The Night Caller: An utterly gripping crime thriller

by J. M. Hewitt

  Jade looked at the closed bathroom door.

  ‘Nia?’ she said, stalling for time.

  ‘Not a peep all night.’ Mrs Oberman turned off the taps, stood up, folded her arms.

  There was no way out, and the water looked so good. Her clothes were heavy, sodden, wet through and it burned when the cold material touched her skin. Slowly, Jade stood up, fumbled with the zip of her coat, then her jumper, but her hands were so numb they wouldn’t even bend or flex at her will.

  She stretched her fingers, they moved like claws, stiff, unyielding, like Nan’s old cat when she had found its body—

  She let out a moan, raised her frozen arms to cover her face.

  Mrs Oberman clucked and moved swiftly, pulling off Jade’s T-shirt, peeling off her trousers and soaked socks. Jade let her. Somehow, it was a little bit like having Nan back.

  * * *

  The water was soothing, and Jade watched in fascinated horror as her skin went from red and white and grey to healthy pink flesh.

  ‘Better?’ asked Mrs Oberman, who had taken Jade’s seat on the toilet lid.

  ‘Much better, thank you,’ replied Jade, her arms crossed over her breasts.

  ‘I’m not leaving you, if you’ve been in the canal. Did you swallow any?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Secondary drowning, it’s a very real threat. So, I’ll stay right here for now.’

  Jade nodded her consent, not that she had a choice. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she was pleased to have the woman so close to her, but right now, the last thing she wanted was to be alone.

  A long silence before Mrs Oberman spoke up again. ‘Jade,’ she said. ‘Did you really fall in?’

  Thirty-Five

  DAY EIGHT

  The unexpected question made Jade look up sharply and her eyes locked with Mrs Oberman’s. She wouldn’t speak about that, couldn’t, not until she had it clear in her own mind. She wouldn’t say anything, not to Mrs Oberman, not to Emma, not to anybody.

  But the reply came bursting up and out of her, just like Jade had burst up and out of the canal.

  ‘No!’ she cried, her voice shaking. ‘I didn’t fall, I was pushed!’

  Perhaps sensing that Jade might find it easier to talk if she wasn’t looking at her, Mrs Oberman moved round so she was behind Jade. She picked up a sponge, dipped it in the water and ran it over Jade’s back. The gentle motion from the hard old lady made Jade want to cry.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said, and her voice was soothing, just like the water that Jade now sat in.

  The tears started to fall as she began to talk.

  * * *

  Freezing cold, Jade had moved back, away from the side of the quay where the snow was falling on her and the wind was whipping and pinching at her skin. She spotted a doorway, decided to get out of the wind for a moment. As she stood there, with her back to the door, watching the towpath, she leaned back, and the door moved behind her.

  The doorway led to an old warehouse or factory. She didn’t know what it used to be, it had been in this state of disrepair since she had lived here. Nan would probably remember. Nan remembered all of the history of Salford.

  It was derelict; so many years had passed since the workers walked out of the doors for the last time that plants and weeds had grown through the cracks in the concrete, and they were now as tall as the broken windows that ran the length of the building.

  She realised the door – if it could still be called a door – was hanging on the hinge, partially open, the whole bottom panel missing, as well as a good chunk from the top left corner. Jade nudged at it with her shoulder. It gave easily, swinging inwards, and she inched inside, relieved to be out of the biting wind.

  Inside, ivy had grown up the interior walls, twining itself across crumbling window frames, diving deep into the cracked, unstable wooden floorboards. It was a cavernous room, the one she stood in, and dark hallways and corridors led off it in a dozen different directions. It stank, too, she thought, wrinkling her nose: urine, weed, old smoke and general filth. She thought about how easy it had been to push the door open. Clearly, others had taken shelter in here before her – others who could very well be inside with her now, waiting in the shadows.

  She shuddered and crossed her arms, turning back to the doorway that overlooked the water. This is madness, they have all gone mad, Jade concluded as she peered out towards where the others were waiting. Her cold feet were hurting. If she closed the door, it might offer some protection from the wind. After a moment’s hesitation Jade pushed it shut and looked out through the missing wood in the top portion of the door.

  She could still clearly see Lee from her vantage point, standing by the quayside, leaning on the railing and looking out over the water. He was out in the open, in the very middle of the icy cold wind. At least he had a proper coat. She ran her eye over the door in front of her, felt like she was cheating. The others, they were out there, none of them complaining. Martin hadn’t even seemed like he felt the cold air at all. She looked for him, but he had vanished. He must have moved into the shadows as she had lost sight of him entirely. Lee moved back into focus.

  What did he think of all this, Lee? She thought back to his words earlier in Emma’s kitchen. He burned with the need for revenge. She squinted, so curious about this young man and his supposed relationship with Jordan. It was beyond her; not the fact that Jordan could be gay, just the idea of him in a passionate relationship with anybody at all. In spite of the one night they had shared together, Jordan had always appeared rather asexual to her. He had never expressed an interest or an appeal in anyone, man or woman. He was just a non-sexual being, despite his good looks and ripped body, regardless of the care he took of himself, and that night with Jade, that one, single night, had been all about comfort for her.

  She closed her eyes, remembering, linking it with another time, when he had stood outside her house, helping after someone had attacked Nan.

  Now you get to live here, he’d said, just like you always wanted to.

  ‘Oh, Jordan,’ she whispered, and hanging her head, she blinked away sudden tears.

  The arm around her neck was shocking. There had been no warning, nothing to tell her that someone else was in the warehouse with her. She’d heard no noise, no scratching of footsteps approaching.

  She clasped at the wrist, all the air she sucked in to be pushed out in a scream that never came, because as well as the arm, a hand came around her other side, clamped down on her nose and mouth.

  She squealed, bit against the gloved hand, couldn’t believe this was happening, knowing instantly that all the press about the Pusher only targeting homosexual men was untrue, that she, Jade, was clearly a woman, but she had disturbed him, had taken refuge inside his den and now he was going to—

  He didn’t speak, and she stilled, just for a moment before bucking against him, tried to turn around to face him but he was on the move again, picking her up effortlessly, kicking the door open and the cold air hit her once again.

  She heard a commotion across the water. For a second, she was hopeful, thought they had seen her. But it was someone else, a loud voice, chastising, giving warnings about being there alone. She thought she saw Gus stepping up as the loud-voiced talker moved away, still spitting angry-sounding words over his shoulder.

  She saw some of the others now, emerging from their positions. A tight-knit group, moving away. Jade wanted to scream, ‘What about me!’ It was as though they didn’t even know she wasn’t there with them.

  But she was still moving, the tips of her feet scraping the snow, and she fought once more as she saw the black water of the canal looming just ahead of her. She twisted her head, a muffled plea escaping from her.

  Then, just as quickly as it had happened, the arm and hand left her. She felt a pressure in the small of her back, the inky canal was suddenly so close, and it flashed through her mind, falling off the garage roof all those years ago, not even knowing she was falling,
just thinking that the canal was suddenly a lot closer, just like the concrete had been back then.

  She opened her mouth to scream, unsure if there was time for it to be heard, fearing it was too late because suddenly the water was upon her, and around her, and over her head.

  * * *

  The hand that had wiped the warm sponge around her back had stilled. As if only just realising Jade had finished talking, Mrs Oberman began the circular motion again.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mrs Oberman said softly.

  Jade twisted to look into the older woman’s eyes. ‘I… I don’t know.’ She waited, took a breath. ‘I couldn’t see Martin…’ She let her words tail off, thinking out loud.

  ‘You think it was him, the boy’s father?’ Mrs Oberman’s voice held a hint of disbelief.

  Jade pushed herself forward in the bath, planted her hands underneath her and pushed up from the enamel. The water sloshed around the bath, tipping over the edge, running down the side to pool on the floor.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know,’ she spat as she reached for a towel and wrapped it around herself. ‘But he pushed me. He carried me to the side and dropped me in the water.’ Jade closed her eyes, screwed them shut tightly. ‘He pushed me,’ she whispered. ‘He pushed me.’

  Mrs Oberman sat back, the sponge hanging uselessly from her hand. She remained in silence, only moving to reach over the side of the tub and pull the plug out.

  Jade sat on the edge of the bath, clutching the towel tightly around her. Both of them watched the bath water swirl away.

  ‘I have to go back to the warehouse, on my own,’ Jade said, eventually.

  Mrs Oberman raised her eyebrows. ‘But he won’t be there now, if it was Martin – and why would it be? – he came back with you.’ Mrs Oberman crossed her arms. ‘Or are you thinking it was someone else?’

  Jade looked at her, frowning now. ‘I have to see, if someone is in there…’Jade dropped her head, crushed the carpet beneath her bare toes. ‘I have to go and see. I have to check. All this, all these people suddenly turning up, Lee, Martin, even his bloody sister, it’s all so—’ She stopped talking, took a deep breath. ‘This isn’t just my next-door-neighbour’s missing son we’re talking about, you know.’

  ‘I know that.’ Mrs Oberman stood, began to collect Jade’s sodden clothes and fold them in a neat pile.

  Jade raised her eyes, fixed her gaze on Mrs Oberman. ‘You do?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mrs Oberman smiled, but it wasn’t sympathetic, or comforting. It was more of a grimace. ‘I know he’s not just Emma’s son to you. Jordan is also Nia’s father, isn’t he?’

  * * *

  She had always thought it would be Emma who broached the subject with her. She thought about it a lot, imagined the look of sudden realisation on her friend’s face, when Nia’s cat-shaped eyes and tanned skin suddenly added up to equate to the truth of the little girl’s parentage.

  She hadn’t expected it from Mrs Oberman, the woman who had lived across the road for years and whom Jade presumed didn’t really like or approve of her. But that was where it had come from, finally, four years after the actual event.

  Jade had often wondered how she would react, when faced with the option of telling the truth or denying it all. She hadn’t anticipated the relief that swept through her now, as she locked eyes with Mrs Oberman.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and she brushed away the tears that had once again sprung to her eyes. ‘Yes, Jordan is Nia’s dad.’

  Thirty-Six

  DAY NINE

  They had stayed at Emma’s: Lee, Martin, Claire and Gus, after they had dropped Jade home and gone into the house next door.

  Now it was 7.30 a.m. and all of them were still in her lounge. No one had slept much. Gus had fallen asleep in the armchair, jerking awake when Claire nudged him in protest against his snoring. After that Emma had served coffee, and they had talked among themselves, quietly, as though aware of how early it actually was.

  Finally, Gus said the words Emma was sure everyone else had been thinking. ‘That was dangerous,’ he said. His eyes lighted on them all in turn. ‘What happened to Jade…’

  But what had happened to her? Panic bloomed in Emma’s chest. These people, the ones who had chosen to help her in her quest. They were frightened now. They wouldn’t help her again if they were scared. After all, it wasn’t their son’s killer they were searching for. She rested her gaze on Martin.

  ‘Where were you, when Jade went into the water?’

  Silence and stillness settled upon the room.

  ‘Where I’d been all the time, where I was stationed,’ he replied mildly.

  ‘I didn’t see you,’ said Emma. ‘Jade said she couldn’t see you either.’

  Claire broken in, ‘Surely you’re not suggesting—’

  Emma cut Claire off, not ready to fully voice the awful suspicions in her mind. If she spoke the words out loud, Martin might flee. Then she would never find out what had happened to her son. ‘She slipped,’ Emma said. ‘Next time, we just have to be careful.’

  Eyes turned away from her. Emma retreated to her chair. She was losing them; her team was fading. None of them would go out there with her again.

  Unconsciously Emma squared her shoulders. It didn’t matter; she would continue alone, the same way she’d lived her life.

  Alone.

  Claire pushed a coffee cup into Emma’s hands. Emma accepted it with a small smile. Maybe I don’t have to be on my own, not yet… But she wouldn’t beg them, any of them. She would just carry on.

  ‘All right, Emma?’ asked Claire, fixing her with a stare as she took a seat next to Gus.

  ‘Yes, just… lost in thought,’ she replied. ‘I don’t think Mrs Oberman has left yet,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear Jade’s door go.’

  ‘You would usually hear that?’ Claire looked horrified.

  ‘Yes, the walls in these old houses are not very thick, we can hear everything.’

  Claire wrinkled up her nose, and Emma wondered what sort of house she lived in. Probably one on the same scale as Martin’s, she concluded, only instead of a bachelor pad overlooking the water it would be a detached house near the good schools.

  ‘Is she the babysitter?’ Lee asked with a shudder. ‘She’s a bit scary!’

  ‘Does anyone want breakfast?’ Emma asked suddenly, eager to put her mind to use elsewhere, to some chore that would be less exhausting than trying to figure everyone out. She realised, also, that she didn’t want these people to leave just yet.

  She wandered back into the kitchen, opened the fridge, blanched at the solid pint of milk that sat in the door, and the bacon which had turned shiny shades of grey and green. ‘Scratch that,’ she said, with an apologetic shrug. ‘I’ve nothing in.’

  Martin stood up. ‘Let’s go out somewhere for breakfast, the Harvester, at the Lowry?’

  A smile lit up Gus’s face, the first genuine emotion Emma had seen from him, but it faded as Claire wrinkled up her nose at the suggestion.

  ‘The Copthorne do a nice cooked buffet,’ said Lee. ‘I sometimes stop there on my morning run.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ Emma said, softly, and with a murmur of agreement and a rustling of coats and shoes, they prepared to leave the house.

  ‘Your friends have gone out, Martin too,’ announced Mrs Oberman.

  ‘Gone out!’ mimicked Nia, standing beside her at the window.

  ‘Gone where, back to the canal?’ Jade asked, from her position by the three-bar heater.

  Mrs Oberman dropped the curtain, turned to face Jade. ‘I don’t know, my crystal ball doesn’t seem to be working.’

  Nia laughed, loud and long, clapping her hands in a childlike delight; even though she didn’t understand Mrs Oberman’s sarcasm, she realised it was funny by the grin that spread over her own mother’s face or perhaps by the sudden warmth that enveloped the room.

  Jade turned her attention to the older woman. ‘Did you know Nan, Mrs Oberman?’ Jade asked, windin
g a length of still-wet hair around her finger.

  ‘Anne.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Call me Anne, please.’

  Jade nodded, even though she knew it was an impossibility.

  ‘I knew your Nan.’ Mrs Oberman eased herself off the window ledge and came to sit close to Jade. ‘She was a good woman, she was kind, you know, when I lost my…’ She stopped, twisted the material of her skirt.

  ‘Who did you lose?’ Jade whispered, after a beat of silence had passed.

  Nia, seeming to realise that the laughter had turned to serious conversation, came to her mother, climbing up her legs and settling in her lap.

  For a long moment it seemed that Mrs Oberman wasn’t going to answer, but finally she looked out of the window and spoke again.

  ‘My child, a girl.’ Her tone was sing-song, deliberately casual, as though it were the only way she could tell the story. She gave a brief glance at Nia before turning again to look outside. ‘She was just a baby, and then I lost her, and I pushed them all away. My husband, my other daughter, my son, everyone eventually.’

  Jade pulled Nia closer to her and hid her face in her child’s hair. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘Your Nan came, after my husband had had enough and took the others away from me. She came then, Nan, with food and well wishes.’ Mrs Oberman turned to face Jade. ‘I never spoke to her. I always thought that one day, I’d feel a bit better and I would thank her properly, but I never felt a bit better, I never felt any better, and so I never thanked her.’

  Jade thought of all the times she had seen Mrs Oberman staring out of her window. Every day, all day sometimes, for years and years and years. And would that be what Emma was like, from now on, waiting to get better, only for it never to materialise? Would she become angry and bitter and twisted like Mrs O, scorned by children, whispered about by the neighbours?