The Sixth Window

by Rachel Abbott

  ‘He was so close to home as well,’ the neighbour – a Mrs Parker – told them. ‘And while he’s away we have to put up with that awful Martin. He was the caretaker here while the place was being renovated, but he got the sack once the tenants started moving in. He was never going to cut the mustard with the posh types in the south wing. I guess with Cliff out of action they had to bring him out of retirement, or off the dole at least, as it was an emergency. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t mug Cliff himself to get his old job back.’

  Natalie thought that highly unlikely now she had met Martin. He would have had to stand on a box to cosh Cliff over the head.

  Cliff had been mugged late at night though, and Scarlett was right: Natalie had to let her go. She didn’t want her daughter to be scared of her own shadow.

  ‘Okay, but go to the shop on Deansgate. It’s main roads all the way.’

  Scarlett sighed. ‘Okay,’ she said, drawing out the syllables. ‘But for the record, I did pass the Green Cross Code test when I was about eight. So, on the basis that I’ll stick to the pavements and not walk too close to the edge of the road, do we need anything else?’

  As Natalie shook her head, smiling at her daughter’s sarcasm, Scarlett grabbed her bag, heading for the door before her mum could change her mind.

  *

  The usually busy streets of Manchester were quiet at this time on a Sunday evening. Even with Sunday opening in most of the stores, by now they were closed and it was too early for people heading into Manchester to eat. Scarlett liked Manchester like this, and she dawdled along the road, stopping to look in shop windows as she went.

  Knowing she had taken too long and her mum would be getting worried, she speeded up a little on the way back and decided to take a short cut. It was still daylight, for goodness’ sake. What on earth could happen to her?

  She turned into a side street, certain that up ahead was the road that ran between their apartment block and the red-brick buildings on the other side. They rarely looked out of their small window, as there was no view to speak of – not much more than a glimpse of the sky, as the buildings opposite were so close.

  She crossed the road to see if she could spot their apartment from the outside. On the far left she could see the long thin window that she knew marked the location of their fire escape. She counted along the windows, knowing there were three apartments on this side, each the same as theirs – one window in the bedroom and one in the sitting room.

  Scarlett looked up and counted to the sixth window, which would be their sitting room. She knew she had the right place, because they had put a lamp on the wide window ledge, hoping to make the place look more like home without that awful overhead light on all the time. Scarlett could see it from the street.

  She looked to the right, hoping to see someone looking out of one of the windows in the apartment on the other side of the wall, if only to prove that she hadn’t been imagining the noises she had heard. But each of the six corresponding windows had a dead, unoccupied look.

  She turned to walk away, but suddenly stopped and stared back at the building. Six windows between their sitting room with the lamp and the fire escape at the other corner of the building, with its long, thin window.

  She closed her eyes and imagined herself walking around the empty apartment again. There was one window in the bedroom – she was sure of that, because the room had been dark, just like theirs. The bathroom had one window too, between the bedroom and the living room. And she was absolutely certain that the living room had only three windows. She could picture them in her head.

  So why, from the outside, could she see a sixth window? Did that mean there was another room and somehow she had missed it? She was certain she hadn’t seen a door, though.

  Maybe her memory was flawed. Or maybe she just hadn’t noticed the door. But that was hard to believe. What if there was a secret room, and it had been closed up because it was haunted? She smiled at her childish thoughts.

  She had no sensible explanation, but there really was an extra window – she wasn’t imagining that – and now she would have to tell her mum.

  *

  Scarlett was out of breath by the time she got back to the flat, but she couldn’t wait to talk about what she thought she had discovered. If there was an extra room, where was the door? In their flat, or in the empty apartment on the other side of the wall? Was the room haunted, or did somebody live there? She was going to be the person who solved the mystery of the ghost in their building, and as soon as she had told her mum what she had discovered she was going to check the wall in their sitting room to see if there was any sign of an entrance to a secret room.

  She put her key in the lock and pushed the door open eagerly, expecting her mum to be in the kitchen. Instead, she found her sitting on the sofa, her head in her hands. She felt the smile disappear from her face.

  ‘Mum?’

  She didn’t look up, and Scarlett knew she had been crying. She dumped the bottle of olive oil on the kitchen counter and rushed over to her.

  ‘What’s up? What’s happened?’

  Her mum sniffed and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to Alison. I haven’t heard from her since she collected the boxes from Ed’s, so I called her.’

  ‘And?’ Scarlett prompted.

  ‘I didn’t want to have to tell you this, Scarlett, but I don’t want you to hear it from anybody else.’

  Scarlett felt slightly sick. She had a feeling she knew what was coming.

  ‘Alison was asked to attend an interview with the police. It seems someone’s suggested that your dad was having an affair, and they wanted to talk to Alison to find out if it was with her. I don’t want you to worry about it, sweetheart. It’s probably somebody being malicious, but Alison’s very upset about it.’

  Scarlett swallowed. ‘Did she tell you who told the police?’

  ‘No. She said she didn’t know. But she was lying. She just didn’t want to say anything else that might hurt me.’

  44

  Tom whistled as he walked down the corridor. It surprised him that so few people whistled these days and he often attracted a strange look as he passed people. Today he didn’t much care. This morning it felt to him that all was well with his world.

  He had only just put his briefcase down when Becky appeared in his open doorway. She took one look at him and raised her eyebrows. Tom ignored her expression and said nothing. Becky put her head on one side as if asking a question, but it wasn’t one that Tom was prepared to answer.

  ‘What have we got this morning, Becky?’ he asked.

  She appeared to get the message and strode forward with, as usual, a pile of files in her hands. ‘There are a few cases I want to go over with you, but one thing has come up that you might be interested in with regard to Jennifer Bale.’

  Tom was keen to make progress with this investigation. Even if the guy she had been having sex with didn’t take her onto the roof and push her off, he may as well have done. At fifteen Jennifer shouldn’t have had to suffer the rough and undoubtedly painful sex – whether forced or not – that the evidence was pointing to.

  There were also the two comments – one from her friend Naeema and one from her brother Archie. It sounded very much as if Jennifer had been under someone’s spell and perhaps had seen suicide as the only way out.

  ‘Good news if we’ve got a lead.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far, but we’ve got something that might point to a reason why she wanted to die. The tech guys have had her computer for a while now but were sidetracked on to another big case so have only just got round to checking it out.’

  Becky took a sheet of paper from one of the files she was holding and slid it across the desk towards Tom. It was a colour print of a photograph.

  Tom looked at the image. It was a girl, naked, crouched on all fours, her knees bent tightly underneath her. The photograph was taken from behind, but she was l
ooking back over her left shoulder towards the camera. The face had been blurred using photo-editing software.

  Tom looked at Becky. ‘Jennifer?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re fairly certain, yes. We compared this photo with some images taken by the pathologist, and the birthmark on her left hip matches, although it’s slightly distorted because of the angle.’

  ‘And they found this on her computer?’ Tom asked.

  ‘It had been deleted, but Jennifer obviously wasn’t technically savvy enough to know that deleted doesn’t actually mean deleted, even if she emptied her trash.’

  Tom turned the picture over and slid it back across the desk to Becky.

  ‘Do we know how she got the image?’

  ‘We do. It was emailed to her. And there was a message.’

  ‘A threat, no doubt. I can hear it in your voice, Becky. What did it say?’

  ‘“Tomorrow this goes viral. You know what I want. It’s up to you.”’ Becky pulled a face. ‘Bastard,’ she muttered.

  Sometimes Tom despised social media for all the negative uses people constantly found for it, and this was just another example of how dangerous it could be.

  ‘When was the email sent?’ he asked.

  ‘Two days before she died. The next night was her so-called swimming trip, and if I had to put money on it, I’d say she went to see lover-boy to beg him not to post it, because whatever he wanted she wasn’t going to be able to provide.’

  ‘And I guess the email’s untraceable?’ Tom didn’t really need to ask, but you never knew. Sometimes people could make mistakes or, if they were amateurs, didn’t know how easy it was to track them down online.

  ‘Of course. He’ll have used Tor or similar to reroute the message all round the world. And he probably sent it from an unregistered phone using a public hotspot. There’s no chance at all.’

  ‘But it actually tells us a lot, Becky, when we add in everything else we’ve got.’ Tom paused to get his thoughts in order. ‘We have a fifteen-year-old girl who looks twelve. You’ve seen the picture of her.’ Tom pointed to the downturned image. ‘She has the body of a twelve-year-old too. She felt she was completely under this guy’s control. He had sex with her, and she allowed him – or was forced to allow him – to take photos of her. And then what does he do?’

  ‘Threatens her with exposure,’ Becky said, ‘unless she does something else for him. What do you reckon – more pictures?’

  ‘Possibly, but if he had sex with her, then my guess is that he was preparing her for more. A wider audience, perhaps. It’s a double whammy for him – first the pictures, which we know he’ll be able to sell through the dark web to the perverted bastards who like this kind of thing, and then once he’s broken her, she’s like a lamb to the slaughter.’

  Becky was shaking her head as if that would make the truth go away. ‘You think this is about more than Jennifer, don’t you?’

  ‘The set-up, plus the slow stripping of the girl’s dignity and trust so that she no longer has the power to make her own decisions, don’t strike me as the work of a novice. This guy’s done it before and he’ll do it again. I’m sure of it.’

  45

  I’m so glad the weekend’s nearly over. I’ve had to get through three whole days without seeing him, but I know he wants to see me again.

  Last week I thought I’d lost him forever. He didn’t call and didn’t text for a whole day, even though I sent him loads of messages.

  And then, when I was sure I’d never see him again, his name flashed up on my phone: I’m sorry about last time. It won’t happen again. Do you trust me?

  My hands were shaking so much that I almost couldn’t get my thumbs to work to reply to him. He asked me if I would go to the studio right away! I didn’t even stop to think about it. I had a quick shower and washed my hair before setting off.

  ‘You look nice, love,’ Shirley said as I told her I was going out. ‘Have a good time now, won’t you.’

  For a moment I wondered what she would say if she knew what I was going to do. But I couldn’t think like that.

  When the car dropped me outside the building, he was waiting for me at the back door. He touched my cheek with his finger and smiled at me, but he didn’t hug me. I wasn’t sure my legs would carry me up two flights of stairs, but somehow they did. And then we were in his studio. It looked the same, but it felt different. Or maybe I felt different.

  I turned to face him, and he stared into my eyes. ‘Do you want to get ready?’ he asked.

  I swallowed hard. ‘What would you like me to wear?’

  He gave a lopsided smile but said nothing for a moment. Then he reached over to the bed and picked up a pure-white dress that was lying on the dark blue sheets. It was fine cotton, with a high neck and cap sleeves. It was very short and a younger style than the things I’ve worn before. He must have seen me frown.

  ‘It’s a different magazine, so a different look. Do you want to pop it on and give me a shout when you’re ready?’

  I stripped off completely and slipped the dress over my head. There was no zip this time and I was almost disappointed.

  I shouted for him to come in. He still hadn’t touched me apart from the stroke on the cheek earlier, and I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe in more childish clothes he wouldn’t want me any more. Perhaps that was his plan. I felt sick at the thought.

  He stopped in the doorway and looked me up and down. The dress only came halfway down my thighs, and I’ve never thought much of my legs. But he was smiling.

  He walked over to the bed and sat down. ‘Come here,’ he said.

  I sat down beside him. ‘No, not there. Here,’ he said, patting his thighs.

  I stood up and turned round, lowering myself onto him, knowing that my dress was too short for this, but he was looking into my eyes. I steadied myself by resting a hand on his shoulder, and one of his arms circled my waist. He raised his other arm to tuck my hair behind my ear, then let his warm hand fall to rest on the cold flesh just above my knee.

  I don’t regret what happened next. Not for one minute. That’s why the weekend has seemed unbearably long. I can’t wait to see him again. I think he loves me.

  I get my notepad out again and draw his name in an elaborate design, over and over.

  Lewis, Lewis, Lewis.

  46

  Sunday evening had been a disaster, and Natalie was suffering for it when she woke up on Monday morning. She was going to have to get up and go to work, but she shouldn’t have drunk a whole bottle of wine. Once upon a time her body would have shrugged it off, but she knew from bitter experience that she was one of those people who actually felt progressively worse with a hangover as the day wore on, rather than better. No amount of black coffee was going to take away that nauseous feeling that too much white wine gave her.

  So why did she persist in drinking it?

  She knew the answer all too well. It took the edge off. It allowed her to forget.

  Natalie had never been a big drinker – that was Bernie’s role in their marriage, and she had always been the sensible one who stayed off the booze so one of them could drive home. She had stopped drinking completely when she was pregnant, and had never really got back into the habit. Until Bernie died.

  The past few days had just been so dreadful. She wanted to focus on the future, but the revitalised enquiry into Bernie’s death had taken over her head. She didn’t believe for one moment that Bernie and Alison had been having an affair. From the day Bernie asked her to marry him, Natalie had been clear on her feelings about infidelity, saying that they should operate a zero-tolerance policy where extramarital relationships were concerned. He had agreed wholeheartedly, and she had never once suspected him of breaking the rules they had set for themselves. Besides which, Bernie didn’t even like Alison that much, particularly in the year before he died. He had actually tried several times to persuade Natalie not to see her friend, and now – as with so many of the questions raging through her mind – she
wished she had asked him what the problem was.

  Natalie sat up in bed and hugged her knees. In the cold light of day she had to think about the truth, rather than living in a bubble of believing that everything in her marriage had been perfect. Could it be true that Bernie had been seeing someone else? And if so, who? Not Alison. She was her best friend, for goodness’ sake. Maybe he had met someone during one of his cases – some woman in distress who had appealed to his ridiculously soft heart. She had always teased him about his susceptibility to a sob story, but perhaps one time it got the better of him.

  To Natalie it seemed that things had started to go wrong when Bernie was seconded to a special project team for six months. He had been so pleased to pass his detective exams a couple of years earlier and had been thrilled to be selected for the team, but near the end of his time there he said he was sick of the travel and had asked to be transferred back into uniform as soon as possible.

  She had always assumed that the change in his behaviour had been down to stress. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe all along it was another woman.

  Natalie wished she hadn’t told Scarlett what Alison had said. Scarlett had burst into tears at the thought of her dad being unfaithful, and she hadn’t needed to know. Poor Scarlett. She had idolised Bernie. And then, after all the tears, the poor kid had had to sit there and watch her mum getting steadily more drunk as the evening progressed.

  Natalie flung back the bedding. She was disgusted with herself. Scarlett had sensibly chosen to sleep on the sofa again last night, not wanting to inhale second-hand wine fumes, no doubt, and as Natalie made her way as silently as possible to the bathroom, she could see that Scarlett had turned to face the wall. She knew her daughter was feigning sleep. Her body was too rigid.

  ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart,’ she whispered.

  She waited, but Scarlett didn’t acknowledge her, still pretending to be asleep, so with a shake of her head at her own stupidity Natalie went into the bathroom and closed the door.