– an old PlayStation, the DVD player, an assortment of DVDs, the stereo, CDs. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that I had made the last minute decision to take my laptop to London with me and routinely kept all my bankcards on my person.
‘They didn’t get downstairs,’ Wheatley was saying. ‘Your front door wasn’t breached but the balcony window was open. We think that’s the point of entry.’
I looked at it. ‘I usually lock it before I go out.’
‘Sadly, there’s all kinds of contraptions you can purchase these days if you want to break in. Where there’s a will …’
I surveyed the mess. ‘What shall I do?’
The policeman put his notebook away and coughed. ‘Clear up. Report it to your insurance company. You’ll get a crime reference number.’
‘Yes, but will I be safe?’
‘I doubt they’ll be back. Kids like this tend to be opportunistic. They’ve got nothing else to grab here, have they? Is there anything else missing?’
I looked around once more. ‘I don’t think so.’
The constable went in to join his partner in the kitchen and shortly after that the fingerprinters arrived.
It wasn’t till later that night, as I was cleaning up the lounge, I realised that my file on the witch hunts was gone.
Just after eleven that night the doorbell rang. The tall outline of a uniformed body was visible through the dappled glass of the main front door. When I drew back the bolts and opened it I was both shocked and relieved to see Joe standing there on the doorstep. For a moment neither of us spoke, his brown eyes looked as shy as a deer’s. Then he said, ‘I thought you might want some company.’
It wasn’t like I fell into his arms and swooned or anything like that. Almost the opposite really. Though we talk about it now with some sense of humour, at the time it felt the most subdued but also the most natural thing in the world, though intense and slightly painful too. See, I did need some company and, in my heart of hearts, I think I had always wanted that companion to be Joe – I had just been clouded with so many other things I couldn’t see it. But it’s not what you’re thinking either. There was no great passionate revelation or an untumbling of our feelings, followed by mind-blowing sex. All that happened was that I took his hand and led him upstairs and then we went to bed. He in his t-shirt and boxers, and me in my pj’s. And neither sets of clothes got ripped off or anything like that. He just lay next to me and I rested my head on his chest. We were both knackered and I was still in shock, I think. And Joe understood that. And thus was I able to sleep, knowing that he was there, next to me, taking comfort from his physical presence and strength.
In the morning we had an early breakfast and then he got off to work. And though we didn’t mention anything, I think we both had an understanding that something was starting over again.
When he kissed me goodbye he said, ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.’
‘I won’t,’ I told him and smiled.
He ran a finger over my cheek and ruffled the side of my hair. ‘I’m off tomorrow for two days training at Hendon. Would you mind not buggering off with someone else this time please?’
It made me laugh and that in turn lightened the mood so I said, ‘If there’s any buggering off to do I’ll be sure to take you with me.’
How funny that I said that then.
Like I knew.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mum’s house had a stagnant atmosphere to it; as if sentient to the fact its owner had died and had therefore given up on its own life.
It was unhappy.
I’d been back to pick up post and sort a few things out a while ago. I thought this had only been a week or so ago but the stack of mail wedged up against the door indicated it must have been longer.
The burglary had heightened my sense of anxiety so I made sure, as I was checking her place, that I double locked the front door once I was inside. Of course, I’d tried to swallow Wheatley’s suggestion the burglary was of a random nature. But if it was kids, why would they take my research? After the lovely Joe had departed I spent hours in the morning