‘All right, I’ll see what I can bring back for you.’
He was intractable. The next morning, he drove her to the doctor’s. She was given some capsules and a lecture about the stress of the first few months of marriage. She had already decided not to take the tranquillisers. If she saw the staring man again, she didn’t want Jamie telling her she was muzzy.
But she didn’t see him, and by Friday she was more or less reconciled to spending the weekend alone in the house. She had told herself sternly that she would have to face it some time; when she was over the first weekend, she would feel less anxious about any others.
He was booked on the 5.15 p.m. Air France flight from Heathrow and Donna drove him there in the Mercedes after she had confessed to flushing all the tranquillisers down the toilet. He was amused, rather than angry. He seemed pleased that she had conquered the fears herself.
Before he left her at the gate for United Kingdom passport holders, he embraced her and told her where to locate the brandy in case she needed it for her nerves.
She answered that she wouldn’t need it now. As he moved towards the ticket check, she called out, ‘Jamie!’
He turned. ‘Yes?’
‘Don’t get black, will you? White or pale yellow.’
‘Oh!’ He smiled, blushed, and went through the gate.
As Donna turned away, she looked into the eyes of the staring man. He had been standing within a yard of her. This time there could be no doubt. It was the skull-like face of the photographs, the cavernous eyes, the sallow colouring.
She blurted out, ‘Who are you?’
Furrows of apparent surprise formed on the high forehead. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘What do you want? Why have you been following me?’
He shook his head. ‘I think you are mistaken.’ He backed away and she quickly lost sight of him among the crowd around the departure gate.
For a moment she considered running after Jamie to tell him, but the security people on the gate would never have let her through. She might have asked to have his name called over the public address system, but what was the use? The man was gone now, and Jamie would say she had imagined it.
She had not imagined it. She was trembling and she had to find a place to sit down, but she was sane. She had to hold on to her sanity, her certainty that she was not mistaken.
After a while she had a coffee and then drove home. Along the motorway, she weighed the possibility of moving into a hotel for the weekend. Jamie would laugh when he got back, but he could well afford the cost. He would probably charge it to the company.
The other prospect was to sit at home in the terrifying knowledge that the staring man knew she was alone in the house.
She decided to go home, collect her night clothes and a couple of paperbacks and then drive back and check in at the Post House, the hotel near the airport. She would spend the next two nights there and meet Jamie when he flew in on Sunday evening.
Just before Junction 2, the Kew exit, she glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed a black Volvo trailing her quite closely. In the twilight, she couldn’t see much of the driver. She took the right turn under the elevated section, down Lionel Road, past the station and briefly into Kew Bridge Road before turning into Strand-on-the-Green. The Volvo was still close behind.
Her garage entrance was electronically controlled. She turned on to the drive, pressed the remote control and drove swiftly inside. The door closed behind her. She had intended leaving the car outside while she fetched her things, but that would have meant entering the house by the front door and possibly being intercepted between the car and the house. Once inside the garage, she used the interior door to enter the kitchen. She ran into the front room and watched the street from behind the curtain.
The Volvo was drawing up outside. She still couldn’t see the driver properly. He was apparently content to sit at the wheel of his car. But only for a minute. The door swung open. Donna drew back nervously into the shadows, but the street lamp gave her a clear view of the man as he slammed his car door and turned towards the house.
It was him. He was even wearing the tan-coloured bomber jacket. And he was stepping up to the front door.
The sound of her own door chimes was petrifying to Donna. She stood with her back against the wall, praying that she was not visible from outside.
He pressed the bell push a second time. Donna held her breath.
She saw him crouch and peer through the letterbox. Was he going to force the door? She had mentioned only the previous week to Jamie that the catch on the fastening was not very strong. There was no bolt or chain to secure the house against an intruder.
He took a step away as if he might be about to try using his shoulder. First, he took a glance around him to see if he was being watched.
Donna shivered as those piercing eyes turned in her direction, peering through the window, apparently staring straight at her. Then, thank God, he turned and walked back to the car, opened the door, sat in the driver’s seat and took out a cigarette.
There was no question now of escaping to the hotel for the weekend. She was trapped here. Thanks to the automatic door on the garage, she had driven in unobserved. Now her best chance was to stay out of sight and not use the lights. She felt sick with fear at the prospect of spending the evening in a darkened house, but it had to be so. There was no phone to use because Jamie had refused to have one installed, insisting that for peace of mind in his own home he preferred to be inaccessible.
As dusk deepened into darkness, and the car remained in the street, Donna summoned enough courage to lower herself to a crouching position and crawl out of the front room into the hall and out to the kitchen. By the light of the fridge kept marginally open, she managed to make some sandwiches and pour herself some red wine. It warmed her. She began to make plans. She would spend the night on the sofa in the front room, where she would be instantly alerted if the man broke into the house. She preferred that to lying upstairs in bed ignorant of what was happening downstairs.
Nine-thirty was not too early to make preparations. She improvised a bed with cushions and several coats. Outside, in the lamplight, the Volvo was still there. He was sitting inside, waiting. Donna could see the glowing tip of his cigarette as he inhaled. She had no intention of sleeping, but she stretched out on the sofa in a position from which she could see the window.
The strain of the past few hours must have taken a toll, because as she got warmer under the coats, it was increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open. But she was startled into wakefulness when she heard a sound outside. She turned her watch towards the lamplight. 4.20 a.m. She had slept for hours. Had she really heard a sound, or was it part of her dream?
There was definitely a sound. Footsteps on the gravel outside the window.
She propped herself up sufficiently to see the white, terrifying face of the staring man briefly illuminated by torchlight as he shone it around the window, searching for an opening.
Donna screamed.
She lost all control and dashed from the room and upstairs to the bedroom. She flung herself on the bed and moaned into the pillow for what seemed a long time.
Then a new sound entered her consciousness: footsteps on the stairs, moving upwards, towards her. Her flesh crawled.
The steps approached along the passage. The handle of the bedroom door made a slight scraping sound as it was turned. The door opened, the light came on, and there, unbelievably, was Jamie.
‘Jamie! Oh, Jamie!’ Donna sprang up and flung her arms around him. ‘Jamie, my darling, how did you know?’ She tried to kiss him, but something was preventing her.
It was pressing against her neck, holding her away from him, pressing her down towards the bed.