Voicemail
The room is small, square, windowless. The walls clad in tiles of a dirty, off-white colour – they speak of one too many hurried scrub downs. She tries not to imagine the wide variety of bodily fluids that have been splattered across these walls over the years; she knows that she has contributed a few samples of her own.
She is trying not to imagine anything, in fact. Trying to completely empty her head of thought. Her attempts are heartfelt; heroic, even; but in vain, nonetheless.
Her four day ordeal is over, she supposes, but that means nothing. Any ordeals, crises, upsets that were formerly hers are over now. She is about to die.
She flinches violently as they enter the room, but she does not resist when they grab her; she fully comprehends the futility of such an act, and it is as though she does not want to disappoint herself.
She is grateful, when they emerge from the building, that it is night. Though there is, perhaps, a certain romance to dying in the sunlight, she doesn't think her eyes could take the punishment of it. It is almost funny to be worrying about such things when they are about to put a bullet through her head, but it is the only way she will be able to get through this – don't think more than five seconds ahead, because in ten seconds, you might be dead.
They push her up against the wall, hard, and she flinches again as the back of her skull impacts with the brickwork.
One more attempt from them.
"You are a spy."
"Not anymore," she sighs, terrified tears she had not realised were falling until now, seeping into her mouth as she speaks.
It is a familiar dance – or it has become so over the past four days. It is why she is here now; she couldn't tell them anything.
"Any last requests?"
She laughs once; an incredulous, mirthless bark of a laugh.
"I didn't know you actually said that."
Her tears are so thick now that she can't see anything. The world is a blur of darkness.
"A phone call," she rasps eventually.
They regard her with a look of disbelief.
"You can listen in," she assures them. She needs them to agree, because now she has allowed herself to imagine such a thing, she longs for it with every fibre of her being.
Eventually – for she has always been quietly impossible to refuse – they bring her a phone, tell her to put it on loudspeaker. She dials a number so familiar that she does not need her eyes to see the keypad; her fingers do it all by themselves.
The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone.
She does so, almost dutifully, and sighs with something that might be relief.
And then the phone is gone, and the gun is trained on her, and it is like the sky falling when cold cheek meets colder ground.
***
Three months later
"It is in here somewhere. I promise you, sweetheart."
Catherine regards her father's back with more than a little amusement as he digs about in the seemingly bottomless chest.
"Dad, I really don't mind. You can look for it in the morning. Let's just finish the pizza."
Harry didn't turn around to reply. "I'll let you in on a secret, Catherine – I detest pizza."
"Maybe that's why I chose it."
This retort is called over her shoulder. She has lost interest with watching her dad, and is now staring at a photograph that stands on his desk, a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Oh," said Harry, dryly. "So this was punishment then."
"More like a test." She grins, and crosses back over to her father, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder. "And you ate it, didn't you?"
He looks up to smile at her, but his attention is soon trained on the chest again.
She groans with mock exasperation.
"I should have known that you're unstoppable when you get a bloody notion into your head!"
"At least you don't have to wonder who you inherited that from any more."
The rapport that has built up between them is as much a defence mechanism as affection, but that suits both of them just fine. Neither has really ever gone in for big shows of emotion.
Eventually, Harry tires of his fruitless search, but instead of closing the chest and making some dinner that he will actually want to eat, he simply empties the contents all over the floor.
"Dad," sighs Catherine, "I'll just buy another Polaroid camera to replace my broken one."
"But I have one in here somewhere," protests Harry. "And I don't use the bloody thing anymore."
Something in the dusty mountain of obsolete technology catches Catherine's eyes, and magpie-like, she grabs it.
"You bloody spies," she murmurs, turning the phone over and over in her had, almost reverently. "You know, I wanted this model for months. But I could never afford. I mean, it's still pretty good – and yet, here it is, lying in a forgotten corner of your study."
Harry wants to laugh at the outrage on her face. "I was glad to be rid of it," he chuckles. "Too many, flaming buttons. Anyway, Malcolm upgrades our phones more often than he changes his underwear. Pimps them with all manner of new features that I don't understand, and yet I'm sure I've used a hundred times over without even realizing."
Catherine is deftly disassembling the phone, obviously searching for signs of said 'pimping'.
"You've left your sim card in here," she notes.
"Yes. Does me good every so often. I mean, Malcolm assures me I can carry my old number over when I change sims, but I prefer to have a completely fresh start. Means I have more control over who can contact me directly."
"And who can spend six hours negotiating with your secretary."
"Exactly."
She slips the casing back onto the phone, and switches it on.
"Wow. You're popular," she laughs.
Harry looks over at the small screen, and sees that he has eighty-four text messages, and twenty-seven voicemails.
Almost absentmindedly, Catherine scrolls down the list of voicemail senders.
"Adam, Juliet…HS?"
"Home secretary."
"Bloody hell. …DG, Juliet, Juliet…"
"No doubt getting progressively more irate."
He is grateful that his daughter laughs lightly at his utterance, obviously oblivious to the significance of that name.
"…Debra Langham, Ros, Juliet – again, some number you haven't got saved, Ro–"
Harry cuts her off abruptly.
"After Juliet, and before Ros? You said that the phone didn't recognise the number?"
"Yeah. Is that significant?"
Harry takes the phone from her, dialing the voicemail retrieval number. "Unfamiliar is always significant," he replies adamantly.
Against his better judgment, he puts the phone on loudspeaker and they listen together to the messages. Catherine is in fits of laughter – albeit laughter with more than a hint of embarrassment – by the time they get to Juliet's third message.
"Did she just say she was going to castrate you?!"
Harry laughs darkly. "I wouldn't put it past her."
Eventually, they reach the message from the stranger. Catherine's still bubbling laughter stops abruptly as she watches the blood drain from her father's face.
"Harry? It's me…Ruth, I mean."
There is a nervous, almost hysterical, laugh from the woman, and then a long silence, as though she is trying to think of what to say.
During this silence, Harry grabs Catherine's hand tightly.
"Catherine, does she sound like she's crying?" He is whispering, as though afraid of interrupting the caller.
Catherine finally brings herself to nod, but 'Ruth' is speaking again.
"I know I shouldn't be calling. I'm sorry. But, Harry…"
Again, that laugh, and now the sobbing is startlingly obvious to both father and daughter.
"They're going to kill me, Harry. I'm about to die."
Harry can't help but cry out at this, and Catherine realises that she had never heard such a sound from her father. Pure terror, pure grief, pure rage. Every extreme is in that sound, and she is scared for him. She squeezes his hand more tightly.
"They thought I could tell them things. But I couldn't. I didn't know anything, and so now I'm no use to them and…I'm so sorry. I wish I could be brave and not talk about that. Only talk about how much I love you, and I miss you, and I'm proud to have played a part in shaping you…"
Harry has abandoned any hope of keeping control, and pulls Catherine to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her, and crying into her hair. She is all too aware that, just this once, she is the wrong shape for his embrace.
"…But the truth is, I'm so scared. I'm so, so scared Harry. I wish you would pick up. I wish you were here with me. I always used to be less scared when you were around."
All at once, as she feels her dad's ribcage heave with silent sobs, the photograph she saw on the desk, of the dark-haired woman – it feels like an eternity ago – makes sense. She hadn't understood; it was so unlike him to have personal things on display in his study.
"…Oh, God. I'm going to die, and it's so unfair. It's so unfair! Why do I never get my happy ending? Why is it so impossible with you? Because that's all I wanted – never to be prettier, or braver, or anything. Just you, me, maybe a house somewhere. It would have been…oh, I can't think about that now. Not now. Or maybe…maybe, that's exactly what I'll think of…yes. Those will be my last thoughts, Harry…They want the phone now…I love you…so much…I love you…I love you…Goodbye –"
The message comes to an abrupt halt, and the robotic commands of the phone ring out.
Catherine is crying now as well, but she heard it, even through her sobs for the stranger called Ruth, whose hair, she thought was 'hmm, nice length, perhaps I should try something like that...' The voice sounded so much calmer by the end. Almost serene.
The silence that sits in the study is fractured, insubstantial; almost as though Ruth is still speaking.
Harry's voice, when he breaks the silence, is the same – fractured, insubstantial.
"When was the message left?"
Catherine slides out of his arms a little, and reaches for the phone, still lying on the floor. She presses a few keys, and then answers.
"Three months ago."
She waits for him to talk again, but he doesn't. Not a single word for the rest of the night.
*
When she wakes up, she is lying in the spare bed, her shoes and socks removed, a blanket tucked tightly around her.
She sat with her father for hours. Stroked his hand and waited through the silence. She supposes that she must have fallen asleep eventually, and he carried her up here.
She strains, and she can hear muttering. He has relocated to his own bedroom and, through the wall, she can hear him talking to himself. Or to the photograph, perhaps.
She considers going to try and comfort him, but decides against it. His is a private grief, and she will respect that.
There will be a second chapter - it is written - uploaded over the next two days.