“Ugh,” I said out loud, and noticed suddenly how quiet it had become; just the occasional minor earthquake of a passing lorry, the slap of someone’s feet passing under the window. It was 2:15.
I shuffled to the bathroom in my sheet; cleaned my teeth and splashed water on my hot face. Then I lay down in bed and tried not to think about it. I couldn’t help it. I turned over the two last letters in my mind. The first, of course, I’d thrown away. But I remembered most of it. The second I had put on my desk. The police obviously weren’t convinced it was by the same person; I knew it was. They weren’t treating it seriously; they didn’t know how it felt to be a woman lying alone in a shabby flat on Holloway Road, fearing there was someone out there, watching.
Despite myself, I got out the letter and read it again, lying in bed. I knew this man had looked at me; I mean, really looked at me. He’d seen things that even I hadn’t bothered to notice about myself: like the stained finger. He was learning me, the way we never learn even lovers. Maybe he was memorizing me, like for an exam. He’d been in here, I knew he had, whatever the police said, and looked at my things, touched them. Maybe he’d gone through letters, photographs, clothes. He might have taken things away. He’d seen me asleep. He wanted to see inside me, he said. Not be, see. I felt nauseous, but maybe that was just the peppermint liqueur, which still lined the inside of my mouth like glue, and the drink I’d had earlier, and the sweaty sex, and the tiredness, and-oh fuck it.
I closed my eyes and put one arm over them so I was in complete darkness. London crouched outside my window, full of eyes. I heard a drop of rain, then another. My mind wouldn’t stop; I couldn’t make it slow down. I went over and over the letter in my mind.
“As I said before”: That was the funny thing. What was it? He would like to see inside me. As he had said before. But he hadn’t said it before, had he? I tried to reconstruct the first letter, the one I’d thrown away, in my mind. I could remember only fragments. But I would have remembered. What could that mean?
A thought stirred, something I wished I could ignore. I sat up, dry-mouthed, swung my legs out of bed, and went into the living room, where I dragged the cardboard box out from under the sofa. There were dozens of letters in there, some not even opened. This could take ages. I went back into the bedroom, pulled on my tatty old tracksuit; then I poured myself another horrible mug of the liqueur, lit a cigarette, and began.
I just needed to glance at each letter to make sure, although actually I could tell by the handwriting on the envelopes that they weren’t from him. My dear Zoe… Miss Haratounian…Go back to where you came from, bitch… Have you found Jesus?… You smile, but your eyes look sad… Good for you… If you would care to donate to our charity… I feel we have met somewhere… If you’re into S amp;M… I’m writing this from prison… I would like to offer you a word of hard-earned wisdom…
And there it was. Suddenly I could hear my heart beating hard, too fast. My throat felt too narrow to breathe. The handwriting, black italic. I picked up the envelope, which hadn’t been opened. There was a stamp on this one; my address, post code in full. I took a violent swig from the mug, then slid a finger under the flap and tore open the envelope. The letter was short but to the point.
I stared at the words until they blurred. My breath was coming in little ragged gasps. Raindrops burst against the windows, slow, heavy summer rain. I jumped to my feet and bumped the sofa over the floor, until it was rammed against the front door. I picked up the phone and dialed Fred’s number with shaky, inept fingers. It rang and rang.
“Yes.” His voice was thick with sleep.
“Fred, Fred, it’s Zoe.”
“Zoe? What time is it, for fuck’s sake?”
“What? I don’t know. Fred, I got another letter.”
“Jesus, Zoe, it’s three thirty.”
“He says he’s going to kill me.”
“Look…”
“Can you come round? I’m scared. I don’t know who else to ask.”
“Zoe, listen.” I could hear him strike a match. “It’s all right.” His voice was gentle but insistent, as if he were talking to a small child who was worried about the dark. “You’re quite safe.” There was a pause. “Look, if you’re really scared, then call the police.”
“Please, Fred. Please.”
“I was asleep, Zoe.” His voice was cold now. “I suggest you try to sleep yourself.”
I gave up then.
“All right.”
“I’ll call you.”
“All right.”
I called the police. I got a man I’d never talked to before who took down all my details with painstaking slowness. I spelled my last name out twice, H for horse and A for apple. Every time I heard a sound, I stiffened and my heart raced. But of course no one could get in. Everything was locked and bolted.
“Hold on a minute, miss.”
I waited, smoked another cigarette. My mouth felt like the inside of an ashtray.
In the end he told me to come into the police station in the morning. I suppose I had wanted policemen to rush around and protect me and sort everything out, but this was all I was going to get. If anything, I was reassured by the tone of dullness and routine in his voice. Things like this happened all the time.
At some point, I fell asleep. When I woke it was nearly seven o’clock. I looked out the window. It had rained heavily in the night, and the downfall had cleaned the road; the leaves on the few plane trees looked less bleached and shriveled, and the sky was actually blue. I’d forgotten about blue.
SEVEN
I got to see more important policemen this time, so that was something. If the officers in uniform who had called round at the flat looked like members of the school rugby team, then the detective who talked to me in the police station looked more a geography teacher. Perhaps a little more smartly dressed than any geography teacher I had had, in a navy blue suit and a sober tie. He was large, heavyset. I mean almost fat. His brown hair was cut short and precise. He introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Aldham.
I wasn’t led to an interview room or anything formal like that. He met me at the reception area and then punched some numbers to open a door to let me through into the real police bit behind. He made a mistake the first time and had to punch in the numbers again, more slowly, with some cursing under his breath. He led me to his desk and sat me down by the side of it, which made me feel even more like an awkward pupil going to see her teacher after school. Or before school, in this case. I had had to phone Pauline to say I’d be in late and she wasn’t pleased about that. It was not a good time, she said to me.
Aldham read the two letters very slowly with a frown of concentration. I spent five minutes fidgeting and staring around the room at people arriving, talking on the phone. A couple of officers were laughing about something I couldn’t hear at the far end of the open-plan office. Aldham looked up.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
“No thanks.”
“I’m getting one for myself.”
“All right, then.”
“Biscuit?”
“No thanks.”
“I’m having one.”
“It’s a bit early in the morning.”
It was quite a long time before he hustled awkwardly back, the plastic cups almost too hot to hold. He dipped a digestive biscuit into his tea and carefully bit the wet crescent of biscuit.
