The Meter Man

Mrs Fraser’s mid-afternoon meditation is interrupted. In her sitting room, behind white voiles she sits watching Lorna, just as she does every day. This afternoon the caption on the screen reads ‘My boyfriend cheated on me with his wife and I want payback.’ She has been engrossed, finds herself confused by the rights and wrongs of the case until Lorna sets her straight with a skilful balance of shouting and not letting her guests speak, ‘It’s all about who you love innit?’ Lorna asks the audience who applaud enthusiastically, ‘INNIT?’ she screams at the cuckolding boyfriend-husband-lover who, Mrs Fraser can now see, deserves everything he gets. But there has been an interruption and now here it is again - a knock at the door.

She is gripped by a sudden fear. No one calls in the afternoon. No one calls in the morning either, but in the morning there is the possibility that the postman has brought a package for her, though the postman never brings a package.

She gets to her feet and heads for the door, her mind racing with dangerous possibilities. On Have A Happy Morning With Tom and Trudy she has seen what happens to people like her who just answer the door, people who trust other people to be who they say they are. There is a procedure to follow and even that may not keep you safe she knows. The chain is already fitted on the door, but she rattles it so that whoever is on the other side can hear it. She opens the door a fraction and peers through. There is a man standing on her doorstep.

‘Here to read your gas meter love,’ he says.

A slim hand slides in through the gap holding an identity card. The hand is olive coloured. Mrs Fraser is surprised, she had thought the man was local because of his accent, but now a dozen new fears rise up. She studies the identity card; the man in the photo is smiling at her. He has dark hair and dark skin. The card says Electricite de France. She doesn’t understand. Why would a French company be reading her gas meter? Perhaps he is one of those Alky Eda terrorists? On the six o’clock news she learns that terrorists could be living in every community in Britain. On the nine o’clock news a man on from the government tries to say that terrorists aren’t living in every community in Britain. But it is too late by then; everybody knows the truth of it.

She is paralysed with a dread sense of foreboding. What can she do? She knows that if she doesn’t let him in he will force the door chain just like she saw happen in last weekend’s omnibus edition of Slatterdale Street. She takes the chain off and opens the door hoping to avoid angering him by putting up a futile defence.

She feels his huge physical presence as he bundles into the hallway, bringing cold air from the street with him. He is tall and heavy and his overalls and jacket make him look even bigger. He carries a toolbox in one hand and a big black satchel over one shoulder. She realises how foolish she has been. Why would a meter reader need two bags?

‘Where’s the meter then, under the stairs?’ he asks. She nods and points at the stair cupboard. Before she knows what has happened he has opened the cupboard and half disappeared into it with a torch and she finds herself looking at the soles of his work boots. They are very large and have a deep tread. She knows that they probably have a steel toe as well, just like the boots that were an important lead on last Tuesday’s edition of Crimebeat. When the police found those boots they were spattered with blood. He withdraws from his lair beneath the stairs, ‘Look at that!’ he says beckoning her into the dark space, ‘It’s a Mark 4 compression meter. You don’t see many of those these days.’

She hangs back and does not bend to look where he indicates. She knows what this is all about, in A Passion For Death on the Real Movies Channel, the psychopath mechanic asked the pretty girl to help him check the oil level. As she bent under the bonnet he hit her over the head with a monkey wrench.

‘Just got to dial this in,’ says the man. ‘Have you got a spare power socket somewhere?’ she is confused, but points to the kitchen, desperately trying to buy herself time. She doesn’t like to think what he needs a power socket for.

In the kitchen he pulls a laptop computer from the black satchel and puts it on the work surface. He plugs it in, opens the lid and begins to type. She doesn’t know much about computers, but what she does know has led her to believe that they are bad. In addition to all of the viruses they cause, computers can get into your bank account and be used to lure children from the safety of their homes into the dark rain swept streets of the dramatic reconstruction. She feels sickened by terror.

‘When did you last get your boiler checked? Mind if I have a quick look at it while I’m here, we’ve got this proactive maintenance scheme for senior citizens. It’s a new thing they’re starting up. Doesn’t cost you anything.’

He hands her a leaflet. Blurred by terror her eyes cannot read what it says. ‘Upstairs is it?’ he asks. She nods dumbly. ‘Don’t suppose you could pop the kettle on could you love? I haven’t stopped since breakfast.’ She nods again.

She knows what will happen now. He will go upstairs and rifle through her jewellery, find the shoebox with her pension money in it and her father’s medal. On Britain’s Best Burglars she learned that it takes only thirty seconds for a professional burglar to locate all of the valuable items in a pensioner’s bedroom. When he has finished stealing from her he will come back down here and finish her off. That much is clear to her. She imagines how her story will be reported on Crimeday GB and hopes that someone will be able to provide Stuart at the Crimeday desk with a good photo of her. The old women that are beaten to death on Crimeday normally have very grainy photographs that make them look vague, not like real people at all, she thinks.

Another thought occurs to her. Instead of a grainy photo on Crimeday GB, perhaps she could be in colour video on Region Tonight with Tony Johnson – the brave granny who fought off her attacker, coming up after the weather. She doesn’t have any children, or grandchildren, but she knows that to Tony Johnson, she will still be a brave granny. She feels her fear turn into resolve. She will not be a nameless statistic; she will go down fighting.

Her eyes alight on the little row of medicine boxes that stand by the tea caddy. She is under the doctor for several conditions. She does not like her own doctor. She thinks that he is a miserable man who does not listen to her problems. She much prefers to watch Dr Raj on Mid Morning Health Check even though Dr Raj is Indian and, she suspects, one of them. In the blue box on the counter is a medicine that has been prescribed for her heart. She knows that it is a powerful drug because Dr Raj says so. A few months ago Dr Raj advised his viewers to check with their GP if they were worried by the scare that was created by certain irresponsible newspapers after he, Dr Raj, ran a story that suggested that in certain rare circumstances, the pink and blue pill that Mrs Fraser takes every day could kill. When asked, her own doctor gives her short shrift, as usual. ’As long as you don’t take more than the amount prescribed you’ll be fine,‘ he insists wearily and says something not very complementary about Dr Raj.

She sets about making the tea as the idea comes together in her head. She allows herself to hope that she might survive this ordeal. She hears her assailant thumping about upstairs. It sounds to her like he is in her bedroom, going through her underwear, tipping out each drawer as he comes to it, from sheer evil glee as much as greed. As she pours water from the kettle into the mug with the kittens on it she sees that her hands are shaking with fear.

Whatever happens next, she knows that he will drink the tea. People like him always take the time to finish their drinks. In Dangerous Desires on the Classic Movies channel, the gold-digging and murderous blonde who had married the widower of the woman she killed before tricking him into changing his will, stabbed him in the back and then stood drinking champagne as her husband pleaded for help. That had made quite an impression on Mrs Fraser.

She works as quickly as her trembling hands allow. Pulls the pink and blue capsules apart with her knitting needle thin fingers and dumps the contents straight into the swirling tea. The powder inside is made of white grains that are very regular in size and very round in shape. She hopes that they will dissolve properly. She is about to start on the sixth capsule when she hears the toilet flushing upstairs and then the bathroom door opening. She sweeps the foil and plastic pill packaging into the cutlery draw. Crazed with fear she looks at the knives in the drawer there and considers taking a weapon to defend herself, but she knows that she is too weak and the knives are too blunt.

‘All done. No problems. I’ll make a note of it and then we won’t have to come back for twelve months.’

He goes to the computer and begins to type. She feels her heart pounding in her ears. What is he doing now? She imagines that somehow she is being broadcast onto the Internet, like she has seen on Lunchtime Today with Rick and Sue. Rick and Sue tell her that it is a sick world and that people will pay to see anything. She knows that somewhere on the other side of the world a South Korean businessman in a seedy hotel is even now keying in his credit card number, hoping to see a British pensioner battered to death in her own kitchen.

‘Ooh, is that my tea?’

She nods. He drinks.

‘You can’t beat a nice cup of tea!’ he enthuses.

She nods again and clutches at the kitchen counter to stop her hands from trembling so much. He drains the cup in a second draught and puts it down on the melamine work surface. He closes the lid of the computer and puts it in its case, then shuffles the little sheaf of papers and hands her the top page. It is pink. She watches it flapping as her hands shake.

‘There you go love, that’s your copy, it’s just to say that I checked the boiler and it was OK.’

What new trick is this? He is playing with her, fooling her, making her feel safe so that she is defenceless when he strikes.

‘Right then I’m off!’ he says and heads back down the hallway. At the door he stoops to tie his laces. This is it she thinks. It is now. When he stands up he will be holding a knife or a gun and that will be the end of it - or worse, the start.

He begins to stand up. She feels the terror taking control of her. How can she stand this any more? At any second she feels that she must scream, or pass out.

As he stands, he loses his balance and steadies himself against the white wood panelling of the staircase. He puts his hand to his head and turns to look at her. His face looks grey, ‘Must have stood up too fast,’ he says with a confused smile, unnerved by his own weakness, ‘Cheerio then.’ The door opens and then he is gone, the door slams behind him and locks itself shut.

She collapses to the floor sobbing. She is safe. But is she really safe? In Inverted Obsession everyone thought the killer had gone, but then he came in through the patio doors that had been left open. Mrs Fraser has no patio doors but still she fears his return.

She hears Lorna’s voice from the sitting room. Lorna has a guest who is an expert on something or other.

‘Just how scared should we be?’ asks Lorna.

Mrs Fraser weeps and listens hard for the answer because she does not know anymore.