The room seemed suddenly quiet, though the noise of London still drifted in through the window I had opened: the sound of engines and car horns, shouts and bangs, a city always on the move.

  I took a deep breath. I needed another drink, but I had something else to do first.

  Frankie heard the rumble of the diesel engine as it came up the hill. He went to the window and looked out, and then jumped back when he saw the Golf. He remembered it from the day before.

  He moved quickly to the floor, under the bed, his ski mask pulled back down. He looked up at the bed springs, and then across the room. There was nothing on the floor to make her bend down. He had unlocked the window and checked out the drop. He would have to jump out onto a small patch of grass or wait until she was asleep and then creep out.

  He didn’t mind waiting. He was patient, and he had learnt to control his breathing so that no one would know he was there.

  He went still as the engine turned off, his legs curled up so that his feet couldn’t be seen. Then he heard voices come into the house. A woman and a child. Frankie smiled to himself. She would come up the stairs soon, as she must have been at work. She was called Laura. He had found some bills in one of the drawers and some love letters in a small shoebox in the wardrobe. He had tucked some of those into his pocket. They would make for good reading later on.

  He became aroused again. Would she be in her uniform, her shirt buttoned tightly? He waited for a few minutes, listening intently, before he heard soft footsteps on the stairs that turned into firm footfalls as she came into the bedroom. She was wearing ankle-high black boots, and the bed sank under her as she sat down to take them off. His breathing had slowed down so that it was impossible to hear. He knew he would be discovered only if he was sloppy or if she looked under the bed. But who ever looked under their own bed?

  The boots were thrown to the floor and then he watched as she peeled off her socks. She went to the curtains to close them. She hadn’t noticed that the window was unlocked.

  It was harder to control his breathing as her trousers dropped to the floor, and then her underwear. He extended his arm as she stood up, as he could tell she was facing the other way. He guessed she was unclipping her bra. He took a couple of quick photographs, the shutter silent, and then pulled his arm back in again.

  She rummaged around for a towel and then went into the bathroom.

  He clicked on the camera screen and reviewed the pictures he had taken. He had got her, naked, distracted; the private Laura McGanity. He liked her. From the photographs he had stolen from a drawer, she reminded him of
his mother, from the way she brightened when she smiled, the dimples in her cheeks, her teeth bright. He remembered how protective his mother had been of him, and for him. She had told him that it was a bad world out there, with people who would laugh at him, or hurt him. Try to keep away from the outside world, she had told him. At home, no one would hurt him. His mother was gone, and he missed the way she would hold him, his head to her breast, whispering his name into his ear. My Frankie, my Frankie.

  That’s why he loved his camera. He could look at the outside world but still stay hidden, still stay unhurt. He would try and get more pictures before he left, but he had no need to take any more risks now. He looked at the bed springs again. It was all about the wait now, for that moment when he could creep out undetected.

  The shower stopped, and he realised that she would be coming back into the bedroom shortly. Frankie closed his eyes and concentrated on slowing his breathing so that she would never know he was there.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I closed my room door quietly, the lock making not much more than a soft click, and crept along the hallway. I paused outside Susie’s door and listened. I could hear the television, so I kept going and walked slowly down the stairs, hoping that a creak wouldn’t give me away.

  The hotel lobby was just a corridor with a small counter, rows of key rings behind, and then a glass door to the street outside. But there were also rooms at the back of the hotel, and a green plastic sign pointed that way as a fire exit. Susie’s room overlooked the front, and so I knew she wouldn’t see me if I went out the back way.

  I couldn’t see any staff, and so I followed the green arrow, past clusters of doors, to a wooden fire door. It was unlocked and opened into a small yard, and once through that, I was in the alleyway that ran along the back of the line of hotels.

  I walked slowly along the alley before taking up a position at the end of the street, so that I could see who went in and who went out of the hotel. The street was busy with a mix of dossers and young travellers, most heading for Victoria station, and the midsummer lightness made it hard to conceal myself. I just had to hope that Susie didn’t spot me if she went out. She didn’t want to spend the night alone, I could tell that, and she had been in touch with Claude throughout the day. I guessed that she would risk a trip to meet him. I looked around to see if I was being watched—wondering whether Claude was watching me somewhere nearby—but I couldn’t see anyone loitering. It was just the usual London bustle.

  My hunch proved right, and I was there for only thirty minutes before Susie emerged from the hotel. She looked left and right and then walked swiftly away from me, bustling along in her heels, the clicks loud in the street. I set off after her, fifty yards behind, my eyes fixed on her hair. She turned down a side street, making it more difficult to follow, and so I hung back and waited for her to go onto the next street before rushing down to see which way she went. By the time I got down there, I saw that she was just disappearing around another corner, and so I raced once more to keep up with her.

  I stopped at the next corner and peered around it, getting ready to begin the pursuit again, when I saw that she had stopped and was speaking on her phone. Susie was listening, not talking, and she was looking around anxiously. I cursed under my breath and felt the hairs rise up on my arms. Claude was watching, had been all along. I looked around quickly, tried to look out for someone ducking behind a corner, or the flash of a binocular lens as it caught the fading sun. Then I saw it, a camera lens on the other side of a bus shelter.

  I looked behind me, just in time to see the yellow roof-light of a black cab switch off as Susie climbed in. As it drove away, I stepped out from behind the corner and cursed to myself.

  I’d lost her, and maybe lost Claude too.

  Laura looked around the living room. Something wasn’t right. The feeling had been there ever since she came home, a sensation that she wasn’t alone that made her skin prickle under the soft cloth of her T-shirt. Her eyes shot to the ceiling. She thought she’d heard a creak. Was it just Bobby getting out of bed? No, it wasn’t that, she knew it.

  She reached for the remote control and silenced the television. It was suddenly too quiet. Her eyes drifted to the window; the night was drawing in, so that the view outside had turned purple.

  She looked over her shoulder, to the table at the other end of the room where Jack did his writing, past the front door, her gaze drifting to the other windows. She thought she could see movement outside, but maybe it was just the shifting of the branches in the breeze.

  Laura rose slowly to her feet, her ears keen, the creaks of the sofa like loud cracks now. She was being stupid, she told herself, there was nothing to make her think she wasn’t alone. Except that receptor in her brain that detected the presence of a person, like human radar, a certainty that someone was watching her.

  She cursed the location of the cottage, so isolated and vulnerable, just a rickety wooden door protecting her from whoever was outside. Why did this have to happen when Jack was a few hundred miles away? But then she was angry with herself. Why did that matter? She thought back to her training all those years ago, and the self-defence refresher courses she had been on, those afternoons being hurled onto a mat by a police instructor. If someone was outside, she would have to deal with it on her own. She remembered what she had told Thomas the day before: get the first strike in and make it a good one, leave no room for a second assault.

  As she moved through the room, her eyes flicked between the windows and looked for movement. All she could hear was the shuffle of her bare feet on the rug that turned into quiet slaps as she stepped onto the stone floor that ran to the end of the room. The kitchen was nearby, and she thought about getting a knife. But what if she was disarmed? It would be used against her. Then again, what if whoever was out there was already armed? Laura could feel the tension in her muscles as she crept forward, her eyes scanning the windows all the time.

  Then her eyes shot to the front door. Had she locked it when she came in? Think, think. Bobby had been in the car, and she had shopping bags with her. She had come in and put the bags on the table, and then she had got changed. So, no, she hadn’t. She wasn’t in the habit of locking the door. She had moved to the North so she could stop doing that. The keys were on the table, attached to her car keys. She grabbed them and moved slowly forward, keeping an eye on the latch. Was it moving?

  Laura rushed at the door and threw her weight against it, panting, scared now. She thrust the key into the lock and turned it quickly, taking deep gasps when she heard the lock click into place. Then her eyes flicked around the room. Were the windows locked?

  Then she thought of Bobby and ran for the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I walked quickly towards the camera lens, angry at the intrusion. A figure stepped out from behind the bus shelter, the camera pointed downwards.

  ‘Sorry, Jack,’ a voice said, and when I got closer, I saw that it was Dave, one of the staff reporters at the Star, a public schoolboy turned mockney, his take on East End fashion a flat cap and tight jeans.

  ‘Did Harry send you?’ I asked, although I knew the answer even before he shrugged and looked sheepish. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Harry thought you were being too cloak and dagger, and so he had me watching you when he met you. As soon as you went back on the tube, I followed.’

  I shook my head. His accent had got worse, all mangled vowels. ‘But I was looking around,’ I said. ‘I would have recognised you.’

  Dave reached into the canvas bag hanging from his shoulder and pulled out a grey scarf. ‘I just kept my head down with this around my face,’ he said. ‘I was on the next carriage, watching you. You’ve been out of the game too long, Jack, and you’re getting sloppy.’ He put the scarf away and patted me on the shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I hope I haven’t blown your story.’

  ‘Doesn’t Harry trust me?’ I frowned.

  Dave slumped slightly. ‘It’s not that,�
� he said. ‘We’re struggling, Jack, all the papers are, and Harry was worried that someone else would hear of the story, whatever it is, and offer more. We wanted something in the bag so we could go first. Harry knows you’re good for your word, but everyone has their price, and what if you got an offer you couldn’t refuse?’

  ‘I know I’m a journo, but I’ve got honour too,’ I said, angrily. ‘I gave Harry first refusal. He’s still got it, but he’s pushing it.’

  Dave said nothing. He was just doing his job.

  I blew out, frustrated. ‘C’mon,’ I said. ‘You’ve spoiled my story. The least you could do is buy me a drink.’

  As I set off back towards the hotel, Dave ambled alongside, his legs gangly and awkward. I wasn’t in the mood for talking just yet, and we walked past the hotel and on towards Victoria, where the traffic fumes assaulted my nostrils and a hundred different languages made no sense around me.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Dave asked.

  ‘To feel the city,’ I said.

  I had realised when I first moved to the capital that the way to appreciate the city is not to go with its rhythms, but to stop and watch it rush by. The underground used to excite me, the echo of the trains as they rumbled out of the tunnels, and then the hum as they set off. They reminded me of my success, of how journalism had taken me a long way from home, but once that wore off, I took to walking, so that I could feel the city, not simply rush underneath it.

  ‘Is this another northern way, Jack?’ he said. ‘No public transport?’

  ‘I’m building up a thirst.’

  The route took us towards Westminster, and most of it wasn’t pretty, just lines of office blocks, the drabness broken only by the occasional theatre or church. If it wasn’t for the stream of red buses, I could have been pretty much anywhere.