CW: sexual assault, violence, death, sexism and misogyny.
This woman—walking alone, at night—is going to be killed. Here I go again.
Watch my finger. See how the passive voice takes you by the hand? See how it leads you to understand the object and the verb? The trouble is, it leaves out the deliverer of the sentence—the executioner of the action. These days, we are led to believe that victim-focus is a good thing; that by skipping over the transition from life to death, this allows us to avoid naming the killer.
A name + a face = a sense of dignity. At least, that’s how the equation is posited. All it really does is make a man into a shrouded, upright outline; an absence of smoke. Something that goes bump in the night, and slides under your shirt before you even know you’ve been bitten.
Our Victim is wearing a dress.
No, she is wearing a black romper.
No, she is wearing a baggy ’90s business suit.
She is wearing hiking socks/an Alice band/a sleeveless Ramones t-shirt/sparkly boots.
She is wearing nothing at all, not even her own skin, and she walks through the night like she has every right to be there. She merely exists, womaning around in a public place, so maybe she deserved something.
Right?
In truth, this Victim is wearing a long-sleeved grey t-shirt under scuffed denim overalls flecked with ochre paint. She has been assisting a friend who sank her entire savings into a mortgage deposit and now has no money left over to hire decorators. Earlier this evening, three of them painted four walls, badly, drank shop-bought margaritas, and listened to the Mamma Mia soundtrack. At some point, there was paintbrush karaoke; later, an almost-serious attempt at recreating the choreography of the film. Now, the friend with the mortgage is standing in the middle of her living room, clutching the last margarita, admiring their handiwork. She expects a text from the Victim to say she’s arrived home safely—perhaps in thirty minutes or so. Here I go again.
The third friend should have driven straight home, in the opposite direction. Her boyfriend has been in Ireland for a couple of months for work, but their phone calls are infrequent and dull. His voice is clear, not crackly, but somehow that has only served to emphasize the lack of clarity in her mind. The new guy in Finance has been flirting with her all week and has boldly texted his address. It’s east of her current location, and temptation slithers into each of her fingers, turns the wheel before she’s thought of a decent justification for her presence there, should she be seen by anyone she knows.
[My girlfriend asks me why I left the introduction of the killer so late. I tell her its because the women deserve their moment of peace before the catalyst enters the scene, changes everything forever. I bite my lip hard, feeling the flesh rubber under the stress of enamel, and say we all know he’s coming anyway.]
Three streets away, a man trudges out of his house, kneels on the damp, gritty pavement to tie the laces of his running shoes more securely, and pulls his hood over his head. He’s of average height and build, with dirty blond hair and a slightly jutting chin. He’s wearing a fleece the colour of morning fog and is thinking about how the path through the streets he usually takes will be covered in snails—always are, after a decent rain—and how the feeling of their slimy, slender bodies skidding under his trainers makes his stomach broil. He turns left, jogs towards the end of the street, a new route picked out on his mental map in bold, chunky red. The path through the park is not well-lit at this time of night and sometimes drunken, aggressive teenagers hurl empty bottles of Buckfast at runners on the weekend, but there’s a little corner shop nearby. He could pick up the milk he needs on the way back, and then he wouldn’t have to pop out in the morning before he starts work. He nods, pleased with the idea, and picks up speed. Here I go again.
The Victim keeps her hands tucked in her pockets. Her keys jangle as she wraps her fingers around them. Ahead, a couple are arguing on the street she’d intended to turn down. Two guys, heavily muscled, in short-sleeved t-shirts despite the chill. One of them is screaming at the other that I’m sorry I just don’t think we’re ready to get married, Kyle, while the other one roars back Jesus Christ, you weren’t even trying to hide how much you want to fuck him, I could see—
The Victim swerves, crosses the street, intending to go down the next one. You can’t be too careful, she thinks. A domestic might spill into something bigger at any moment.
On the next avenue, the streetlamps on both sides have slid into darkness. She’s not swayed from the route—cars pass by on the main road behind her with a comforting and insistent roar. Besides, as she cranes her neck, despite the light pollution from the rest of the area she can see the stars; dim sparkles on a black mask, like the remnants of God’s latest sneeze. She slides the house key between her knuckles as a precaution, an automatic gesture learned in her first year of university.
[I ask my girlfriend if she learned the key trick at her US college. She says no, they had rape whistles instead. Later, I lie in bed and compare the effectiveness of each, and find them both lacking.]
The runner crosses the street ahead of a blue Ford Focus, waving in thanks as the car allows him to pass. A child presses a pale, scrunched face against the back window. Alongside the child, a plush bunny is smushed against the window with companionable grotesqueness. The runner grins. As the car grunts past, tires throwing up a spray of muddy puddle water, the man becomes an outline, backlit against the yellow windows of nearby houses. The Outline continues jogging into the night—a steady pace, warming up for something bigger.
Back in the freshly painted flat, the Mortgage brushes her teeth and scrolls through social media. Half a mile away, the Cheater accepts a hastily poured drink, bumping her teeth against the glass as the Finance guy sips his whisky. His Adam’s apple looks like a speedbump—a warning against acceleration. Here I go again.
The Victim’s teeth click together—at first, the night air had been refreshing, but now she wishes she’d brought a cardigan, or maybe a light jacket. As she reaches the end of the dark street, she hesitates on the corner, rocking on her heels as the traffic light turns to red. Boy racers screech by in a red car, yelling naive obscenities. She rolls her eyes, used to this, yet disturbed by it. Across the road, a middle-aged man is walking a fluffy white terrier who strains, quivering, against the leash. They disappear into the park.
The Victim crosses the road and pauses outside the park gates. Cutting through here will halve her journey time. She’s not normally one to throw caution to the wind, but tonight she feels alive and full of pleasure at the simple things. The stars, however dim, exist. She is not drunk, but the remnants of a pleasant buzz cascade through her veins. The bassline of “Does Your Mother Know” thuds in her chest. She is full of friendship, suffused with sisterly warmth. The single lantern hanging over the park’s entrance gives off a muted, blue-tinged light, and as the leaves rustle in the looming darkness, the memory of lime urticates her tongue.
The Outline sees her at this moment, contoured in celeste. She looks just like an ex who left, and something in him squeezes, screws righty-tighty; at least, that’s what he’ll tell the police later. The truth is, there is no reason in this moment why he follows her—he’s never had an ex that looked even remotely like her—only that she was alone, and he was capable of doing so, therefore, he did. The officers in charge of questioning don’t push him on the lie, though. Its easier to accept that she triggered him in some way—that her presumed likeness to someone who hurt him is understandable. Order, in the midst of the darkness. Guidelines to the human psyche, like ladders with glass rungs. My my, how can I resist you.
The Outline follows her. That’s the word he’ll use later—follow. Not stalk, or hunt, or pursue. He simply wanted to hold her in his sight a little longer. Curiosity, for curiosity’s sake. He’ll say he had no intentions at this point, but the truth has already diverged from the police report.
Subject had no intentions at this point: his palms were sweating. He’d read, once, that your palms only sweated when you were afraid, but he’s not afraid now. He’s excited, thrilled, senses tuning up to a high E chord.
Subject says he called out to the victim, to warn her that the park was dangerous: he wanted to see if she’d turn, to see if she’d respond or acknowledge him in some way. Her shoulders tightened, blades pulling together. She didn’t turn.
Subject said that the victim started to speed up, so he did too: he’d already picked up the pace, closing the distance between them, instincts sharpening. He called again, enjoying the way she flinched from the sound. The way a small dog backs away from the deeper, rougher bark of a big one.
The Victim’s pace increases. Her white, chunky trainers slap wildly against the ground, emitting sonic squeaks to the quick, staccato beat of the opening bars of “Mamma Mia.” The Outline calls again and she sprints, panicked, her shadow flitting between the trees of the park. As the Outline draws level, his running shoes nearly silent against the packed dirt, there’s nothing in his mind but cold, insistent fog.
As a child, he’d read about how even the slightest touch would harm a butterfly. He’d thought the Victim might flutter under his fingers, tickling his palm like some delicate creation of the natural world. Instead, she twists under his hands, kicks back blindly and connects with the side of his knee, hard enough to stagger him. He curses, lunges for her again; grabs the shoulder strap of her overall, which snaps. Off-balance, her hand jabs towards his face, catching him under the chin; the clutched key glances off his jaw. A sharp pain spikes through his molars. For the first time, he punches her. Mid-shriek, she crumples.
This Victim is fighting back. No, she is freezing. No, she is scrabbling backwards, trying to take flight. She is saying she’s sorry/begging for her life/saying please please please over and over again without any more context. She is fawning and blubbering and screaming fire because she’s heard that people will respond to fire alarms but not to cries for help. Here we go again.
While his sweaty fingers close around the Victim’s throat, the Mortgage is listening to a podcast about famous murders and applying anti-aging under-eye cream. While the Victim gasps for breath, each staggered gulp shallower than the last, the Cheater leaves a trail of broken kisses down the Finance guy’s chest.
The Outline slips on the wet grass; scattered broken twigs, each as thick as his pinkie, remind him of those snails he wanted to avoid. His throat is an oceanscape, thick and green with salt and brine and bile, and he can’t form enough words or thoughts for what he wants to do. The animal impulse takes over, to sink fangs and claws into an exposed flank or artery; to hold and to throttle until breath rattles in the Victim’s chest like a bag of unrolled dice. My my, how can I resist you.
Long minutes later, it’s over. While the Mortgage stuffs a rolled-up t-shirt into a crack in the bedroom window to stop a draught and sets the timer on her podcast for another ten minutes, the Outline lowers the Victim into a prone position and slides his joggers down. The Victim’s eyes are open, but her last expression isn’t shock. It’s resignation. While the Cheater revels in the unfamiliarity of rough sheets, of navy blue walls, of a hand coming down twice—three times—hard on her ass, the Outline puffs a finality into the night air.
[My girlfriend turns away, pours oat milk into her black tea. She asks if I think the part about the joggers coming down is too far. I tell her it’s real, it happens. This all happened before. It will happen again. She hesitates, her shoulders triangulated, and says she guesses that’s true.]
The Outline covers the Victim with leaves. Stands back, surveys what he’s done. Terror flickers now, tiny tongues of rationality licking along his collarbones. He brushes the leaves off, looks around for a better hiding place. There isn’t one, and he can hear high teen voices, slurred and hostile. Too close. He leaves the Victim, hares off down the path; skips buying milk, takes a long, circuitous route home. Feels a hot breath of relief when he realizes he left his phone at home. There’s no CCTV here. He’s never done anything like this before—the farthest he’s ever gone, he’ll tell police, is consensually choking an ex-partner. The truth is, he enjoys watching women from the safety of the shadows. Even flashed a few, when he lived in a different area of town, although these attacks were either never reported or never followed up on. He’s thought about doing something like this, but never seriously considered it. Even while he was closing in on her, he didn’t really think it was going to go that far. Even as he watches the life leave her eyes, his fingers bruising purple on her neck, he’s still wondering whether he could run, whether—given the darkness—she could ID him later.
While the Mortgage sends a check-in text asking if the Victim got home okay, the Outline is jumping nearby fences and skirting around old, crumbling garages. While the Cheater lies, sweat-drenched, in the harsh light of an energy-saving bulb, and wonders whether she should mention the boyfriend or not, the Outline strips off everything he’s wearing and shoves it all—muddy trainers included—into the washing machine. He sits, naked, on the thick-pile carpet, and lets his hands hang over his bent knees. Later, he will vomit. Later still, he will relive the memory like a film director, adjusting this scene here, making more use of the actress there.
When the morning dawns, the Mortgage will ring the Victim’s phone. A police officer will answer and impart the news in measured tones. The Victim has been found by an elderly dog walker, who can be heard wailing in the background. The Mortgage will call into work sick for a week, then another, until her boss hints that any more time off will impact her pending promotion. She will sit on the dusty sheets and sob. She will run her fingers over the painted walls, examining the way the brush strokes are visible in the harsh light of day, wondering which ones were specifically made by the Victim. The Cheater will join her, ashen and shaken, and they’ll be unable to comprehend what has been stolen from them. They will fight over whose fault it is and then console each other with reassurances. They will keep returning, obsessively, to the idea that the Victim could so easily have been either of them.
The Cheater will admit that she wanted to get laid and didn’t want anyone to know. The Mortgage will admit that she could have easily made up the guest bedroom. The women suffer endless guilt. The Outline, while cognizant of his crime, doesn’t regret the murder, only that he has to bear consequences for it. He’s caught, eventually, after the story goes public. While awaiting sentencing, he thinks about all the ways he could have improved—picking a target earlier, a more remote location, preparing to remove the body.
Gloves. Plastic bags. A shovel. Here I go again.
In a couple of months, the Mortgage will paint over the ochre room with another colour, unable to stand the reminder of that night; she will, however, leave a patch alone, and hide it behind a new L-shaped couch. A decade from now, when she finally sells the house, the future occupants will ask about the patch. She’ll make excuses to four prospective buyers, and only once will she tell the truth. The sale will go through anyway; 40k over the asking price. She’ll donate a quarter of this profit to a charity which researches ways to “reclaim the streets,” to keep women safe while walking in public, but donating won’t make her feel any better.
Stricken by guilt, the Cheater will confess everything to her boyfriend. The boyfriend, unable to comprehend the depth of the betrayal, forgives and insists that they forget. The boyfriend, who in another life would have ended up as the relatively happy husband of the Mortgage, does his best in the relationship for another two years before calling it quits. The Cheater never marries, but neither does she cheat again.
You know exactly what they’ll say in the papers and in court. Yes, this Victim had been drinking. Yes, she was alone. Yes, she wasn’t completely covered from head to toe. Yes, she was walking while woman. Yes, she was here, once, and now she’s not. Yes, this will happen again. Yes, not all men. Here I go again.
[My girlfriend puts her arms around me and asks if I’m done. No, I say, I never stop feeling this way—I keep writing about these women like I think I can save them somehow, circling back to this same topic over and over like a protective spell against the darkness.
Sarah Everard. Sabina Nessa. Maria Rawlings.
She holds me until I stop weeping, which is to say, never.]
