At the top of the staircase, I peer down into the shadows below, straining my ears to hear any sound. There is some kind of intermittent noise down there, a soft tapping or clicking.Just take the car keys and go, I think.Take what you want and leave my family alone. Because if you try to come up the stairs, if you cross that line, one of us is going to get hurt.
I need light,anylight. With my eyes finally starting to adjust, discerning the blacks from different depths of dark gray, I feel my way back to the master bedroom. Going back around to my bedside table to find my mobile, noticing something else for the first time: the display on my clock radio is also blank. No red numerals. Nothing at all.
Either a circuit breaker has tripped in the cellar, or…
Or someone has cut the power.
I feel the way to my phone, the flash of the screen dazzling me as I hold down the power button.Come on, come on. I go to my wife’s side of the bed while I wait for the phone to boot up.
“Jess!” I call to her in a hoarse whisper. “Jess! Wake up.”
She doesn’t stir.
I call her name again, louder, tapping her shin with my hand. Finally, she moves her head, eyes squinting into the light from my phone.
“What?” She turns her head away from the light. “Too bright.”
“Jess, listen to me.”
“Turn itoff.”
“There’s someone downstairs and the power is out. I’m going to check, OK?”
“Wait, what?” Her voice is still thick with sleep. “What’s going on?”
“Stay here,” I say again, taking her own mobile from the bedside table and pressing it into her hand. “Call the police.”
“What… Who’s here?”
“Just call them. I won’t be long. Don’t open the bedroom door to anyone.”
I’m pulling the door shut behind me as my phone chimes with the four-note sound that tells me it’s booted up, the screen filling with icons over the familiar picture of Jess and the three kids from Christmas last year. I select the torch app and flash it around the landing, wild leaping shadows dancing away from the bright white light. Everything looks different in the dark, in the middle of the night. This house that we’ve only lived in for a week, that still feels as if it belongs to someone else.
Taking a deep breath, I start to descend the stairs, the night air chilly around my shoulders. I’m wearing only boxer shorts and feel more exposed, more vulnerable with every step, the red-wine throb in my head growing worse by the second.
“Hello?” I pause to pan the phone torch around when I’m halfway down the stairs. Shadows upon shadows, only a weak glazeof light filtering through the front from the old-fashioned gaslights out on the street. “The police are on their way.”
I wait for any response, hoping that Jess has already made the call. I strain my ears to hear anything above my own ragged breathing.
Silence.
The tiles of the hallway are ice-cold against the soles of my bare feet.
“Hello?” My voice echoes back to me off the high ceiling. “I know you’re there.”
There is the faintest sound from the sitting room. The shift of fabric against skin, perhaps, or the lightest step on the wooden parquet flooring.
Found you.
I reach out for the nearest hall light switch but it, too, is out of action. Beside it, leaning in the corner, is the golfing umbrella that I take to Callum’s football matches. My heart is beating so hard and so fast it feels like it’s coming up my throat, my mouth as dry as dead leaves. Brandishing the big umbrella in my right hand, I shine the light from my phone into the sitting room, taking two steps in and scanning wildly around for the intruder, left, right, shadows bouncing and dancing, light flashing off the mirror over the fireplace as I turn back to the left again and there is a sudden movement on the floor…
There’s no one in the room. Only Steve, his yellow eyes blinking up at me in surprise. The remains of a small mouse are pinned beneath his paw, the tail just visible.
“Jesus,” I breathe. “Bloody cat.”
He goes back to his prize and I slowly retrace my steps back into the hall. The cat may be roaming around but he wasn’theavy enough to make the noises I heard from upstairs. Thereissomeone here, I am sure of it. Someone who wanted to stay in the dark.
In the kitchen I go to the sink, putting the umbrella down and shining the torchlight on the drying rack.There. My hand closes on a rolling pin.
