simply does not dare. Instead, he switches on the bedroom light, and then the one in the hall. He knows that to turn on the kitchen light will blind him and turn him into a target at the same time and so he stands in the doorway of the still-dark room, looking for the face at the window, hoping to see the troubled young man who is known as Shane because the alternative is unthinkable.
There is no one there. He hears a clang and a scuffle from several feet below the window and he reaches it in time to see what might – only might – be a dark shadow slipping over the yard wall. He goes back to bed, telling himself that the creaking he heard was nothing more than the wind, rattling the old iron ladder.
He lies awake for a long time, listening for wind. There isn’t any.
45
Felicity
Felicity stands in the street outside Joe’s front door wondering what the hell she is thinking. She cannot ring the bell at this hour. Even if it weren’t completely inappropriate and, let’s face it, a bit mental, it would effectively scupper her chances of convincing him that she is emotionally sound.
Oh, hi Joe, sorry to disturb you, but I’ve just learned that I have a habit of picking up young men in bars for casual sex, only to forget about the encounters entirely afterwards. I’m probably riddled with venereal disease and pregnant. Oh, and there’s the small matter of my husband. It won’t be a problem for you to sign me fit to leave the country by the end of the month, will it?
She turns to head home. Joe can’t help her. But before she has taken half a dozen steps, something small and metallic bounces along the road behind. She spins around in time to see the empty Coke can dance across the street and knows that it has just been kicked. A can dislodged by the wind – there is no wind – would clatter and roll a short distance. It wouldn’t spring, with force, keeping its momentum until it almost reaches the opposite pavement.
The can has appeared – been kicked – from a narrow alley, one that probably leads to the back of this terraced row of houses. Someone in that alleyway has kicked it, possibly even to attract her attention. She looks around, but the street is deserted. There is plenty of soft, golden light around the front of King’s College but the beautiful old buildings look empty and still.
She remembers the eyes drawn on her kitchen window. The disorder in her home. The missing car. Its unexplained reappearance.
You think there’s any place on Earth he won’t find you?
Still she waits, frozen with indecision and fear. Joe is close by. Asleep, but close. He will help her if she phones him or presses the bell, but she will have to explain why she is on his doorstep in the early hours of the morning.
Desperation gives Felicity courage and she steps silently back to the alleyway. She takes a deep breath before she steps out of the shelter of the corner but, once committed, she stands at the alley’s entrance to face whatever is down there.
And sees a human figure, thirty yards away, wearing dark clothes and with its head covered. It looks tall, but the lights in the alley are creating odd illusions. There are several shadows spiking off from the figure like rays from a dark sun.
The figure – he or she – Felicity cannot tell – moves towards her and its shadow becomes huge, tall and broad as a giant. Felicity starts to back away. The figure keeps coming and as it does so, it raises one arm. It is holding something long and thin that gleams in the dim light. A blade.
Felicity doesn’t stop running until she is home. If she is followed, she has no knowledge of it because she never looks back.
* * *
Felicity manages only a couple of hours sleep before she has to get up for work. She showers and flicks the kettle for coffee. Strong coffee. She is walking back to her bedroom to get dressed when she spots the small pieces of paper that have been pushed through her letter box sometime in the night.
They are all photographs, taken on a smart phone, and printed using an attachable printer. She catches sight of one that is face up and decides she has no desire to touch them. Using