The Sleeper Lies

by Andrea Mara

  “No, I never went – I had you here, I needed to stay with you. And there was nothing I could do.” He shook his head. “Hanne was gone.”

  That night, I dreamed I was being held under water by strong hands, and when I woke, panicking and sweating and crying, my dad heard me and came in. He put his arms around me, not something he often did, and rocked me until I was ready to go back to sleep.

  The following morning, on his way to work, he stopped into Alan’s house. I never heard exactly what was said, but Alan and my dad didn’t speak again, and until I came back for my dad’s funeral ten years later, neither did Jamie and I.

  CHAPTER 19

  2018

  On Thursday morning, I woke on the couch to the low hum of a television breakfast show – I’d slept in the living room with the TV on, unable to bear another night in my bedroom, waiting for the knock.

  Outside, the thaw had well and truly taken hold – I checked the ground below my bedroom window but there was nothing on the concrete path: no snow, no slush, no prints. Nothing to show if someone had been there or not.

  As I stared down, with my back to the garden and the gate beyond, a sudden prickling sensation crawled across my neck. Was someone watching me? I whirled to look, my eyes skittering across the slushy grass, and down to the open gate, swinging as the wind whipped up. Blank, empty space looked back at me – the hawthorn tree, the low stone wall, the swaying gate, the deserted road. Nobody out on there looking in. Nobody anywhere.

  Pulling my cardigan tighter, I went inside, and was still trying to shake the feeling of watching eyes when my phone pinged. A text from an unknown number. I clicked in, and realised it was Jamie. His text sounded formal, but then again, we weren’t in regular contact – he wanted to know if I was driving to Dublin in the next few days and if I could give him a lift. The car he and Alan shared wouldn’t start since the snow, and Alan needed the Land Rover. I imagined Alan’s surly response, saying no for the sake of saying no. And as I looked around my silent living room, facing into another day on my own, I knew what I wanted to do.

  Actually, going to work from the office today. Would need to head soon. Is that too short notice?

  Jamie came back quickly.

  I can be ready in ten?

  Be down to you in twenty, I replied, checking the time.

  One quick shower later, I found myself in front of my wardrobe, searching for something – anything – other than leggings and T-shirts. Black jeans and a print shirt would do the trick, I thought, taking out my neglected make-up bag to scrutinise the contents. Who is this for, I wondered, as I rubbed a hint of blusher on my cheeks and blow-dried my hair. Maybe it was just about breaking out – away from old habits and out of the house. And – I realised as I swiped on a self-conscious smear of lipstick – for a full five minutes, I’d forgotten about the footprints.

  “Thanks for this, I really appreciate it. Three days with my da is enough – it was either this or throw myself off the barn roof,” Jamie said, grinning, as he hopped into the jeep.

  I laughed and suddenly it was like old times. He didn’t have anything urgent to do in Dublin, he said, he just needed to get away – his dad had been moaning about the snow non-stop, as though the entire weather event was a conspiracy designed solely to inconvenience him.

  “You have the patience of a saint,” I said. “Do you ever think about moving out?”

  “Nah, no chance of that. My da’s been telling me for as long as I can remember that the farm is mine, my ‘birthright’, and there’s never been a question of anything else.”

  We slowed behind a tractor and I glanced over at him.

  “But what about being an artist?”

  “Ah, same as anyone, I wanted all sorts of things when I was a kid – every child wants to be a footballer or an actor or an inventor or a spy. Then we all grow up and do exactly what our parents did – work in offices and shops and farms.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  The conversation with Jamie was still on my mind at lunchtime when I decided to give Linda a call – it had been a while since we’d spoken, a month or more. Actually I couldn’t remember the last time I’d called her; she was usually the one who called me. When she answered, at first I didn’t realise it was Linda – her voice was quieter than usual, hoarse.

  “The baby’s asleep,” she said in an almost-whisper. “It took ages to get him down, and if he wakes again I’ll cry.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Watching TV. I don’t have it on all the time, but I just needed to get the baby down.”

  “God, if I had kids I’d have them watching TV the whole time – what’s wrong with TV all of a sudden?”

  A pause.

  “Yeah, well, you can’t just plonk them on front of telly all day – they need to get out and get exercise and air and all that.”

  She sounded off. I’d put a foot wrong somehow.

  “Oh sure, of course. So how’re things?”

  Another sigh.

  “Grand, I guess. Same ol’ same ol’. How’s work?”

  I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say about work, so I told her about the snow instead, and the footprints and the face I thought I saw and the knocking.

  “Maybe a neighbour checking on you? Hang on –”

  In the background I could hear her shushing someone.

  “Sorry, Marianne, I’m going to have to go – the girls are starting to squabble and if they wake the baby I swear to God I’m walking out of this house.”

  She was gone halfway through my goodbye. I sat for a moment with the phone in my hand, wondering what had just happened. Since when did Linda end a call after five minutes? We used to chat for hours, about everything and anything. Though now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done that either.

  Jamie’s message arrived that evening, when I was walking down to Zorian’s basement car park. At first I thought he was looking for a lift home – I’d told him I’d be driving back around six, but he was already on the bus and the text had nothing to do with lifts.

  Hey Marianne, just wanted to let you know I saw someone today who looked very like someone you know. I wasn’t talking to him so not 100% sure. Pic to follow.

  Tensing, I stood in the car park, with no idea what to expect, but somehow sure it would come to no good.

  CHAPTER 20

  The car park plunged into darkness as I stood halfway between the basement door and my parking space, waiting for Jamie’s second message. I waved my arm to make the light come back on but I was too far past the door. Where was the damn message? The car park was underground and the phone signal sketchy – I was just about to give in and walk back to the basement when it popped up.

  A photo of a man in a bookshop, taken from the side, grainy with distance and low indoor lights. But unmistakable all the same. Suddenly, I was ice-cold. The man in the photo was Ray.

  As soon as I got home I started googling. Ray’s author page came up first, and a list of his books, followed by various articles and features. I clicked into the News tab, but the most recent link was about a hospital he’d opened in San Francisco. That was a long way to go for a charity event – maybe this was a new, more altruistic Ray than the one I knew. Back then, nothing was ever for nothing, despite early impressions to the contrary.

  I leaned back on the couch, staring at useless Google search results – articles about his upcoming book (called The Wanderer, no other details), his home renovation (costing upwards of $2 million gushed one report) but nothing to suggest he was in Ireland. I let out a breath.

  I shut the laptop and went into the kitchen to make a sandwich, realising as I opened the door I was tensing, bracing myself. Light flooded the room when I hit the switch, sucking up shadows. Comforting. A little. Waiting for the grill to heat, I stared out the window. Dark drifts of snow nestled against bushes that bordered both sides of the back garden, but the thaw was almost complete. There wou
ld be no more footprints. Or at least none that I could see. I shivered. Maybe I should put in one of those lights that comes on when someone moves outside? Then again, it would give me a heart-attack every time a fox set it off – perhaps we’re better off not knowing what goes on outside when we’re asleep.

  With my cheese-and-ham sandwich deposited in the grill, I forced myself to walk through to the boot room to check the back door, making yet another mental note to replace it with something more secure. And maybe installing an alarm wasn’t such a bad idea, though the thought of it going off in the middle of the night made the hairs on my skin stand up. I had a sudden flashback to my old flat in Dublin city centre – cosy, flanked by other flats, high off the ground. Safety in numbers. Smoke from the kitchen called me back to real life, and I took my charred sandwich through to the living room.

  With footprints and Ray still swirling through my head, I clicked into the Armchair Detective group. Judith had posted another case she’d found – a murder in Calais in France, two years ago. A woman had reported noises in her back garden, and trampled shrubs. Police suggested urban foxes. Two days later, the woman was found dead on her living-room floor. Strangled.

  What do you think of this? Judith had written. Not unlike the Blackwood Strangler. And Calais is an easy trip from the UK, but it means the case fell into an entirely different jurisdiction. Unless the investigators from both countries are talking to one another, would they even know?

  Neil was sceptical.

  But if it was that easy for you to find it, the investigators would have found it too. No doubt they have, and already ruled out a link.

  Judith replied: But isn’t that the point, Neil? We’re here using the Internet to search for links that may have been missed.

  I jumped in. How did you find it, Judith? I was searching through unsolved murders one night last week, and there are just so many.

  I used “stalking” as a keyword,she replied. There are still too many results – it will take forever to go through them all – and I definitely don’t have forever f Want to help?

  Sure, I could do with a distraction, I wrote, without explaining why.I’ll do some research and meet you back here in two hours?

  Thumbs-up emoji from Judith. And from Neil – who likes to be right and hates being ignored – nothing at all.

  I tried “Unsolved Murders” + “Stalking” first, and soon I was lost in list after list of “10 of the Creepiest Murders of All Time”. Lots of the stories I knew already – Girl Scouts who had disappeared from camp, a family who vanished on Christmas Eve, but none that fit either the time frame or the hallmarks of the Blackwood Strangler. I needed better search words.

  I got up and walked to the living-room window, staring out at the inky sky. Nothing stirred. I pulled across the curtains, blocking out the blackness, and sat back down. I hesitated, wondering about rabbit holes and knowing too much, then started to type new search words.

  “Unsolved Murder” + “Footprints”.

  CHAPTER 21

  At ten o’clock, I came up for air, trying to unstick myself from all I’d just read. Jesus, the Internet was a scary place. I looked at my notebook – half a dozen pages of cases from all over Europe, all of which fit the timeframe for the Blackwood Strangler, and all involving some level of stalking and footprints.

  Like the one in Austria, with a trampled rosebush under the victim’s bedroom window. She thought she had a Peeping Tom and began keeping her curtains closed day and night. Two days later, there was a pink rose left on her doormat. A week later, she was dead.

  There was a case from Poland: a couple found letters scratched on their windowsill. Seemingly random letters, as though drawn by a child: the letter R, the letter L, and what looked like a B. They were curious, not worried, although surprised that the footprints under the scratched windowsill looked too big to belong to a child. They were found two days later, one stabbed, one strangled.

  In Rotterdam, a young woman, home alone while her parents were on holidays, had woken one morning to find a cross drawn in the condensation on her bedroom window. It was so innocuous, but made no sense. Whoever had done it had hardly meant any harm, but then who and why, she wondered to a friend she spoke to that afternoon. Her friend reportedly told her it was “probably just one of those things”, and I thought about all the times in my life I’d seen things that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and heard people say exactly that. Just one of those things. The cross was there the following morning too, and the one after. Her parents came home from their trip to find her body on her bedroom floor, and the window wiped clean.

  In Denmark, a woman came out one morning to find chalk drawings on her front driveway. Someone – kids, she assumed – had chalked out a stick drawing of a hangman, like in the word game, but with no words. She thought little of it until she realised that night that someone had removed the bulb from the light-fitting in her porch. She mentioned it to her next-door neighbour, and the following morning she was found, just like the others. But maybe they weren’t linked at all? Each of them had something – a tiny detail that made no sense, but not enough to ring any serious alarm bells. The kinds of things kids do, nothing unduly threatening, and no two cases the same. Except for the footprints, of course – the common denominator. And perhaps not a real common denominator – maybe each of the murders would have involved footprints anyway.

  There were more search results to go through but I was out of steam and ready to report back.

  Judith, how are you getting on? I tried using “footprints” in my search and found 8 cases so far that aren’t even in the UK – they’re all around Europe.

  She was back within a minute to crosscheck details. She’d found the same cases. But it was hardly reasonable to think the Blackwood Strangler was committing murders in other countries, was it? I said as much, only then realising a huge part of me wanted Judith to say of course not, there was no way there was a connection, no chance he’d widened his hunting ground. But she didn’t get a chance to – Enthusiastic Barry jumped in.

  Why don’t we take a few cases each and research them further, and at the same time keep searching for more? Using “footprints” in the search seems like a good idea – well done, Marianne ff

  I ignored the pat on the head but agreed to the plan. And promising myself I’d be in bed by midnight, I checked the door one last time, and sat down to read about stalkers who kill.

  CHAPTER 22

  On Friday morning, when my alarm went off, I wanted to cry. I’d stayed up far too late reading up on murders and footprints, and my dreams had punished me for it. Outside, the garden was almost clear of snow – the thaw had transformed everything, taking the footprints with it. I wondered if the guards had found anything and as the kettle boiled I phoned the station. Patrick answered, and told me he had nothing back on the army jacket yet, other than confirmation that it looked like Irish Defence Forces, and the owner’s name badge had been ripped off.

  I asked him if he’d heard more on the tourist who’d caused trouble in the hotel.

  “He’s gone back to the States now, that’s confirmed, so it’s not him.”

  Dammit, I really wanted it to be the drunk but otherwise reasonably harmless tourist.

  “If it was just the Sunday night you saw the footprints, then maybe it could have been him,” Patrick went on, “but he was definitely gone the next day. Anyway, no way he could have hung around all week without us spotting him when we’re out on patrol.”

  An image of Geraldine and Patrick in a police car, cruising up and down the mean streets of Carrickderg popped into my head.

  “And we’ve had no other reports of prowlers or kids messing,” he continued. “So maybe it was nothing.”

  “I guess if nobody else reported anyone though, it just means the person was focussed on me, doesn’t it, as opposed to meaning it didn’t happen?”

  “Yeah, no, I don’t mean it didn’t happen – I mean, maybe it was just one of those things
, something and nothing. You know?”

  Just one of those things. Things we can’t explain so we ignore them. I didn’t say anything.

  “Like, is it still going on?” he asked, filling the silence.

  “I don’t know. The snow is gone, so I can’t tell anymore if someone has been here. Or for how long they were coming before the snow.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. Did you get a new curtain, like Geraldine was saying?”

  Mother of God, they were obsessed with curtains.

  “Not yet but I’m still tacking black sacks over the window every night.”

  “There you go then – he’s hardly going to bother coming back now he can’t see anything, is he?”

  “But he did come back after I put them up – I saw a face at the window on Monday night and heard knocking on Tuesday night.”

  “But you said you weren’t a hundred per cent sure about either of those, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but I didn’t imagine the footprints – you’ve seen the photos.”

  “Hmm. Would it be an idea to put in some security on the house? Not even because of this, but just as a general precaution?”

  He was right. I’d been putting it off for years, but it was time to put in an alarm and finally replace that back door.

  I thanked him and disconnected.

  With no idea where to start looking, I sat and googled home security.

  I was elbow-deep in mindboggling burglar-alarm information when there was familiar rap on the door. One thing I liked about Bert was his reassuringly identifiable knock, along with the promise of a package. What had I ordered? Books, I realised, as I opened the door, delighted with the distraction from home-security research – and, I realised, with the temporary company of another human being.