He shut the living room door once he was in the kitchen. While it didn’t even nearly mask the sound completely, it did at least make it a little more bearable. Sophie might get annoyed, but surely she’d understand the necessity of being able to hear the person he was opening the door to.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
Whoever it was, they were persistent.
When Keith opened the door, he was surprised to see a man in a fluorescent coat, wearing a hardhat and carrying a clipboard. The man had his face lowered out of sight.
‘Can I help you?’ Keith asked.
In one quick movement, the man swung his head up to reveal the smug face of Trenton Price.
‘Hi! I’m here to look at your boiler.’
Keith jumped into the hall, taking a quick glance back into the flat to check for Sophie. No, she was still in the bedroom. He pulled the door up until it was almost shut.
‘Or radiators or electricity meter. Whatever’s most believable.’
‘I told you not to come here. She’ll recognise you. What if she’d answered the door?’
Price shrugged. Keith was whispering, afraid his wife would overhear and come investigate.
‘How did you even get into the building?’ Keith asked.
‘I’m wearing a fluorescent jacket and I have a clipboard — I can go anywhere!’
‘Well go away,’ Keith said, putting his hand up as if he might forcibly push Price away. ‘Go, now. I’ll call you if I manage to get her to leave.’
Price sighed, then pushed straight past Keith. Unsure how to react, Keith followed him into the flat, hoping that Sophie was so annoyed with him that she wouldn’t leave the bedroom for some time. And she shouldn’t, as long as she could hear the radio. Price was listening to that static now, standing there in the hallway, his head lifted up like a dog hearing its master’s call.
‘I’m guessing it’s this way,’ Price said, pointing down the kitchen towards the living room.
Keith followed him, but while constantly checking behind himself. Still there was no sign of Sophie. In the living room, he found Price staring surprised at the radio. As Price put his hand out towards the stereo, Keith felt a sudden rush of fear as he realised what Price intended to do. And yet, Keith did nothing to stop him, as he’d done nothing to keep him out of the flat.
The truth of Keith’s situation was finally reaching him. He’d all but lost his wife, and he’d definitely lose her unless they managed to get some kind of resolution to all of this. Price was either going to save or finish off Keith’s marriage. Price proceeded to turn the volume right down.
‘Wow, talk about your golden oldies. A record player?’
‘Many still say it’s the only way to listen to music.’ Keith stood in the doorway, staring down the kitchen and into the hallway, waiting for Sophie to come storming out. It was only a matter of time. Right now he was relying on her being so focused on her research that she hadn’t noticed.
‘Traditionalists. They always think that just because something’s been around longer that it’s the best. Modern music players are higher quality, clearer sound, ergo: better.’
Keith barely paid attention, but he did stop staring round the door. Perhaps Sophie had become too engrossed, but he couldn’t rely on that for long.
‘We don’t exactly have the money to spend on a new one. Besides, this belonged to Sophie’s parents.’
‘Yeah she strikes me as the pointlessly sentimental type.’
‘You haven’t met her.’ Keith attempted to convey some sort of warning.
‘I don’t need to,’ Price said, oblivious.
Price was going over the stereo carefully. He appeared to be making a mental note of the make and serial number. Keith wasn’t sure what he expected to get from any of this. Did he really think some kind of fault might have created those cries?
‘Well you might meet her soon. What if she comes in here?’
Price shrugged as if he didn’t see a problem with this. Did he not remember she’d seen him on TV the other night? And although Sophie had been distracted by Joseph Miller, Keith recalled several strongly-worded things she’d had to say about Price.
‘Tell her I’m here to check the boiler or something.’
‘The one in the stereo?’ Keith snapped.
Price gave Keith an expression that openly accused him of stupidity.
‘Tell her I’m listening to the pipes in this room. Tell her whatever lie you need to to keep her away. You were the one that didn’t want her to see me.’
Keith felt a strong urge to put Price in his place, but could think of no way of doing it. People as arrogant as him weren’t easy to knock down. Before he could come up with anything, Keith heard the click and creak of the bedroom door opening — the very sound he’d been dreading.
‘What if she asks to see your ID?’ Keith whispered, panic beginning to grip him.
‘She won’t — I have a clipboard! How do you not get that? Now go be a man and manipulate your wife.’
As much as he’d have liked to argue, or to at least have thrown back a clever insult, Keith was out of time. He left the living room and almost bumped into Sophie. She stopped dead, staring at him like a driver staring at a pedestrian that had wandered into the road. She stepped to her right to move around Keith. He stepped in front of her.
Price had brought up a great deal of anger in Keith, and now he could feel that anger surfacing as his wife tried to ignore him.
‘Sophie, please.’ He had no idea what he was about to plea.
‘Who’s in there?’
‘Just someone here to check the … pipes.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with our pipes.’
She went to barge past, and Keith again had to put himself in her way. He could see her own rage building behind her eyes as she aimed them at him.
‘It won’t hurt to look.’
The two of them stood there staring each other down; one in fear, the other in anger, neither able to back off. She must have suspected he was lying, and he wouldn’t confirm it by turning away in shame.
‘I don’t want him near the radio.’
‘He won’t touch it, I swear,’ Keith said. ‘I turned it down because it was so loud and I needed to speak to him. I’ll let you know if I hear anything coming through.’
Her suspicion was more obvious now. And of course she was — he’d spent every day recently trying to find some way of bringing the both of them together, and now he was telling her to go away. The only time her eyes left his was when she stared at the living room door. Keith didn’t even remember closing it when he left, but he was glad he did.
Sophie stepped forward. Keith felt it happening in slow motion. She wasn’t going to stop, she was going to see Price, realise what Keith had done, and his marriage would be over. He couldn’t bear to be alone, and he dreaded what might happen to her here, alone, listening to her dead baby’s sobs. What little he had left was going to be destroyed unless he said something right now. Something that would stop her completely.
‘Why are you doing this? We barely even talked about her.’
Sophie looked up at him in shock, then nodded towards the living room.
‘I’m not talking about this now.’
‘And later there’ll be another excuse.’ Keith realised as he spoke that he wasn’t thinking up these words now, they’d accumulated with every suppressed sentence since Tia’s death. ‘She’s not here, Sophie, she’s dead. We need to —’
‘Don’t you dare tell me what I need to do. You have no idea what I’m going through.’
For a second Keith wasn’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t even sure he’d heard her right.
‘She was as much my baby as yours.’
‘Oh please, you’re no more upset than if your dog died.’
‘Oh right, because I haven’t turned into a heartless bitch I must not care.’
The words were out before Keith was even fully aware of what he was goi
ng to say. And he witnessed the words’ damage. Sophie’s mouth dropped open, then began to shake. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. He’d been worried many times recently that Sophie secretly hated him. But this was the first time he knew she did. He could see that hate as easily as he could see the colour of her hair.
Keith made no move to stop her as Sophie pushed past him and into the living room. At this point he couldn’t imagine her finding Price could make things any worse. So he stood there, in the centre of the kitchen, replaying those last few minutes over and over, counting his mistakes. With every replay, he picked out at least one new one.
Waiting to hear Sophie argue with Price, or at least shoot straight back into the kitchen with more rage to unleash, Keith was surprised when he heard nothing but the hissing of the static.
Keith was still standing there when Sophie returned. She didn’t scream, didn’t shout, didn’t regard him with any less or any more hatred than before. She pushed past him and this time she walked straight out of the flat. Keith stared after her, wondering if there were any words he could use.
‘Wow,’ said a voice behind Keith. ‘When I said keep her out, I didn’t mean chuck her out.’
Keith deliberated between throwing Price out or ignoring him.
‘Did she see you?’ Keith asked.
‘No, I kept my face hidden, pressed against the opposite wall, “listening” to the pipes, while she was setting up a tape. Has she done that before?’
‘She usually sets it up in the evenings to record … to record it. She won’t risk missing anything.’
‘And you didn’t think to mention that?’ Price stepped farther into the kitchen. ‘Or bring one with you when you came?’
‘It’s crying. On a tape. I figured you could use your imagination.’
Keith averted his eyes. He suspected Price could guess the real reason he’d not brought one before — he’d hoped to get an explanation without having to listen to it again. No doubt Price would want to hear it now. At least then he could hear just how incorrect his original theory was. And what did Keith have to lose at this point? If listening to the crying upset him more, so be it. He’d lost his little girl, and now he’d probably lost his wife. It couldn’t be long before he lost his mind, too.
‘Relax,’ Price said, his tone approaching reassuring, but not within walking distance yet. ‘She hasn’t left you. She’s just … pissed off for a bit. People that abandon an argument generally know they’re wrong, at least on some level.’
‘Or the subject hurts them too much to talk about it.’ Keith could feel his voice breaking. ‘I really don’t know how to help her anymore. Everything I do makes her hate me more.’
Keith could see Price moving closer out of the corner of his eye. But there was no sympathy to be found there. Price wasn’t even actually looking at Keith. His eyes were searching the kitchen. Was he looking for clues or just being nosey? If he expected Keith to offer him a cup of coffee, he would be severely disappointed.
Price lifted up a pack of ibuprofen that had been left on the kitchen work-surface.
‘She getting stress headaches, too?’ Price asked. It was a poor attempt at changing the subject, but Keith welcomed it all the same.
‘We both are. That surprises you?’
Price shook his head, then placed the pack back down on the work-surface.
‘The important thing is that she’s out of my way.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Think I could have a listen to one of those tapes now?’
Keith didn’t say another word. He retrieved one of the tapes from the kitchen drawer and took it into the living room. The static seemed louder when he entered the room; but then, it always seemed to be getting louder. As Keith switched the stereo from radio to tape, he felt a surge of guilt, like he’d cheated on Sophie. In a way he had betrayed her. She wouldn’t want to risk missing anything, and she certainly wouldn’t want Price to listen to her recordings. But despite all of that, he was glad for the temporary silence it gave. The room felt peaceful again without the hiss of the static or the constant pacing of Sophie.
Keith ejected the tape that was in there, the one that was recording, and he replaced it with the one in his hand. Price stood next to him, curiosity written on his face, like this was some game, some puzzle. Keith wondered whether it was possible for Price to love anything enough to feel this level of pain.
He pressed play.
There was the static. Normal. It continued like that for a minute. Keith was beginning to wonder if the tape had been left in the wrong place, or whether he’d even picked up the correct tape. He could see Price’s incredulous face; he was about to say something to Keith when the other noise started.
Price stared at the stereo, his head slowly twisting sideways. The sound started as an indistinguishable high-pitch rumble. Then it fluctuated. And as it went on, over just a few minutes, it became familiar. Until, eventually, there was no way it could have been anything other than a baby’s cry. Surely even Price had to hear that.
Sophie was convinced it was Tia. She said it was her cry. Yet they’d only known Tia such a short while, how could she seem so certain? Keith couldn’t remember her crying. Whenever his memories of their brief time together surfaced, he could only remember holding her in his arms and smiling down at her. His baby girl. He even had memories of her smiling up at him, although he knew that couldn’t have happened, she’d been far too young.
Keith wanted to turn off the tape. He told his body to reach out and press stop. But he didn’t. Couldn’t.
There was a time, maybe as little as a year ago, when Keith didn’t think he’d ever have kids. Not because he didn’t want them, but simply because he couldn’t imagine it happening to him. Having a baby, a human life created by him, somebody he was completely responsible for. It seemed like such an alien, privileged, phenomenon that Keith simply couldn’t believe it would happen to somebody as inconsequential as himself.
Price was studying Keith. For a second, Keith thought he saw something approaching sympathy in his face. Realising he’d started crying, Keith wiped away his tears as casually as possible, hoping Price wouldn’t see it as a moment to attack.
Price reached out and stopped the tape himself. He looked like he was about to say something to Keith, then decided against it. Keith was reasonably sure the words stuck on Price’s tongue were “are you OK?” or something to that effect. But, for all his loud-mouth comments, Price couldn’t bring himself to say something kind.
‘Huh,’ Price said instead, ‘I guess that is kind of creepy. And definitely not random noise.’
Keith didn’t know what to say, and wasn’t sure if he could physically say it. As usual, however, Price wasn’t done talking.
‘It’s also definitely not your daughter. You must have considered it being interference?’
‘What?’
‘The crying,’ Price said. ‘It’s somebody else’s baby.’
Keith shook his head while still trying to swallow the lump in his throat so he could speak properly. He could see Price was about to back up his statement.
‘Of course I thought of that,’ Keith said. ‘Nobody else in the building has a baby.’
‘Nobody has a baby?’ Keith shook his head again. ‘Nobody? At all? That doesn’t make any sense.’
Chapter Six
It was quiet in the car. Miller liked to listen to music, especially while driving, but right now he found the silence more bearable. It made it easier to think. Miller was on his way to see Sophie and Keith Fullwood, to listen to their tapes and discuss with them what they wanted him to do next. And it was there that Miller kept hitting a wall.
Just what was he meant to do?
Miller had gone to sleep last night thinking about it, praying on it even. He trusted the Lord to give him a sign, some sort of guidance, but he hadn’t seen it yet. It would come. It had to.
Occasionally Miller had to remind himself to pay full attention to the road.
He shifted in his seat, stretching out without letting go of the steering wheel. He wasn’t far from the flat now. Miller checked his speedometer, but as he looked down he caught a flash of black on his arm.
Memories and shame — the two eternally linked — engulfed him for an instant. It was absurd, as he often told himself. He couldn’t carry on feeling like that every single day. But today he still did.
Miller yanked down hard on the end of his sleeve until his arm was completely covered again. He was only able to fight back the other thoughts by focusing on Sophie Fullwood’s problems.
***
***
Price didn’t leave satisfied. As he walked down the stairs, he was tempted to knock on every single door and ask if they or anybody else they knew here had a baby. The main thing stopping him was himself. Price didn’t particularly care about his angry arrogant atheist public perception, but he was aware of it enough to know that he didn’t come across as approachable. Going door to door asking after young children had the potential to backfire. Worst case scenario, he’d get arrested and added onto a register. Best case scenario, some people answer his questions, but would most likely lie or be mistaken. He’d need to be clever if he wanted that information. He needed a people-person.
As Price descended the flight of stairs, he could see why this block made such a good setting for a haunting; everything, from the walls, floors and windows, was in a well-used and broken down state.
The building was so depressing that when Price exited it, the cloudy and dull British day suddenly seemed brighter. At least it wasn’t raining, and Price couldn’t immediately spot anybody likely to mug him.
From somewhere nearby, Price heard a car door slam shut. Worried it might be Sophie back from her strop, Price looked around to check. No, it was a man. Price turned his attention down to his clipboard, wondering why he hadn’t actually used it to take notes.
***
***
With his car locked, Miller turned to the block of flats, looking up at it. He noticed somebody coming towards him. Holding a clipboard and dressed in overalls, he must have been inspecting something. He passed within a few feet as Miller walked by, only catching a glimpse of his face out the corner of his eye.