To, Dan Harding

Another came, the seventh that week, a small brown paper package was on the doormat waiting for him in the morning and one more failed attempt to catch its deliverer.

‘To, Dan Harding’ it read.

He picked it up and tore his thumb into it on the spot and there was a wad of photographs inside. He splayed them in his hands and shuffled through them but gave up just shy of a third of the way through the fifty or so snapshots.

He slammed them onto the kitchen table, they scattered on top of the rest of them, the multitude of their numbers made him dizzy and his morning espresso did nothing but worsen his jitters. Whatever prank he thought was being pulled the punch line seemed a long way off if there was one.

He ran his hands over them but only one connection could be made between any of them, the congealed lattice of photos were all of him. Just him. Going to and from work, going to the shops, getting out the car, not the sort of thing someone would use as black mail, just mundane activities.

It did mean someone was watching him, but whom? And more importantly why? He wondered.

At least with a threat there was intent, you could understand the motive you could confront the situation, but this? Is it even a crime? The lines around stalking are still blurry, how does one control who can and cannot be in the same place as someone else in the world? But this surely crossed a line.

“Who the hell” he said under his breath running his hand through his short salt and pepper bed head hair.

He had never had insomnia before now, the sleepless nights were starting to catch up with him and he deliberated going back to the shelter of his bed but he didn’t want to let this creep get to him.

He let the water run over his face imagining all his worries washing down the drain away with it and then he realised.

He hastily got out the shower and whipped a towel around his slowly drifting athletic body and ran to the mass of photographs. He picked up a load not caring whether they got soaked in his hands. He flicked through them dealing them out like a pack of cards one after another as though to invisible poker players.

There was something else they all had in common.

Three hours had past and he had drip-dried, the towel had dropped to the ground where he last stood over the pile. He had moved it all upstairs into the room that was once his son’s before he died with his mother in boating accident, the culprit was never caught and Dan had removed everything in the house that reminded him of them. The injustice was too painful.

Dan had arranged the photographs into categories each one had their own wall space:

Left of the door were the snapshots of him at the shops, rear wall all of him going to work (NET-CO offices), the wall right of the door miscellaneous activities.

Once the walls had been covered it confirmed his shower brain wave, none of the hundreds of photographs were of him at home.

He stood naked and marvelled at them spinning around taking them all in, it was the strangest looking shrine he’d ever seen.

“The freak doesn’t know where I live?” saying the thought aloud gave him some little comfort.

It was Sunday he had work tomorrow but he had other ideas, if this obsessed freak was expecting him to be at work tomorrow he better think again. The camera that took these was not of high quality, the chances of a zoom lens looked slim, from the angles he worked out where this person was taking them.

Tomorrow he would find the bastard.

The next morning he had never left the house so early, he had not even slept but he was wired with energy, his grip hard on the wheel and head bobbing not to the sound of the car radio just anticipation.

He pulled up on a street that was a ten minute walk to the car park at NET-CO. Dan pulled his hood up and dipped his cap low over his face and walked into the brush that would bring him out behind where the photos had been taken.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes and parted the branches his throat was as dry as tree bark. He skulked behind the bushes looking out onto the car park but he saw no one, he counted down the time on his wristwatch to when he would usually arrive the digital numbers morphed on its face but their was still no one who looked suspicious.

“Where are you” eyes squinting through the bushes he was a jaguar ready to pounce. Half an hour passed and nothing changed he gave up and walked out from the bushes to between the cars.

How did they know I wasn’t going to be in today? I didn’t ring in so how could anyone in the office be a suspect?

Dan took down his hood and removed his cap and looked around, at least if another batch of photographs arrive in the morning he would know if the creep was watching, although he did not get a new batch this morning.

“Hey! Hey you!” Dan’s voice roared at the guy on his phone walking into the car park, he looked as though he was lowering his phone from taking a swift photograph.

“Can I help you?” the young guy said.

“Come here and give me that phone, who you taking pictures of then?” he grabbed him by the scruff and the young guy screamed robbery. Dan shook him quiet and snatched the phone from him, he threatened him to unlock his phone or else he would break his nose, he was sure this was the guy.

The phone unlocked, it was a shameless selfie Dan threw the phone into the guy’s chest and ran for it, what he had just done was assault.

Back at the car his thoughts ran wild, what was he doing attacking random strangers? He really needed to rest before he went completely insane.

Thanks to the assistance of sleeping pills he managed to rest that night, maybe it was over whatever it was? There hadn’t been a package on the Monday morning the stalker was not where he had been the past week, is it over?

He came down the stairs still recovering from the drowsy sleeping pill hangover but at the bottom on the doormat was another brown paper package, his heart sank so low it almost fell out his backside.

He crept down and opened it, it was much slimmer than the rest, fifteen or so photographs. These were different than the rest he analysed these with much more scrutiny, the first was of his empty car parked down the road from NET-CO the rest from the view of the bushes and the last five of the young guy he accosted.

They were too close! They knew! They couldn’t snap me I would’ve caught them! But how did they know! He anxiously ran around the house and drew all the curtains. The freak knew more than he was letting on he didn’t want to take any chances he would take snapshots of him at home.

He went up to his shrine and obsessed further. He disconnected the landline and carried a cleaver with him around the house.

Then the doorbell rang.

The sound made him jump to defence, he was ready to butcher anyone whom he thought looked at him funny, he cautiously opened the door a slight jar with the lock chain still on and peered out like a paranoid lunatic.

“Honey bear? You haven’t returned my calls, is everything alright?” the larger framed lady said through the door crack.

“Not now Lisa, I’m busy!”

“Have I done something wrong Honey bear? Let me in please I wanna talk” she gently pleaded. She was his on again off again girlfriend they had been seeing each over for the past year and a half, she was dumpy, nothing like Annie Harding his wife who passed but Lisa worshiped him, it was a one way relationship but she didn’t care, no man gave her the light of day until Dan.

“Go away, I’m working on something.”

“I know you have your projects but can I please come in even if I can just use the toilet, then I’ll leave.”

“Fine make it quick.” He unbolted the door and she squashed through and up to the bathroom, he went to the kitchen and crammed a handful of cold ham from the fridge in his mouth, he listened out for the flush but it didn’t come.

He ran upstairs and Lisa was stood in the centre of the room covered in photographs.

“What are you doing in here?” he panted

“Honey bear, whatever is going on, you can talk to me.” She held her hand in the other and scanned the walls; she looked concerned.

“I’ve got this under control Lisa, now get out.” His eyes didn’t leave the carpet and he pointed her down the stairs.

“Honey…”

“Get Out!” he would’ve never of spoken to Annie like that.

A week had passed since Lisa had been and she had not returned, did he care?

No, although she did show up in some way that morning. On the doormat was yet another package, the smallest of the lot, by this point his panic had become vigour, he ripped it open and the sight of the photographs made him fall to his knees.

It was Lisa. Strangled blue. Tears ran down his face and he scrunched them in his grip.

A fist thumped on the door almost taking it off the hinges.

“ED BREWER! OPEN UP!”

He looked up to the door he could barely see through the blur of his tears.

“EDWIN BREWER! OPEN UP! IT’S THE POLICE.”

Dan looked around he could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

“Ed?” he said, they must have the wrong house. He brushed the photographs to the side and unbolted the door.

“Mr Brewer, you are wanted for the murder of Lisa Ford and Daniel Harding and the suspected murder of his wife Annie and his son Jason.”

“What? There must be a mistake? I AM Dan Harding?” he said.

“Get down on your knees with your hands behind your head.”

“I AM DANIEL HARDING, I AM!” he cried, as he got down and complied.

Two policemen manhandled him out into the back of the swat van in handcuffs and he repeated the same thing: “I am Dan Harding.”

The chief investigator and his colleague raided the house they came to the photo room, its door was open slightly.

“The sick freak had been stalking him for months, this is a trove of evidence if I ever saw one.” The stern looking man said, his colleague came over with a few photos in his hand.

“Look it’s the kid that was assaulted the other week outside NET-CO.”

The investigator nodded. “Our guy here has been busy.”

The forensics team documented the scene and took the photos for evidence.

Ed, Dan, whoever he was sat in the interrogation room nervously. The chief investigator sat opposite him.

“There must be a mistake, I’m Dan Harding, you got to believe me!” he sobbed.

“Look Ed, we got so much evidence on you, we know you met Mr Harding and his family while you worked for the yachting company, we have confirmation, hell! We have a room full of evidence.”

The chief pushed a small pile of photographs in front of him. “Ed, you took these photographs. You killed Mrs Harding and her son and then her husband and now your girlfriend, do you remember?”

“I am Dan Harding.”