Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (12 page)

‘Oh… I think Esther washed everything down when she was cleaning. We couldn’t see anything around and didn’t realise you might be able to find anything. To be honest, we weren’t going to call you – it’s just because so much has built up.’

There was the sound of one or both of the men standing up and then the officer lowered his voice. As he spoke, Esther realised that neither of them knew she was within earshot. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘What?’

‘Have you actually met this Dougie person?’

There was a pause before Charlie replied. ‘I went to his house but there was only a woman in.’

‘Right – and how do you know that’s the same person who flashed his car lights at your wife?’

Another silence. ‘She described the car. It matches one that’s over the back – plus she saw his picture in the paper. He runs these kids’ groups.’

There was a pause. A long pause. Too long. ‘But you’ve never seen him…?’

Esther quickly dashed to the back door, pressing herself against it, out of sight from the front door. She didn’t hear Charlie’s reply but the implication was obvious: she was imagining things at worst, exaggerating at best. As far as she knew, Charlie
had
never seen Dougie. He did believe her though, didn’t he? She wasn’t making it up – Liam from the carpet company had got into an argument with him.

The officer continued. ‘I’m sorry but there’s not an awful lot we can do. It’s the summer carnival at the park today and it’s all hands on deck, so I have to rush off. Your best bet is to write down everything that’s happened with days, dates and times – and then add anything else that occurs. If anything can be corroborated by witnesses, or if you do have a new camera put in, then that might give us something to work with.’

Charlie muttered something amounting to a thank you and then opened the front door. After it closed, there was silence for a few moments before he strode into the kitchen. When he spotted Esther next to the back door, Charlie jumped, making a rather ungainly shriek.

‘I didn’t make him up,’ she whispered.

‘No-one’s saying you did.’

‘He was.’

‘Okay – well
I
don’t think you’re making it up.’

Esther wasn’t sure if she believed him. ‘Why did you call the police? If Dougie’s brother is a chief inspector, it’s only going to make things worse.’

Charlie chewed on his bottom lip. ‘They’re still the police – they have paperwork and accountability. What do you think’s going to happen?’

‘I don’t know, I just… ’

Esther was feeling cold but sweating anyway. Charlie pressed past her towards the washing machine. ‘I put my work shirts on last night, I’ll put them out on the line and then we can go and do something. The officer said there’s a carnival on at the park today – maybe we can see what that’s like?’

He crouched and took his whites from the washing machine, before turning back to Esther. ‘Are you going to let me outside?’

Esther pressed back further against the back door. ‘I found a clothes horse upstairs when I was bringing all of the boxes in from the van last week. It must have belonged to the people who lived here before. We can hang things over that.’

‘What’s wrong with outside?’

‘The line broke.’

Charlie stared at her for a few seconds, chewing on the skin inside his mouth. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes – stop asking.’

He breathed in through his nose, clearly wanting to follow it up but changed his mind and headed upstairs without another word.

‘The line broke’ – what a ridiculous lie. Each time she said something stupid or obviously untrue, it only gave Charlie another reason to believe the police officer that she was totally bonkers.

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

Esther went along with Charlie’s suggestion of going to the carnival. She didn’t have a better idea and, in one way, she hoped they’d see Dougie or his car, so Charlie would at least know her tormentor was real. Before they left, she re-checked all the windows upstairs and then the downstairs ones quickly enough that she was pretty sure Charlie didn’t notice what she was up to.

As it was, the word ‘naff’ may as well have been invented for the event in the park. There was a face-painting stall, someone was doing donkey rides, a ropey death-trap of a Ferris wheel spinning perilously close to the main road and various sweet-smelling foodstuffs on offer. Considering the meagre pickings on offer, the park was packed with people of all ages. Esther stayed close to Charlie, hooking her hand through his arm and eyeing everyone carefully in case they happened to be Dougie. She kept running the police officer’s words in her head – Charlie had guessed the house based upon the car parked on the drive. Perhaps he had been wrong? It didn’t mean Dougie didn’t exist, it just meant they could have been at cross-purposes for the week.

There was only one way to find out.

On their walk home, Esther gripped Charlie’s hand tightly, leading them away from their road onto the one which ran parallel. She found her pace quickening as her heart rate increased until they rounded a corner to see the blue car parked underneath an overhanging tree, half on the pavement.

As soon as she saw it, Esther stopped, stepping backwards away from the main road into an alley. Charlie followed her, brushing hair away from her face. ‘Is that the car?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

‘Do you want to go and knock?’

She peered up him, wondering if he was serious. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘I don’t know… Perhaps he’d just had a bad day when you met him the first time, or…?’

‘Let’s go home.’

Esther didn’t know where she was going but followed the alley until she was pretty certain they were at the back of Dougie’s house. She hurried past, tugging at Charlie’s hand, eager to get home, annoyed at him for even hinting at questioning her.

When they were past, she could feel him gripping her hard, trying to slow her down. Esther dropped to match Charlie’s pace as he put an arm across her shoulders. He sounded nervous. ‘Perhaps you should get into doing a few normal things? It can’t be good for you to be holed up in the house all day long.’

Esther didn’t reply instantly. The patronising bastard: poor old Esther needs some friends, so let’s think of something she can do.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, trying to hide her annoyance.

‘I don’t know – go to the gym, do a course maybe?’

She wanted to be angry but had a grudging suspicion that he was right. If they were going to try for children, it couldn’t do any harm to know a few people who might be able to offer support if and when she needed it. It would be nice to find someone her own age too. At least when they’d lived at her parents’ house, it had been in the area she’d grown up. There were people she knew around every corner.

‘Liz said there’s a swimming pool nearby – maybe I’ll try to find that on Monday.’

‘Sounds good.’

Charlie pulled her towards him a little tighter, guiding her through the passages until they emerged onto their road. When they were within a few metres of the house, Esther saw the present they’d been left. Sitting in the centre of their driveway directly in front of her car was a mound of dog waste.

Welcome home.

FOURTEEN: ESTHER

The sleeping pills were really doing their thing. Esther worked out that she fell asleep within twenty minutes of taking one and didn’t stir for seven hours. After that, she could doze for one or two more, aware of where she was but still relaxed. She began with fourteen pills but after taking one each on Friday and Saturday night, she thought she would try cutting them in half. She’d not even registered with a new doctor yet, so getting a new prescription was going to be impossible, even if she could fake the right symptoms.

Despite only taking a half, she slept just as well on Sunday night, only waking properly when Charlie’s alarm sounded. After he had showered and changed, Esther made sure she ate half a slice of toast in front of him, taking small nibbles to ensure it took longer to eat. When he kissed her goodbye and left, she tore the rest into tiny crumbs and buried it at the bottom of the bin. If she wasn’t hungry, then she wasn’t hungry – what was his problem?

After a lazy Saturday and a Sunday that involved finishing the spare bedroom/nursery, including laying a square patch of carpet themselves, she was looking forward to getting into the garden again. It looked so much better now that the lawn was trimmed but what she really wanted to do was start planting. She was even going to treat herself with a trip to the garden centre to browse through the rows of seeds and find something new. One of her friends from back home had grown chillies, which sounded exotic, even though they weren’t.

First, she had things to do.

Esther forked half a tin of cat food onto a plate and left it on the lawn in case Patch came by. She’d not seen him in a few days but then she’d not been in the garden much.

After that, she returned inside and began her routine. To make things extra secure, she was now rattling the handle up and down, then left and right four times, rather than three. There was always a thought in the back of her mind that three wasn’t enough – what if the handle snapped up on the fourth attempt? She couldn’t risk that happening.

It was nice that Charlie had left the house because she had to rush when he was around and that was when she messed things up. It was a very simple routine when she had time to do it properly and the dark thoughts in the back of her mind that she’d forgotten something could be banished for hours at a time.

She always had to start in the smallest bedroom at the front of the house, then the bathroom and empty nursery at the back. After that it was their bedroom and then downstairs to the kitchen for the window and door. She finished with the front and rear windows in the living room and then, finally, the front door. If Charlie wasn’t around and she didn’t make a mistake, she could do the entire thing in around fifteen minutes, which wasn’t too bad. There were twenty-four hours in a day, so fifteen minutes in the morning was okay. If she waited until Charlie had gone to bed in the evening, she was able to do everything in fifteen minutes then too – so half-an-hour in total, plus perhaps a few quick checks in the meantime. Definitely no longer than forty-five minutes each day though.

Esther was onto the front door – up-down, up-down, up-down – when the phone started ringing. She glanced from the handle through the open door into the living room. There was no way she could complete her checks before the phone rang off. It took another full ring before she made her decision, breaking away from the door and grabbing the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘Good morning, can I speak to Mrs Itch please?’

‘Mrs who?’

‘A Mrs Bryony Itch.’

‘Where are you calling from?’

‘I’m from the Summer Glaze window company and—’

‘—I’m not interested in new windows, sorry.’

Esther hung up, staring at the caller ID window on the phone. It was a local number – so not somebody messing around. Presumably their number was previously owned by someone named Mrs Itch.

As she put the phone back on its cradle, Esther felt the urge to start her checks from upstairs again. She’d not managed to get through the entire set without being interrupted, which was surely a sign that she had done something wrong along the way.

Back into the smallest bedroom…

By the time Esther had completed everything, it was after ten o’clock in the morning. She knew she would go swimming, so hunted through the remaining clothes boxes until she found a one-piece from a few years back. She’d not been out in her car in days and had no intention of driving around exploring this time. Charlie’s vehicle had a sat-nav built in, so they’d left their old one with her parents, thinking they’d use it more often. Esther wished they’d kept it as she checked directions on the Internet, memorising exactly where she was going and running through them monotonously until she was certain she wouldn’t go wrong.

Esther locked the front door behind her, resisting the urge to return inside and check the windows again. She tried the handle, peering over her shoulder to make sure there was no-one watching, and then went to her car. She locked the doors and closed the air vents and then set off.

She spent the entire journey carefully eyeing her mirrors in case there was a flash of blue behind her, as well as repeating the directions over and over out loud.

When she arrived at the leisure centre without going the wrong way, and with no sign of Dougie or his car, Esther was giddy with excitement. She plucked her gym bag from the passenger seat and hurried inside, not even glancing over her shoulder.

The pool was a typical council-run establishment: a little worn around the edges but well priced and open to everyone. Esther had only done a few laps when her shoulders started to hurt. She’d not swum regularly since school and hadn’t been properly fit in years. Even so, the water was delightfully warm and she forced herself to keep going through the aches that eventually spread to her leg, back and hips.

After a dozen laps at a rapidly decreasing pace, Esther stopped in the shallow end, allowing her legs to float in front of her, enjoying the feeling of the gentle waves lapping across her.

As she relaxed, catching her breath, the sound of children laughing and shouting drifted across from a smaller pool. Esther clung to the rim of the main pool, twisting and peeping over to where there was some sort of relay race going on. Next to her, there was a ripple and then a woman emerged from under the water, gasping and brushing her hair back with her hands.

As the water drizzled from her face, she turned to Esther and grinned, speaking through short breaths. ‘Busy today, isn’t it?’

Esther hadn’t really noticed the other people around her – as long as she wasn’t being clattered by flailing elbows and feet, then she was fine. ‘It’s my first time here, actually.’

The other woman was around Esther’s age with long blonde hair and dark roots that seemed even duskier from the water. She tugged at the strap of her costume, still smiling. ‘Aah – so it’s you who’s clogging everything up.’