Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (10 page)

The clock had edged past midnight when she finally started moving around. Charlie heard the gentle rattling of the window and door handles as she moved from room to room. It was something else he should ask her about but he knew her well enough to realise she would find her own behaviour silly.

She crept up the stairs and then moved through the other bedrooms, checking each of the windows before finally entering their room.

Her breath crept across the room, whispering through the darkness. ‘Are you awake?’

‘No.’

Esther slipped into bed, pressing herself into the back of him and draping an arm across his body. He could sense her wanting to check the window but she didn’t.

Her gasps tickled the back of his ear and neck. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘Being weird.’

‘You’re not.’

‘I know I am.’

Charlie didn’t reply but the sleep that had eluded him for the past hour suddenly felt close. He closed his eyes and shuffled a little lower in the bed, enjoying the warmth of his wife’s body against his back.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Esther’s voice hissed through the darkness as Charlie felt his arm being shaken. He groaned and rolled over.

‘Can you hear that?’ she whispered, possibly for the second time, though Charlie wasn’t sure if he’d been dreaming.

‘Hear what?’

‘I thought I heard someone moving around downstairs.’

Charlie hauled himself into a sitting position and squinted towards the clock. The red digits taunted 03:36 at him as he gulped down a yawn.

‘What kind of noise?’

There was a mixture of fear and tiredness in her voice. ‘I don’t know: a kind of shuffling.’

Charlie twisted and swung his legs out of the bed onto the floor. The carpet was nice on his bare toes but there was a chill too. He stood, listening, but the only sound was the frantic in and out of Esther’s breathing.

‘There – did you hear that?’ she murmured.

Charlie hadn’t heard anything but walked around the bed, clunking his knee on the hard corner in the darkness.

‘Ouch!’

‘Shush.’

Charlie crept towards the door and out onto the landing, still not hearing anything coming from downstairs. He inched down the stairs into the hallway: nothing.

‘Hello?’

Charlie’s voice echoed around the empty space and he felt the urge to yawn again. He stepped into the living room and flicked on the lights but everything was as they’d left it. It was the same in the kitchen and everywhere else in the house. No intruders, nothing broken, nothing fallen down.

He stumbled back up the stairs into bed, still yawning. Esther was sitting up, one leg out of the bed covers.

‘What was it?’ she whispered.

‘Nothing.’

‘I heard something.’

Charlie slipped back under the covers, rolling onto his side and taking one last look at the clock. If he was really lucky, he might be able to doze for another two hours.

‘There’s no-one there, sweetie. Go back to sleep.’

ELEVEN: ESTHER

Esther lay awake as the morning light began to seep through the curtains. Charlie was snoring slightly, not enough to have woken her, just enough that she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep.

Not that he was the reason she was awake.

She was certain she’d heard
something
. Charlie had returned to bed, rolled over and gone back to sleep but she’d lain awake listening. What with the window and door checks, the lack of hunger and the ease with which she ended up out of breath, the last thing she wanted was to start hearing things.

When Charlie’s phone alarm went off, Esther kept her eyes closed, pretending she was asleep. She felt his weight shift from the bed before he disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Esther didn’t want to go downstairs before him just in case… well, she wasn’t sure. In some ways, she hoped something had happened simply because it would prove she wasn’t tormenting herself through the night, thinking she was hearing things when there was nothing there.

As he returned to the bedroom dripping wet, Esther started to stir, offering him a weak smile and ‘morning’. She timed things so he would be dressed a little before her and then followed him down the stairs. Everything was as they’d left it the night before and when Charlie wasn’t looking, Esther even checked the places where she’d left the door and window keys, finding them where they should be.

Esther made sure she ate a piece of toast in front of Charlie to stop him fussing and then kissed him goodbye. It was when she heard the pause between the front door closing and his car starting that she knew there was a problem.

She tiptoed to the front door, unlocked it and peered outside. Charlie was crouched close to the house, picking up pieces of plastic and metal from the ground.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

He spun as if caught in the act of doing something he shouldn’t. His upward glance gave it away: the bracket they’d fixed the security camera to was hanging limply, the remains of the camera now in his hands.

‘It’s all right,’ Charlie said, ‘we should have him recorded, so at least we’ll be able to prove who did it.’

Esther didn’t reply, struggling to swallow the creeping sense of unease rising through her. The lights and camera had at least offered some sense of sanctuary but even that had apparently made no difference.

Inside, she felt as if she was sleepwalking as Charlie loaded the footage from the hard drive onto the laptop and began scrolling through it. He kept checking his watch, knowing he was going to be late, but Esther was grateful he hadn’t run off and left her.

Charlie was moving through the images so quickly that he almost flicked straight past it. A little before half-past-three that morning, a shadow of someone’s legs passed the front of their driveway. The security light turned on and back off thirty seconds later. Moments after, the shape appeared again, only a dark pair of shoes visible at the top of the screen. The shoes edged along the kerb of the pavement before disappearing onto the driveway next door, out of the camera’s sightline. In night vision mode, there was a green screen of inactivity before everything went black.

Whoever smashed the camera must have climbed over the fence from next door, edged along the wall of the house until they were directly underneath, and then used something tall enough to hammer it to the ground.

Esther looked at Charlie, who stared back at her, his face full of concern. ‘Are you going to be okay?’ he whispered.

She shrugged, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Of course – I’m going to spend some time in the garden today. The first job is to mow the lawn.’

His eyes narrowed, aware she was putting a brave face on it. ‘I’ll have my phone with me all day. If you need anything, just call. I’ll get another camera later and we’ll fix them higher.’

Esther shook her head. ‘Don’t bother.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s like a red rag to a bull. If we do things clearly designed to antagonise or catch him out, then he’ll find a way to get to us anyway. We should try to ignore him.’

The words were easy to say but Esther knew there was no way she could overlook the way they were being targeted. She also knew the security equipment must have cost more than Charlie had claimed and they couldn’t keep spending money. They had a little leeway, but with only his income, it was going to be tight for a while. She also had a creeping sense that Charlie wasn’t entirely convinced that Dougie was responsible for everything, despite what he’d been saying.

He nodded, checked his watch another time and then kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ve really got to go. I mean it about calling me, though. Anytime.’

‘I will.’

Esther waited until his car had pulled away and then moved around the house, one window at a time. Rattle the handle, unlock, open, close, relock, rattle the handle, press the glass. Relax for a second and then repeat on the next window. After double-checking the doors, Esther dragged the lawnmower from the cubby next to the back door. At some point they’d need to get a shed to put all of their outdoor things in but it was simply another item on the list of things to sort out.

The mower was a battered electric one that had been left in her parent’s garage ever since they’d hired a regular gardener almost ten years ago. As part of the move, Esther had repatriated a certain number of odds and ends her mother and father never used but would at least save her and Charlie a bit of money.

She locked the back door but then realised she had to attach the mower to an extension cord. Esther felt uncomfortable leaving any part of the house unsecure but had little option other than open the kitchen window a sliver, run the cable through, and then lock the handle in place.

Esther waited on the edge of the lawn, fixated on the tiny crack between the window and the frame. She knew nothing except for perhaps the smallest of insects could fit through, plus she was going to be in the garden anyway. It still bothered her though.

‘Silly, silly, silly.’

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The lawnmower buzzed to life with a low growl and Esther set about taming the forest that was their back garden. She had to stop every couple of minutes to empty the grass and each time she turned towards the house, she couldn’t stop herself from being drawn to the slightly open window. She began having outlandish thoughts about how someone with an old coat-hanger could sneak around the side of the house and hook it open, leaping into the house while her back was turned and she was unable to hear anything because of the noise from the mower. That meant she had to peer around the side of the house each time she turned too. Then she had to check through the glass after each length of the lawn to ensure no-one was waiting in the kitchen for her.

By the time she’d mowed a third of the garden, Esther had a full routine: push the mower half the length of the garden, stop, peer around the side of the house to make sure there was no-one there, look through the kitchen window for anything untoward, run her finger the length of the open slit to ensure it couldn’t open any further, empty the grass into the bin. Repeat.

Because of the interruptions, it took Esther an hour-and-a-half to do something she should have been able to manage in thirty or forty minutes.

With the grass finally cut and the bin full, she stopped to get her breath, sitting on the lawn and running wisps of loose grass through her fingers. The area had been transformed, with the garden so much bigger than it appeared when they’d first moved in. She tried to relax but knew she couldn’t while the window was open. In a flurry of movement, she unlocked the back door, dashed inside, pulled the extension cord through and then locked everything again before returning to the garden.

Much better.

She lay back and closed her eyes. It was another glorious morning: warm and sunny but with a delicate, cooling breeze.

Just as Esther was beginning to feel relaxed, she heard a crack from the hedge behind her, jumping into a sitting position and spinning all in one go. Patch was edging underneath the bush but stopped at her sudden movement, ears pointed and high as if asking for permission.

Esther stretched her hand out. ‘Come on, fella, it’s a bit different around here today.’

Patch slinked closer, looking almost as spooked as she felt. Esther wondered how long he’d been creeping through the reeds of their garden: now it was flat. He allowed her to stroke his back, peering at her expectantly, planting the thought in her mind. Esther told him to wait as she disappeared towards the house – unlock, get food and water, relock, check the handle. Patch was sitting patiently in the centre of the lawn as Esther returned. He gobbled down the tin of food and lapped at the water, before rolling onto his side, eyes lolling lazily. Esther lay next to him, fingering the area on his neck where the skin had been burned away.

Finally, she felt calm. The lack of sleep and constant edginess had left her body flooded with exhaustion, broken only by a desire to get things done. The quicker everything was finished, the faster they would be able to get on with their lives.

‘Morning…’

The cheery female voice made Esther sit up abruptly. The fence separating their house from Liz’s was tall across the back garden but only waist-high along the side area by their back door.

Liz was resting on the lower fence with a mug of tea. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to say how nice it looks back there now.’

Esther stood, brushing the loose grass from her clothes and peering around for Patch, who had bolted towards the hedge.

Liz half-turned. ‘Sorry, love. If you’re busy, I’ll leave you to it.’

‘No, it’s okay. It’s nice to talk to someone.’

Esther moved around to the side of the house, feeling for the door key in her pocket, reassured that it was still there.

Liz nodded towards the front of the house. ‘Did you sort the thing with your car?’

‘Yes, no worries.’

‘And you’ve not had any other problems?’

Esther thought about letting on about everything but the other woman already had her own ideas about Dougie and everything was so circumstantial. Even if any of it was provable, Liz had young children and there was little point in potentially scaring her.

‘Odds and ends – nothing serious. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything at night?’

Liz shook her head. ‘Sorry – Steve’s snoring is ridiculous.’ She nodded towards the lawn. ‘That’s been overgrown for months – you’ve done a great job.’

‘My dad had an allotment when I was younger and I always wanted somewhere I could grow odds and ends. I’m hoping to get some vegetables in over the next week or so.’

Mark emerged from the side door of Liz’s house. At first he had a playful grin on his face but when he spotted Esther, he became shy, approaching his mother and hugging himself into her leg. ‘Muuuuuummmmmm…Can me and Gary play football outside?’

‘You know you can’t – your father’s got his tat all over the garden.’

‘I could play out front…?’

‘You know what I’ve told you about that: the cars drive too quickly outside of here.’