Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (3 page)

At the realisation that he’d put his phone down, Esther remembered that she had hers. She plucked it from the passenger’s seat, wondering who to call. Charlie was at work and couldn’t do much from there, so should she call the police? Or perhaps even the hardware store? They might have a security guard who could help. Without dialling a number, Esther held the phone to her ear, hoping it would be enough by itself to make the other driver leave her alone.

Doof-doof-doof.

This time it was Esther’s heart, not the car’s stereo, as if something was trying to erupt from her chest.

‘Please,’ she whispered into the phone. ‘Please leave me alone.’

As the car accelerated around her for the fourth time, the driver either lost interest or noticed that she was on the phone. He skidded to a halt in front, the bonnet of his car throbbing with power.

‘Please…’

She could feel him glaring at her, searching for eye contact. Again, she couldn’t resist, peering up until he had her attention. Slowly, deliberately, the man slid his thumb across his throat, his gaze not wavering from hers.

Then, with a choke of exhaust and a thunder of the engine, he was gone, racing towards the exit as Esther dropped her phone and hugged herself as tightly as she could.

THREE: CHARLIE

Charlie gazed across the spread on the table in front of him, unable to prevent the grin from creeping across his face.

‘Wow, I didn’t expect this. I thought we’d be eating out of tins for weeks.’

Esther was looking… well… terrific. Charlie had expected her to be a frustrated ball of energy, looking to let off steam after a day of cabin fever. Instead, he’d arrived home to find the house full of delicious smells and, not only that, it looked as if she had worked most of the day too. The spare bedroom had been completely stripped of wallpaper, plus she had filled the gaps and sanded everything down ready to be re-papered. Charlie really wasn’t sure where her practical skills came from. He’d lived with her parents for two years, so knew it didn’t come from them. When it came to doing up a house, he was unlikely to be much help either. At best he could paint a wall but he wouldn’t entirely trust himself to do that well.

Her ability to simply get on with stuff was one of the things that attracted him to her all those years ago – and DIY around the new house was one more thing she had been willing to throw herself into.

Of course, another reason he’d fallen for her was apparent when he’d arrived home. Instead of the dirty jeans and paper-caked hair he’d expected, she’d gone through the boxes and fished out the short black cocktail dress that she’d bought to take on their honeymoon four years ago. She claimed it had been the first thing she’d found when she opened her clothes boxes but he knew that wasn’t true. He’d helped pack them and knew full well it was close to the bottom of one. She’d let her long blonde hair down and was padding around the kitchen barefooted, showing off her shapely legs and being the exact opposite of what their lives had forced them both to be for the past few years.

And yet there was something not quite right.

Charlie couldn’t figure out what it was but Esther seemed unable to look him in the eye, peering over his shoulders when she talked to him and hastily changing the subject whenever he asked her what the day had been like. All she’d say was ‘fine’, before asking him what his first full day was like.

She’d cooked spaghetti with homemade meatballs and garlic bread, then laid their brand-new dining table in the living room. Esther had also hunted through the boxes to find the wine glasses they’d been given for their wedding that had spent the following few years packed away in her parents’ garage, and nipped out to get a bottle of white wine. It was as sophisticated as they’d been in as long as Charlie could remember. Considering the living room and their bedroom were the only ones completed, with the doors closed and the candles flickering as the summer evening’s sun beamed through the blinds, it was just about perfection.

Except that Esther still wouldn’t look him in the eye.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Charlie asked.

Esther smiled with her mouth but not her eyes. She seemed tired, perhaps unsurprisingly given everything she had managed to do during the day. ‘I’m fine. I did pop out for a while earlier and found an off-licence next to a sandwich shop a few streets away. They’ve got a whole wall of wine and the selection’s not too bad.’ She paused to have a mouthful of the spaghetti. ‘Tell me more about your day. How was the hotel?’

‘I already have once.’

‘Tell me again – I was cooking earlier and couldn’t concentrate properly.’

Charlie knew that Esther hardly missed a thing, whether cooking or not, but it wasn’t worth pushing so he went over his day again.

‘It was good. I’d met a couple of the staff when I was up here before for the interview and the induction but it was nice to get the proper tour. I can see why they advertised externally for a manager, though. There’s a complaints file which no-one has dealt with, they’re being sued because of a wedding that went wrong, the staff turnover rate is ridiculous and the council’s food inspectors were in a month ago. The kitchen was one mark away from being shut down, so there’s loads to do.’

Esther was playing with her food in the way she sometimes did, twisting items around her fork, holding it close to her mouth and then putting it back on the plate again. On the worst days in their old flat, when nothing worked and the neighbours were being noisy, she would do this all the time. Charlie would have to ask if she’d eaten and she would get annoyed – but he didn’t know what else to do. Her mother had once whispered to Charlie that Esther had had an eating disorder when she was a teenager, making him promise not to let on that he knew. As it was, with them growing closer, Esther had told him anyway. She said that it was a teenage fad and that she was over it but every time he saw her moving food from one side of the plate to the other, poking and prodding, talking and distracting, but crucially not eating, he wondered.

She hadn’t done this for a while.

Charlie could tell she wasn’t listening to him, not that he particularly minded. He’d spent the entire day realising what a huge task he had on his hands at the hotel and the last thing he wanted to do was talk about that at home.

Esther made an ‘uh-huh’ sound, pretending to listen, as she sipped her wine. Charlie hoped the reason she wasn’t eating was simply because she’d had a long day. He really had been stunned by how much she’d done. If he’d been left by himself, he’d have been happy with stripping one wall and not pasting himself to the floor.

‘The spare bedroom looks good,’ Charlie said, trying to change the subject back.

Esther continued to gaze aimlessly at her plate, mashing one of the meatballs up. ‘I’m going to start putting some new paper up tomorrow. My book says it’s best with two people but I’ll figure it out.’ She yawned, which cracked into an eye-watering smile. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay – you’ve done loads today. You really don’t have to do it all by yourself. There’s still so much to do: the nursery room, the third bedroom, the hall, the stairs. Then there’s the garden too.’

Mash, mash, mash.

Esther held a forkful of squashed meatball close to her mouth. ‘It’s fine – it’ll all get done. You know we don’t have the money to get anyone in and it’s not as if you can take any extra time off.’ She rested the cutlery on the edge of her plate, staring at it, not him. ‘I’m quite looking forward to doing the nursery. It’d be nice to get into the garden this week too. Hopefully the weather will hold.’

Charlie continued eating. His excitement at seeing his wife when he arrived home had lessened slightly – there was clearly something wrong. Esther had always been someone who bottled things up but would usually come around at some point. Perhaps it was because they were finally here. It was great to get away from her parents’ house but they’d left behind their friends in the process. He had workmates to interact with but she was home by herself with no-one to talk to.

Esther was playing with her food again but jumped as the home phone started to ring, splattering a trail of tomato sauce across the brand-new cream tablecloth. Charlie thought it was funny but his wife scowled at the mark and then at him.

‘Sodding thing,’ she muttered.

‘It’ll come out.’ The phone rang for a second time and Charlie stood. ‘Do you want to get it? It’ll probably be your mum.’

Esther shook her head. ‘I’ve not given her the number yet.’

Charlie strode across the room, hand hovering close to the cordless phone as it rang for a third time. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to do the honours? First call in the new house…’

Another head shake.

Charlie picked it up. ‘Hell-oh.’ There was a slight click and then silence. ‘Uh… hello?’ He twisted to face Esther and shrugged. ‘Anyone there?’

When no-one answered, he hung up and dialled 1471, listening as the polite recorded female voice told him that ‘the caller withheld their number’.

Charlie stared at the handset for a moment and then put it back down, before turning back to Esther. ‘There’s no-one there. Probably one of those bloody call centres. The number must’ve belonged to someone else before us.’

Esther seemed curiously uninterested, staring at her plate and swishing the spaghetti around. Charlie returned to the table and had a mouthful of food at the exact same time as the phone started to ring again. This time Esther dropped her fork, wincing and turning away from the corner where the phone was.

Charlie stood again. ‘Are you okay?’

Esther didn’t reply before he got to the other side of the room and picked the phone up again. ‘Hello?’

Silence.

‘Hello? Is there anyone there? Hello?’

Still no answer but no dial tone either. Someone was definitely there, they just weren’t answering. Charlie went quiet, listening in case there was any clue as to who it could be.

Esther’s subdued voice echoed around the room. ‘Just hang up, Charlie.’

There was such anguish in her voice that he obeyed without thinking, plopping the phone onto the cradle and turning to face her. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

Esther shunted her chair back and pulled her dress up. ‘I think I’m going to have a lie down.’

‘Oh… okay.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. It’s all right. I’ll sort all the dishes out and then join you if you want.’

She smiled weakly. ‘That’d be nice.’

As Esther crept upstairs, Charlie cleared the table. He’d finished eating but her plate was almost full, the pasta and meat all mulched into one another. Charlie piled everything next to the sink and then hunted around the kitchen for the key to the back door. Although that’s what they had taken to calling it, the door from their kitchen was actually on the side of the house. It opened onto a path that linked their driveway to the back garden, with a waist-high wooden fence separating the two areas. It was one of the things Charlie had joked about when they’d first viewed the place: if you were going to have a fence, why bother with something you could step over?

Charlie eventually found the key in the cutlery drawer and unlocked the back door. He headed outside with Esther’s plate, only to be met by mounds of rubbish piled against the fence. Their tall blue wheelie bin was on its side, with thick folds of crusty wallpaper dumped in a pile next to it. Scattered across the concrete by its side were a few sheets of paper, some empty food cans, and various other odds and ends.

After staring at the items for a few moments, Charlie ducked back into the house and called for Esther. She appeared a minute later, still barefoot and wearing the black dress. Charlie had started to bundle the wallpaper back into the bin. When he peered up towards her, Esther’s face was pale, mouth open slightly.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know – that’s what I was going to ask you.’

Esther shook her head slowly. ‘I have no idea. I brought the tomato tins out when I was cooking around an hour and a half ago and everything was fine.’

Charlie picked the bin up and stood before noticing the papers at his feet. They were from the phone company, with details of the installation.

‘I didn’t think we’d need them,’ Esther said, answering the question he hadn’t asked.

There was no breeze, so Charlie was lost. ‘Could it be a fox?’

‘It’s still light – I think they only come out after dark.’

Charlie passed Esther the phone paperwork and opened the gate, walking through to the front. Both of their cars were parked on the drive and there didn’t appear to be anything untoward. He reached the edge of the property and peered both ways along the road. Aside from a few kids kicking a football around at the far end, there was nobody else around.

Back at the side door, Esther was flicking through the pages. When she saw Charlie approaching, she folded them over and cupped them under her arm.

‘All right?’ Charlie asked.

‘Yep.

‘We should probably get a bigger gate. This one’s ridiculous. It was probably just kids or something – either that or a cat, though it’d have to be the size of a tiger to have knocked the bin over.’

Esther was biting her bottom lip but smiled softly. ‘You do hear about big cats roaming the countryside. Perhaps one of them wanted to drop into the suburbs to come and say hello to the new people?’ Charlie reached towards her but she stepped away. ‘Wash your hands first, bin boy.’

He returned her smile as they went inside. As Charlie cleaned himself up, Esther relocked the door, before rattling the handle up and down half a dozen times.

‘Happy?’ Charlie asked, drying his hands on a tea towel.

‘Tired.’

He looked his wife up and down, enjoying the way the dress clung to her hips. ‘Would you like to practise making that baby we were talking about?’

Esther gazed over his shoulder towards the back garden, before stepping towards the hallway. ‘I think I just want to get some sleep.’

FOUR: CHARLIE

Charlie had never been good at sleeping in new beds. When he’d driven up for the induction day at the hotel, they’d put him up for the night but he couldn’t get comfortable and had spent most of the early hours twisting the covers into knots. When they’d first moved into Esther’s parents’ house, he’d heard every floorboard creak, every groan from the plumbing system, every car going past late at night. It had taken weeks before he’d become used to the king-size bed and finally managed to get a good night’s sleep. After that, he could sleep well there but anytime they ended up anywhere else, he would lie awake, counting the hours until he actually had to get up.