I drop my hands to my sides. “Are youthreateningme?”
“Better for you, your wife, your kids.”
A ball of hot rage flares in my chest.
“You need to leave,” I say. “Rightnow.”
He comes closer, tension crackling between us like static electricity, the rapid sluice of adrenaline tingling all the way to my fingertips.
“I don’t know who you are,” I say. “But I want you out of my house.”
He pauses when he’s only a foot from my face, his eyes as flat and hard as black pebbles. Close enough for me to see the darkness behind them.
“Whatever,” he says. “You don’t have to be an arsehole about it.”
And then he’s brushing past me, the sharp smell of his sweat curdling into the hard citrus of his aftershave, kicking acardboard box out of his way as he goes. As he turns at the top of the staircase, I notice the knuckles of the hand gripping his backpack strap are white.
“Your bag,” I say, clamping down on my fear now that he’s walking away. “Show it to me.”
“What?”
“Show me what’s in your bag.”
He starts to descend the stairs. “Are you having a laugh?”
I grab the blue backpack from behind and wrench it from his shoulder. He tries to keep hold of the strap but he’s already on the third step down, off balance, and I have the height advantage now. He turns on the staircase and for a moment he’s pulling back against me, pivoting, before he lets go of the strap and grabs the banister instead.
“What the hell!” He spreads his hands, palms up, but doesn’t move back up the stairs toward me. “You want me to bang you out, mate?”
I unzip the top of the backpack, pulling it fully open and rooting through the contents. Inside is a half-full bottle of Sprite, a phone charging cable, a black baseball cap, an empty plastic Asda bag, a battered pair of sunglasses, a small can of orange spray paint, two screwdrivers, and a torch.
In among these contents is the little Motorola flip phone.
I take it out and hold it up to him.
“This just fell into your bag, did it?”
“Screw you.”
Pocketing the phone, I throw the rucksack back to him and he catches it against his chest.
“If I see you again,” I say, “I’m calling the police.”
“Doubt that,” he says, zipping the bag and swinging it back onto his shoulder. “Because next time you won’t see us coming.”
Jeremy’s reply to my text drops in as I’m watching Shaun walk away down the drive.
No, not heard back from Kevin Hopkins yet. Can I help with something?
23
“So who the hell was he?” Jess studies the image on my phone, the surreptitious picture I’d taken of the man who’d called himself Shaun Hopkins. “And how did he know where we lived?”
I tell her about the afternoon’s strange visit as I slice onions for a spaghetti Bolognese supper.
“Said he was the grandson of the previous owner. Seemed quite genuine, at first.”
“And Jeremy had never heard of him?”
