The Cruellest Game (17 page)

Then I heard a scraping noise, like a chair being dragged across a floor. Still no sound from Florrie. My first instinct was that Robert had returned, and I very nearly called out his name. But
then I stopped myself. If someone other than Robert had entered my house in the dead of night, I could put myself in danger by attracting attention.

Yet if there was an unknown intruder downstairs, I would have expected Florrie to bark. Or would I? She was such a soft, friendly creature, all over strangers usually. Any dog-savvy burglar who
had brought her a meaty treat would probably have her rubbing lovingly against his legs in no time.

I switched on my bedside light, then wondered if that were such a good idea and switched it off again.

I climbed out of bed as quietly as possible, made my way out onto the landing and stood at the top of the stairs listening. There are always noises in an old house. Robert said Highrise was like
a ship.

There was silence for so long I almost began to doubt myself.

Then I heard the distinctive creak caused by a footstep on the bottom stair. Then on the second stair.

I panicked, ran back into the bedroom, forgetting all about trying to be quiet, slammed the door behind me, and dialled 999 on my mobile.

The operator asked me if there was a lock on my bedroom door, which there wasn’t. She then instructed me to stay as quiet as possible and wait for assistance. Whatever happened, I should
not attempt to leave the room.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my ears pricked. I heard no further creaks on the stairs. Did that mean the intruder had retreated, perhaps even left the house while I was on the phone to the
emergency services? Or had he or she climbed the rest of the stairs while I was distracted? Could someone be lurking outside my bedroom door right then?

I stood up and padded softly to the door, pressing my ear against it. Total silence. Upstairs and downstairs as far as I could make out. I thought about calling Florrie, but supposed that would
not be very wise either. Fleetingly, I wondered if she was all right. You hear about burglars dispatching dogs that might cause them trouble. I decided not to dwell on that. In any case Florrie
hadn’t caused a human being any trouble in the whole of her life.

The police arrived in about forty-five minutes, which wasn’t too bad when you considered how remote Highrise was. It felt like several days.

When I heard them knock, I opened the bedroom door cautiously. I could also hear Florrie barking in the kitchen, which was a relief. I made my way to that bit of the landing with a window
overlooking the front of the house. The automatic security lights must have switched on as the police had arrived and I could see that a patrol car stood in the yard and two uniformed officers were
at the door. I wondered if the lights had been activated earlier by the intruder. But in any case I would not have seen them from the bedroom I was using.

I went downstairs, unbolted, unlocked and opened the door, registering as I did so that it seemed unlikely the intruder had gained entry through it.

My first impression was how fresh-faced and young-looking the two officers were. I know it’s a cliché but policemen really do get younger as you get older.

‘Mrs Anderson?’ queried the taller one.

I nodded. I realized for the first time that I was shaking. And it seemed just too difficult to speak.

‘Don’t worry,’ he continued, his voice professionally reassuring. ‘We’ll check everything out for you. I’m Constable Jacobs and I just want you to stay here
with Constable Bickerton, while I have a look round.’ He gestured to the shorter officer who seemed to be wearing a cap that was a size or two too big for him, then he set off in the
direction of the kitchen.

I found my voice. ‘Our dog should be in there,’ I called out.

‘That’s all right, I like dogs,’ PC Jacobs called back.

‘He does too, more than people if you ask me,’ muttered PC Bickerton.

I glanced at him. Was he trying to make some kind of joke? Possibly not. It seemed PC Jacobs quickly made friends with Florrie. I didn’t hear another peep from her.

Meanwhile Constable Bickerton busied himself with investigating the locks on the front door. He would have heard me turn the big old key and pull back the bolt.

With the door standing open he ran the bolt to and fro a couple of times and turned the key in its lock.

‘Nothing has been tampered with here, I don’t think,’ he said. I nodded in agreement.

He also checked the gate at the side of the house, solid and about five feet high, which gave access to the back of Highrise and to the garden. We usually kept it locked at night, and it too
seemed secure.

After a few minutes PC Jacobs returned.

‘I’ve had a look in every room in the house, Mrs Anderson,’ he said. ‘If there has been an intruder, he’s certainly not here any more. And so far I can’t see
any signs of any disturbance or of forced entry. But perhaps you’d have a walk around with us to make sure.’

I followed the two officers into the kitchen. They had both removed their caps. Jacobs was very dark, almost as dark as Robert, his hair slicked down and parted at the side like a 1950s
schoolboy. Bickerton’s head was covered only with closely shaven blond stubble. Perhaps that was why his cap seemed too big for him, I thought obliquely.

Florrie flew at me, wriggling her entire body around my legs. She was a picture of joy. Her tongue hung out of her mouth and she licked every bit of flesh she could find on my exposed legs and
my hands. I did my best to calm her down.

‘I’ve checked the back door and the windows in every room,’ said PC Jacobs. ‘But perhaps you’ll make sure for us that everything is as it should be, as it was when
you went upstairs to bed.’

I glanced around the kitchen. Nothing seemed to have been touched; everything did indeed seem to be as I’d left it. I turned the handle on the back door and pulled. It didn’t budge.
Still locked. I swung round to look at the hook on the wall by the fridge. The back door key still hung from it, just as it should.

I made my way to the sitting room, the police officers right behind me and Florrie running ahead. Once again it was the same story. Just as PC Jacobs had reported there was no sign of any
disturbance to anything, and no sign of any windows having been tampered with.

Our state-of-the-art smart TV stood on the chest of drawers to the right of the inglenook fireplace. It was still there, and quite obviously no attempt had been made to move it. My iPad was on
the granite-topped coffee table. I saw that PC Bickerton was also looking at the iPad. I knew what he was thinking. Surely no self-respecting burglar would leave that behind?

We moved into the dining room. Again, nothing seemed to have been touched, and certainly nothing seemed to be missing.

Upstairs it was the same story.

I felt my heart sinking. I didn’t want there to have been an intruder in my house, of course, but I feared I knew only too well what both police officers were thinking. And I wasn’t
wrong.

‘Is it possible you could have been mistaken, Mrs Anderson?’ asked PC Jacobs eventually. ‘Are you sure you heard someone in the house?’

‘Yes I did and no I wasn’t mistaken,’ I responded, quite forcefully.

‘But wouldn’t your dog have seen an intruder off?’

‘I shouldn’t think so for one moment,’ I said. ‘You must have learned already, PC Jacobs, what a softy she is, even with strangers.’

‘She did bark when we arrived, though.’

‘Yes, and I think she did when the intruder arrived. I think that’s what woke me. But you’d only have to make a fuss of her, or give her a treat, and she’d soon quieten
down and be all over you.’

‘So,’ concluded PC Bickerton. ‘You think the dog’s barking may have woken you, but you didn’t hear her bark at all after you were properly awake, is that
correct?’

I shook my head lamely.

The PC coughed slightly, as if embarrassed.

‘Look, we know you must be going through a very stressful time, Mrs Anderson. It is quite understandable that you would be on edge and that you might think—’

‘I didn’t think anything, Constable Bickerton,’ I said. ‘There was someone in my house. I heard him, or her, moving around. Quite definitely. And what do you mean about
me going through a stressful time? What do you know about any of that?’

PC Bickerton coughed again. ‘It is a matter of record that your son has just died under extremely distressing circumstances. There was, after all, a police investigation . . .’ he
began.

‘Call that an investigation?’ I snapped.

‘Look, Mrs Anderson, you are clearly overwrought—’

I interrupted him again. I realized I had to pull myself together and fast or I would probably never get any help from the police ever again, although little help they’d been so far.

‘Just let me have a proper look around, will you?’ I asked. ‘I think I’m in shock. I may have missed something.’

‘Of course,’ said PC Bickerton patiently.

I went through the bedrooms, opening all the wardrobe doors and the drawers, still without noticing anything amiss, and then downstairs to the little room next to the kitchen which we used as a
study. The computer Robert and I shared stood untouched on the desk. I opened the top left-hand drawer of the desk first, rummaged around in it a bit, checked quickly through the others, then back
to the top one again.

‘My iPod is missing,’ I said triumphantly.

‘Are you sure?’ asked PC Bickerton.

‘Quite sure,’ I said. ‘I always keep it in the top drawer of this desk. It’s gone.’

‘iPods are so small, couldn’t you have misplaced it?’

‘Definitely not. It’s been taken.’

‘But why would a burglar take an iPod from a drawer and leave behind an iPad clearly visible on a table?’ asked PC Jacobs, his voice a little sharper than PC Bickerton’s.

I felt the colour rise in my cheeks. I had no answer and I didn’t try to give one. Instead I turned my attention to the sitting room. I stood in the doorway just looking around me, trying
to calm myself down in order to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Then I did remember something. I thought it through before I spoke. Yes. I was sure of it. Robbie’s camcorder had stood on the sideboard, just where he’d left it, ever since his
death. I’d not had the heart to move it, somehow. It too was missing.

I told the two officers that.

They did not look impressed.

‘Are you sure your son mightn’t have put it somewhere else?’ asked PC Jacobs.

‘Constable, it’s been there on the sideboard ever since Robbie died.’

‘Well, could you have moved it, put it somewhere you don’t recall?’

I closed my eyes and opened them again. They really did think I’d lost the plot.

‘I haven’t been able to touch it,’ I said. ‘Have you any idea what it is like to lose your only child?’

PC Jacobs stared straight ahead, not attempting to respond. PC Bickerton, shuffling uneasily from foot to foot, shook his head slightly.

I stopped, realizing I was only making things worse, confirming the impression they already had of me as a middle-aged mother overcome with grief who had no idea what she was doing, nor what was
happening to her.

‘Look, I would remember if I’d moved it,’ I said, making my voice as calm as I could.

‘Of course you would, Mrs Anderson,’ said PC Jacobs soothingly. Or was there a note of carefully veiled sarcasm there somewhere? I wondered.

He rather pointedly took a note of the items I had said were missing, laboriously naming them aloud as he wrote them down.

‘Caaam-corder, iPooood.’

I watched in silence.

‘I think we’ve done all we can for the moment,’ said PC Jacobs, when he’d finished his note-taking. ‘It’s curious that there is no sign of any break-in. And
your front door was still bolted on the inside when we arrived, wasn’t it?’

I agreed that it was.

‘Not the back door, though,’ I said.

‘But it was securely locked,’ said PC Jacobs.

‘And so was the garden gate,’ interjected Bickerton.

‘Well, you could climb over that,’ I said.

Bickerton half smiled. ‘Yes, but not without some difficulty and a deal of noise, I shouldn’t think,’ he said.

‘Does anyone else have keys to your property, Mrs Anderson?’ asked PC Jacobs.

I shook my head. ‘Only my husband, and he’s on an oil rig in the North Sea.’

PC Jacobs looked even more sceptical. PC Bickerton seemed to be trying hard to be understanding and behave appropriately, but was not succeeding very well. I was pretty sure both officers
genuinely sympathized with my predicament. They also without doubt considered me, that night at any rate, to be neurotic and unreliable. I felt quite numb with humiliation and frustration.

‘Well, perhaps you should change your locks just to be on the safe side,’ said PC Bickerton.

I nodded. All I wanted now was for the two officers to go and leave me alone.

‘To put your mind at rest and to make absolutely sure, we’ll take a look round the yard and your outbuildings on our way out,’ PC Bickerton continued. ‘And if you have
any further cause for concern, do feel free to call again.’

It was my turn to look at him as if I thought he was quite mad.

At that moment I felt I would rather take my chances with a mad axe-man at large in my bedroom than ever again call the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary.

It was several minutes more before they actually left my property. I watched the tail lights of the patrol car fade as it proceeded up the lane, the two officers inside
extremely pleased, I suspected, to be leaving the madwoman behind.

I checked the time on the hall clock. It was nearly five. No point in going back to bed. In any case there was absolutely no chance of my getting back to sleep.

First of all I walked all round the house again, scrutinizing each room, just in case there was anything else missing that I hadn’t noticed before, and to check if, upon closer
examination, I could see any signs of disturbance. There wasn’t and I couldn’t.

Florrie followed me eagerly. We ended up in the kitchen. I beefed up the Aga, made myself a cup of tea and pulled the old leather armchair closer to the stove, relishing the warmth.