front door. It looked back at me, solid, silent, reassuring. The front room was bright, orange lights from the streetlights below illuminating the ceiling. I crouched down and sat on one of the low windowsills, looking down into the street.
It was utterly quiet, no movement, no cars. Not even a cat. The only sound was the distant drone of a plane, lights like stars flashing in the dark orange sky.
I was just thinking about going back to bed when I heard it again. A bang. A thump, dull, like something soft falling a long way.
It was in the house somewhere, downstairs. Somewhere below.
I thought about waking Stuart. My anxiety levels were high, somewhere around a seventy or eighty. My fingers were shaking and my knees were unsteady as I stood up. I waited for more. Nothing.
Fuck it, I couldn’t be doing this for the rest of my life. I was going to check.
I padded in my bare feet to the door and, after a moment’s hesitation, opened it. The stairway was dark, chilly, with a draft coming up from the floors below. I waited for my heart to stop thudding quite so hard. There’s nothing to worry about, I told myself. It’s just our house. It’s just Stuart and me, there’s nobody there. Go and have a look.
I went downstairs, leaving Stuart’s door open. There was light from the front door, below, and dull light from the window on the landing. Otherwise it was dark.
When I was outside the door to my flat I stopped and waited, listened. Nothing at all.
This was ridiculous.
I went downstairs, one step at a time, keeping to the edge so it didn’t creak. The draft was worse now, almost a breeze. It lifted the hair on the back of my neck. Dank air, stale air—the scent of cold soil. The smell of graveyard earth.
I could see the front door now, firmly shut. No sign that it had been opened.
Then, suddenly—BANG—close by.
Not loud, but certainly loud enough to make me jump. I crouched down so I could see through the banister to the door to Mrs. Mackenzie’s flat.
The door was open again. Wide open.
Frozen to the spot, I looked into the inky blanket of blackness inside the flat. The noise I’d heard was like a cabinet door shutting. Echoing in the empty flat. Someone was inside.
Breathing as deeply and slowly as I could, I tried to concentrate, to think. This was crazy. There couldn’t be anyone in there. If they were, they were fumbling around in the dark. Why didn’t they just put a light on? I hugged my knees and waited for the panic to ease off. Of course it would have been easier and quicker to go back upstairs, to shout for Stuart, to go and start checking my own flat to make sure it was safe. But I’d come all the way down the stairs on my own and I wasn’t going to give up now.
“Cathy?”
The voice behind me, right behind me, made me scream and jump. I screamed louder and harder than I’d thought possible.
“Hey, it’s me, it’s okay—what on earth—? Cathy, sorry, I didn’t mean to creep up on you.”
I was shaking from head to foot, pressing myself against the far wall. I pointed at the open door, the yawning, gaping blackness. “I heard—I heard . . .”
“It’s okay. Come on, take some breaths.”
In addition to the panic I was furious.
“What the fuck . . . ?” I said, when I could speak. “Why the hell didn’t you just say something? You just about gave me a fucking heart attack.”
He shrugged. “I thought you might be sleepwalking.”
“I’ve never fucking sleepwalked in my entire life.”
“Well, what are you doing, then?”
I looked at the doorway. If there was someone inside, we’d probably given whoever it was a fright. My scream alone must have woken up half the street.
“I heard noises. I came to have a look. And—see—the door’s open. I locked it. I locked it and I checked it. And now it’s open.”
He made a tutting noise, an “oh, no, here we go again” noise, and moved me out of the way. He went to the ground floor and turned the light on. We both blinked and shielded our eyes from the sudden brightness. The doorway still stood, black and empty. I could see a few feet of crazily patterned carpet.
Stuart looked at me with a world-weary expression and stood in the doorway.