Don't Let Me In Read online

  How’s your day?

  A few seconds and online now appears on the status bar.

  Hannah: Three coffees, four cigarettes, but it’s been 6 days since my last Homes Under the Hammer.

  Me: HA! I’m cold turkey for 27 days now.

  Hannah: Yeah but you’ve gone full dirty, Colombo, TJ Hooker, Magnum PI, and I hear on the grapevine that Murder She Wrote is your new fix you sick bitch…

  Me: Guilty as charged. I can’t get enough of La Lansbury. How’s Tash?

  Hannah: Good, got into a tizzy at school with another girl who claimed she would marry Harry Styles but Tash wasn’t having that oh no, a call from the school entailed. All sorted now. How’s tricks your end kidda?

  Me: OK, the show is really taking off and guess what?

  Hannah: You did it with the pizza delivery boy when he dropped round your Hawaiian?

  Me: I would never order a pizza with fruit on it, I’m not a barbarian dahling.

  Hannah: Get you posh Hampstead types, it would need to be pomegranate or dragon fruit.

  Me: I left the house, nothing massive, just the back garden but hey progress!

  Hannah: OMFG that’s amazing. No panic attack, no skiddy knickers, actual real outside. I am as proud as I was when Tash did her first potty. Seriously that is amazing news. I am going to have an extra cigarette and a large wine to celebrate, maybe even a sneaky Homes under the…

  Me: NO!!!! I won’t be responsible.

  Hannah: OK I’ll summon up my will power and fags and booze it is. Listen sorry to do this but have to run. Gotta work call in 1 min and I really can’t afford to fuck up a job that allows me to work from home, such times to be alive and be an agoraphobic ha!

  Me: Go on I’ll catch you later and never mention the A word again!

  Hannah: Will do and just so you know I am like super mega proud of you.

  I finish my coffee. What I should do is start writing the next podcast script but the god of procrastination is helped out by the fact that I don’t have a goddamn idea of how to proceed, and the house is filthy and really needs a clean. I regret getting rid of the cleaner we had but it seemed too much what with me being at home all the time and our income reduced, so now I do it and it is the perfect excuse for not writing, so I don my marigolds, dig out the Dyson and head upstairs.

  The cleaning, and by this I mean a good clean, not a real full-metal-jacket let’s-do-this-thing clean, but also not a quick whizz around with a duster, but the weekly clean, takes me three hours. Today I manage it in two hours forty-five minutes, a fact I put down to the music choice for today’s clean, Daft Punk and Goldfrapp, the higher BPM’s propelling me around the house like a superstar cleaning DJ.

  When I slump back down at the table with my second coffee of the day, I can see my phone notifying me I have thirty-five new emails. Hoping Emma has changed her mind, I open the mail account. It’s amazing how our eyes are drawn to the most important things first – it’s because they evolved to recognise danger, the Sabre-toothed tiger stalking us in the dark – and my eye is drawn amongst all the emails to a subject line that makes my stomach ball into a terrified knot of tension.

  Subject: Finn is such a lovely boy

  I click and open the email.

  You blocked me on Twitter diddums. Can’t stand another point of view or does the truth just hurt that little bit too much?

  Fury and fear hit me like a tidal wave and I type a response.

  Touch my child and I’ll fucking kill you. Where did you get my email address you sad sack of shit?

  With a whoosh it’s gone before I, or my common sense, can stop it.

  Ping. A reply almost immediately.

  Ha, you don’t like it when people poke their noses in eh! Such a hypocrite, you liberals are all the same, you don’t like it do you? Or maybe you do? I’ve seen your pictures, you used to be hot before you had that child. I wouldn’t touch you now – I bet no one touches you now.

  Common sense struggles with an urge to throw my phone across the kitchen table, and luckily it wins. I go straight into the settings and block his email. How long will it take him to get another account, a minute, less?

  “Fuck.” I say it loudly enough that Lil’Bitch, lounging on the kitchen radiator, turns her head to look at me quizzically.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  I blow out through my lips, making a raspberry sound. I used to do this all the time as a child, especially when my mother told me that I’d never get a husband if I made this noise. It makes me feel better right away.

  Ping.

  I look down at the screen. [email protected] has been replaced by [email protected]. The subject line is “You can run but…”

  I delete it and block the new address. Before I’ve even done this, ping, another email, this one from [email protected].

  I delete it and then another ping, like a bang on the door. Subject line, “I’m not going away”. It follows the rest into the junk, and then there’s another, and this time I hesitate because of the subject line which makes my throat constrict in panic. It’s titled “Outside Now” and there’s an attachment.

  I click to open the email.

  What a lovely house you have Sarah.

  I download the attachment, oblivious to every Internet warning.

  It’s a JPEG file and it opens in my photos app.

  My hand goes to my mouth as I recognise my front door. Red gloss paint shining in the low November morning sun. I can even see the copy of the local paper sticking out the letterbox; I heard the paperboy deliver it earlier this morning.

  Something clicks and kills the fear. I hear a snarl and realise with surprise that it’s coming from my throat.

  I yank open the top kitchen drawer and I pull out the biggest bread knife in there, and I charge down the hall and I get to the front door and then I’m pulling back bolts and then my hand is on the latch and all I need to do is move my hand an inch and the door will click open but I can’t because what if he is there? I lift my hand off the latch and slowly I back away from the door.

  7

  Marigold

  “What did the police say?”

  Cathy is standing in my back garden smoking a roll-up cigarette. I’m sipping coffee, standing on the threshold, and pretending I don’t want to join her.

  “They sent round a special constable. He took a copy of the email, said they probably wouldn’t be able to trace it and that in any event taking a picture of someone’s door wasn’t a crime. He even said it was a little like a more modern version of knock and run he used to play as a kid. I think he was trying to reassure me.”

  Cathy tips her head back and exhales a plume of smoke.

  “Did he think it could be, well, you know?”

  I shake my head but say nothing.

  Cathy is looking at me suspiciously and then she points the tip of her cigarette at me so that embers fall like dying fireflies to the ground. “You didn’t mention it did you?”

  “It wasn’t him so there was no reason to mention it.”

  Cathy drops the fag and grinds it into oblivion with the heel of her leather boot.

  “That is so fucking typical of them for not having a crayon to join the fucking dots. And” – she jabs her fagless finger at me – “of you for not telling them. How do you know it wasn’t him?”

  I want to tell her everything, her more than anybody, and the act of not telling her causes adrenaline to flood my nervous system, making me feel shaky and sick, but more powerful than that is the shame I feel. It easily swallows the adrenaline and I know I won’t tell her.

  I know because it wasn’t him, the man who attacked me twelve months ago; it couldn’t possibly be him.

  “It’s just a troll who got hold of my address. The man who…” I hesitate, searching for a word and plump for “attacked” as the real word I want to use couldn’t ever come close to the terror, the vulnerability, the shame, the fear, the clinical detachment and the banalit
y of the survival, so why bother? “He wouldn’t play silly knock and run games and why would he risk getting caught over something so trivial?”

  Cathy looks unconvinced.

  “You should have told him about it. They could have” – she throws a hand in the air – “cross-checked their databases or whatever it is that they do these days.”

  “For weirdo men who give women a hard time on Twitter? We’re going to need a bigger database.”

  She giggles. “Yeah, yeah, Jaws and sexual violence. You know there’s a whole theory that Jaws is actually all about men’s fear of the vagina?”

  This is too much and we both collapse into hysterical giggles.

  Cathy comes back into the house and slides the French doors shut behind her. I slip in behind her and turn the key in the lock.

  “You should block them all you know, or just come off social media altogether; it’s a fucking cesspit out there.”

  I shrug.

  “I can’t, it’s all of the outside I have at the moment and I need that.”

  “You shouldn’t have to put up with it, rape and death threats, fucking stupid men and their violence.”

  “But it’s just the world isn’t it? It’s always been this way, it’s just now they can express the thoughts in their head anonymously. Most of them would never dream of acting on it, you know that. Social media is just one long boring, drunken uncle’s pub rant sometimes, that’s all. The rest of the time it’s this fabulous place where everything is and can be discussed; it’s the most empowering thing that’s happened in my lifetime. And real violence? I know that it comes from real fists, not,” – I hold up my phone – “bedroom warriors like fucking Frenchie here.”

  Cathy backs off. She knows I hold the trump card here and to my slight shame I just played it.

  “So, we have an episode to write and you’ve set us a pretty big task: to come up with a possible motive.” She raises a finger to silence me. “Which is not defamatory and supported by evidence, and you have until I return from your bathroom to do it.”

  She stomps out of the room without a backward glance.

  I look at the papers spread on the table and then back to the blinking white, empty screen of the Mac on the kitchen table.

  The fact of the matter is that I have nothing.

  I sit there trying to think of an angle and suddenly a piercing scream rings out. It’s Cathy and for a second I can’t move – terror holds me fast like gravity – but then I will my legs to push me up from the chair and I’m running before I can think and then I’m out of the kitchen and then in the hallway and I put my shoulder to the bathroom door, crashing through and into a disgusted-looking Cathy.

  “Look at my fucking shoes!”

  They are covered, as is the bathroom floor, with stinking, brackish water that is pouring over the toilet rim.

  “Christ, let me get a mop.”

  “A fucking mop? These are Gucci trainers!”

  The doorbell suddenly rings, stopping us both in our tracks. We exchange a look.

  I don’t want Cathy to think I’m mad. Eccentric is how I think, how I hope, she sees me at the moment but it’s the middle of the day, she’s here and the doorbell has gone. To not answer the door would be to make real all her suspicions about my self-inflicted hermitage.

  “You clean yourself up. There’s a clean cloth under the sink. I’ll get that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.” I smile and hope she can’t see the panic in my eyes.

  A deep breath. I check the spy hole. It all looks okay, it’s just a workman in a fluorescent jacket, but why do I still feel like I am standing on a cliff edge and about to throw myself off? A deep breath. I do it, taking the air deep down, and before I can tell whether it’s helped I slip the latch across and open the door.

  “Sorry love, we’ve got ourselves a fatberg and it’s backing up the sewer. I’m going house to house warning people there may be some flooding.”

  “A fatberg?”

  He nods insouciantly like it’s just a matter of time before your house turns into one that’s just floating out there in the sea of the city.

  “Grease, fat, waxy deposits, you know, er, feminine products.” I swear he looks at me accusingly here, the cheeky fucker. “They build up, layer by layer, and when they are big enough they block up the sewers.”

  I check his name badge again.

  “And that’s why my toilet is overflowing with shit, is it, er, Peter?”

  I hear a giggle from behind me. It’s Cathy. I hope she’s left her shoes in the bathroom.

  I put Peter in his late thirties; he was probably one of the last Peters. It’s not a fashionable name anymore for sure.

  “We are throwing everything we’ve got at it, pressurised hoses, men on breakers, but it’s a big one this one. It’s even got a name.”

  “A name? What, like storms and hurricanes get now?”

  “Yeah, council thought it would raise awareness about the bergs, encourage people not to throw their shit – sorry, their stuff – down the bog.”

  “And what’s the name?”

  “Marigold.”

  “Marigold the fatberg?”

  “Yeah.”

  Behind me, Cathy starts to laugh uncontrollably.

  “It’s not funny. These bergs are a serious business.”

  “I know, you should see my bathroom floor. When will it be clear?”

  Peter scratches his nose in a way I am sure he learned on the job; it’s a professional nose tickle, a precursor to bad news.

  “Well that’s just it, we’re not sure. Marigold is proving a bugger to get rid of. I’m going round the street warning people that there could be Marigold-related incidents for the next week or so until we shift it, and any other mini bergs that may be down there.”

  “Well thank you for letting us know. What sort of incidents might we expect?”

  He sniffs and the little bubble of snot that had formed above his moustache pops.

  “Oh, you know, the usual stuff, toilet and sewer issues, water on and off, foul odours. The gas these things give off is fucking awful, ’scuse my French.”

  French. FrenchieXX. French Duckie.

  I look at him again. He could be anyone; it’s easy to forge an ID. All you need is a computer and a half-decent printer. But I look along the street and can see the orange work tents and other men wearing similar high-viz tabards. Don’t be so paranoid, I tell myself.

  I go to shut the door but he has hold of it and instantly the fear leaps from its hiding place in my stomach.

  “Hang on.” His right hand goes to his pocket, and I pull the door harder, but he shows no sign of letting go. “Leaflet. I’ve got a leaflet for you.”

  Peter sticks out his filthy hand, in which is a yellow leaflet marked with biohazard symbols.

  I take it and finally he lets go of the door.

  “If you need anything the number is on the back,” he says to the door, as it slams shut.

  Cathy, sans shoes, thank Christ, is sitting on the stairs red-faced with tears running down her face.

  “Marigold!” we say in unison and then we’re both laughing hysterically.

  But soon the laugher ebbs away.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “About Marigold?”

  Cathy shakes her head.

  “No, about Tom Ellis? You said you were going to give a motive in the next podcast. Without Emma what do you have?”

  We both know the answer to that question.

  The answer is I have nothing and we sit down at my kitchen table to discuss a way forward. Two hours later we still have nothing and when Cathy leaves it’s with a promise from me that I will have something by the morning.

  That evening, whilst watching The Great British Bake Off, one of our family rituals, I tell Henry about Marigold. He rolls his eyes and says it must be due to the fast food places “upriver” dumping their cheap grease into the system, and that this is
the problem with the city, one part infects the other. I go to say something else about Cathy’s shoes but he shushes me as the judge on the show begins to taste a contestant’s soufflé.

  I don’t tell him about the police visit. He couldn’t take anymore. It would be like stepping on palm fronds covering a black pit.

  Henry takes Finn upstairs to read him a story, and then I know he will probably go straight to bed himself. Once he’s gone, I WhatsApp Hannah.

  How are you and Tash doing Fucktart?

  She replies straight away.

  Hey Fucktart No.2 – she’s in her poster phase, her bedroom looks like the inside of Smash Hits, you remember that?

  I type quickly and silently.

  I do yes, Finn is still on Star Wars – same as me!

  WhatsApp tells me she is typing and I greedily anticipate her response, it’s warmness so contrasting with the cold bed that awaits me upstairs.