It Knows Where You Live (15 page)

Approaching a junction, Sheila nudged the car faster. The vehicle ahead shot through a gap, which closed up before she could even think about following it; the shiny sides of cars were like the smooth flanks of a progression of migrating beasts. A horn blared. Someone stared at her through a windscreen, mouthing obscenities. Sheila smiled sweetly, and then bared her teeth in a silent snarl.

Then, one of those tiny everyday victories that either make or break your day: a dark-coloured car with a dusty bonnet to the left of the junction, travelling on the side of the road she was attempting to join, slowed and the driver nodded to signify he was creating a break in the line so that Sheila might cross the junction. The lowering sun flared on his windscreen, obscuring the man’s features, but his large smooth hands flexed on the steering wheel, lifting for a moment in a subconscious movement.

Sheila put her foot down and joined the queue of traffic, startled for a moment when a young woman dressed in running gear bolted out into her path before veering off towards the opposite kerb. Sheila swung the wheel; the car shuddered, the engine almost stalling, and then she was straightening up and pointed in the right direction. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, once again she failed to make out the features of the man who’d shown the small kindness; she thought about thanking him—a small nod of her head in the mirror or even a raised hand—but felt it was too late for the expected courtesy: the moment, brief as it was, had passed.

The traffic soon began to clear. It was as if some magical button had been pressed to relieve the stress on the roads. It was still busy, just less so.
 

Abby was waiting in the car park when Sheila pulled into the school grounds. The girl’s pale face was a mask of apathy tinged with an odd detached hatred. There was no doubting it: at times like these she was her father’s daughter. Sheila put down her head, closed her eyes and tried to focus her thoughts. John was on her mind too much lately; she needed to quash him, to put him back in the box where he belonged.

When she raised her head again, Sheila saw a long car pull up at the kerb near the school gates—it caught her attention simply because it was the only vehicle around: all the other parents and carers were long gone.

“About time,” said Abby as she opened the passenger door and climbed in beside her mother.

“Sorry. Traffic was bad.” Sheila tore her gaze away from the car—why had the vehicle held her attention anyway?—and concentrated on tiptoeing around her daughter’s emotional land mines.

“You
always
say that.” Abby stared straight ahead, across the school playing fields; she did not even pay her mother the respect of looking her in the eye.

“Traffic’s
always
bad,” said Sheila, mimicking her daughter’s whining tone as she put the car into reverse.

Abby said nothing more.

The car was still there when she pulled out onto the road, and she sped up as she passed it, feeling a strange creeping panic take her by surprise. She could not make out the figure behind the wheel, only that it was large, bulky, and perhaps looking in her direction. The car looked familiar, but she did not know why. No one she knew drove such a vehicle—indeed, she could not place the make or model. It was just a dark car, long and low to the ground, its bonnet dusty, as if it had been parked somewhere for a long time.

Sheila took the long way home. The journey would take more time, but at least this way the roads were always clear. Everyone else took the usual rat runs and alleyways out of town, but every now and then she liked to get off the beaten track and break free from the herd.

Another small thing, but it was one that made her happy.

Abby struggled with her hand bag and retrieved a hand-held video game from somewhere within its mysterious depths. The light from the tiny screen turned her face a disturbingly unnameable colour, and her eyes became vapid. She already had earphones stuck into her ears—Sheila often suspected they were some kind of biological mutation rather than another shop-bought gadget. The sharp, light sound of muted music filled the car and Abby’s head bobbed like a dashboard toy.

Darkness began to lower across the view like a sheet being dropped onto a bed; it was winter now, and the nights were getting longer. A single car was a speck on the horizon ahead; behind, another matching spot shuddered in the rear-view mirror. Sheila’s lips were dry. She was scared, but she did not know why, or what of. A formless bundle of emotions grew in her chest, pushing at her ribs and organs.

The radio was silent: it had not come back on after they’d left the school grounds.

The car behind grew larger in the mirror, becoming recognisable. It was the one from the school, the dark one that had been waiting at the kerb.

Sheila glanced at Abby, who was still lost in the world of her game. The girl’s features were limp, like shapes pressed into clay, and her hands moved eerily fast across the console’s controls.

Clouds pressed down from above, and Sheila almost expected the roof of the car to buckle under their weight. The road felt too smooth, as if designed to throw her car off its surface. She gripped the steering wheel as tight as her weak hands would allow, and took deep breaths to fight her growing nervousness.

“Okay, she said aloud, knowing Abby’s headphones would render her deaf to everything but the tinny dirge in her ears. “This is nothing but a coincidence. Just a man”—no matter how peculiar his behaviour, he was still merely that—“driving home from work. Probably even works at the school.”

Up ahead lay a left turn through a small copse of stunted trees before rejoining the main road. It was a random offshoot from the carriageway, a pointless loop used, according to popular local myth, by ‘doggers’ and other perverts.

Just as she was about to pass the exit, Sheila turned the wheel sharply and took the bend. No one used this roadway unless they were parking up for some reason (usually erotic, if those local tongues could be trusted).

The other car followed, breaking suddenly and clipping the verge as it copied Sheila’s unexpected manoeuvre.

“Fuck!”

“What’sat?”

“Oh, sorry...nothing, pet; just thinking out loud.”

Abby removed the earphones and turned to face her mother, eyes wide, lips pursed. “You mean
swearing
out loud, don’t you?”

Through gritted teeth, Sheila said, “Put your earpiece back in and listen to whatever crap you’re calling music, there’s a good girl.”

Screwing up her face, Abby obeyed...which was unusual in itself. The girl had not noticed the strange car following them, nor had she picked up on anything other than Sheila’s irritation. Her fear had gone unnoticed.

Rejoining the road, Sheila gave it some gas. Her foot eased down onto the pedal and the car pulled away, creating a bigger gap between her and her now reappearing pursuer. She had to admit it now; she
was
being pursued. There could be no other explanation.

But who was it, and why was he following her? What had she done to draw his attention? She remembered the face swearing at her behind glass; the car horn blaring; her snarling response...but surely it was such a tiny incident, a small thing that should not lead to the current situation.

The driver might just as easily be someone she’d encountered recently as some passing psycho who’d chosen her at random to terrorise, she rationalised. Her job with the Borough Council put her in contact with all kinds of people, some of whom she’d rather not meet outside office hours. The Housing Department usually dealt with those at the lower end of the social scale—the ones who could not afford to buy homes—and this meant some of her clients were difficult and others were outright hostile.

Oh, she met good people, too. Decent families with aspirations. But lately these seemed thinner and thinner on the ground. The majority of the people she dealt with were somehow convinced the world owed them a living and shouting and swearing was the best way to claim their dues.

She reached out a hand and twisted the button on the radio. Static screamed, and then died. Her fingers shook as she pulled them away.

The car remained at a distance, as if its driver was aware he had all the time he needed. Sheila was heading home, but home these days was an empty flat on a quiet street—the kind of place where neighbours kept to themselves and any kind of trouble went unnoticed. If she led the man there, this might never end. Or it might end in something much worse than terror.
 

Abby’s eyes were closed. Her lips moved as she silently sung along with whatever song was playing through her headphones. Sheila felt her own eyes grow moist, but she refused to cry. She’d shed enough tears—far too many, in fact—when John left, and then even more when he came back to claim what he insisted were his final conjugal rights. Abby was also wearing headphones that night, and it was something Sheila never stopped being grateful for. At least, protected by her bubble of sound and visions it created, she’d been spared the sight of her father’s real face.

It was the small things that mattered; always the small things. Earphones worn at a late hour, a cry muffled at just the right moment, a promise to oneself that nothing would ever hurt that much again.

The following morning John had displayed his own tiny rituals: a gaze that never quite met hers, a hand drawn across his brow, a promise to never bother her again, even when it came to their daughter.

That was when Sheila realised where she’d seen the car before: earlier that afternoon, during the rush-hour journey to Abby’s school. The vehicle which had paused to allow her out of a junction; sunlight flaring across glass; heavy features obscured by the bright flash.

But why was he stalking her like this? Surely his unprompted act of kindness singled him out as a nice guy, not one of the seething masses who could flip at any given moment and under any particular set of circumstances.

The car started gaining; inch by inch, it closed in on the rear of Sheila’s vehicle.

She was already breaking the speed limit, and was afraid to go any faster. She was a good driver, but did not possess the confidence to travel at speed. Gripping the wheel tighter, she concentrated on the road ahead. There was nowhere to go but home, and if she did get there with enough time to leave the car before whoever it was caught up with her, she could bolt inside and lock the doors and windows. Then, after sending Abby to her room, she would telephone the police.

Her estate loomed out of the dimness, the bay windows of houses jutting into the road like giant squared-off foreheads. Slamming on the brakes, she skidded into the estate and onto her street. The other car had missed the turning, offering her a slight advantage.

Abby grabbed the seat, turning to her mother. “What’s wrong?”

“Get in the fucking flat. Now!”

For once in her life, Abby did not argue; she leapt from the car and ran for the front door. Lights were on in the street, but no-one came out to investigate the screech of brakes. The dark car cruised casually onto the estate, its headlights off, the windscreen a black expanse of nothingness.

Fumbling with her keys, Sheila managed to open the door. She bundled them both inside and locked the door behind them, slipping the safety chain into place and testing the lock. She ran upstairs behind Abby, whose baggy jeans were slipping down her waist to show her underwear. “Hurry,” she whispered, not knowing why she did not dare raise her voice.

“In there. Push something against the door.” She forced Abby into her room and backed away from the door only when she heard the heavy drag of a set of drawers being moved into place on the other side. Throwing down her bag and tearing off her coat, she hurried into the living room and picked up the telephone. When she held the receiver to her ear, there was no dial tone.

She pressed the buttons on the top of the handset, struggling for a connection. Only static answered.

“No,” she whispered, glancing at the growing dark beyond the window, through the flimsy glass, thinking of the thin front door and the small bathroom window she never closed, not even in winter.

“Yes,” said a voice on the line. It was low, calm, steady.

Sheila pressed the plastic to her ear, hoping it would help reality slip back into place.

“Society works because of the small things,” said the voice. “The tiny rituals of human behaviour, the almost habitual little ticks and twitches we display in a certain situation. A smile. A door held open for someone to pass. A ‘please,’ a ‘thank you.’ The silent acknowledgement of an inconsequential act of kindness.”

Tears ran down Sheila’s cheeks; her jaw ached and she realised she was grinding her teeth, just as Abby did in her sleep, especially when she was experiencing a nightmare. The voice seemed too close to be only on the phone, and Sheila was suddenly terrified to turn around and face directly into the room, where a figure might be standing, mouthing the words she could hear on the line, its chunky face obscured by a flash of white light which had no source, yet hung there in the air like a phantom.

“This could have been stopped before it even began. If only you’d smiled in the mirror, or raised a hand in acknowledgement, or flashed your indicator light. Such a small thing...a tiny thing, really...but so very important when it comes to the subtle ways that society is held together.”

A door creaked open, a useless defence against a force such as this; a foot fell lightly on the stairs; the flat became smaller, trapping her within the confines of her fear.

“All the small things,” said the voice, so close now it was breathing in her ear. “But no-one seems to realise that added together, they amount to a lot more...more than even a human life.”

She felt a body pressing against hers, an unwanted pressure against her back and her bottom, and large hands came around to cup her breasts. Then there was a sound behind her, and before she’d even realised the voice was finished and the man was done, her thoughts went to Abby, in her room, at the top of the stairs.

Slowly replacing the telephone on its table, she knew without looking that Abby’s door would be open. The set of drawers would be standing against the wall, perhaps obscuring the form of her daughter’s slumped body. Sheila felt the acute pain of a lesson learned the hard way.