Night By Night

by Jack Jordan

  But he had already ended the call.

  She closed her eyes and clenched her hands into fists to feel something, anything other than the guilt burning through her.

  No wonder they hate you, she thought as she headed down the street with her eyes on the ground.

  Rose reached the centre of town in forty minutes, and followed the cobbled streets until she reached North Lane that would lead her out of the town centre and towards home.

  She hadn’t seen a single person during her walk, and had become so accustomed to the silence that the growing patter of footsteps made her stop and turn.

  Only a few of the street lamps worked down the lane, and those that did flickered pitifully like strobes.

  Behind her, a man ran beneath one of the beams.

  The hood of his coat was up, throwing a shadow onto his face. He was tall and broad, dressed head to toe in black or colours deepened by the night. In a split second, he was in the dark with her again.

  He’s a jogger. There’s no need to be afraid.

  But even as she thought the words, her chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe.

  She turned and continued to walk through the darkness, suddenly aware of every sound. She heard the buzz of a security box outside the shoe shop to her left, the ruffle of her coat, the sound of her trouser legs grazing at her thighs. The man’s laboured breaths grew louder, closer, until she froze to the spot with her pulse pounding in her ears. There was enough space for him to run around her. It would only be a moment before she was alone again.

  The force of him threw her to the ground. She had no time to put out her hands, and hit the ground with a thud. The side of her face slammed against the cobbles and instant pain ricocheted through her jaw. She heard the man land with a groan.

  As he stumbled to his feet, Rose scurried on her hands and knees to the doorway of the nearest shop and rested her back against it, panting in the shadows. Her pulse hammered all over her body: her temples, her neck, her heart seizing in her chest. She tried to find him in the dark.

  He wasn’t looking for her, but back the way he’d come. She could see his chest heaving, clouds of breath dispelling in the air. He crouched down and swept the ground with his hands, searching for something, his breaths growing more desperate with each second, before he got to his feet and burst into a sprint. His silhouette disappeared into the night and the sound of his footsteps slowly died until she was alone again.

  Her hands shook before her in fists she didn’t remember raising. Her heart was beating so hard that she felt her pulse beating against the door.

  Had she been mugged? It had all happened so quickly.

  She had dropped her bag. She could taste blood on her tongue. Her head was spinning.

  Her phone wasn’t in her pocket.

  The locket was gone from around her neck.

  She snatched at the skin on her chest for the chain and crawled, her hands running over the cobbles, in case it had fallen from her on impact. Her shaking hands touched moss, grime, something sharp. Her bag wasn’t far from where she’d fallen and she slipped the strap over her shoulder to search for her phone on the ground. At last, she grazed the cool screen of the mobile with her thumb. She breathed a sigh of relief and used the screen as a light to search for her locket and any other belongings that might have fallen from her bag. It was just metal, a photo she could have printed again, but tears coated her eyes.

  Please, don’t let it be lost. I can’t lose her again.

  She hovered the light over the dark ground, the beam shaking in her grasp, and caught a glint of gold. She snatched up the locket and pressed it to her lips. The chain was broken, but easily replaced. She slipped it into her pocket and stopped. There was something else on the ground.

  The light hung over a black notebook, wrapped with an elastic string keeping the covers together.

  It had to belong to the man.

  She snatched it up and stumbled to her feet.

  ‘Hey!’

  The word echoed down the lane, and fizzled out into silence again.

  He was gone.

  SEVEN

  Rose arrived home and rested her back against the door. She was safe – she was home.

  The man clearly hadn’t meant to run into her, but having someone almost twice her size knock her to the ground had drummed fear into every muscle and bone. Her legs shook beneath her from running the whole way home. Something in her gut told her to lock the door, and quickly.

  Calm down, she told herself as she swiped a lock of hair from the side of her face, slick with sweat. It was dark. He didn’t see you, that’s all. You’re safe.

  The house was silent. Every evening would be like this when Christian and Lily inevitably left: just her and the quiet. She listened to it ringing through the rooms; the sound would drive her mad within a week.

  She turned on the hall light and caught her reflection in the mirror. Her cheekbone was starting to bruise, following up the curve of her eye socket and shadowing the dip in her cheek, making her look gaunt. One side of her jaw had swelled. She pressed her fingertips against the graze beneath her eye and winced. Almost an hour had passed, and her hands were still shaking.

  She headed down the hall to the kitchen and put the notebook on the countertop. The pages were waved and yellow with age, and the cover had stray scratches from a pen. She wouldn’t look in it. Whatever was inside was private. She would take it to the police station tomorrow so they could get it back to the rightful owner, if they even did that sort of thing.

  She slipped out of her winter layers and made a mug of tea. The house had an empty chill to it, so much so that she considered wrapping her scarf around her neck again. When she made her way up the hall, she whacked up the heating and opened the door to the living room.

  This room used to be her favourite place, but now it looked as though it belonged in an entirely different house. Over the years, the sofas had been moved and decorated with different cushions and throws. Even the scent of the air had changed. A calendar she hadn’t seen before hung on the wall where the family portrait she’d painted once used to be. Now, it rested against the wall in the furthest corner of the room, their faces against the wallpaper. Rose wondered if it was her or Violet they were trying to avoid.

  She walked towards the calendar on the wall and checked the dates highlighted in different colours: yellow, pink, green. Her throat thickened. They had movie nights together each week, marked with whose turn it was to choose the film. Christian noted when he would be away, giving Lily time to make plans so she wasn’t left alone with her.

  She marched back into the kitchen and threw her tea in the sink. Tonight, she was going to have a drink. Tonight she wouldn’t give a damn that alcohol was a stimulant insomniacs should avoid. Her family hated her – the least she deserved was a glass of wine. She took a bottle of red from the rack and the biggest glass from the cabinet. She carried them into the living room and set up her own spot on the sofa. The room wasn’t just theirs, but hers too.

  She turned on the TV and flicked through the channels. Every colour on the screen seemed to glare out at her, flashing in her eyes until her head ached. She needed to sleep; her heart was beating irregularly. Running home had made it worse. She was more awake than ever.

  She picked up the wine and the empty glass. It was a bottle with a cork, not a screw lid. She swore under her breath and returned to the kitchen, rifling around in the drawer for the corkscrew. When she turned back for the door, her eyes fell on the notebook.

  Maybe she could read the first page. After all, the man hadn’t even checked she was okay. She snatched it from the countertop before she changed her mind.

  Back in the living room, she settled on the sofa with the notebook in her lap and stared down at the black cover. Was it filled with personal entries, or business plans, to-do lists? Were the pages written on at all? The owner’s details could be in the front. She should look, for his sake.

  She poured herself
a glass of wine, removed the elastic string, and opened the front cover. Nothing was written on the inside flap. She turned the page and saw neat, cursive handwriting scrolled along the lines.

  My name is Finn Matthews and if you’re reading this, I’m dead.

  Rose slammed the journal shut.

  Of all the things that could have been written in it, she hadn’t expected that. It was a joke, or a work of fiction; it wouldn’t be real. She took a generous gulp of wine and opened the journal again.

  I wish I could tell you my killer’s name, but he has fooled me – he has fooled us all. The only thing left for me to do is look back over the past few months and document the events that occurred, to try and explain how it all began, in the hope that, should anything happen to me, the truth will be revealed.

  He will kill me, that I’m sure of. He has hunted me for months, invading my home, my mind, and I have no power to stop him. He is everywhere, lurking, nameless. The police don’t believe me. I have no friends here, no family. I’m alone, waiting for him to end this. And there’s only one way this will end. I know that now.

  From the outside, I look insane.

  I’m starting to feel it on the inside, too.

  This is not a joke. This is not a game.

  Please, if nothing else – believe me.

  Rose closed the journal again, speechless.

  Silence filled her ears. When she noticed she was holding her breath, a bout of nervous laughter slipped from her lips. It was just a story, and there she was with shaking hands, sweat breaking on her forehead.

  But if it were true, she was holding a potential crime in her hands. The man had been running from something, perhaps someone. Had it been Finn? Had he been escaping from the man who was set on taking his life?

  She looked up and eyed the night pressing against the window. Someone could be out there, watching her from within the darkness, and she wouldn’t have a clue.

  It’s not real, she told herself. It’s just a story.

  Her skin immediately felt hot. She stood quickly and closed the curtains before returning to the sofa.

  She had to find out what happened next.

  EIGHT

  Rose was numb in the back of the police car with the scent of the river stained into her skin. She sat with her bare feet in the well behind the police officer’s seat. The river had taken her shoes. Lily clung to her, blue-lipped and catatonic, with her arm in a sling where her wrist had broken in Rose’s grasp. Water had soaked into the upholstery of the seats and sent fresh shivers up their spines.

  It had been hours. The storm had passed but the clouds remained, casting a shadow upon the bridge, lit only by the blue lights of the ambulances and the police cars blocking either end of the bridge. Cars were backed up for miles. Passengers got out to enquire, only to lurk at the barrier.

  Rose refused to go to the hospital; she wouldn’t leave Violet in the water; she had always been afraid of the dark. Paramedics had checked them over, and returned every ten minutes to flash lights in their eyes, check their blood pressure, their temperatures, adjusted the foil blankets wrapped around their torsos that rustled with every breath. Lily wouldn’t leave Rose, and Rose wouldn’t leave Violet. They sat in limbo, waiting for the divers to pull her from the depths.

  The crane was stationed at the edge of the bridge with workmen ushering the pincer towards the water. She wished she could hear what they were saying, understand their occasional glances towards the car, peering through the back window and looking away when she met their eyes.

  DS William Montgomery sat silently behind the wheel, occasionally eyeing them in the mirror. He’d challenged her when she refused to leave the bridge, but then Lily had screamed when they tried to prise them apart. The only thing he could do was usher them into the back of his car.

  ‘Do you feel ready to talk about it?’ he asked suddenly.

  Rose’s head snapped towards the mirror.

  She wanted to, but the words wouldn’t come. She parted her lips, only to close them again.

  ‘We’ve spoken to the drivers who witnessed the crash. But we need to hear from you, to get to the bottom of this.’

  It was my fault.

  His colleague, DI Eva Rey, who had introduced herself as the lead investigator of the crash, stood at the barrier of the bridge, watching the divers sink into the depths of the river, tethered to the bank so they weren’t whisked away. She stood tall and still, her deep ebony skin flecked with rain.

  ‘I don’t know if I should talk about it yet. . .’ Rose said finally. Her voice sounded as though it had been shredded with a blade. She had screamed for so long that she could taste blood when she swallowed.

  ‘Without a lawyer?’ he asked.

  She nodded her head.

  ‘And . . . I should talk to my husband first.’

  I have to tell him that I lost her.

  She looked down at Lily, clinging to her tightly. Her other side was empty, where Violet should have been.

  ‘He’s on his way.’

  They fell silent again, listening to each whine from the crane as it moved.

  Her clothes and skin were torn from the rocks of the river bed. But she couldn’t feel the pain; it was as though the water had devoured the very part of her that helped her to feel, to taste anything other than its salt. All she could do was stare before the break in the barrier.

  DI Rey glanced at the car and locked eyes with Montgomery in the front seat. She nodded solemnly.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said and got out of the car.

  Rose watched him stride over to Rey. They looked down at the water.

  ‘Lily, stay here,’ she whispered and reached for the door.

  ‘No!’

  Lily immediately began to sob again and clawed at her with her one free hand. Red marks trailed down Rose’s arm.

  ‘I want to come with you!’

  ‘I need to go to her. I need to go to Violet. I’ll be right back.

  You’ll be safe here.’

  She pulled away and silenced Lily’s screams with the slam of the car door, squinting from the blow of the wind as it whipped locks of hair against her face. She walked along the bridge, almost as though she was floating.

  She reached the break in the barrier just as her car rose into sight, water gushing from the smashed windows, the grille, the exhaust pipe. The roof had caved in. A set of wheels dangled from one axle, and the paintwork had large, jagged scratches raked into the side. The driver’s door creaked open, snapped from its hinges and fell from sight, followed by a gush of dark brown water.

  And then she saw it in the corner of her eye, the little white body being guided across the surface of the water towards the bank. The divers were dressed head to toe in black with tanks on their backs and masks on their faces. Rose thought about how terrifying it must have been for Violet, seeing them approach through the turbid water like beasts, clawing in through the windows.

  She walked along the bridge in a haze, ignoring the hammer of Lily’s fists against the window of the police car, and walked slowly behind the officers so as not to catch their eyes.

  At the end of the bridge, police tape flapped in the wind. A crowd of faces stood behind it, watching her every step.

  She weaved through the ambulances, ignoring the glances from the paramedics, their desperate calls for the police officers further along the bridge. She walked around the numbered markers on the ground, highlighting each tyre mark, broken glass reflecting the clouds, a drop of blood that could have been from any one of them.

  A uniformed officer approached her from the barricade at the bridge with her hands by her sides, open and ready to grab her.

  ‘You can’t be here, miss. . .’

  Rose burst into a sprint and ran around the officer for the edge of the bridge, just missing the snatch of her hand. She ran for the slanted path that led to the bank, the sound of thudding footsteps collecting behind her and strangers calling her name. All she could think about was
Violet.

  She ran down the slope without slowing, cutting her feet on jutting rocks, stumbling and slipping in the mud until she landed on the bank on all fours.

  ‘I’m coming, Violet!’ she yelled.

  She ran fast, mud squelching between her toes, with her eyes locked on the shadowy figures carrying her daughter in from the water.

  As she reached them, a hand snatched her from behind, but she pulled away and stumbled into one of the divers. She slipped against his slimy wetsuit and fell to her hands and knees.

  Violet was beneath her.

  Her lips were purple with stagnant blood. Everything vibrant about her had gone: her freckles had faded away; her auburn hair had lost its glow; her skin was the colour of putrid milk.

  Rose screamed until her ears rang. She threw herself over Violet’s body, her head pressed to her small, motionless chest. She held her tight, longing for the faint beat of her heart against her cheek.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Rose whispered.

  She looked at her face and tucked a lock of wet hair behind her ear. She snatched her up and rocked her gently.

  ‘I love you,’ she said between sobs, breathing in the scent of the water, and not the scent her daughter used to have; sweet and milky. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Rose.’

  When she heard the stranger’s voice she jumped, and slowly opened her eyes.

  They had formed a circle around her. The divers had taken off their masks. The uniformed officer who had chased her down the bank was still panting. DI Rey stared down at the ground the moment Rose caught her eye, but DS Montgomery looked on, his eyes searing into hers. Figures in green arrived behind them.

  ‘It’s time to let go, Rose,’ he said. ‘We need to let the paramedics do their job.’

  She breathed back a sob and looked down at Violet’s ghostly white face nestled against her chest.

  ‘I’ll never stop loving you,’ she whispered, pressing a kiss on her lips. Two tears landed on Violet’s cheek. ‘Never.’

  Hands began to untangle her limbs from around Violet’s body, clamping down as she fought.