THE KNOCK
The knocking didn't stop.
Three sharp strikes.
A pause.
Then two more — faster, urgent.
Rahma's breath hitched as the sound echoed through the warehouse, vibrating along the metal walls like a warning shot.
Yusuf grabbed her arm.
"Don't freeze," he whispered. "Move."
He guided her behind a stack of wooden pallets in the corner. The wood was splintered, the gaps imperfect, but it was the only cover they had.
The knocking shifted to pounding.
"Open the door!"
A voice — male, deep, masked by the distortion of a cheap balaclava or a voicechanger. It didn't sound impatient; it sounded rehearsed.
Yusuf crouched beside her, eyes locked on the entrance.
Rahma's pulse hammered against her ribs.
"Who is that?" she mouthed.
He shook his head once.
"Not police."
"How do you know?"
"Police don't ask," he whispered. "They announce."
The pounding stopped.
Silence.
Silence so thick she felt it move.
Rahma leaned forward slightly, careful to stay hidden behind the stack of pallets. Yusuf held up a hand — don't — but she couldn't help it. Instinct overtook caution.
She angled her head just enough to glimpse the shutter.
A sliver of metal lifted at the bottom. An inch. Then two.
Someone was sliding something underneath.
No—
not something.
A device.
Flat. Black. The size of a mobile phone. No markings.
Yusuf's eyes widened.
"Back," he mouthed urgently.
"Back. Now."
Rahma crawled backwards, heart slamming.
The device emitted a faint red blink.
Then a soft mechanical click.
"What is that?" she whispered.
Yusuf didn't answer.
Because the device began to hum — a low, vibrating tone that made Rahma's teeth ache. The shutter rattled as if responding to it.
Then a voice came through the metal — calm, emotionless, filtered:
"Rahma Salem. We know you're inside."
Her blood ran cold.
The voice continued:
"Come out. Alone. You have ten seconds."
Yusuf's hand clamped on her shoulder.
"Don't move," he whispered sharply. "Don't—"
"One."
Rahma's breath caught.
"Two."
She felt sick.
"Three."
Her lungs burned.
"Four."
Yusuf's grip tightened.
"Five."
The hum grew louder.
It felt like it was inside her skull.
"Six."
"What do they want?" she whispered frantically.
"Not you," Yusuf whispered. "Not yet."
"Seven."
Rahma flinched.
The hum spiked.
"Eight."
A second voice joined the first — female this time, low, almost gentle.
"Rahma… you don't have to be afraid. You've done this before."
Rahma froze.
No.
She knew that voice.
She knew it.
Something deep inside her unfurled like a clawed hand breaking through ice.
She opened her mouth—
But no sound came.
"Nine."
Yusuf saw her expression shift.
"Rahma," he whispered, "don't listen to them."
"Ten."
Everything went silent.
No voice.
No hum.
No movement outside.
Rahma didn't dare breathe.
Yusuf waited three full seconds before moving.
He crawled toward the far wall, grabbed a metal rod, and returned to her.
"We're leaving," he whispered.
"There's only one exit," she hissed. "They're literally right—"
"No," he said quietly.
"There's another."
He pointed upward.
Rahma followed his finger — the ceiling hatch. A maintenance opening with a bolted panel.
"We'll never reach it in time," she whispered.
"We don't have a choice."
Yusuf moved quickly, sliding crates beneath the hatch to form a makeshift ladder. Rahma climbed onto the first crate, gripping the edge.
The shutter suddenly shook.
Hard.
Something slammed into it from outside.
Rahma's heart lurched.
"Move," Yusuf urged. "Go!"
She climbed faster — second crate, then third. Yusuf pushed her up by the waist, steadying the wobbling stack.
"Take this," he whispered, handing her a flathead screwdriver.
"Why—"
"Unscrew the panel. Hurry."
She reached the hatch, fingers trembling, and jammed the screwdriver into the first bolt. The shutter shook violently again.
Someone was ramming it now.
Yusuf climbed onto the second crate beneath her.
"Hurry!" he hissed.
Rahma twisted the bolt — it loosened halfway.
A third slam.
Metal screeched.
"They're breaking in!" Rahma gasped.
"Keep working!"
The bolt came free.
One down.
She moved to the second.
Outside, the female voice echoed, clearer now:
"Rahma… stop running."
She froze.
That voice—
Yusuf saw her hesitate.
"Rahma. Focus."
"I know that voice," she whispered shakily. "I— I think I know her."
"Rahma, look at me."
She looked down. Yusuf's expression was firm, grounding.
"Memory tricks are their tactic," he said. "They want you questioning what's real."
She blinked hard, forcing air into her lungs.
Then she turned back to the bolt.
Slam.
The shutter bent inward.
A hand pushed through the gap — gloved, reaching.
Rahma's breath hitched.
"YUSUF!"
"I see it!"
He grabbed a nearby pipe and slammed it into the protruding hand. The figure outside snarled and pulled back.
"Keep unscrewing!"
Rahma twisted faster, adrenaline burning through her veins. The second bolt fell free. Two left.
Then—
Silence again.
No voices.
No banging.
No movement.
Yusuf stiffened.
"That's not good," he whispered.
Rahma didn't want to ask why.
She reached for the third bolt—
When suddenly—
Something skittered under the shutter.
Small. Fast. Metal.
A second device.
And this one wasn't humming.
It was flashing.
Blue.
Rapid.
"Yusuf," she whispered, "what is that?"
His face drained.
"Stun dispersal."
He climbed up beside her.
"Non-lethal incapacitation. It'll knock us out cold."
"We have seconds," she whispered.
"Then climb."
The device emitted a sharp electronic beep.
Rahma yanked out the third bolt with shaking hands—
The warehouse exploded in white-blue light.
Rahma screamed—
Rahma didn't realise she was holding her breath until she unlocked her flat and the door clicked behind her. Only then did the tension break like a snapped wire.
She stood still in the dark, letting her eyes adjust.
Nothing was out of place.
Nothing obvious, at least.
The streetlamp outside spilled a thin stripe of yellow across her floor, illuminating the outline of her sofa, her bookcase, the stack of case files she'd refused to touch tonight.
But something in the silence felt… off.
A pressure.
A held breath that wasn't hers.
Rahma stepped in slowly, her keys still in her hand like a makeshift weapon. She reached for the light switch—but stopped. Her instincts were running too loudly.
Instead she moved in darkness, crossing her living room silently, eyes sweeping each corner. She paused in front of the hallway.
Her bedroom door was open.
She always kept it closed.
Her pulse kicked.
She reached into her coat, pulled out her phone, and flicked on the torch.
The beam of light cut through the black.
She stepped forward.
The hallway felt narrower than usual, like the walls were watching.
She reached the bedroom doorway and pushed it open with her foot, torch raised—
The room was empty.
Untouched.
No signs of forced entry.
No drawers opened.
No wardrobe disturbed.
She exhaled—then froze.
There was something on her pillow.
A folded sheet of paper.
Her stomach dropped.
Nobody should've been able to put anything in here.
Not unless they had her old key.
Not unless they knew where the spare was hidden.
Not unless they knew her.
Rahma stepped toward the bed, the torchlight shaking slightly in her grip. She picked up the folded paper carefully, like it could bite.
It was a torn page from an old notebook.
Handwritten.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
She hadn't seen this handwriting in years.
She would have recognised it anywhere.
Her father's.
Rahma's breath shuddered out of her.
He had been dead for fifteen years.
Her hands trembled as she opened the page.
Inside, in his careful, slanted script, were four words:
DON'T TRUST YOUR MEMORY.
A cold wave rolled over her skin.
She read it again and again, as if repetition could change it.
But then she noticed something on the bottom of the page—a faint watermark.
Not from the page itself, but a print left on it… from the counter of a shop.
A partial address.
Bloomsbury.
A stationery shop she used to visit as a teen.
Her father had taken her there.
Every Saturday.
Buying notebooks, pens, little things they didn't need.
She swallowed hard.
Someone was playing with her past.
Someone who knew exactly where to take her.
Her phone buzzed violently in her hand, ripping her back into the moment.
An unknown number.
She hesitated, then answered.
"Rahma Hassan," she said cautiously.
A distorted voice replied—flat, genderless, processed.
"Leave the case."
Her blood iced.
"Who is this?" she demanded.
"You go back, you die. And the child dies with you."
"What child? You need to—"
The line went dead.
Rahma stared at her phone, her breath crashing in her ears.
Her pulse spiked again—a different alert.
A notification.
She opened it.
A location ping.
No message.
Just coordinates.
Her old neighbourhood.
The estate.
She gripped the sides of her phone so tightly her knuckles whitened.
Fifteen years she'd stayed away.
Fifteen years she'd buried that chapter.
And someone—someone who had her father's handwriting, someone using her childhood like a map—wanted her to return.
Her torchlight flickered as her body went instinctively cold.
She turned back toward her living room—
And stopped dead.
Her laptop screen was on.
She hadn't turned it on.
She hadn't even opened it today.
The screen glowed with a single image: a CCTV still taken at night.
Grainy.
Black-and-white.
Of a small boy standing alone at the edge of a canal.
Rahma's heart lodged in her throat.
She leaned closer, her breath fogging in the cold air.
The boy had his back turned.
His hood up.
His hands balled into fists at his sides.
But she knew that canal.
She knew that street.
She knew that estate.
What chilled her wasn't that.
It was the text overlaid on the image:
"YOU MISSED SOMETHING LAST TIME."
Rahma jerked back from the laptop like she'd been burned.
Last time.
Last time.
Her mind scrambled for footing, but something in her memory felt like wet paper—slipping, dissolving, rotting away at the edges.
She swallowed hard.
She didn't trust herself right now.
She didn't trust any recollection of that era.
She forced her mind to steady.
She needed to think.
Someone had broken in.
Left a handwritten note.
Activated her laptop.
Sent her coordinates.
Knew details no stranger could possibly know.
And had given her a warning:
You go back, you die.
And the child dies with you.
But something else hit her now—a colder, heavier truth.
She knew that boy in the picture.
Not his face.
Not his clothes.
His posture.
That wounded stiffness.
The defensive hunch.
The way his feet angled inward.
She'd seen that stance a thousand times.
In one photograph.
Sealed inside a case file she wasn't supposed to have.
A boy who went missing fifteen years ago.
A boy they never found.
A boy who used to live two floors below her.
Her neighbour.
Habeeb.
Rahma felt her lungs collapse in slow motion.
She whispered the name into the empty room.
"Habeeb."
The lights flickered.
She didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Because she realised something terrifying—
The handwriting on the note wasn't just similar to her father's.
It was identical.
Not copied.
Not forged.
An exact match.
Like it had been written by the same hand.
But that was impossible.
Her father was dead.
Unless…
A cold shiver sliced straight down her spine.
She turned slowly toward the door, suddenly certain she wasn't alone in the flat anymore.
Then—
The floorboard behind her creaked.
Rahma didn't turn around.
Every instinct screamed at her to move, to breathe, to run, but she stayed frozen. The silence stretched like a blade pressed to the back of her neck.
The floorboard creaked again—closer this time.
Her throat tightened.
Someone was inside the flat.
No imagination.
No paranoia.
No misinterpreted sound.
Someone was right behind her.
Rahma forced her voice out, barely above a whisper.
"I know you're here."
Nothing.
Only the hum of the streetlamp outside.
Her hand hovered over the nearest object on her table—a metal pen. Pathetic as a weapon, but better than nothing.
She took a slow breath.
Then spun around, arm raised—
And her heart slammed painfully.
The hallway was empty.
No one.
No movement.
No shadow.
Just the narrow corridor stretching into darkness.
Her breath wavered, the silence pressing in.
Did she imagine it?
No. She knew the sound of her own floorboards. She'd lived here long enough. That creak was distinct—sharp, heavy, too much weight to be a draft or settling wood.
Her chest tightened.
She swept through the flat, room by room, checking corners, closets, under the bed, even the small cabinet in the bathroom.
Nothing.
No sign of anyone.
But someone had been here.
She could feel it clinging to the air—an unnatural stillness, like the aftermath of a held scream.
She returned to the living room, trying to gather her senses.
The laptop still glowed.
The boy at the canal.
The message.
And now… a presence that moved through her flat like it belonged there.
Her phone buzzed again.
Rahma flinched.
Another notification ping.
From an unknown number.
Just one line:
LOOK UP.
Her chest seized.
Her eyes rose slowly, terrified of what she'd see.
Nothing.
Just the ceiling.
Plain.
White.
Unchanged.
But then she noticed something—faint, barely visible unless you were looking for it.
A thin black thread pinned to the plaster.
Almost like—
Her stomach knotted.
A wire.
No.
A tripwire.
She stepped onto the sofa, reaching up carefully. She tugged the thread free.
It came loose easily—too easily—and fell into her palm.
Not a wire.
Hair.
Long.
Curled.
Black.
Her breath stuttered.
Her father's hair had the same thick curl.
She clenched the strand in her fist, her skin crawling.
Someone had been close enough to place this directly above her.
Close enough to watch her.
Close enough to touch her.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time she didn't jump. She stared at the screen like she expected it to bite.
Another message.
"YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AWAY."
Her jaw tightened as the anger rose—slow, fierce, cutting through the fear.
She typed back quickly:
Who are you?
Three dots appeared.
Typing.
Then:
"SOMEONE WHO REMEMBERS WHAT YOU FORGOT."
Her pulse hammered.
Before she could reply, another message appeared.
A photo.
Blurry, taken at night.
Her own building.
Zoomed in.
Her window.
Her silhouette inside the flat—three minutes ago.
Rahma's breath fractured.
Someone was outside.
Watching.
She lunged to the window, ripped the curtains aside—
The street was empty.
Nothing but parked cars and the smear of orange streetlight across the pavement.
But she knew someone was down there.
Watching just out of reach.
Hidden in blind spots, deep shadows, behind glass reflections.
She closed the curtains again and dragged a chair beneath the handle of her front door. It wouldn't stop a determined intruder, but it would slow them—give her a second to react.
Her hands were shaking.
She hated that.
Hated giving whoever this was the satisfaction.
She turned back to the laptop, to the boy at the canal, to the message:
"YOU MISSED SOMETHING LAST TIME."
Last time she lived on that estate.
Last time she walked past that canal.
Last time she saw Habeeb.
Her lungs tightened.
Her therapist once told her that traumatic memories often get "sealed off."
Locked behind mental walls.
Protected by the mind until the person is ready.
But this didn't feel like protection.
This felt like someone else had locked those memories away.
And now they were forcing them open.
She stared at the CCTV still.
The boy stood perfectly still, like he knew he was being watched.
Like he was waiting.
Her phone buzzed again.
She didn't want to look.
But she did.
A single message:
"HE'S STILL THERE."
Rahma's skin prickled violently.
Still there?
Still there where?
The canal?
The estate?
The past?
Her fingers hovered over the keypad.
Before she could reply, a second message dropped.
"AND YOU WILL BE TOO."
The lights in her flat flickered again—twice, rapidly.
She backed away from the living room, pulse racing.
Outside, something clattered—a quick metallic sound, like someone brushing against a gate. Her breath hitched.
She moved to the peephole and pressed her eye to it.
The hallway outside was empty.
Silent.
She stayed there, watching, unmoving, for what felt like minutes.
Then—
A shadow passed across the peephole.
Fast.
Soft.
Deliberate.
Rahma clamped a hand over her mouth before the gasp escaped.
The corridor remained empty, but she knew she hadn't imagined it.
Someone had walked past her door.
Slowly.
Close enough to touch it.
The chair under the handle vibrated faintly.
Someone had tried the knob.
Rahma stumbled backwards, gripping the wall.
Her phone vibrated again.
Another message.
She didn't want to read it.
Didn't want the words inside her flat.
But she forced herself.
"DON'T MAKE ME OPEN THAT DOOR."
Her blood went cold.
She held her breath, the silence swallowing her whole.
Then—
the handle shifted again.
A soft turning.
Quiet.
Confident.
Testing the resistance of the chair propping it shut.
Rahma felt tears pricking her eyes—not from fear, but fury.
Her father had always told her:
Never let someone think you're prey.
She grabbed the heaviest object within reach—a thick glass vase filled with dead flowers she'd meant to throw out.
She raised it.
The handle jerked harder.
Then—
It stopped.
Utter silence.
Rahma waited.
One second.
Five.
Ten.
Nothing.
Her breathing was a harsh, broken rhythm.
She edged toward the window again and peered through the side of the curtain.
This time, she caught movement.
A figure.
Across the street.
Just at the edge of the streetlamp's dying halo.
Watching her window.
Standing still.
Not moving.
Not hiding.
Just waiting.
Rahma's chest tightened until she thought her ribs might crack.
Her phone vibrated again.
She didn't look away from the window when she read the message.
"NEXT TIME, I WON'T KNOCK."
The figure stepped backward into darkness and vanished.
Rahma exhaled a shudder she didn't realise she'd been holding.
She sank onto the floor, back against the wall, heart thrashing violently.
Then her phone lit up once more.
One final message:
"GO TO THE ESTATE IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH."
By morning, Rahma looked like she hadn't slept in a decade.
Because she hadn't slept at all.
She spent the night sitting against the living room wall with the chair still wedged under the door handle, the curtains drawn tight, and every sound outside magnified into a threat.
Every creak.
Every footstep.
Every distant cough or passing engine.
Her mind kept replaying the messages.
The shadow through the peephole.
The figure under the streetlamp.
The note.
DON'T TRUST YOUR MEMORY.
Her father's handwriting.
Her father, who had been buried when she was seventeen.
Her father, whose absence was a wound London never let her forget.
And now this stranger—this ghost—wanted her to return to the one place that tied every dark moment of her life together:
The estate.
Her estate.
The place she swore she'd never step foot in again.
She rose slowly from the floor, joints stiff, breath uneven. She approached the mirror above her fireplace.
Her reflection startled her.
Her eyes had that old look again—hollow around the edges, sharpened in the middle. The look she wore the night she left the estate for good. The look of someone who wasn't sure reality had a stable shape.
She splashed cold water on her face, forcing herself to breathe.
Then she opened her laptop.
The CCTV still was gone.
Just a blank desktop.
She opened her call history.
Nothing.
No unknown numbers.
No outgoing calls.
She opened messages.
Empty.
Not a single notification.
Her blood ran cold.
They'd been wiped.
Whoever had contacted her last night knew how to cover their tracks.
She checked the folded note in her pocket—the only physical proof left.
Real.
Tangible.
Impossible.
A knock at the door shattered the stillness.
A sharp, unexpected rap that made her entire body lurch.
She froze.
Seconds passed.
Another knock.
Not gentle.
Not aggressive.
Just patient.
Rahma grabbed her vase-weapon again and approached the door, body tense. She checked the peephole cautiously.
Detective Inspector Lela Winters stood outside, her coat pulled tightly around her, her expression a blend of irritation and concern.
Rahma unlocked the door.
Winters pushed her way in without waiting for an invitation.
"You look like hell," she said.
"Good morning to you too," Rahma muttered.
Winters scanned the room quickly. "Why was your door blocked?"
Rahma didn't answer.
Winters' eyes narrowed. "Something happened. What is it?"
Rahma hesitated. She trusted Winters more than most, but trust wasn't the issue.
The issue was proof.
Everything—the laptop, the messages, the calls—had vanished.
She'd sound delusional.
Just like last time.
"I had a rough night," she said instead.
"That's not an answer."
Rahma didn't respond.
Winters sighed heavily. "Fine. I didn't come here to drag your trauma out of you. I came because I need your eyes on something."
She reached into her bag and pulled out a file.
Thin.
Fresh.
Printed within the last few hours.
She handed it to Rahma.
"Is this your boy?" Winters asked.
Rahma's stomach twisted.
She opened the file.
Inside was a photograph of a child—about nine years old, small, wiry frame. The image was taken from a CCTV camera near Camden Road station just after midnight.
The boy's clothes were soaked.
His hoodie was ripped.
His face was dirty.
But it was him.
Habeeb.
Exactly the same child from her estate fifteen years ago.
Not older.
Not aged.
Exactly.
The.
Same.
Rahma felt the ground tilt beneath her.
"This is impossible," she whispered.
"I thought you'd say that," Winters replied. "Which is exactly why I brought it to you before anyone else."
Rahma stared at the photo, pulse thundering.
"What time was this taken?" she asked quietly.
"00:47," Winters said. "Last night."
Rahma's breath caught.
Last night.
At the same time someone had been inside her flat.
At the same time the messages came.
At the same time the CCTV still had appeared on her laptop.
Winters continued, her voice steady. "A neighbour reported hearing a child crying near the canal. By the time a patrol car arrived, the boy was gone. The only thing left was this footage."
Rahma swallowed hard.
"And you're sure this isn't old CCTV?" she asked.
Winters gave her a sharp look. "I'm insulted."
Rahma forced herself to breathe. "Sorry."
"You don't think the child looks familiar?" Winters asked.
Rahma hesitated.
She could lie.
She should lie.
Because if she said what she wanted to say—that she recognised him, that this boy hadn't aged in fifteen years—Winters would mark her as unstable.
Same as when she first fled the estate.
Same as the night everything changed.
But Rahma was tired of lying to protect everyone but herself.
She looked Winters dead in the eyes.
"That boy lived on my estate," she said. "I knew him."
Winters leaned forward slightly. "You knew him?"
Rahma nodded once. "His name is—or was—Habeeb. He went missing fifteen years ago."
Winters blinked slowly.
"Rahma," she said, choosing her words with care, "this boy was alive last night."
Rahma didn't speak.
Winters crossed her arms, watching her carefully. "Are you telling me this child hasn't aged in over a decade?"
Rahma didn't answer—because answering meant acknowledging something impossible.
Winters exhaled. "You're shaking."
Rahma pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "Winters… someone broke into my flat."
That got her attention.
"What?" Winters snapped, instantly alert.
Rahma pointed to the door. "I barricaded it. Last night someone tried the handle. They left something."
"What did they leave?"
Rahma pulled the folded note from her pocket and handed it over.
Winters unfolded it, brow furrowing.
She studied the handwriting,
Then looked up sharply.
"This is your father's handwriting."
Rahma felt her throat close.
"You knew him?" she whispered.
"No," Winters said, "but I've seen samples."
Rahma froze. "Where?"
Winters didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she pulled another item from her bag.
A sealed evidence envelope.
Inside: a single page of handwriting—old, creased, photocopied.
Her father's script.
From a missing-persons file.
Winters held Rahma's gaze.
"I wasn't sure when to show you this," she said softly. "But your father submitted a statement in connection to Habeeb's disappearance."
Rahma felt everything drain out of her.
"He what?"
Winters nodded. "Yes. But the statement was sealed. Restricted access only."
Rahma barely managed to speak. "Why?"
Winters inhaled slowly. "Because your father claimed he saw Habeeb alive… three days after the boy was officially declared missing."
Rahma felt like the world shifted sideways.
"He never told me," she whispered.
"The statement was buried," Winters said. "No follow-up. No investigation. Nothing. It's like the file was frozen in time."
Just like the boy.
Just like the handwriting.
Just like the memories she couldn't trust.
Winters closed the folder.
"Rahma," she said quietly, "I think someone is trying to finish something your father started."
Rahma swallowed hard, chest trembling.
"And I think," Winters added, "whatever this is—your past is right in the middle of it."
Rahma looked at the file in her hands.
The estate.
The boy.
Her father.
The note.
Everything pointed in one direction.
One place she never wanted to return to.
Winters watched her.
"You know where this leads," she said.
Rahma nodded slowly.
"Yes," she whispered. "I do."
Her voice hardened.
"I'm going back."
Winters stared at her for a moment as if weighing whether to argue, but she must have seen the resolve hardening in Rahma's expression. The argument would be useless.
"You can't go alone," Winters said eventually.
"I'm not asking permission."
Winters huffed a breath, somewhere between frustration and resignation. "Fine. Then I'm coming with you."
"No." Rahma grabbed her coat. "This is personal."
"So is my job," Winters snapped. "And there's a child involved. So yes, actually, you are asking permission. You show me evidence, you call it in, you loop me in — that's how this works."
Rahma held her gaze. "Something happened there. Something none of the official files explain."
"Then let me help you uncover it."
Rahma hesitated, fingers tightening around the note in her pocket.
The thought of Winters with her at the estate felt… wrong. As if she were dragging someone into a place that didn't abide by logic, or by daylight, or by the rules of sane people.
The estate didn't like outsiders.
It barely tolerated its own.
She shook her head. "You don't understand—"
"Then make me understand," Winters said. Her tone softened. "Let me in, Rahma. I'm not blind. Last night rattled you. And whatever you saw—whatever you remembered—it scared you."
Rahma closed her eyes briefly, fighting the instinct to shut everything down.
When she opened them, she forced the words out carefully.
"There are… gaps," she said. "Missing pieces. Things I should remember but don't."
"Trauma can do that," Winters said gently.
"This wasn't trauma."
Winters waited.
Rahma drew in a breath. "This felt… taken."
Winters didn't flinch. "Taken how?"
Rahma's voice dropped. "Like someone didn't want me to remember certain things. And they made sure I didn't."
Winters studied her for a long, heavy moment. "You think someone intentionally interfered with your memory?"
"Yes."
Winters didn't laugh. Didn't brush it off. She only nodded slowly.
"Memory suppression isn't impossible," she said. "Drugs. Conditioning. Psychological trauma. Even self-protection."
"This wasn't self-protection."
Winters's voice was steady. "Then let's find out what it was."
The determination in her tone surprised Rahma.
"You're serious," Rahma said quietly.
"I don't have the luxury of pretending the world is normal," Winters replied. "You've seen the cases I've worked."
Rahma closed her jacket. "Fine. But you follow my lead."
Winters smirked. "Finally. A concession."
Rahma managed a thin, humourless smile. "Don't get used to it."
They left the flat together, Rahma locking the door behind her and slipping the note deeper into her coat. The morning air was sharp, cold enough to sting, the London sky heavy and grey like it was about to break.
They walked quickly to Winters' unmarked car.
The estate was twenty minutes away, but with every mile they drove, Rahma felt time folding in on itself — pulling her back to the girl she used to be, the girl who ran through those corridors, who heard whispers behind closed doors, who saw things the adults pretended weren't there.
Winters glanced at her. "You've gone quiet."
"Trying not to talk myself out of this."
Winters didn't push.
Rahma turned her head to the window, watching the city shift. The tower blocks grew closer. The graffiti more familiar. The streets narrower, darker, older.
Her estate sat like a broken crown in the centre of the neighbourhood — three massive concrete blocks surrounding an inner courtyard that had once been a playground and was now a graveyard of rusted metal and forgotten rubbish.
The sight of it hit her like a punch to the chest.
She hadn't realised how much she'd missed and hated it at the same time.
Winters parked on a side street. "This it?"
Rahma nodded.
They stepped out of the car. The air felt different here — colder, almost metallic. The estate loomed above them, its windows like black eyes watching.
Winters slipped her badge inside her coat but kept a hand near her pocket. "Any security cameras?"
Rahma shook her head. "They haven't worked since I was a kid."
"Convenient."
"That's one word for it."
They crossed into the courtyard. The ground was cracked, weeds pushing through the concrete like fingers trying to break free. A dilapidated slide leaned to one side, rust spreading like a bruise across its metal.
Rahma's steps slowed.
She could almost see the children who used to run here.
Hear their laughter.
Hear their screams the night everything changed.
Winters scanned the area. "Where was Habeeb's flat?"
Rahma pointed to the left block, fourth floor, third window. "There."
Winters nodded. "And yours?"
"Opposite side. Fifth floor."
Winters's eyes softened briefly, but she didn't comment.
They approached the stairwell entrance. The metal door hung crookedly, as if it had been kicked too many times.
Inside, the stairwell smelled of damp, mould, and old secrets. Graffiti covered the walls in layers — names, warnings, crude drawings, strange symbols that Rahma didn't remember being there.
They climbed the steps.
Rahma's heartbeat pounded louder with each floor.
At the third landing, Winters paused. "Did you hear that?"
Rahma froze.
A faint shuffle.
Like someone moving above them.
They waited.
Another sound.
Not footsteps.
A dragging.
Winters reached for her torch. "Stay behind me."
Rahma did — but reluctantly.
They reached the fourth floor.
The corridor was darker than she remembered. The lights overhead flickered weakly, struggling to stay alive.
Winters murmured, "Someone's here."
Rahma nodded, throat tight.
They walked slowly, passing the old metal doors, each one dented or scratched, each one holding a story of its own.
Then they reached the door of Habeeb's old flat.
And Rahma stopped breathing.
The door was slightly open.
Not wide.
Just enough to be an invitation — or a warning.
Winters whispered, "Did you ever see this door open when you were younger?"
Rahma swallowed. "Never."
Winters reached out to push it gently—
But before her fingers touched the metal—
A faint tapping sounded from inside.
Three slow taps.
Then silence.
Rahma's skin turned to ice.
Winters looked at her.
"Ready?"
Rahma nodded once.
Winters pushed the door open.
It creaked like a scream.
The Intruder in the Dark
The moment Rahma stepped back into her flat, something felt wrong.
Not loud wrong.
Not obvious wrong.
Quiet wrong — the kind of wrong that felt like someone had exhaled in the room a second before she entered.
Her door had been locked. She remembered turning the key. She remembered the deadbolt sliding in. Yet the air inside carried the faintest warmth, as if it had only just been disturbed.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She ignored it.
She didn't move further in. The hallway was a narrow tunnel — coat rack on the left, framed newspaper covers on the right. Her achievements hung there, glossy and proud. They felt like targets now.
Her eyes adjusted.
Her window.
Open.
Only by an inch, barely noticeable, but enough to let in a breeze that stirred her curtains like slow-moving ghosts.
Rahma's breath hitched in her throat.
She never left the window open.
Her hand slipped into her bag, fingers curling around her metal pen — the heavy one, the one her father once said could "crack a skull if needed." She never knew if he was joking.
Probably not.
She stepped forward slowly, shoes silent on the floorboards.
The living room was untouched.
Or so it wanted her to think.
She scanned the room with a forensic calm — sofa cushions aligned, shelves neat, her laptop still on the table. But something was missing. She couldn't place it immediately, but the space felt… disturbed.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time she read it.
Unknown Number:
You shouldn't have gone home.
A cold weight dropped into her stomach.
She didn't type back.
Instead, she walked toward the window and examined the latch. No scratches. No forced entry. Someone had picked it cleanly, professionally. Not a burglar. Someone patient. Someone confident they wouldn't be caught.
She scanned her bookshelves.
Her eyes stopped.
One book had been moved.
Not pulled out. Not taken. Shifted. A centimetre to the right—barely anything at all, but she knew. Because that shelf held books she never touched, books she'd hated reading but kept out of sentimental guilt.
Rahma crouched. The spine read:
A MORAL HISTORY OF LONDON
She pulled it out.
A small folded note slid out and dropped to the floor.
Her throat tightened.
She didn't pick it up immediately. She stared at it, letting its existence settle in her brain like a toxin.
Finally, she unfolded the paper.
Black ink.
One sentence.
Block letters, sharp, impatient.
YOU MISSED ONE. CHECK THE CHILDHOOD HOUSE AGAIN. BASEMENT.
Rahma froze.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
The basement.
Her childhood home didn't have a basement.
Or at least — she thought it didn't.
She had never been allowed into the far-left storage room on the ground floor. Ever. Her mother always said it was just too cluttered, too unsafe. Boxes stacked to the ceiling. Dust. Rats. "Nothing for a child."
But Rahma had always felt something else behind that door. A pressure. A weight in the air. Something no child could explain.
She read the note again.
Basement.
That room.
Her breathing turned shallow.
She forced herself to stand, gripping the edge of the table as her knees wobbled.
Whoever had entered her flat had done so without hesitation, without fear. Someone who knew her movements. Someone who knew she had returned to that house today. Someone who might have been following her long before she realised she was being watched.
Her phone buzzed again.
Same number.
You don't have much time.
Rahma slammed the phone face-down.
Her chest tightened and her fingers tingled — panic trying to claw its way up. She fought it back. Panic didn't serve her. Panic turned good journalists into dead ones.
She checked every corner of her flat — bathroom, bedroom, kitchen. No one remained. Whoever planted the note was gone long before she arrived.
But the sense of intrusion stayed.
Like fingerprints on her thoughts.
A sudden sound made her flinch — a soft mechanical click from the hallway.
The lights.
Flickering.
Once.
Twice.
Then steady again.
Her heart stopped.
She walked toward the switch, slow and deliberate. She checked the wiring. Nothing wrong. No surge. No reason for flickering.
Unless someone tampered with it.
Her window slammed shut suddenly from the wind or gravity or something she didn't want to name.
The sound echoed through the flat like a gunshot.
Rahma didn't jump.
She didn't scream.
She went completely, frighteningly still.
Her instincts sharpened to a point.
Someone was trying to rattle her.
Someone wanted her terrified enough to make a mistake.
She grabbed her coat, her notebook, her single heavy pen, and slipped them into her bag. She turned off the lights, double-locked the door behind her, and walked into the corridor.
As she stepped out of the building, her phone buzzed again.
Same number.
New message.
She felt a cold wind slide under her coat as she opened it.
"You're not the only one going back to that house tonight."
She looked up at the street — empty, silent, dimly lit.
Her breath formed clouds in the cold air.
Somewhere out there, someone else was already moving toward the place she feared most.
And Rahma realised something with a sharp, piercing clarity:
Whoever was inside her flat… had a key.