She rings the doorbell again. She waits thirty seconds…one minute. She knocks now, too, then makes a decision.
She didn’t do anything that night two years ago. She heard the argument, and she did nothing, and look what happened. If she had knocked….
You can tell yourself things aren’t your concern—she knows that—but they are if they happen in front of you and you do nothing. They all knew the Phillipses were having a tough time.
She turns on her heels and heads quickly back to her house.
In her study, she flicks through the three brown envelopes she keeps in her desk drawer, until she finds the one markedNo. 18.
Pam rips open the brown envelope and digs out the keys.
—
Pam enters Frankie’s house.
“Halloo? Frankie, it’s Pam from across the road. I’m so sorry to have to do this but I’m a bit concerned. And I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least check on you. Can you hear me? Are you okay? Frankie?”
Pam stops, stock-still, in the hallway. A noise is coming from upstairs. She listens, unmoving, as the noise comes again.
It’s a throaty meow, loud and clear.
Pam is caught in the uncharacteristic position of not knowing what to do: she both does, and does not, want to go upstairs.
She is scared, of course, of what Dr. Williams was doing here and why Frankie was even with him, and she is scared of how he dragged Frankie’s limp body into the house a few hours ago.
But most of all she is scared of what she might find up there, like Lucy Kiefler did.
The cat’s meowing increases; it knows she is here. Pam lifts her phone, tapping the emergency services number in, ready, should she need it.
She has seen dead bodies before, of course. She was a practicing doctor for almost forty years.
Slowly, she ascends the steps. The noise is coming from the main bathroom, on the landing, and the door is closed.
“Halloo, Frankie! It’s Pam from across the road. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay? Can you hear me in there?”
Another noise, more resonant than the cat, a groaning, throttled sound. Pam’s breath catches in her throat.
“Frankie?!”
Pam races up the final steps to the landing. The noise comes again, haunting and insistent, and then the sound of something splashing into water.
Pam grabs the bathroom door handle, but it is locked.
The groan comes again, gasps, splutters. Pam realizes she has no choice.
She throws her weight against the door, and the latch pops.
Frankie is unconscious, her whole body trembling in the water. Pam immediately recognizes the signs of hypothermia. The room is cold. Pam locks the window as she runs to the bathtub.
She hauls her from the water, out onto the floor like a beached mermaid, quickly blanketing her in thick pink towels.
“It’s okay,” Pam mutters over and over, “it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Just stay with me.”
But Pam can see Frankie has quite advanced hypothermia. She couldn’t possibly say if Frankie is going to be okay.
Pam continues to bundle her up in anything she can reach, a bath mat, towels, her own jumper.
Frankie slips out of consciousness as Pam presses dial with a free hand.
