Platform Seven by Louise Doughty

Platform Seven

Having spent a bit of time hanging round Peterborough train station over the years, I thought it seemed an unpromising place to set a novel, but Louise Doughty has proved me wrong. In Platform Seven, she weaves an unmissable whodunnit where Lisa tries to understand why she died.

The book opens following security guard Dalmar, a refugee from Somalia, as he carries out his night shift. After midnight the station goes quiet and most people might assume it is closed, but it runs with a skeleton staff and between the hours of 3am and 6am only freight trains rumble through at platform seven. This is the last platform, towards the back of the station and only partially viewable by CCTV. It is the perfect place for homeless people to hide out and try to sneak into the warmth of the waiting room for a few hours. Dalmar has been desperate, so sometimes he doesn’t have the heart to move them on, feigning ignorance so they can grab s few moments of warmth. At first, he mistakes the man walking through the station, for a homeless person and pays no attention. The man, wearing a cap and donkey jacket makes for platform seven and waits. To Dalmar he seemed hunched in the cold and seems to almost be in a trance. 

There is only one other witness to his arrival and that is Lisa. Lisa is trapped in the station, she knows all the staff by name but can’t get them to see and here her. On this occasion she is sure she understands the desperation in this mans eyes and she worries he isn’t here for the warmth. As a freight train trundles towards the station he steps towards the platform edge and Lisa desperately tries to stop him but he can’t hear her. Dalmar finally sees the man but is too far away to make a difference. He shouts, But the man keeps going. He steps through Lisa and straight under the train.

Doughty explores the effect this man’s suicide has, firstly on the railway staff. PC Ashcroft from the British Transport Police, and his boss face the task together. Ashcroft has never experienced a death here before and the horrifying detail of gathering body parts, sorting through clothing to look for ID and organising a cleaning team affects him and us at the same time. He doesn’t want to break down but struggles and wants to understand what could make a man die like this? Dalmar, who witnesses the incident with Lisa, suffers a flashback triggered by the event. We are transported back to a dinghy on a river and a woman’s head seemingly floating and screaming at the same time. Lisa wanted to stop him, is horrified by what she’s seen and the realisation that this is how died too. In the days that follow Lisa becomes fascinated with a distraught young man she sees in the cafe while Ashcroft discovers that a young woman died recently on the same platform. Something about Lisa’s death piques his interest and makes him wonder whether the events leading up to her apparent suicide are properly investigated. He asks if he can do some digging and gets the go ahead. Lisa also has a breakthrough, she finds that she can follow the young man out of the station and accompanies him on his walk home. This begins her wanderings and the unlocking of her story.

Doughty’s description of the romance between Lisa and her doctor boyfriend, Matty, is brilliantly written and shows a real understanding of domestic abuse. Psychological or emotional abuse has only been made a criminal offence more recently, but it is subtle and difficult to pinpoint even for the victim. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for five years and despite having therapy there are still times when I am confused about how and why I let this happen. Of course I’m not responsible for the abuse, but I was responsible for allowing it to continue. We see how slow and subtle the behaviour begins; a throwaway comment that could be a criticism, a moment of jealousy, an insistence that a hurtful comment was simply a joke and you’re too sensitive. I highlighted a whole passage to use with writing therapy clients:

The sad, sobering and undramatic truth is, I made the same mistake that women and girls throughout the ages and across continents have so often made, the one that is so easy and seductive, so flattering to ourselves. I mistook possessiveness for love. By the time I realised the magnitude of that mistake, I had too much invested in it to unpack it, and so I had to keep on making it in order to justify the fact that I had made it in the first place. It was too large and complex an error to admit–and how could I explain I had made a mistake to family and friends when I didn’t even understand how I had made it myself?

This is a beautiful piece of writing that answers perfectly the question everyone asks; ‘why didn’t you leave?’ When asked by my family why I’d never told them, the answer was the same. My husband had died, I had been broken and this person professed to love me. I was ready for something positive to happen in my life. I glossed over a couple of red flags because he was stressed at work, or moving house and as well as an excuse there were promises to change. If I admitted that my relationship was a sham I would have to admit there was no happy ending and I would be back where I started: bereaved, broken and alone.

It took me five years to admit to others and myself that I had to leave. I’d had to gather my strength over time and eventually he behaved so badly I couldn’t gloss over it any more. I was aware reading Lisa’s story that things could have been so much worse. Matty breaks her confidence and gaslights her until she doesn’t even trust her own judgement anymore. The outcome is devastating.

I really enjoyed the way Doughty slowly frees Lisa. Firstly, she is liberated from the station, then finds a way to whisper a suggestion, she travels all over Peterborough and even beyond the city towards the end. She finds others like her: the old man from the station suicide pops up soon after his death; a woman in an orange suit striding towards the station; the weird grey blob at the top of the multi-storey car park who she knows to stay away from. However, there are places she wants to be. Most importantly, a visit to the woman she once saw through a window who seemed to need help. 

Doughty’s book is a great thriller and all those cliches we all know so well like ‘a real page turner’ and ‘I couldn’t put it down’ were all true. But the book was more than that. Lisa’s story absolved me in a way. It made me understand my own experience like nothing else has. It taught me to talk, just as Lisa wishes she’d acknowledged the woman at the window or talked to someone about what was happening. I found PC Ashcroft’s conversation with the downstairs neighbour so moving. Her language barrier and Lisa’s reticence to let anyone in meant that her warning ‘you don’t have to put up’ was barely noticed. Yet her warning came from her own experience of fear, control and violence. We need to talk more. To not be ashamed of our experience. After all, I didn’t ask to be a victim of psychological abuse and nor did the women in the book. We can use our experience to educate, warn and let others know that this is not their fault. Lisa has to find peace in a different way, but this book serves as a warning, so women suffering abuse know they can access help and there is a better, more peaceful life out there.