Imagine if I had seen Hannah’s name flash up on the screen that morning and brushed it aside, never looked. Would I still be doing Ben’s laundry, in the Cotswolds, oblivious?
It’s odd, though, to be stuck in the liminal space between believing this call for help is utterly real, and being certain this realness must, necessarily, be a figment of my overactive imagination. Because things like this don’treallyhappen—not here, in houses like this. Not in real life. Not in London. Stabbings, yes. Hit-and-runs, of course. Even people pushed under trains.
The truth is I don’t believe it’s real enough todoanything. Deep down, I know that in the end I’ll just throw the collar away and buy a new one.
I shake off thoughts: body parts and plastic sheeting and sadness.
I pull back the sheets and head across the room to a small box withCat Stuffscrawled across it. I chuck the vandalized collar into a trash bag, already half-full of bubble wrap, and sit down cross-legged to root through the box.
With mild interest, Blue looks up at my sudden burst of activity, before burying his head back in his paws.
After taking a few things out, I find what I am looking for: a cat camera, attached to a custom collar.
I only have Blue left now. He loves me, he trusts me, and you need to hold those who love and trust you tight.
I study the box instructions and plug the collar in to charge beside my bed.
Once I have flicked the bedroom lights out, sleep does not drift over me. I lie awake, staring at the blue glowing light of the charging collar.
Everything will be okay.
Chapter 5
Uh-oh
At 8 a.m., Blue wakesme.
I dreamt of fire. I can’t remember exactly, but the sound of flames licking and crackling stays with me, the heat still in me.
My thoughts are bleary from lack of sleep, I rise reluctantly, well aware that Blue will not leave me in peace until I get up and feed him.
I look at his unbothered face as he burbles out a happy meow, pleased that I am now standing.
“Who wrote on your collar yesterday, Blue-Blue? Which human?” He holds my stare a second, then loses interest and trots to the bedroom door. There are more important things on his mind.
Downstairs at the kitchen sink, I gulp down a half-pint of water and then refill, the splash of the tap holding my focus until I hear the rustle of wind in trees coming from the end of the kitchen, strangely loud.
I turn, a frown creasing my features.
The glass slips from my hands and smashes onto the slate floor, inches from my bare feet. I reel back from the flying glass and cold water.
“Shit,” I yelp, a thick spike of glass lodging under my heel. “Ah, fucking hell,” I groan, hopping around the smash site toward the kitchen roll and administering a sheet to my foot.
As I do, I look over at the back door. It is wide open, swaying gently in the summer breeze. I can hear the sounds of the gardencrisp and clear, birds, leaves rustling like packing materials, the hammer-hammer-hammer of workmen a street away.
My heel throbs as I pull loose the shard and stanch the slow ooze of dark blood, but it is hard to peel my eyes away from the door. The gaping open door.
One thing certain: I did not open it.
I hobble toward it, Blue moving to higher ground.
I close the door. I test the handle. I lock it. I inspect it. I try the handle again. It is secure. It could not have just opened by itself. In which case, I must have left it unlocked and physically open last night. And yet I remember checking it twice.
But I must have left it open. I must have. There is no otherplausiblesolution.
What are the chances that the first night I spend alone, in my first single-person house, someone breaks in? I will not allow the thought.
I scan the kitchen. Nothing is gone. everything is as I left it.
