‘I was about to call you,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful. I was still feeling drowsy from the pills.’
He doesn’t say anything and, thinking he’s not impressed with my apology, I decide to try a bit harder.
Until I realise it isn’t Matthew at the end of the line.
My mouth goes dry. ‘Who’s there?’ I ask sharply.
‘Hello?’ The menacing silence confirms my greatest fear, not that he’s back, but that he never went away. The only reason he didn’t phone on Thursday or Friday was because Matthew was home. If he’s phoned today, it’s because he knows I’m home alone again. Which means he’s watching the house. Which means he’s close by.
Fear crawls over my body, prickling my skin. If I needed proof that the knife I saw in the kitchen last night was real and not my mind playing tricks on me, I have it.
Dropping the phone, I run to the front door and shoot the bolt with trembling fingers. I turn to the alarm, trying to remember how to isolate certain rooms, my mind racing, trying to get air into my lungs to calm my breathing, trying to work out where I’ll be safest. Not the kitchen, because he managed to get in through the back door last night, not in one of the bedrooms, because if he gets in I’ll be trapped upstairs. So the sitting room.
The alarm set, I run into the sitting room and slam the door shut. I still don’t feel safe, because there’s no key to lock it, so I look for something to push against the door.
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The nearest thing is an armchair and as I manoeuvre it into place, the phone starts ringing again.
Fear squeezes the rest of the air from my lungs. All I can think about is the knife I saw last night. I scan the room, looking for a weapon to protect myself with and my eyes fall on a pair of iron tongs lying in the fireplace. I run over and snatch them up then cross to the windows and pull the curtains shut, first the window that looks onto the back garden, then the one that looks onto the front, terrified that he’s watching, that he’s outside looking in. The sudden darkness increases my terror so I flick the light switches quickly. I can barely think straight. I want to call Matthew but the police will get here faster. I look around for the phone and when I realise that I don’t have one, because I left it in the hall, and my mobile, even if I had it on me, wouldn’t work down here, all the fight goes out of me. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t fetch the phone from the hall in case he’s already out there. All I can do is wait until he comes and finds me.
Stumbling over to the sofa, I crouch down behind it, clutching the tongs, my whole body shaking. And the phone, which had stopped ringing, starts up again, mocking me. Tears of fright fall from my eyes – until I realise it’s stopped. I hold my breath – and it starts ringing again. The tears come back, and then the ringing stops and I hold my breath again in case this time he really has gone away. But then it starts up again, dashing my hopes. Caught up in his vicious circle of fear, hope, fear, The Breakdown 163
hope, I lose all sense of time. And then, tired of playing with my emotions, he eventually stops calling.
At first the silence is welcome. But then it becomes as threatening as the incessant ringing. It could mean anything. Maybe he hasn’t tired of tormenting me, maybe he’s stopped phoning because he’s here, in the house.
There’s a noise in the hall – the click of the front door opening, then closing. Soft footsteps approaching.
I stare at the door in terror and, as the handle begins to turn, dread descends on me, shrouding me like a blanket, wrapping me in its menace, suffocating me so that I can’t breathe. The door pushes up against the armchair and I leap to my feet and run to the window, sobbing openly now. I push the curtain aside and fling the window open, pushing the pots of orchids that sit along the sill out of the way. I’m just about to climb into the garden when a siren pierces the air. And above its frantic shrieking I hear Matthew calling my name from the other side of the door.
It’s hard to describe how I feel once I’ve pushed the armchair out of the way and am clinging on to him, gabbling hysterically about the murderer being outside.
‘Hold on – let me turn the alarm off!’
He tries to take my arms from around him but before he can, the phone starts ringing again.
‘It’s him!’ I cry. ‘It’s him! He’s been phoning me all morning!’
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‘Let me turn the alarm off!’ After shaking himself free, Matthew goes over to the keypad, and silences the alarm in mid-shriek. Only the shrill of the telephone remains.