It’s Sunday. 2.55pm. I walk with leaden legs towards Jack’s house, having just left Nathan and Johnny in Johnny’s car about a hundred metres down the road. Nathan slept on my sofa last night. As I made up his makeshift bed, I felt a swell of gratitude that I wouldn’t be alone, and a sense of security I realised I hadn’t felt for days.
I might actually get some sleep tonight, I thought, and to my surprise I did. A full eight hours. The sadness and anxiety hit again as soon as I opened my eyes though, and worsened an hour later when Nathan had a call from the family liaison officer assigned to him by the police. He told him that one of the private doorbell cameras across the street from the alley Felicity was found in had provided some footage of a figure dressed in black walking into the alleyway with her and then marching briskly away again a few minutes later.
‘He said it’s not clear enough to make out if it’s a man or a woman,’ Nathan told me. ‘But Felicity seemed to be walking willingly, as in they weren’t dragging her or anything. So does that mean she knew her attacker? It’s doing my head in, Heather. Let’s just hope the forensics report is more helpful, eh?’
That was a few hours ago, and now I’m breathing deeply as I walk. I go over the plan in my head, envisioning each step I need to take once I’m inside that front door. I don’t have much with me: an empty backpack to carry what I find, leaving my hands free… in case; I’m wearing combat trousers and a jacket and everything else I need is stashed in my pockets. In one is a small but powerful listening device, about the size and shape of a matchbox. It’s voice-activated, so will start recording as soon as there’s any conversation or indeed any significant noise, and can record constantly for up to two hours. It’s linked to an app on Johnny’s phone, which is well within range no matter where I go in the house. I can’t receive any communication back from Johnny and Nathan, but it’s reassuring to know they can hear me, and that they’re a quick sprint away, should I need them.
God, I hope I won’t, I think, as I approach the house. I look up. As usual at this time of day, the curtains are closed at every window and the sun reflects off the river behind me making the glass gleam. I wipe my hands on my jacket then climb the few steps to the arrangement of rocks and potted trees that frame the front door. After a quick check over my shoulder – the street is deserted – I bend down and lift the rock next to the yucca plant, as per Jack’s instructions.
There it is – a clear plastic bag, the key visible inside. I pick it up, and moments later the key is turning smoothly in the lock and I’m closing the front door behind me. I stand completely still for a few seconds, listening. Nothing. The house is dark and silent, and as I reach for the light switch on the wall I say softly, for the benefit of Nathan and Johnny, ‘I’m in.’
Right. First, the easier bit. I’m wearing trainers – no heels to clack on the wooden floors – and I walk quickly and quietly along the hallway and up, up, turning lights on and off as I go, until I’m on the attic floor. I ignore all the cameras now because they don’t matter anymore. If this all goes to plan, Jack’s soon going to be very aware of what I’ve done today anyway, so the fact that my every move in this house is being recorded, is irrelevant. And so far, so good; there’s still no noise from any part of the house, and I hope this means Jack and Rhona are sleeping soundly, unaware of my presence.
‘In the attic,’ I say, once I’m inside the room with the boxes. I scan the pile, which appears to be unchanged since I was last here, and bend down to open the box of DVDs. My heart rate speeds up.
Please, please let them still be here, I think, as I push aside the layers of old photographs and tissue paper. Please, don’t have moved them, or destroyed them…
‘They’re here!’
I say it out loud. There it is, that sordid little pile of DVDs. My hands are shaking a little now as I slip my backpack off my shoulders and toss them in, my breathing quickening as I notice a new one, a disc in a cardboard sleeve that definitely wasn’t there before.
H HARRIS
April, 2024
You bastard, I think, but there’s no time to dwell on it now. I lick my lips and realise how dry my mouth is, then zip up the backpack. I wriggle it back onto my shoulders and say, ‘Got them. Heading back down now. All quiet.’
This is the bit I’m most nervous about.
I creep downstairs, horribly conscious of every creak of a floorboard. I can feel fear coiling in my stomach. And then—
BANG!
I stop dead, and gasp.
What was that? I’m on the middle landing, the one where Jack’s bedroom is, and I deliberately didn’t turn the light on, not wanting to take the slightest risk of waking him. But was that his door closing? Is he up? Is he about to walk around the corner and find me here?
Oh shit, shit…
My heart’s beating so fast I think I might faint. Black spots float across my vision and I reach out a hand, trying to find something to lean on, then jump in terror as I hear another noise. It’s a fluttering sound, and it’s coming from right behind me. I whip my head around, but there’s nobody there. The landing is dark and empty. I hear the sound again and sweat beads on my upper lip. The sound is coming from behind the heavy damask curtains at the window.
Is somebody there, hiding? No, no, please…
And then I hear a familiar crooning sound, and I almost laugh out loud. I take the few steps to the window and pull one of the curtains aside. Relief washes over me. A pigeon. A pigeon! They’re outside Jack’s place all the time, perching on the roof and the ledges and, particularly on sunny days when the glare from the river bounces off the windows, there’s the odd casualty; a bird that gets dazzled, misjudges its descent, and crashes into a windowpane. It’s clearly just happened again as I can see the slightly greasy, feathery imprint on the glass, but thankfully the pigeon merely looks a little stunned. It’s sitting on the sill outside, ruffling its feathers and cooing indignantly.
Fuck’s sake, I think, and let the curtain drop back into place. I take a breath and gather myself. I wonder if Johnny and Nathan heard me gasp; I’m not sure if the listening device is sensitive enough to pick up a sound like that, but I don’t want them to panic and race up here, so as I finally reach the kitchen I say in a low voice, ‘Heading into the utility room now. Not sure if you heard that but I got a little fright on the way down. False alarm. Idiot pigeon flew into one of the windows. All good.’
Right. Focus.
I’m highly aware that I’m very close to Rhona’s apartment down here in the basement, so I need to work quickly. I go into the utility room and look at the padlocked freezer. It’s the same lock, as far as I can tell. I described it to Johnny last night, and he disappeared upstairs for a few minutes and came back down with a similar one, then spent half an hour showing me how to open it without a key. He made me practise over and over until I could do it in less than a minute.
I slip the backpack off, dump it on the floor, and reach into the left-hand leg pocket of my combats for the small plastic case I put there earlier. This is, apparently, called a comb pick set – nine small double-ended lock picks, so eighteen in total, all slightly different shapes and sizes. Inserted into the key aperture at the base of a padlock, they’re designed to allow both pins inside the lock to be pushed out. Just in case that doesn’t work, Johnny also gave me a set of skeleton keys which is currently secreted in my right trouser pocket.
‘Skeleton keys? Johnny, are you a secret housebreaker or something? Where do you get these things? And why do you have them?’ I asked him last night, a little shocked.
He laughed and winked.
‘There are whole websites devoted to them, if you look online – anyone can buy them. They’re just something I held onto when I left the force. Yes, maybe not strictly legal for a police officer to use, but I often found them handy in house searches. I’m saying no more; ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’
Nathan and I both raised our eyebrows, but right now I’m more than grateful for Johnny’s help, legal or not. If this works, it’s going to be a hundred times safer and easier than an attempt to steal Jack’s keys again. I inhale slowly, let the breath out, and wriggle my fingers, surprised to see they’re steady now, the trembling of earlier gone.
I can do this. I can, I think, as I examine the base of the padlock, then select a pick. I insert it carefully, moving it around and up and down, as Johnny showed me, trying to feel it connect, but it doesn’t work. There’s no click.
Come on!
OK, plenty more to try. Don’t panic.
I select another, and try again. Then another, and another. When I’m on to the fifth, I pause. What was that? Did I just hear something upstairs? A soft thud? I open the pantry door a few inches, listening hard, but other than the ticking of the clock, I can’t hear anything.
I’m imagining things now, I think, as I lift the padlock again, and bend to choose another pick from the little case on the floor. I wiggle it in the lock and—
Woah! I’m in!
The padlock springs open with a small clunk and, my hands quivering again, I drop it on the ground and yank the freezer door open. I have another moment of dread – will the package I need still be here? But then I see it, still there on the bottom shelf, and I exhale, realising I’ve been holding my breath. I reach for it, ripping the wrapping off just to check, and see the stack of printed pages inside.
I’ve got them. I’ve got the emails, and the DVDs.
I feel a bubble of elation in my chest and a sudden, faintly ridiculous urge to do a little happy dance around the room. I’ve done it. I’ve done it. But there’s no time for dancing, so I crouch to stuff the package into my backpack, then push the comb picks into my pocket. I straighten up again, switch off the utility room light and say:
‘Got the emails. We’re done, guys. I’m on my way out.’
Hoping fervently that they really have been hearing me – this is the signal for Johnny to move his car – I walk back out into the kitchen. I pause to listen again, then sprint across the tiled floor and up the stairs. The hallway is dark, but there’s a chink of daylight around the front door frame, and I walk briskly towards it, hoisting the backpack higher on my shoulders. I allow a little smile to play on my lips.
This is it, I think, as I reach for the door handle. The last time I’ll ever have to walk through this door. The last time I’ll ever set foot in this damn house…
Shit.
The door handle won’t work. I jiggle it. I didn’t lock this door behind me when I came in, I know that, so I should be able to just walk out. I twist the knob again, harder this time, but although it moves, the door still doesn’t open.
What the…?
I try once more, but it’s locked. The door is locked. How can it be locked? My stomach heaves, but I don’t want to think about what that might mean, and anyway, I have a key, don’t I? Where did I put it? I start to fumble in my pockets, first the exterior ones on my jacket, then the inside breast pockets. No key. Where is it? I reach down to check the leg pockets of my trousers, remembering that if all else fails and I’ve somehow lost it, I have Johnny’s bunch of skeleton keys. And then:
CLICK.
I freeze as the hall light comes on.
‘Hello, Heather.’
The familiar voice is terrifyingly close, and I blink, dazzled by the glare. And then it’s as if I can feel the ground falling away beneath my feet and my head begins to spin.
It’s Jack.
Jack, fully dressed, is standing right beside me.