under a grubby ELF T-shirt. Jeans, trainers. Short dark curly hair, and three days growth that was not designer-stubble.
He cut across a number 13 Hammersmith bus at the lights, with less than a foot to spare. ‘I only do this to pay for this bugger,’ he said. ‘She’s worse than a wife. Eats me out of house and home . . .’
I reached into my wallet and tossed two tens on to the dashboard. They immediately fell off, on to the floor, among a heap of oily rags. But he nodded and gave a grunt of satisfaction. I felt he was a good bloke to have on my side.
‘Ever have bother with the police?’
He grinned, a far-away remembering grin. ‘No contest. They’re underpowered. Suspensions as soft as shit. Policemen can’t drive . . .’
Should tyres be making that screeching noise?
‘We’re in Wheatstone, squire,’ he said warningly, after a bit. My startled wits saw my own shop flashing past. I managed to stammer out, ‘Straight on past the Park gates. Then first left . . .’
It was a leap, from a world of physical terror, to one of mental terror. ‘Fourth on the right,’ I said. ‘Would you mind parking in the drive? With your headlights full on?’
He grunted, discouragingly. I said, ‘I’ll pay you for your waiting time.’
He grunted again, contentedly. We screeched to a stop, and he flicked on full beam.
He had quartz-halogens, of course. They made the whole crazy front, with its glass canopy like a helmet, seem to burn with orange fire. Behind the house, the outhouse where the suitcases lay was outlined like a solitary flame.
I got out stiffly, and hefted my stick. Left to himself, he flicked the courtesy light on, and settled to a book on car maintenance.
I walked up to the front door and tried it. What a relief to find it locked hard. I gave it a couple of kicks, to make sure; more out of spite, really. The echoes faded away inside. It sounded like the hall floor and staircase were bare boards.
Encouraged, I walked around and tried the back door. It was softly illuminated by the headlights reflecting off the outhouse. Locked hard. I kicked twice again; ran my torch over the windows, downstairs, upstairs. No broken glass.
No more doors. No broken windows. There were steps down to a cellar. No open windows there, either; though some kind of monstrous white growth of fungus was oozing out of the brickwork. I was very glad there was no point to venturing down those steps . . .
So, we’d beaten her to it. She’d still be finishing her last drink with Mike. She couldn’t possibly be inside . . . Could she? So why was I imagining her, tiptoeing up those dark stairs? Suppose the front door had swung shut behind her? She’d be trapped . . .
Irrationally, I turned to the front door, to try it again.
It swung open, under my hand, as I tried the handle . . .
All the confidence I’d built up over the last half-hour just collapsed. I only had enough left to push the front door open, shine the torch in, get a glimpse of a wide bare stair leading up into darkness, with a cardboard box, poised to fall, about halfway up. Then the door swung shut on me again. I swear there was malice in that door. It would always swing shut; it might lock behind you . . . somehow I knew it was a trap.
I gave it another shove, full of spiteful force, so it banged back against the wall. I yelled in, ‘Hermione? Hermione?’
The house diminished my voice to an echoing squeak. But I felt I had done something foolish; somehow, hearing those echoes, I became convinced she was in there. And somehow, part of myself was now in there with her.
I looked round for something to prop the door open with. But there was nothing handy . . .
Except that cardboard box, half-way up the stairs. If I pushed the door a third time, and made a run for it, I could be back with that box before the door swung shut . . . I was sure I could.
I took a deep breath . . .
And then I heard two brief toots on the car’s horn. I spun round, and saw there was someone in a long white raincoat talking to the driver.
Hermione had a white raincoat . . .
I ran back.
It was Hermione, furious with me. ‘What the