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She gasps, hand flying to her chest. ‘Good Lord.’
Senses pricking, she freezes, head cocked towards the door.
After about a minute, it comes again:bang. A long sigh leaves her.
‘Daft bat,’ she mutters. It’ll be the back door. Clatters against the indoor wall sometimes if there’s a draught. She’s pretty sure she locked it though. Didn’t she? Yes, locked it and put the key on the little hook by the coats. Definitely.
Sam then. Forgotten his key. Taken the bunch from under the geranium pot?
She stands up, listening hard.
‘Sam?’ she calls. Her voice is high, tiny.
Doesn’t call out again. Some deep gut feeling argues against it. Sam would have seen the lamp on in the front room. If he’d forgotten his key, he’d have rapped gently on the window like he always does. He’d have called to her, grinned at her cheekily through the pane. If he had his key, he would have called to her the moment he was in the house.
Footsteps. In the hallway. Clear as a pin.
They are short, quick. They are not Sam’s.
Heart racing, she switches off the lamp. Moves across to the armchair. Crouches low behind it. Her legs ache, her hip screams at her to stand back up. She shifts, half falls onto her bottom. Her coccyx hurts with the urgent pain of injury. She’s done herself a mischief. Bugger.
The footsteps have stopped. The silence is thicker now. In the grate, a log pops, almost makes her cry out. Footsteps again – in the kitchen, tap-tap on the harder floor, light. Two people, or someone young, moving fast. Muttering. Whispering. Whoever it is, it isn’t her grandson.
The squeak of the kitchen door. Then the footsteps come again, muted now by the hall carpet. Closer. Close. She peeps around the edge of the armchair, her whole body trembling with fear. In the slit of light under the sitting-room door, shadows move. Stop. Still she cannot tell if there is one person or two.
The door handle rattles. She shrinks back, closes her eyes. Her teeth are chattering. Please God, let her be hidden behind this chair. The shushing glide of the door across the carpet. She holds her breath.
‘There’s a fire,’ someone says – low, almost husky. A teenage boy possibly. ‘She’s definitely in.’
The door sighs, clicks closed.
Joyce’s breath leaves her in a long rush. Her heart is beating fast. Sweat pricks at her hairline. Whoever it is, they’ve gone for now. But from what they said, it’s someone who knows her, knows this is her house. She is panting, one hand to her chest to calm herself. Rage floods her then. Someone’s teenage boy is in her house. Someone’s kid, off the rails, up to no good. Pam from Chanteurs – her lad is a wrong ’un, always smoking weed in Langmoor Gardens with his muckers. Came to the house once asking about odd jobs, a malevolent look in his eye.
She wonders about getting up, calling for help. No, not yet. She’ll stay here and wait it out. At least until Sam comes home. Does the intruder know Sam is out? Has he been watching the house?
Oh, Sam. Sam, love. Come home.
The base of her back throbs. Her hip. Her shoulders. She has to move before she sets solid. Inch by inch, she lifts herself up, gripping hard on to the back of the armchair. Listening, listening, listening. Every move silent, ears trained, she creeps back across to the window. Outside, no sign of a car, only Sam’s van and her MG.
She edges towards the door. Presses her ear to it. She can hear her own heart banging. Beneath it, thinks she can hear movement upstairs. Not footsteps exactly, only the less identifiable thumps and rustlings of someone else in the house. Consciously she slows her breathing. The grooves of the brass doorknob press into the palm of her hand.
The landline is in the hallway. No. No way – too exposed. If he were to come out of a room, there’d be nowhere to hide. Her iPhone? Upstairs, on her bedside table; she can see it in her mind’s eye. She did a Sudoku last night before she went to sleep but hasn’t even turned the phone on today. The iPad is in the kitchen, but even if she dares go that far, she’s not sure she knows how to call the police from it, if it’s even possible.
A crash. From a front bedroom – hers, she thinks.
Into the hot hollow of her hand, she lets out a soft cry. She should run – now, out of the front door. Run down the drive and to Eric and Martha next door, ring their bell, shout through the letter box. She could run pretty fast, she reckons, sort the damage out later. It’s only a short way. But no. Safer here, here where he’s already looked.Take what you want, she communicates to him silently.I don’t care about any of it.The engagement ring has already gone to Sam and Naomi. The rest is junk anyway.Take it. Take the lot.
Footsteps drum down the stairs like a rat across the attic. Joyce’s throat blocks. Seconds pass. The house falls into a new and heavy silence. She has no idea where he is. Ear to the door. The air stills. The silence alters, settles like dust. Still she listens. The carriage clock chimes half past eleven. She waits. And waits. It chimes quarter to midnight.
Breathing fast and shallow, she opens the door. The house is empty, she’s sure of it. But still. She returns to the fireplace, drains her glass – for courage – and lifts the poker from the cast-iron set. Steeling herself, she makes her way out into the hallway.
Silence. Dark. She takes the stairs slowly, listening, listening, listening. This terrible, terrible listening. On the mezzanine, she waits. Outside, through the picture window, the garden is hulking black shapes. There is no breeze. Even the tips of the firs are still.
Aching all over from sitting on the floor, from standing for almost an hour as the sitting room cooled, she climbs the next flight. On the top landing, she stops, limbs juddering violently now. With the end of the poker, she pushes open her bedroom door. Steps silently forward. Feels around the jamb for the light switch. The switch clicks but no light comes. The bulb must’ve blown. Heart thick in her mouth, she edges forward. Peers around the door into the gloom.
The room is empty. With a rush of determination, she reaches the bedside and turns on the lamp. In the slow-growing light, the outline of her dressing table sharpens. It has been ransacked, the drawers open, one overturned on the stool. The room is full of shadows. They will have taken her phone. Of course they will. She will get into bed and close her eyes tight and wait for the sound of her grandson coming in through the front door. He will check the house as he always does, will find the back door open. If the burglar has left a mess downstairs, she won’t tell him what she has suffered. She will say she must have smoked too much, slept through the whole thing. He’ll fit an alarm. Sad, that they’ll have to do that. This is her home; it has always felt so safe.
Fingers tightening around the poker, she creeps further into the room. Something then. Something. A whisper. Human breath? The air is loaded. Her own terror, perhaps, heart still hammering, legs still trembling.
