Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (25 page)

He was still wearing his work suit but dug through his wardrobe in the gloom, finding a pair of jeans and a dark top. He pulled the curtains and got changed downstairs, before heading out into the night.

When Charlie had first been to Dougie’s house, he’d spotted a shed towards the end of the garden. There was no way he’d be able to break into the house but perhaps there was something illegal in the shed that he could report to the police. If he and Esther had been left with no evidence to prove what he’d done to them, then perhaps there’d be proof of other wrongdoing? It was a long shot – but at least he was being proactive and not sitting at home being a victim.

The alley that ran along the back of the house connected to the one that flanked the rear of Dougie’s. Charlie hurried along, hands in pockets, completely in shadow from the overhanging trees, bushes and fences. There was no-one out, not even the groups of roaming kids on BMXs and skateboards who seemed to have no bedtime.

He emerged onto the road, standing in the shadows and peering towards the familiar blue car parked half across the drive, half across the pavement. The curtains were pulled at the front of Dougie’s house but the sliver of light was creeping out into the darkness. Charlie moved ahead slowly, keeping to the shade and staying behind cars. The streetlights were a dim, useless orange.

At first Charlie thought about dashing along the side of the house into the garden but then he remembered the mangled pile of metal from before, knowing that if he collided with it in the dark, it’d not only create a ridiculous amount of noise, but that it would sodding hurt too.

Charlie counted the number of houses between the entrance of the alley and Dougie’s and then returned to the darkness of the passage, working his way backwards until he reached the fence he was pretty sure belonged to Dougie.

Even as a kid, Charlie had never been much of a climber. He’d been playing football at the school fields one day in the Easter holidays and their ball had ended up wedged between branches in an ancient oak tree that the school was named after. All these years later, he still remembered the name of the lad who bounded towards it, shoving everyone else aside saying that he’d get it. Jonathan Latchem took on gravity and lost miserably, landing on his back with a terrifying crunch. For a moment, it felt as if time had stopped as the group of lads watched on. Charlie thought he was either dead or paralysed but, miraculously, it was just Jonathan’s pride that was damaged. Still, no-one else tried climbing and they resorted to throwing stones at the ball to try to dislodge it.

Charlie had never tried climbing anything other than small step ladders since, feeling a sickly sense of worry as he realised that he could only touch the top of the fence with the tips of his fingers when he was on the very ends of his toes.

With a deep breath, he jumped, gripping the rough top of the wood with his hands and pressing his feet into the concrete pillar at the centre, scrambling his way up. The fence dug into the palms of his hands but Charlie pulled hard, sitting astride the post with one quick hop.

The back of Dougie’s house was completely dark, with only the faint white of a barely there moon shining across the long, shabby lawn. Charlie could see faint shapes of objects he couldn’t make out littered around the edges. Visions of Jonathan Latchem running through his mind, Charlie lowered himself into the garden, his feet scratching across what he soon realised was an upturned wheelbarrow. After a moment of scrambling, he dropped to the hard ground, slightly out of breath, palms burning from the jaggedness of the wood.

Charlie paused, staring at the house as he leaned against the fence just in case he’d made more noise than he thought. Now he was on the ground, he had a slightly better view of what was around him. The garden was an obstacle course of junk – bike parts, half an engine, a water-butt on its side, old fence panels, broken pieces of guttering, a chopped-up window frame. Skipfuls of junk without the skip.

When he was certain he hadn’t been spotted, Charlie slalomed his way through the scrap towards the shed. The ramshackle structure was square, with a sloping roof that wasn’t quite central, making it look as if it was in the process of falling over. The wood felt stretched and clammy, as if it had been soaked and dried out over and over, without being treated. Charlie traced the grain with his fingers until he was at the front.

The door was padlocked closed but, as with most sheds, the metal lock bracket was only screwed into the wood. Charlie had learned the trick from Esther’s father, who constantly lost the keys for his shed and frequently removed the lock to let himself in. He took the screwdriver from his pocket and eased the bracket away.

When the door popped open, Charlie took another moment to wait, making sure it hadn’t made enough noise to attract any attention from the house. When he was confident, Charlie crept into the shed, using the light from his phone to illuminate the inside.

What he saw left him open-mouthed, wondering if he’d made a huge mistake.

None of it was likely to be illegal but the walls were lined with a collection of tools that could be used as weapons: pick-axes sharpened to a point, axes with blades that glinted ominously under the light from his phone, a scythe that could theoretically be used to cut grass but clearly wasn’t considering the state of the lawn. Then there were rows of knives and saws, each honed and dangerous.

Turning in a full circle, Charlie shuddered. It wasn’t that there couldn’t be an innocent reason for them all being there, it was the pride with which they had been displayed. In contrast to the shabby front of the house and the disaster zone at the back, each of the items had been clipped into holders that were in neat horizontal lines. Underneath were more conventional tools but even they had been exhibited with care: a sledgehammer, crowbar, and sparklingly clean spade. At the back of the shed was a large roll of clear plastic and loops of thick metal wire

Charlie backed out and started trying to re-fix the bracket, struggling with the screws in the dark, wishing he’d never seen any of it.

With two of the four screws re-fitted and the lock staying on without needing to be held, Charlie jumped at a sound from the house. He spun but the doors were still closed and there were no new lights. Fumbling with the third screw and cursing under his breath, Charlie tried to force his fingers to do what he wanted them to. The metal was squeaking its way back into the wood when there was a second bang from behind. Charlie turned just in time to see a flood of light escaping from the side door.

Not waiting for it to open, he bolted for the fence, using the upside-down wheelbarrow as a springboard to jump. He clasped the top of the wood and heaved hard until he was at the top. It was only then he made the mistake of glancing back to the house.

The silhouette of Dougie was backlit in the frame of the house’s side door. His arms were crossed and a trail of cigarette smoke was drifting into the sky. Charlie didn’t know if he’d been seen in the gloom but Dougie was staring towards the end of the garden, head leaning slightly back as if he was sniffing the air like a search dog.

‘I can see yous there,’ he slurred, getting louder as Charlie dropped to the other side. ‘Whoever yous are, I see ya. Don’t think yous can run from me. I’ll ’av the lot of ya.’

Charlie turned and ran.

THIRTY: ESTHER

Esther screamed as Charlie’s alarm went off, only stopping as he wrapped an arm around her and told her she was safe. She could still feel Leah’s saliva slavering into her eye, dribbling into her mouth as she helplessly tried to fight back. Vaguely, she remembered Charlie waking her and asking about the sleeping pills but it felt like a dream rather than something that had actually happened.

Through the mist of sunshine poking through the window, her sluggish thought processes and a thumping headache, Esther watched as Charlie put his suit on. It was Friday and then he was going to be off for the weekend. The longest week she could remember was almost over but it didn’t feel as if Saturday and Sunday were going to offer much respite.

He asked how she was feeling over and over, making her promise not to do anything else stupid with the pills, not that she had any left.

Esther didn’t tell him about Leah’s threat but had no plans to leave the house without Charlie anyway – if she left at all. As soon as he had gone, she hauled herself out of bed, starting in the smallest bedroom and working her way around the house, checking each of the locks. Her head was so sluggish, the headache so strong, that Esther constantly made mistakes. Was she supposed to be rattling the handle four times? Or five? Then she’d lose count anyway and have to go back to the beginning, all the time worrying that by taking so long, she was leaving something downstairs unsecured.

It took Esther forty-five minutes to successfully make sure all of the upstairs windows were properly locked and then another twenty-five to work her way around the ground floor. She then started at the beginning, closing all of the curtains and blinds until the house was bathed in a grim darkness as if it was the middle of winter.

By the time Esther was finished, she was drenched with sweat, hair stuck to her forehead, pyjamas clinging to her arms and legs.

It had never been this bad before.

She slid her way down the front of a kitchen cabinet, sitting on the floor, tucking her knees to her chest and trying to block out the memory of Leah having complete control over her. The attack had been such a horrific invasion of her person that she didn’t know how to deal with it.

Esther sat in the darkness counting to ten over and over. By the time you reached ten, you were supposed to have calmed down but it wasn’t working. Esther felt as bad after each cycle as she had before.

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten.

Still not calm – start again.

She was interrupted by the phone ringing, its upbeat burring echoing through the empty house. Esther pulled herself upwards, using the cabinet for support and shuffled through to the living room. The only light was the LED display of the phone, showing the word ‘UNKNOWN’.

At first she wasn’t going to answer but then she thought it could be the police. What if Charlie had been in some sort of accident and she never answered the phone to find out?

Her voice didn’t sound her own, throatier and lower. ‘Hello.’

The reply was the complete opposite, overly upbeat in a forced show of friendliness. ‘Hello, is that Mrs Itch?’

Esther slammed the phone down onto its holster without replying, clattering her hand into the hard wood of the cabinet and shrieking with pain.

Mrs Fucking Itch could piss off.

No sooner had she sat on the sofa, than the phone started to ring again. Esther grabbed it, shouting ‘THERE IS NO MRS ITCH’ before the person at the other end had a chance to talk.

There was a pause before a hushed woman’s voice replied. ‘Esther?’

‘Mum?’

‘…I was just phoning to say I was sorry about the other day.’

Esther didn’t say anything. The sound of a friendly voice was too much for her and before she knew it, she was sobbing into the phone. Her mother asked what was wrong but Esther couldn’t bring herself to give the details – they were too hard to say out loud. Instead she simply cried, listening to the sound of her mum’s soothing voice and feeling like a young girl again.

Time passed: she wasn’t sure how long – but when she finally calmed herself, Esther sat in silence, listening to her mother talk about normality. How her dad had spent two days in the garden, how Mrs Jackson across the road had just got back from having her hip replaced, about the new fountain in the village centre that didn’t work. They were the type of banal details that would have driven her to despair if she’d still been living at her parents’ house, but sitting in the darkness of the jail she was living in, it was exactly what she needed.

An hour later, with Esther’s mother’s considerable list of gossip eventually used up, there was a silence broken by her mum’s whisper. ‘There’ll always be a room for you here, you know.’

Esther choked back another sob. ‘I know, Mum, but that’s the problem. I’m twenty-nine years old and have to do something for myself.’

‘I know, darling.’

With that, they sat listening to each other breathing until, eventually, Esther said that she should go.

The silence of the house was beautiful yet crushing at the same time. Peace and wondrous serenity that boomed ‘no way out’.

Esther closed her eyes, wishing she could sleep. The headache had slipped away but her eyes were hurting and visions of Leah so ingrained that she knew she’d never be able to drop off. She should have rationed the pills better but there was little she could do now. She didn’t have a doctor to get a prescription and going out by herself to the pharmacy to get something weaker wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t as if she could ask Charlie either – he already seemed convinced she was an OD waiting to happen.

She sat, listening.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Was it in her head?

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Esther stood, walking as quietly as she could through the house, trying to figure out where it was coming from. She followed the noise to the kitchen, horror-movie visions of mice and rats racing through her already fragile mind.

The scratching was louder than the buzzing of the fridge, as if someone was scraping claws along a wooden board. Esther crept to the back door, listening as the demon beyond continued to play tricks with her mind.

Then she heard another sound, quieter than the scratching: a tiny fragment of joy among the wreckage of everything around her.

Esther fumbled in her pocket for the key and unlocked the door, blinking and squinting into the sunlight as she crouched and welcomed Patch into the house with a sob.

THIRTY-ONE: CHARLIE

There was no kind way of putting it: Esther was a mess. When Charlie arrived home, the house was swathed in an eerie darkness, a total contrast to the summer outside. Esther was in their bed, not reading, not watching television, not doing anything other than sitting. He asked her what she’d done with the day but all she mentioned was that she’d let the cat into the house.