I decide to ignore her request. “What about the shadow? Tell them about the shadow.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she snaps. “I suppose it’s what I think I see when I’m confused. I want to go for a lie-down now.”
“There’s a policeman having a look around the house at the moment, Mum. You can have a lie-down when he’s done.” I flash PC Hollis an apologetic smile, and his return is the sympathetic version.
The sound of boots on carpet interrupts us. PC Chowdhury breaks the tension in the room with a breezy entrance. “I’ve checked the cellar and upstairs, but there’s nothing unusual there.”
“I’ll show you the attic,” I say. Serial killers always hide in the attic. A shiver runs down my spine.
“Don’t get lost up there.” Mum’s voice is laced with sarcasm. Then she laughs.
Chapter Ten
PC Chowdhury is nice about it, but even as we’re walking up the attic steps, I get the strongest feeling that no one is there and no one has been there. I think he knows this whole thing is ridiculous as well. I begin to wonder about the recording and the implications of its contents. As I watched the two police officers listen to it, I figured that their raised eyebrows and intakes of breath were out of shock that there was an intruder in my home. Now I wonder if it was disbelief. Maybe they think I’m a crazy woman who doctored the file. Or maybe they think it was Mum.
As I stand under the single light bulb in the attic, I replay the voice in my mind. I don’t need the file. I know exactly what that voice sounds like. I know every nuance and tone in that serpent-like hiss. I know every word. You will know me.
Could it be her?
Could it be Mum?
The stifling attic air suffocates me, and the back of my neck dampens with sweat. What if Mum spoke on the recording to frighten me? What if all of this is a cruel joke? I want to be able to dismiss that thought, but I can’t. This could be her revenge. It would be just like her. She wants to make me crazier than she is because she hates me that much. My hand moves up my chest to circle my throat. I think of her, and I squeeze until I can’t breathe.
“I think I’m all done.”
My hand drops, and I blink my thoughts away. PC Chowdhury turns to me with a pitying smile on his face. I want to slap it off, but I settle for forming a fist at my side.
“There’s nothing here,” he says with a shrug. “Did your mum remember anything?”
I shake my head.
“That’s a shame. She could have helped us a great deal.”
He bends his head as he steps over the junk strewn around the attic floor. I finally manage to move my feet, directing him back towards the steps. He descends first. I glance back at the attic. There’s nothing here, only all our junk collected over the years. Old photo albums, boxes of winter clothes, my university work. I switch off the bulb and follow Chowdhury back downstairs.
*
The police are kind enough to open an investigation, but by the time they leave, I’m already doubting what I heard on the recording. They tell me to keep a log of anything unusual and to write down, or print out records, of all inappropriate phone calls. The words make me shiver. That’s what you do when you’re being stalked and harassed. Stalked women never have a happy ending in the movies.
I’m not taking any chances. My next phone call is to the locksmith to change our locks. Mum hovers around the locksmith after he arrives, breathing over his shoulder and staring as he works. I barely have the energy to distract her away from him. She’s confused for the rest of the day. She seems to forget all about the police coming to our home and asks me why the man is changing our locks over half a dozen times.
I answer her questions and make cups of tea. I do it all in a daze. My body is disconnected from my mind as I step around the kitchen like a zombie. Erin leaves with relief spread all over her face and with a limp wave I see through the window. The locksmith hurries out of the door, also relieved to be away from the demented old lady with the slack face and the funny questions.
And life goes on despite this little interruption. We eat dinner in relative silence, wittering to each other about mundane things like the weather and the tasteless food on our plates. We go to bed at the same time. We lie down on our beds in our separate rooms and we pretend that everything is normal.
But it isn’t. Either someone was in our house, Mum is deliberately trying to drive me insane, or the Alzheimer’s has her confused enough to make up voices in the night. None of those options bring me any comfort.
My dreams are as unfocused as my mind. They swim and swirl. I hear voices. The voice. Doors open and shut in my mind. A shadowy hand floats along the walls of our house, turning the walls into a dark, chalky substance, like ashes.
I call Alisha and Moira when I wake up, and they agree that I need another day off to recuperate from the events of yesterday. I explain what happened and they’re very sympathetic about the intruder, expressing the right amount of concern and alarm. For some reason it doesn’t feel genuine. Not even from Alisha, my best friend and the person I considered my only ally in this world.
The problem with finding that the world is imploding around you, and that your life has turned into a series of problems, is that there comes a time when the people around you are sick of hearing about it but are too polite to tell you they’re sick of it. You’re the bore who makes their day a little less sunny. You’re a negative influence in their lives and there’s nothing you can do about it, unless you want to keep your mouth shut and not say anything. No one wants to be the bore. When you’re not it, you avoid the bore like the plague. Then, one day, it comes around and it’s you and you’re alone.
I make one more phone call before breakfast. It’s to Erin, telling her to take the day off. I want to spend quality time with Mum to process the events of the last few days. At least, that’s what I tell her. Then I check my bank balance online and make a few phone calls. It’s time to make some changes around here.
Mum is quiet, which is good. I make her tea and toast and suggest she gets some rest after what happened. She waddles off to the living room to read her book as the doorbell goes.
I answer the door to a skinny chap in blue overalls.
“You called about setting up the security system?” he asks.
“That’s right. Come in.”
He glances down at a piece of paper in his hand. “So, it’s CCTV on the outside of the house and the nanny cameras in every room.”
He doesn’t say what he’s thinking. But I answer the question anyway. “My mother has Alzheimer’s disease, and I want to keep an eye on her while I’m at work.”
“Oh,” he says, apparently relieved that there’s a normal explanation for my security needs.
I don’t tell him that I want to watch my mother, or that I want to watch my mother’s nurse, too. I don’t tell him that I don’t trust anyone anymore. Instead, I join Mum in the living room so I can keep her distracted while he works in the rest of the house.
When he’s done with the upstairs, I suggest to Mum that we have a clothes sort-out. If there’s one thing that ignites the sparkle in her eyes, it’s the opportunity to criticise and throw out my clothes. She’s more than willing to sit on the bed as I hold up dress after top after skirt and she tells me which body part they emphasise. Some make my ankles look fat. Others highlight my wide hips or my chubby upper arms. By the time the security guy is done, I’ve packed up two fat bags of clothes for a cancer charity.
“Don’t forget to put them on the step,” Mum says as I begin to leave the room. “The collection is tomorrow.” She points to the label on the bag to demonstrate.
I swallow my snappy reply and head downstairs. The security guy is already packing up his bag.
“Are you all done? I’m sorry I completely forgot to make you a cup of tea,” I say.
“No worries. I’m more of a juice drinker, anyway.” He passes me a booklet. “Everything you need to know should be in here. My number
is on the front, in case you need anything.”
I thank the man and show him the way out of the house. When the door has closed behind him, I can’t help but wonder whether I’ve done the right thing. Have I crossed a line? If Mum or Erin find out about this, I could burn my bridges as quickly as a forest fire. But when I examine things deeper, I can’t help but wonder whether either relationship is particularly strong anyway.
When Mum’s footsteps sound on the stairs, I slip the booklet into the top drawer of the cabinet and try not to stare at the hidden cameras. No, I think, I need to establish order in this house. I need to get to the bottom of whatever is going on. I’m not overreacting. This has to be done, even if I have to spend money on an expensive security system to do it.
“Was there someone in the house?” Mum asks.
“No,” I reply.
“But I heard—”
“There was no one here. Was there, Mum?”
For once, she’s the one who shrinks away from me. She’s the one who stands there with her mouth flapping open and shut. She’s the vulnerable one.
*
It’s a relief to have Erin back. A full day with Mum, especially with everything going on, can be taxing. I’m more than happy to hand things over to her and head to the school. But Erin walks in through the door with a puzzled frown on her face. She leaves the front door open and gestures for me to follow her.
“I don’t know what’s happened, but…” She points down to the driveway.
“What the hell?”
Our drive is covered in the clothes I left out for the charity last night. I bend down and pick up one of the bags.
“It’s ripped open,” I say. “As though someone has pulled the plastic wrapper apart.”
Erin bends down next to me. “Are you sure it wasn’t clawed or chewed open by an animal?”
I’m no expert on animal tracks, but I would expect a bag to be shredded by an animal, not pulled open like this. I collect a blue blouse from amidst the gravel—a top Mum said revealed my “bingo wings”. It’s cut open. Slit from top to bottom.
I turn to Erin. “Do animals have scissors?”
“Fucking hell, Soph.”
We remain there, staring at the clothes strewn over the ground. A few weeks ago, I would have chalked this up to bored teenagers, but now I’m not so sure. My head swims with possibilities.
I really am being stalked. But by whom? Peter is the first name who pops into my mind. He’s the one who has been calling me. But what about the other people in my life? Erin? Alisha? The woman across the street with the cat? My boss, Moira? My ex-boyfriend, Jamie?
Mum. Mum faking the extent of her illness, teasing me by mentioning a shadow, pretending to see people at night, making that terrible voice on the MP3 file… All of it to punish me.
I finally come out of my trance and snap a few photographs with my phone. I’ll need to keep this in my log of “unusual activity” to show the police. Then I hurriedly collect my clothes, shoving them into the ripped plastic bags, ignoring the extent of the damage. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of anyone deliberately waiting until night time, then bringing a pair of scissors and cutting through my clothes.
Then I remember. The camera.
My heartbeat quickens.
“I’m late for work.”
“I can finish up here,” Erin says. “I’m sorry this happened. I just don’t understand it. Why would anyone do this?”
I fold my arms across my body, flinching at the reminder of how creepy this situation is. How violating it feels. “Be careful today. Keep the doors locked, okay? Whoever this is only seems to come at night, but you never know.”
“You be careful too,” she says. The early morning sun highlights the fine hair on her skin. She runs a hand through her pixie cut. “They could be following you.”
I hurry to my car, wanting nothing more than to leave this house.
Chapter Eleven
“Sophie, how are you?”
In my haste to get to my classroom, I almost walk straight past Alisha. She frowns when she sees me, a telling testament to how frazzled I must appear. I run the back of my hand over my forehead, smearing sweat across my skin. My left arm is filled with books and my laptop. My shoulder bag is hanging from my arm. I daren’t glance down at my clothes. Did I even iron them this morning? I can’t remember.
“Much better, thanks.” I force a smile.
Alisha does not seem convinced. Her frown only deepens, and a furrow appears between her eyebrows. Either she’s worried, or she’s disgusted at my dishevelled appearance.
“Are you sure? You seem stressed. Want to get a cuppa in the teacher’s room? We have ten minutes until registration.”
It pains me to see the hopeful expression in her eyes. I love Alisha. She’s my best friend. But there will always be a barrier between us, a wall that I keep failing to pull down. It’s jealousy. I’m jealous of her life, of her husband and her children, and the fact that she doesn’t have a bitter, slowly decaying mother to care for. Right now I’m the bitter one, because I have to go into my classroom, plug in my laptop and watch security camera footage to find out if that same decaying woman ripped open my bag of clothes and cut them into ribbons to spite me, because she hates her own daughter so much.
“I can’t, sorry, I have marking to do.” My tone is brusque and unfair. I’m walking away from her as she stands staring after me. All she ever does is try to help me, and I can’t find a way to be grateful. It hurts to be around her while my life is falling to pieces. It hurts to be around anyone happy, because I see the way I suck the happiness from the room.
It’s a relief to open the door to my classroom, and a relief to close it behind me. I dump the books on my desk and quickly set up my laptop. I don’t have a lot of time, and I’ve got a complicated system to work out. I spent most of last night reading and rereading the booklet I received with the installation.
I log in and pull up the camera feed from the front of the house. It takes me a couple of attempts, but soon I’m able to rewind the feed and play short busts through the night, rewinding and fast-forwarding until I find activity on the recording. There’s the neighbour’s cat again; a fox comes sniffing up to the bag and I freeze, wondering if my paranoia was just that… but then the fox turns away and runs into the night.
It’s not until about 4am that there’s movement again. It’s so quick that I almost miss it. I rewind and watch again. It’s almost a blur.
A figure darts from the hedge on the left of the screen towards our door. Then it disappears. I catch my breath, try to calm my heart, and watch again. The figure is almost completely in shadow and little more than a black blob in the darkness. But, despite its being hunched over, it’s almost certainly a person. The problem is, the person disappears directly underneath the camera, which is affixed to the wall above the door. They must be crouched down next to the step where the charity bag is still sitting.
I keep watching the recording. For almost thirty seconds, nothing happens. Then I start as a gloved hand reaches out and snatches the bag of clothes. The sickness in my stomach rises to my throat. I clamp a hand over my mouth to keep it down. I need to keep a clear head. I need to watch the rest of this recording and find out exactly who is stalking me and why. But there’s little else to see. At one point, some of my clothes fly up into the air, making me gasp. I’m watching a person destroy my things for no apparent reason. More of my clothes are thrown into the air, and then there’s another blur and the vandal is gone.
I sit back in my chair, covered in cold sweat, defeated and drained. I was so convinced that this would show that Mum was playing a cruel joke. Instead, I know no more than I did yesterday. The figure was so hunched, and moved so fast, that it could have been anyone. I didn’t even assess their physique. They could be fat or thin, male or female.
The children begin to filter into the classroom as I start to watch the footage from Mum’s room in fast-forward. About two hours
in, the camera goes blank. I pause the feed and try to rewind it.
“Miss, are you going to do registration? Shall I do it for you?” Alice being a goody two-shoes again.
I pick up my register and read out the names of the students, but all the time—even as I’m marking ticks next to their names—all I can think about is the video feed. Why did it go blank? Could Mum have figured out what I’ve done? Did she turn the camera off somehow? And if she did, how did she do it without walking up to the camera? I would have seen her do it. Perhaps the camera is faulty. The timing is disastrous, but these things do happen.
It’s a struggle, but I force my concentration back to the children. It’s not their fault so much is going on in my private life. They still deserve an education. So, for the entire morning, that’s what they get. There are moments where I find myself zoning out, thinking about the stalker, about the clothes and about Mum, but I manage to be coherent enough to stick to the lesson plan. But as soon as it’s over, I’m back to my laptop watching the footage. The footage from Mum’s camera is completely blank for the rest of the night. I give up on it, instead switching to the live feed in the rest of the house. It jolts me for a moment. I didn’t quite expect the feeling of shame that washes over me as I watch Erin in the kitchen heating up soup for Mum as she sits at the table. It’s so intimate. So voyeuristic. And oddly compelling.
Erin appears to be chatting, while Mum sits stoically still. When Erin takes the soup across to the table, Mum is scowling. She folds her arms and turns away while Erin patiently places the bowl before her, with the spoon on the right. Erin sits down next to Mum with her sandwich, smiling brightly. But Mum is still scowling. Eventually she picks up the spoon and drops it into the bowl. The soup splatters over the table, and I’m still sat staring at them, watching the stubbornness of my mother as she refuses to eat. Erin even offers the woman her own sandwich, but still Mum looks away.
The Broken Ones Page 8