But the feeling wouldn’t go away.
As she reached Summer Cottage, the warm glow from the windows glimmered through the branches. Crime was by all accounts pretty much nonexistent in and around Fairwood, but for security reasons she liked to leave lights on when she went out in the evening, to give the impression someone was at home, and for the comfort of returning to a lit-up house.
Buster didn’t greet her at the front door, the way he normally would have. If the little guy didn’t perk up soon, she’d have to call the vet. She fed him a snack and then let him out into the back garden for a few minutes while she made her nightly mug of cocoa. Then she closed up the house and climbed the stairs. Her legs felt heavy as she walked down the long, brightly-illuminated corridor that led to her bedroom, clicking off the old-fashioned switches of the wall lights as she went.
The rain was falling harder now, pittering slantwise against the bedroom windows as she shut the curtains, undressed and got into her pyjamas. She slipped under the duvet with her Ellen Grace novel, but not even immersing herself in the cosy fiction world created by her idol was enough to keep her eyelids from drooping. It wasn’t long before she turned off the light and nuzzled into the soft feather pillow.
Please don’t let the dreams come again tonight, she prayed. She felt so exhausted in mind and body, it seemed to her instead that she’d tumble into a black hole and sleep the sleep of the dead until dawn came. It was a comforting final thought before she let herself begin to drift off.
Sleep came over her like a soft blanket.
Then her eyes flew open in the darkness. Her senses suddenly jangling. Too tense to breathe.
She knew what it was she’d just heard. The distinct clunk of one of the corridor light switches being flipped.
This was no dream. She was not alone in the cottage.
TEN
Mandy fought the urge to dive under the bedclothes. Her frozen gaze locked on to the bedroom door: a moment earlier its shape had been lost in the pitch blackness of the room; now it stood faintly outlined by a glimmer of light.
Then, the unmistakable sound of a muffled footstep beyond the thick oak door. Followed by a second click as another of the corridor lights was switched on.
Closer now. The thin strip of light around the bedroom door a little brighter.
Horror welled up like bile in Mandy’s throat. Galvanised by her panic, she leaped out of bed and ran to the door, slapping on the main bedroom light switch on the wall next to it. The sudden intense brightness of the room made her blink. She grasped the ring of the iron door key and twisted it, locking herself in.
She backed away from the door, breathless and shaking. ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded in a quavering voice. ‘I said, who’s there?’
The only reply was another shuffling footstep from outside in the corridor. There came another click as the closest of the three wall lights was switched on.
In her mind she involuntarily pictured the hand turning on the light. Skeletal fingers caressing the switch. Taking their time. The scrape of cold bone. The mental image made her want to scream.
Whoever or whatever was out there, it was now standing right outside her door. All that separated them were three inches of oak. How easily could the door be broken down? How strong was the old lock?
‘Whoever you are, you’d better leave now,’ she shouted. Her voice was shaking so badly, the words came out half garbled. ‘I have a phone in here and I’m calling for help!’
Still no reply. Mandy ventured a step closer to the door. Then another. Trembling, she pressed an ear to the smooth wood.
And thought she could hear raspy breathing on the other side as the intruder hovered there. Waiting. Waiting for what?
The doorknob turned. Gently at first. Then with more force.
Mandy recoiled from the door in fright. She clutched her side of the knob, gripping it tightly with both hands and trying to prevent it from turning, but she lacked the strength and it twisted violently back and forth in her fingers. ‘Leave me alone!’ she screamed.
An impact against the door made the oak shudder in its frame. Then another blow, harder, resonating through the floorboards so that they quivered under her bare feet. Mandy let go of the knob and backed away, thinking desperately of escape. The door began to rattle with increasing violence, building into a frenzy so intense that she was certain it would rip from its hinges with an explosion of splintering oak.
And if that happened, what would follow?
Everything in the bedroom seemed to be shaking. She could hear Buster downstairs, barking and howling like a crazed wild animal.
The door went on shaking. For a few instants, Mandy seriously considered jumping from the window. But what if she only succeeded in injuring herself? How could she escape from her intruder with a broken ankle or leg?
She ran to the phone extension at her bedside and snatched up the receiver. Her hands were trembling so badly she could barely dial in Todd’s number. When he answered, she screamed into the phone, ‘Todd! Todd! Someone’s in the cottage! They’re outside my bedroom door! Help me! Please!’
‘Hold on, Mandy, I’m coming!’ Todd’s voice said on the line.
‘Hurry!’
The line went dead. At that precise instant, the insane rattling at the door fell into complete silence.
Slowly, hardly daring to, Mandy looked back at the door. The strip of light underneath it seemed to have disappeared, but with the bedroom lit up it was hard to tell.
She crept nervously to the doorway and turned off the main bedroom light.
In darkness, too terrified to breathe, she crouched down in front of the keyhole, felt for the cold iron ring and drew out the key as quietly as she could. Peering through the keyhole, she saw only the solid blackness of the empty corridor.
Whatever had been out there was now gone.
A few minutes seemed like hours before the reflection of car headlights swept the bedroom window and she faintly heard the sound of Todd’s Volvo rasping to a halt on the lane outside the gate. A door opening, closing; then a few moments later, running footsteps coming round to the back of the house. Mandy rushed to the window and ripped open the curtain to see a shining light and the dark figure of Todd standing there, torch in one hand, something that looked like a cricket bat in the other. She unlocked the window and threw it open. ‘Todd! Thank Christ!’
‘No windows smashed,’ he called up to her. ‘Your front door’s locked, so’s the back. Nobody seems to be about. Let me in.’
‘Are you sure?’ she called back down to him, terrified to open her door in case the intruder might still be lurking there. She had to summon all her courage to turn the key and slowly, slowly, creak open the door. The darkness of the corridor seemed to waft into the bedroom like a smell.
The nearest corridor light was just a foot away. She clicked it on, then ventured as far as the next, chasing away the darkness. The corridor was empty.
She crept anxiously down the stairs. Buster was still barking inside the kitchen. Mandy turned on the lights, ran to the front door, unlocked it.
‘Are you all right?’ Todd asked grimly, stepping into the entrance hall. He laid down the long metal torch he was carrying, shut the door behind him and gripped her hand. There was mud on his shoes where he’d run from the car in the pouring rain. He wiped them clean on the mat.
She was almost crying with relief. ‘Todd, I didn’t dream it. Someone was here!’