My heart froze and I held my breath. I stood at Michael’s bedroom door like a statue, trying to open my ears to every sound. As quietly as I could I breathed in through my nose, tried to smell if the house had changed.
Another noise. The creak a window frame makes as the window is pulled wide open.
I needed a weapon.
A quick scan of Michael’s room gave me nothing.
I knew that Neil’s length of broom handle was by his bed. But I didn’t want to move further along the landing, giving away the fact that I was upstairs.
I heard the jangling of keys.
Were they my old keys? I had been expecting the attacker to come and try to use them on my car or house. Since we had changed the locks, he wouldn’t be able to get in. Unless he climbed through an open window.
I cursed myself for being so stupid as to come upstairs, leaving windows open downstairs.
What did he want? Was he looking to steal things? Or was he after something else? Was he after me?
A bump from downstairs. Something landed on the kitchen floor. Something heavy. Like a person.
I was surprised I heard it over the thumping of my heart. But I had to act. I had to do something. A rage started burning inside me. I thought of how David Banner became The Incredible Hulk when he was angry. I was angry.
I turned to leave Michael’s room. I dropped all but one of the towels I had taken from the airing cupboard. This was to be my weapon.
A footfall. Not mine. He was walking about. He wasn’t rummaging through things, he was just walking about. He was looking. Looking for me.
I unfurled the folded towel, held one corner and let the rest hang free. I twisted it around by moving my wrist in small circles. The towel wrapped around itself, looking more like rope with each twist. When it would twist no further I took the bottom end and brought it up to the top. It wasn’t much, but it would still hurt if I swung a powerful and accurate shot against the side of his head.
I had a score to settle.
A scratching sound drifted up the stairs. Like metal on something more dense.
I moved towards the top of the stairs. The floorboards creaked slightly as I walked. They seemed deafening to me, but I couldn’t remember ever hearing them creak when I was downstairs, and Neil or the kids were upstairs. I hoped that the intruder heard nothing.
As I reached the top of the stairs and looked down, a shadow moved against the living room wall at the bottom of the stairs. He had walked past the stairs, but not come up. I wondered if he had heard the creaking floorboards. Perhaps he was choosing to bide his time. Choosing to wait for me to come to him. He would certainly have the advantage of seeing my legs coming down the stairs before I would see him. I wondered if he was armed with something more dangerous than a skateboard. I suspected he was.
I had a rolled-up towel.
Another shadow on the wall. He was still walking about, not hiding. Unless there were two of them. Or more.
I heard the dog barking again. I hadn’t shut the window in Michael’s bedroom.
From outside I heard the sound of a car pulling to a stop. Car doors slamming and children’s voices.
My children’s voices.
They were back from school. I had lost track of the time and they were about to walk in to find an intruder in their home.
I roared. Screamed and roared. And I charged down the stairs as fast as I could without falling over.
I leaped the last four steps and raised the towel above my head in the most threatening way I could.
Over the noise I made I thought I heard banging and scraping coming from the kitchen. There was no one in the living room. But I was certain I glimpsed another shadow disappear from the wall near the kitchen.
I ran full pelt at the kitchen, still screaming, still roaring. I slammed the twisted towel against the door frame as I rushed in.
The kitchen window was wide open, as far as it could go. The pot-plant that once sat in the sunlight of the window sill lay on its side on the worktop, soil spilled from the pot. The saucer it had rested on was broken.
I virtually threw myself at the open window and craned my neck in every direction to try to catch sight of the intruder. But I saw no one. Not a sign. I had launched myself onto the worktop and now saw that my trousers were damp from the upturned plant. My hand was muddy from the soil. And I must have banged my elbow on the window sill as I now felt electric-shock-pulses of pain shooting from my elbow to my hand. My fingers tingled.
I squeezed the towel as hard as I could. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I wanted to scream even louder. I felt like punching holes in the wall. I smashed the towel against the worktop. Sent the already unhappy plant crashing to the floor.
I knew that if I had the attacker in my grasp, I would have ripped him to pieces. Starting with his face, I would have torn him apart with my bare hands.
I so wanted that.
The doorbell rang.
I heard Michael and Rose and Josie and Jess. They all screamed, shouted and laughed as though they were arriving for a birthday party.
I rubbed my tingling elbow and jumped off the worktop. I used the towel to quickly gather up the broken pot and scattered soil into a corner of the kitchen and went to answer the front door.
All four children ran straight past me and banged up the stairs. Abi stood at the front door looking at me. She looked confused.
‘Are you OK?’ she said.
I stepped out of the house and past Abi. I looked around for the intruder. But he was gone.
‘Did you see him?’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘The man who attacked me. He was just here. He came into the house through an open window. I was upstairs and I heard him. I managed to chase him away.’
I realised I was talking much faster than normal and my voice seemed to have automatically tuned to a higher pitch. I probably sounded like a cartoon character.
Abi looked around, then looked hard at me.
‘Did you see him?’ she said.
‘I chased him away. I ran down the stairs screaming at him and he ran away. He went back out of the kitchen window. You must have seen him, Abs. I heard you arrive in the car, that was what spurred me into action. You must have seen him.’
Abi shook her head.
‘We need to call the police,’ she said. ‘You can give them a description now. They’ll be able to get fingerprints from the window. They might even have him on file somewhere already. Are you OK?’
I was shaking vigorously. It was probably a mixture of fear and anger. It felt like ninety percent in favour of anger.
And maybe it wasn’t fear. Maybe it was humiliation or embarrassment.
‘I can’t give them a description,’ I said. ‘I didn’t really see his face.’
Abi followed me into the house. She shut the front door behind her.
‘Oh,’ she said. The disappointment in her voice was obvious. ‘Did you manage to get any new details about him? They might be able to do something even from a description of his clothes or his height.’
I felt my face flush with heat.
‘I’m not sure that I saw any of him at all,’ I said. ‘I saw his shadow on the wall. A few times. But I didn’t physically see him. He got away before I caught him.’
Abi looked as though she was struggling to find the right question.
‘Did he say anything?’ she said. ‘Did he talk to you, or shout?’
I shook my head. I could see where this was going.
‘He was here, Abi. I heard him come in the window. I heard the rattling of keys. And I heard him walking about downstairs. I saw his shadow, several times. He was here.’
Abi nodded.
‘I think you should ring the police,’ she said. ‘Tell them what happened. Get them to come round and check the window for fingerprints. If he was inside your house, Chris, they have to do something about that. They can’t just ignore it.’
I walked to the kitchen to fetch the phone. Even
as I walked, the doubts about what I had heard and seen started flooding my mind.
I hesitated before picking up the phone. I dialled 999 and kicked some stray clumps of soil over to the broken plant in the corner. I told myself to lower the pitch of my voice. Slow it down a little. Sound less like a cartoon and more like a human being. A believable, normal human being.