Where the Missing Go(37)

‘There was a dark figure, not really moving … no, I couldn’t describe him … no, I didn’t see what he looked like … I didn’t see where he went.’

They dutifully note it down, however scant the detail.

They have torches, and make a thorough show of looking all around the house and gardens, checking for unusual footprints in the flower beds.

‘Does that look strange to you?’ they keep asking me.

‘I can’t really tell,’ I say, examining yet another flattened patch of soil, trying to make out the tread of a shoe.

They’ve parked their patrol car in the drive. ‘There used to be a gate.’ I feel the need to acknowledge this. ‘But we didn’t bother to get one … it’s so safe round here.’

More nods, and we make another loop round the house, the warm wind still whipping round corners. I tuck my hair into the collar of my jacket and try not to shiver. It’s not the cold.

I’ve a sneaking feeling that I’m disappointing them, unable to proffer anything concrete.

Because we find nothing. There is nobody lurking in the undergrowth, no sinister rustles of foliage, no dark figure bursting out at us as their torches light up the pink flowers of the rhododendrons.

I feel faintly ridiculous as I make them tea back inside, their uniforms incongruous against my painted French grey chairs. They give me a leaflet about home security and tell me to lock my downstairs windows, even in this heat, people are opportunistic. I know all this, I have always been careful, but I nod.

Then a thought occurs to me: ‘My neighbour Lily, she’s on her own. I don’t think you should wake her up, but do you think you could check on her house, after? It’s just up the other fork of the drive, the little cottage.’

‘We can have a look around,’ says the older one. Under the spotlights, his scalp gleams pink through his sandy hair. ‘Ten to one, if it was anything, it was some chancer passing through, checking if anyone’s home. It’s that time of year, with people still on holiday. These big houses round here …’

‘There was a break-in not too far down the road about a month ago,’ says the one with a beard cheerily. I’ve forgotten their names almost immediately. ‘The owners were away, hadn’t cancelled their milk order, too, a dead giveaway. Might as well invite them in!’

He catches a slight warning look from his colleague. ‘And of course, it may have been nothing at all. It’d be easy in the dark to mistake …’ he looks at me, too polite to say outright that I probably imagined it. ‘I wouldn’t want my mum to be living in a big house like this all alone,’ he finishes.

I manage not to laugh. How old does he think I am? Then again, if he’s in his mid-twenties, as he looks, perhaps it’s not so preposterous after all.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say, wanting to be reassured. ‘I didn’t get a clear look. Perhaps it was just the wind in the shadows, a trick of the light.’

‘It’d be easy to mistake,’ says the younger one, with a sympathetic smile.

But even as they start moving to go, the scene flashes in my mind again, and stays there, a picture I can’t banish, as I wave them goodbye, and shut and lock the front door: that tall, still shape in the garden, tipped by a pale oval, against the dark.

A thought occurs to me now. When I switched the lamp off the shape moved, back into the bushes.

But until that moment, as I’d stared out of the window, the light framing me in my house as I looked out? Someone was looking right back at me.





18


It’s funny how different things can seem in the daytime. Morning has worked its usual magic, and I feel much better: even if there was someone there, and I wasn’t mistaken, the police officers were surely right. It would just have been opportunistic, someone trying to find out if any of these houses have been left empty for the summer. Well, now they’ll know mine isn’t.

I checked all the locks before I went to bed, twice. It’s a solid house, locks on the windows and double glazing, and bolts on the back door. And it still feels so safe up here, compared to London.

But I know this house could be a target, here on the fringes of the village, off a drive that could hide a car from the road. So I’m going to get an alarm sorted, soon, on top of all the locks. It’ll be absolutely fine.

Still, it was a long night. I didn’t fall asleep until the sky started to lighten through my window and I read, instead, resolutely not allowing my imagination to wander. I didn’t want to take a pill. Just in case I didn’t hear something.

This morning I woke up late, groggy and off balance, then I remembered what had happened. Then my next thought came: Lily. Now I find myself hurrying to get ready.

I want to check on her myself. I’m sure she’ll be fine, but I don’t bother showering, just pull on my running kit, and take the shortcut through the bushes between the plots again, quick as I can.

There’s an anxious minute after I knock and then let myself into Lily’s house, stepping slowly through the hall.

‘Lily? It’s me. Are you there?’

It’s quiet. Perhaps she can’t hear me? I can feel my heartbeat quickening.

But she’s in her sitting room as usual, in her comfortable chair, and my shoulders relax.

‘Oh hello, dear,’ she says, turning towards me with a smile. ‘This is a bit early for you, isn’t it?’ I normally come in the afternoons.