One Night (4 page)

I stood up. ‘What was that?’

She stepped through the foliage and
scrabbled around. ‘Bloody cricket ball!’

‘Somebody’s playing cricket? Here?’

‘No, it’s that Wally Bunting. We’re
too close to his property. He’s just warning us off.’

‘With a cricket ball?’

‘Last time he used a brick.’

‘Unpleasant customer.’

I looked around but I couldn’t see
anyone.

‘Very unpleasant. He’s some sort of
recluse. A local hillbilly. Fixes cars and stuff. His baby brother, Matthew, is
in a place of restraint for the mentally deranged.’

‘Grief!’ I looked at her in horror.
‘And here was I thinking you spent your weekends in paradise!’

‘Apparently Wally Bunting has been really
off since his brother was put away. Very threatening if anybody goes near. I
think the whole thing unhinged him.’

‘Worse than before, you mean?’

‘Probably.’

‘Give me the ball.’

‘Why?’

I took it and lobbed it back.

‘
Fuck off!
’ I yelled.

She looked alarmed. ‘I don’t think
that was wise.’

‘Life would be boring if we always did
the wise thing.’

She snorted. ‘Look at you! You’re
covered in mud!’

I thought of that cricket ball violently flung. And Alice Petting in the shop
with her dire warnings. What if weird Wally’s escaped brother had made his way
home? Wouldn’t that be the first place the police would look? Pretty obvious
surely? If Baby Bunting had any brains he should be miles from here.

I shook these thoughts away. I was
scaring myself. I went to get something for supper. There was a fruit bowl on
the counter filled with utility bills, a bunch of keys, a torch and three
half-burnt candles. I stared for a moment. The keys, I guessed were Mona’s car
keys. But candles? Power in the cottage must have been a problem from time to
time. Unease sifted gently. Tonight would not be a good time for that to
happen.

And that was when the second
discrepancy struck me. As I opened the fridge.

Mona was right. There was food in
the fridge. But it wasn’t Mona food. Mona was a tip-top cook. She was one of
those people who did things properly. Slap-dash, half-baked were not in her
makeup. The pathetic offering in the fridge would have been derisively turned
down by a starving dog, let alone Sticky.

There was a pot of stale soup. Two rather
old-looking take-away pies, a chicken leg and left over peas, half a loaf of
cold, stolid bread, and a tiny, neatly wrapped square of very old cheese.

I stared at this abominable feast
with a kind of creeping horror. What on earth was she playing at? Had she left
in such a hurry that this was really the best she could do? If she’d mentioned
food would be a problem, I could have brought my own. But she had
said
she would leave something for supper.

I gave a little sigh of annoyance. At
least there was a packet of Sticky’s food. I filled his bowl and set down fresh
water. Then I turned, and froze.

7 PM

Sticky was doing his best to stand on the couch on three legs. His fur was on
end and his eyes had a wild look. His nose was flexing as though something foul
had just entered the room. Then he staggered. I ran forward and caught him just
before he toppled off the couch. My heart almost stopped. Imagine if Mona came
back and found Sticky with a second broken leg…

Automatically, I glanced at the
back door.

‘What’s wrong, boy? Somebody
there?’

Sticky’s throat puttered, his eyes
straining as though he wanted to see through the wall. I found myself moving
reluctantly towards the back door. I drew the lock and opened the door a crack,
looking out on the messy yard. Nothing. Relocked and ran for the front door. By
now my heart was a hammer in my chest. I saw the lock was still firmly in
place, the bolt shot. I stood for a moment, listening. There was no sound other
than Sticky’s aggressive mutter behind me. I looked out of the window.

The area lit by the front light was
empty save for my car. Briefly, I wondered if I’d locked it, then I remembered
that I had. I had also made sure the keys were safely in a pocket in my bag.
Now, I scanned the bushes behind it. The drive receded into an eerie twilight
and then darkness.

I stood a long moment, then pulled
the curtain firmly closed and turned to Sticky. ‘C’mon, boy. Let’s get some
supper.’

I carried him to his bowl and set
him down. Then I focused on making something edible out of the ‘something nice’
Mona had left in the fridge. I took a hodge-podge arrangement of food on a tray
and went to sit in a large armchair in front of the television. I was
considering channel options when out of nowhere, the discrepancy of the note and
the strange food in the fridge connected sharply in my mind.

Mona had never written that note.
It wasn’t her handwriting.

I looked down at the serving in
front of me. Not Mona’s food.

I shoved the tray and its
unappetizing contents to one side and ran up the stairs. I pulled the note from
under the little flower pot, fumbled for the lamp switch, and read it again.
And now I saw clearly it wasn’t her handwriting. Mona had a sharply-sloped,
rigidly neat style, no loops or sweeps, everything elongated and properly
finished. The writing in front of me was small and round and childish. Mona
would never have written like that.

Was it Brent’s writing? I
remembered birthday cards from Mona, Brent’s hasty, childish scribble at the
bottom,
Love, Brent.
A match with this?

I looked at it for a long time,
wondering what these facts were telling me. Was something wrong? Where had she
and Brent gone? I felt suddenly edgy, a little panicked. Were they coming
back?
Was Sticky’s broken leg an unforeseen hitch to a longer holiday? Mona had said
they would be back on Sunday – and Mona never lied. Well, not up to this point
of my knowing her. Perhaps they’d gone off for a week or so to Spain and left
me, literally, holding the baby. Mona would know I wouldn’t leave Sticky. If
they didn’t come back, I would take Sticky home with me. She knew that.

I chewed this over. It didn’t fit. Mona
would never do something like that to me. True blue, straight as a die,
ingenuously honest sometimes. That was Mona. It was that aspect about her that
made her relationship with Brent so incongruous. He struck me as just the
opposite; a little too smooth, that empty smile hovering, a hint of
patronization in his wide blue eyes.

I sat puzzling over it, wondering
if there was anything to worry about at all. Perhaps she’d been in a hurry and
asked Brent to write the note. But that soup!
Jeesh!
That was rather
old
.
Mona would never have expected me to eat that!

There was a thump from downstairs.

My heart leapt in my chest. Sticky
had fallen over!

I scrambled out of the tiny room,
down the stairs, and stopped, rigid with shock.

A man was standing in a corner of the
room, his back to the wall, one arm in mid-stretch, a hand splayed towards the
window, a tiny track of dried blood on the pale skin like an old wound
carelessly treated.

This was one of those moments where a whole lot of things happen – and they’re
all in your mind; physically nothing moves. Fright stopped my breath. All I
could think of was the deadbolt on the front door. It was still locked. How had
he gotten in? Had I been careless? Who was he? What did he want? Should I be
frightened? Why
shouldn’t
I be frightened? Was I in danger? Would he
attack?

Most pertinent thought: I didn’t
have a weapon.

Our eyes locked in equal shock. The
muscles in my neck contracted in such painful spasm I thought I was already
being strangled. My voice came out in a tight shriek, ‘
What are you doing here?
’

Shadows swooped. The man was the
only thing I could see. He was pressed so close to the wall it looked as though
he was trying to hide. Sticky, the alert guard dog, was engrossed in balancing
on three legs and eating his supper. He seemed not to notice there was an extra
person in the room.

Bizarrely, the man said, ‘It’s all
right.’

He stepped away from the wall. He was
tall, at least six one or two, and slender with long arms, rangy shoulders. Longish
brown hair touched his collar, the trim of a thin black beard framing his face.
He was wearing dark grey trousers and a light grey shirt, both smeared with
stains. One shirt sleeve was torn across the shoulder. I could see the white of
a t-shirt or vest beneath. As he held out one large hand towards me in what
seemed a soothing gesture, I found my voice.

‘You get
out
,’ I hissed. ‘You
get out now before I call the police.’

The big hand wavered, the soothing
motion now more urgent, a definite signal to shush. ‘Don’t do that,’ he said.
‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘You
fuck
off, you bastard!’
My voice lifted to a squeal. This couldn’t be happening! I was blinded by fright,
outraged. Terror washed through me, bone by bone. I felt I had swallowed
something and it had stuck, lead-weight, in my gullet.

He said hurriedly, ‘I’m looking for
Brent Sedgeworth.’

‘You get
out!
’

‘Please – ’ His eyes were intent,
dark.

One question hammered in my brain. ‘How
– how did you get in here?’ Automatically, I scanned the room for signs of
forced entry.

He indicated the front door. ‘You
were out in the woods and it wasn’t locked. I thought no-one was here.’ His
tone was apologetic.

‘So you just waltzed in, hoping for
easy pickings?’ I could hardly get the words out. I felt I had swallowed a ball
of barbed wire as I realized what had happened. ‘You hid in the bedroom!’

‘I heard you coming back from the
forest with the dog and I didn’t know what to do. I was trying to leave just
now, as you went upstairs.’

He’d been there all the time –
watching me!

My throat squeezed tighter. ‘Well, you
just go on and get out like you planned.’

‘Please don’t phone the police.’ He
took a step. ‘I can’t let you phone the police.’

I was in a bad spot. The worst kind
of spot. My eyes turned to the kitchen where the knives were. At this point,
Sticky’s furry bottom bounced as he slipped. His plastered leg shot under his
food bowl. He gave a low, annoyed woof, tottered a short way, and slid under
the table.

If the man hadn’t already been
aware that the dog was no threat, he definitely knew it now. He took another
step towards me.

I shrank on the stairs, clutching
the rickety balustrade. He must have seen my expression because he paused. His
eyes shifted to the front door, whether gauging the distance as an escape route
for me or himself, I wasn’t sure. But it was a moment –
moment
– and I
turned and raced up the stairs for my cell phone.

I shot into the little box room and
slammed the door shut. I could hear him pounding up behind me. There was no key
in the lock but a tiny slip bolt. I pushed it across, raced for my bag. I
scrabbled frantically. Couldn’t find the bloody phone!
Couldn’t…

Finally I dragged it out. But it
was too late. The door jam splintered as he slammed against it, smashing the
tiny lock in one blow.

He came in, lunging at me, his eyes
on the phone.

‘Give that to me!
Give
it to
me.’

I screamed and reared away from
him. But he was tall, his arms long. He easily grabbed my flailing arms and
pinned me down. My scream strangled to a muffed sob in the back of my throat as
he wrested the phone from me. I heaved against him, trying to push him off. We
were now both half on, half off the bed. I lifted one knee and caught him a
crack on the side of the head.

‘Stop it!’ he said sharply as I
bucked futilely under him. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I just can’t let you
phone the police.’

I stared at him in utter horror,
remembering the words of the lady in the shop.

Was this Baby Bunting?

‘Fuck you!’ I sobbed. ‘Get away.
Get off me. Leave me alone!’

He released me slowly, eased away. I
lay on the bed. He sank to the floor, half-sitting, half-crouching. He said, ‘This
has nothing to do with you.’

I snorted, wiping away tears of
fright and frustration. My body felt weak with shock. There was a sharp taste
of bile in the back of my throat. Helplessly, I watched him slip my cell phone into
his pocket.

‘I’d hoped to find Brent here but
it seems the bastard’s vanished as usual.’

My eyes were glued on him, my heart
thumping ninety to the dozen. He wasn’t behaving like a nutcase rapist. In fact
he was hardly looking at me. He seemed more concerned by the fact that Brent
was missing. Relief and caution mixed with these details as though they’d been
marked with glitter. I noted the strong line of his brow, a straight nose in a
long, pale face, dark shadows under intent brown eyes. He didn’t look like a
nutter. There was a clean, neat line to his profile that encouraged trust. He
was looking for Brent; an angry man wanting –
something –
an apology,
retribution, money…

I looked at the big hands lying in
his lap – and imagined them smacking Brent’s supercilious smile right off his
face. In an unexpected twist, I felt I could be on his side.

Slowly, I sat up. I heard myself
say, ‘They’ll be back tomorrow.’

His look was wry. ‘That so?’

‘That’s what Mona told me.’

‘Mona?’

‘His girlfriend.’

He frowned. ‘I didn’t know. I
haven’t seen Brent in a while.’

‘Been away, have you?’

I was feeling a little stronger. His
focus was clearly elsewhere. His eyes lifted to meet mine.

‘You could say. I was in jail for two
years, taking the rap for Brent.’