I Saw Someone

There was a knock at the door. It woke us both. Four thirty in the morning. I lay there cringing in the darkness, and there was another report, too long for the time of day. I was wide awake now. It was near dawn, but the night was still black and silent. No traffic, no birdsong, just the repeated insistence of  fist on wood. What the hell could it be? I live in Northern Ireland, where a knock on the door in the dark is only ever a bad, bad thing. 

When I first moved here I shat myself up, reading books about the Shankhill Butchers, monsters who would haunt the nighttime streets of Belfast in the 70's and 80's, patrolling in a black cab and looking for Catholics to torture and murder. This was before Netflix, before the relaxation of the licencing laws. This was what they did for fun. 

I'd go for long walks around East Belfast housing estates, panicking myself into hyperventilation with every car that followed me. Everyone had a people carrier, plenty of room to stash an unsuspecting Englishman, to be taken apart at leisure. 

You'd expect them, the Loyalists, to like the English. They don't. They think we're effete. That we talk funny. We're probably homosexual. They think we're decadent and that we don't love the union enough, and in my case they'd be dead right. There's no reason why the worst of them wouldn't start doing house calls. It makes sense: car shampoo isn't cheap and dust-busting teeth out of the foot-well takes time and is boring. The worn leatherette stinking like a butcher's slab on a hot afternoon? No, best do it elsewhere, a place where the onus is not on the murderer to tidy up. A self-contained environment, with thick walls, away from prying eyes and ears. No tell tale signs. A knock on the door. No need to smash it in, or wrench the door from its brackets, splintering the blonde wood, amber under the lamplight. Just a knock on the door. I bet most people would answer. Even in the middle of the night, I bet most people would answer. 

I'm a writer. Had I written something, something that had got me in trouble, something that could have brought violence to my door? I couldn't see how. But you never know what'll upset someone. The internet is a big place, free of context and nuance. Irony is in short supply. People take you at your word, or what they perceive to be your word. And the sort of person who will come to your house in the middle of the night to kill you, probably isn't interested in a conversation about the duality of meaning. I could well have brought violence to my door. A throwaway joke could have done it, and I've amassed a personal landfill over the years. 

But what sort of violence? A friendly warning through the hands or knees? Or the full Monty, a snapped neck, a bullet through the base of the skull, executioner style? And what would they do to Susie?  I'd brought them to my door, I was guilty - she'd done nothing to anyone. She was a nurse. A really nice one. 

Another bang on the door. No, not a bang. Knocks, a series of confident, insistent knocks, finishing with a flourish. I bet most people answer the door, even in the middle of the night. And I felt weight displaced through the mattress springs, and I knew she was getting up, wordlessly, and shuffling in the dark to the bedroom door. 

"What are you doing?" I said, "Go back to bed."

"Ugh," she said, scuttling down the stairs, as though she were expecting an Amazon package. I padded, panicked, at the bedside table for my glasses. As I had one leg through a pair of pants I heard the door open. She described what happened next. 

"I opened the door and there was a man standing there. He was dressed in black and wore a cap and was standing directly in front of the streetlamp, so I couldn't make out his face. I thought it could have been our next door neighbour, but I could't be sure, and when he spoke it didn't sound like him. 

"Yes?" I said. 

"I saw someone," said the man. He was breathless, slurred. He seemed to be bracing himself against the door-jamb. 

"I saw someone." 

"Thank you." I said, and I began to slowly shut the door. The man seemed to acquiesce, nodding. 

"I saw someone." he said again. 

I shut the door. He didn't knock again. Whatever it was he was attempting to communicate, he'd done it. He'd seen someone. That was all he needed to say."

By this time I'd made it to the door and I was very angry. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Answering the door in the middle of the night. It could have been anyone. It could have been murderers!"

"Murderers? What murderers?"

"I don't know. There are murderers. People are murdered every day. And if not murderers, robbers who might accidentally murder you. People die all the time surprising a burglar."

"Would he be surprised if he knocked on the door and someone answered?" But she was waking up properly now, and I was starting to scare her. As panicked and hysterical as I sounded, I was right. The sort of weirdo that knocks you up in the middle of the night is the sort of weirdo that might very well kill you. 

I opened the door, to check for any evidence of the man in black. There was no sign. The sky was starting to pink and birds were tentatively greeting the new day. I looked up and down the street but there was no one about. It was too early even for dog walkers. Going round to the back garden, still in just my pants and glasses, my bare feet pricked by the loose gravel on the pathway. If I'd have had to fight anybody it would not have gone well for me. But there was no sign of anyone. I went into the house and looked out of the bedroom window. Next door's security light was on, but I could have triggered it with my investigation. We went back to bed. 

I didn't sleep. I lay there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, as light framed the drawn curtains, and the traffic began to murmur outside, I was still waiting for the next knock on the door.