Close Call

Chapter 57

People always said old people went to bed early, and Mrs Donovan wouldn’t argue with that. Ever since the nine o’clock news on TV had moved to ten she’d never watched it. Nowadays she went to bed at half past nine and listened to the ten o’clock news on the radio.

But what people didn’t understand was that just because you went to bed early, it didn’t mean you slept. Every night she woke up, uncertain and hazy, lifting her head off the pillow to see the bright red illuminated numbers on the clock on her bedside table. They might say 12:30, or 2:17, or – when she was lucky – 5:45. Rare was the night she managed as much as four hours’ continuous sleep; rarer still those where she slept through until dawn.

Tonight was no different. It was four o’clock and she was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of milky tea, a biscuit and a copy of the Sun, which her grandson Michael had left behind.

She had put the telephone on the table within arm’s reach, but it remained defiantly silent. She wasn’t going to use it herself, because though she was accustomed to being up at this ungodly hour (the experts all said it was better to get up than lie in bed twisting and turning), she knew that not many other people were. Old as she was, Mrs Donovan hadn’t lost many of her marbles – she might keep odd hours, but she knew what was and wasn’t usual.

She’d tried to tell them about it earlier in the evening. Someone had said they’d ring her back, but they hadn’t. She’d never believed for a moment that that girl who had shown up really was from Electoral Registration. But she had liked the look of her and she’d kept her leaflet with the phone number, behind the little cactus plant that Michael had given to her.

She couldn’t have said quite who that girl did work for, but she was sure it was something to do with those thrillers she liked to watch when they were on the TV early enough in the evening. ‘Spooks’, that’s what they were called. She was one of them, Mrs Donovan was sure. She knew she was right because the number on the leaflet was a London number. Why would the electoral registration office for Eccles have a London telephone number?

She wouldn’t have noticed any of this – or rung the number – if things hadn’t suddenly grown very peculiar next door. Mrs Atiyah had come round three days before, to say that she was going to visit her sister down in Croydon. Would Mrs D mind keeping an eye out for her cat Domingo? He was a fat tabby with a scrunched ear from a long-ago fight who liked to sleep in Mrs Atiyah’s porch. He wasn’t actually the Atiyah cat – Domingo made it clear he belonged to nobody – but the Yemeni woman was soft-hearted and treated the animal like a favourite child. There was always food for Domingo when he deigned to visit.

That was all fine, and Mrs Atiyah had gone off – Mrs D had seen the minicab arrive two days before – but then this morning the peculiar thing had happened. Just as she was putting some Go-Cat in the bowl in her neighbour’s porch, with Domingo purring and rubbing himself against her legs, the front door had opened. She’d looked up, startled, expecting to see either Mrs Atiyah, back early, or one of her children. Instead a young man had stood there, Middle Eastern and bearded. He’d been just as startled as she was.

Mrs Donovan had stood up smiling, ready to introduce herself, pointing at Domingo to explain her presence. But the young man hadn’t smiled or said a word, just gone back inside and firmly closed the door. Rude, Mrs Donovan had thought, but then later, back in her house, she had thought it also very odd. In that household, only Mrs Atiyah’s son Mika was capable of that kind of behaviour, and it wasn’t Mika who’d opened the door. So who was this stranger?

All day the question gnawed at her, competing with her usual instinct not to get involved, to leave things be, not to make a fuss. But she had been increasingly aware of something going on next door; of people – not just one surly young man, but others: someone playing the radio in the kitchen, while somebody else ran a bath, and someone came thumping down the stairs. You wouldn’t have known, from the street, that anyone was there, since the curtains in front, both upstairs and down, were tightly drawn. It was only that the walls in these terrace houses were so thin that you always knew if there was anyone in.

If they were burgling the place in Mrs Atiyah’s absence, it seemed a funny way of going about it; on the other hand, Mrs Atiyah would have mentioned it if she had invited people to use her house when she was away. And why would she have asked Mrs Donovan to feed Domingo if she had guests staying there?

Mrs Donovan was afraid of sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. But what if these people were not in fact burglars, but something worse? Mrs Donovan was no coward, but neither was she a fool; she didn’t think it would be sensible to go and knock on the door and ask who they were and what was going on. There wouldn’t be much she could do if the strangers suddenly bundled her inside and… she didn’t even want to think about it.

Then she had seen Mika, Mrs A’s son, arrive. He’d parked outside and run into his mother’s house, carrying a bag. Before Mrs Donovan could get to the door and go out to intercept him, he had gone inside, slamming the door.

He was driving a brand-new car from the look of it, a big one too, which struck Mrs Donovan as a bit much. These students were meant to be paying their own fees these days – weren’t they always complaining about that? So how could Mika afford such a flashy car?

Finally Mrs Donovan decided that she needed to do something. She wondered again about whether she should knock on the door now Mika was back and ask him what was going on and whether his mother knew about all these people being there. But again she thought that wouldn’t be wise. From the way he had rushed into the house, she didn’t think she’d be welcome; the thought of the hostile young man she had seen that morning put her off the idea completely.

It was then she remembered her recent visitor who’d said she was from the electoral registration office. Whoever she really was, perhaps she could help. It had been evening by then, after six o’clock, so she wasn’t sure if she’d still be there. But nowadays people seemed to work long hours and they all had these mobile phones, so she thought it worth giving it a try. She took the card down from the sideboard and dialled the number.

A woman’s voice had answered, and thinking it was the girl she’d met, Mrs Donovan began to explain – until the woman interrupted. Once the confusion was sorted out, and Mrs Donovan had explained who she was trying to reach and why, the woman had promised to pass the message on. She’d said she’d be rung back right away. But nothing had happened.

It was nearly ten hours now since she’d rung. She’d seen Mika go out in his car, but the other people were still next door. She could hear them moving about even though it was the middle of the night. Mika had not come back; the car wasn’t there. She’d been tempted to ring the number again but there probably wasn’t any point.

Perhaps she was just being a silly old woman. Part of Mrs Donovan hoped she was, and that she was wrong in her suspicions of the people next door. I think I’ll just forget about it, she thought, taking a sip of her now-tepid tea. I expect there’s some innocent explanation and Mrs Atiyah will sort it out when she gets back. She yawned and stood up to go back to bed. Not that she would sleep.