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Her heartbeat suddenly accelerated, her muscles tensing. She dared not look out of the window in case he was still studying the house.
One minute went by and then another. This was ridiculous, she told herself crossly. There was no reason why she should not simply walk past the window, why she should feel so intimidated.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to move. Only when she was safely on the other side of the window did she allow herself a brief glance out of it. The man had gone inside the house.
Vigilantly Debra kept watch all evening, but all that happened was that she got cramp. All was quiet from next door. No one had arrived or left.
When she went to bed she set her alarm for six-thirty so that she could be on duty for seven when Jeff went home.
She didn’t need the alarm. She hardly slept at all, and not just because she was in a strange bed, she admitted as she dressed. It wasn’t just what she was doing that disturbed her; the man himself had unnerved her.
By seven o’clock she was eating her breakfast in front of the sitting-room window, where she had a clear view of the Volvo.
When by nine o’clock the Volvo was still there she began to panic a little.
Could he have left via the back door? Had he guessed that he was being watched? Had he perhaps even left during the night while Jeff was watching him?
At half-past nine she settled herself upstairs, where she had a clear view of the back garden and through the open landing window could hear any sound from outside at the front.
At eleven o’clock a taxi drew up alongside the Volvo and a woman got out. She was tall and elegant, expensively dressed, and as she paid off the driver Debra congratulated herself on noticing the wedding ring she wore.
Whoever she was, she certainly wasn’t Ginny Towers, Debra reflected with satisfaction, and then she remembered that she was supposed to take photographs.
She had almost left it too late, and, as it was, she had to squash herself into the side of the window-frame and lean out of the window a little to get a good clear shot of the woman.
It was only as she withdrew that she realised that the man had opened the front door to welcome his visitor.
He had his back to her, and for some reason it gave her an odd sensation in her tummy to look down on him.
Vertigo, she told herself quickly, wondering if she dared risk trying to photograph them together without his noticing her, but it was too late. He was already ushering the woman inside.
Debra could hardly believe her luck when later on the two of them emerged into the garden. Despite her shaking hands, she managed to get several good shots of them standing talking together.
At three in the afternoon another taxi arrived and the woman left.
Standing beside the open landing window, Debra dutifully recorded this fact.
Although the man accompanied her to the taxi, he did not touch her in any way.
Leigh had described him as having a penchant for very young women. His visitor had not fallen into that field. She had been around his own age, early to mid-thirties.
Well, at least she had got some photographs of them together, Debra told herself as she went downstairs to make herself a drink.
She had just made it when the doorbell rang. She went to answer it without any sense of apprehension, her mind on the task Leigh had given her.
The safety chain wasn’t on and she opened the door automatically without thinking, tensing in an alarm which came too late as she watched the man from next door march angrily into the hall and push the door closed behind him.
‘Would you mind telling me exactly what you think you’re doing?’ he demanded curtly.
He was tall, Debra acknowledged, and strong as well, his body athletic and powerfully muscled. No doubt he found it paid to keep himself fit in order to impress his youthful victims. After all, a man of thirty-odd could not possibly hope to have the physical appeal of one much younger, she told herself, stubbornly ignoring the evidence of her own senses, which told her quite categorically that this man need not have any fear that younger rivals might present a more physically compelling appeal.
‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered as the guilty colour
stormed her face. ‘But I don’t—’
‘You don’t what? You don’t know what I’m talking about?’ he interrupted her savagely. ‘Like hell you don’t. In someone old and alone, snooping on the neighbours can be understood and excused; in someone your age... well, let’s just say you’d have to have some profound behavioural problems.’
As she heard the contempt in his voice De
