‘I like that store as well because I don’t have to canoe down the lake to start the trip. Everything’s more complicated with the canoe. At night, you can hit tree roots, and so on. You have to moor it some place you’ll find it, but others won’t. And going from the mooring through the woods takes you nearer to people, for longer. So Jensen’s was a good store to go to generally, but not… then. Not recently. But I got there without a problem, about 4 a.m. or so. Dead of night. And I waited for an hour and nothing moved.
‘Everything went okay at first. I threw a couple of small branches at the corner of the store. It was to test the lights: they might be motion-sensitive themselves, or they might have motion sensors for an alarm on them. If they’re alarm sensors, you often get a tiny red-light flash for half a second. Alarm companies sometimes think that’s not a problem but in total darkness you can see that quite easily. Nothing. The branches, if anyone found them, would look like debris from the wind. Which they were – I picked them up off the forest floor, so they had the right kind of natural break at the base, and so on. No one would know the security had been tested.
‘Because I’d checked in my journal, I knew where the electrics box was – under the eaves by the side door. It has one of those Allen-key locks: I had the right tool and in a few seconds I’d switched off the electrics. Alarms have back-up batteries, but often people don’t replace dud ones. I intended to switch the electric back on when I left: everyone’s used to minor outages these days and I’m sure it never feels suspicious. I waited another minute in the shadows to be sure the coast was clear.
‘I opened the window and went back to the bushes and watched. But I couldn’t see any movement inside. I gave it a few minutes and then climbed in. So far, so easy, Detective: plastic bags on my boots, and the windowsill. I started filling the rucksack. They’d moved some things since my last visit and I started going up and down aisles, trying to find what I wanted. It was a bit of a pain, so I set the rucksack down near the window and walked along the aisles. I knew the cameras were on the main checkout, and the storage room; the aisles weren’t on film.
‘As I put some toothpaste in my pocket I thought I heard a noise. The window was still open, and sound carries in the forest. It might have been something out in the woods. I stood and waited. I’d about convinced myself I was imagining it, when I heard it again. A little squeak, like someone’s shoe on the flooring.’
Nathan was staring at the middle distance: a spot in the air between his knee and the wall. Dana couldn’t have sworn that Nathan even knew she was there at that moment. He was back in the darkness of the store, gathering for winter and about to make the decisions that would change his life for ever.
‘My first mistake, as I’ve said, was not enough reconnaissance. I should have known more about, well, the changes at the store. I should have been better prepared. My fault, my responsibility, I know. But my second mistake was right then. The moment I heard the squeak I should have grabbed my rucksack and run. I might have done it. If I’d made it into the undergrowth, I’d be difficult to find at night. I move quite well in that terrain. I should have gone through the window and away.
‘But I didn’t, Detective. Fool that I was, I stood in the darkness and waited to hear it again. Strange how we do that – con ourselves that we haven’t heard or seen something. Then we expect to see or hear the exact same thing again, for verification. When we know, in our instinctive selves, that we don’t need to. We don’t trust ourselves and our capabilities – we keep looking for something else as a double-check.
‘So I stood and waited. It was very dark, Detective. There was a glimmer of orange light from the main road but it was several hundred metres away. All it gave was the vague outline of silhouettes: it didn’t actually illuminate anything. I had a torch, but of course now I couldn’t use it again without giving my position away. I heard the squeak again. It might have been a rodent outside. Or the refrigerator – they make quite a lot of noise, the older ones. But something told me it was a person.
‘It was only the second time I’d been caught with someone else in the store I’m visiting. The other time, I’d hidden until I could leave unseen. I’m very careful, Detective. I didn’t want any trouble. I wanted to be in and out, unhindered. But since I was sure no one knew I was even in these places, it had never occurred to me that someone might be hiding in the store for precisely this moment. I mean, why would they? Why hide in a store when you have no idea you’ve been burgled, in case you get burgled again?
‘If only I’d known more about Jensen’s Store, of course. If I’d done more surveillance I would have understood more about what was going on in that store. I’d never have gone near it if I’d known.’
The self-recrimination brought him to a halt. At first, Dana assumed he was simply collecting himself, gathering. But he sat back with his eyes closed and she began to worry that he might clam up just as he reached the decisive moment.
‘Mr Whittler, are you okay?’
He shook his head slowly, as if he had a migraine and couldn’t bear to move. He kept his eyes shut.
‘This is very difficult, Detective. I was… I was ashamed of the stealing, as you know. It was humiliating. But this… this is on a different level. This is… just awful. What played out.’
She thought about what might get him over the line.
‘Mr Whittler, what took place in the store this morning has happened. It’s done. Neither you nor I can do anything to change what has occurred. It will not magically get worse – or better – for you telling about it. Your words can’t change anything inside that store. But they can change your future.’
She glanced at him for her own reassurance. He gave her nothing.
‘Your words, Mr Whittler: they can change what life you lead and how you feel about it. Your life is about to swing away from the cave, from your solitude. I’m sorry about that. But it’s vital for you – for your wellbeing – that you make some effort to control your new direction.’
Dana thought she’d blown it. She thought it was too pompous, too portentous. He seemed to sit and hum to himself for a minute, while the tape spooled on. His eyes danced behind his eyelids and it came to her that he might be running through the memory of those events. Perhaps he was, even now at this late stage, picking and choosing: charting an explanation that would fit the evidence, yet exonerate him. Or perhaps, he was summoning courage.
‘So I was there, Detective. In Jensen’s, with a man who shouldn’t have been there at all. Shouldn’t have been anywhere near. I was in it, and I had a problem. I had no idea where he was, but if he’d been hiding and watching he’d know from my earlier torchlight where I’d been. I couldn’t be far from the last spot before I turned off the torch. He knew for sure: I knew nothing for certain. He had the drop on me.
‘What I wanted was to get back to the window. My eyes started to adjust and I could see – down the aisle – the vague outline of the window. There seemed nothing between me and it. But I thought he’d realise that: that the window was my only way out, and that if he stayed near it I was trapped. I figured he’d be smart enough to get that. I tried circling around the back of the store so I could check which aisle he was hiding in.
‘Twice, I bumped into something. It really was that dark. I didn’t make much noise, but enough to tell him I was well away from the window. I couldn’t see where I was going, and he had me pinned. He didn’t have to go anywhere, or make a sound, or bump into anything. The day would only get lighter. If he had to stay like that for three hours, he could. I needed to get out now, or I was caught.