The radio news spat out the usual coverage – petrol prices up, energy companies struggling with the winter demand on gas, and electricity supplies threatened. Sarah shook her head as she listened – the politicians never seemed to get themselves sorted out.
She pulled out of her driveway and was on the main road into Oxford within fifteen minutes, heading towards her destination. She hummed along to the radio as she drove and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, impatient to reach the house. After a while, she pulled off the main road and began to weave through the suburban streets until she found the road she was looking for.
Sarah pulled the car up to the kerb on a tree-lined avenue. An affluent area, large houses hid behind well-pruned privet hedgerows or fenced-off gardens. Turning off the engine, she looked at the house a few metres down the road to her right and sighed. They’d been so happy here, once. It felt like a lifetime ago.
The early morning sunlight glinted through the mature trees, early signs of new shoots beginning to show already. In a couple of months or so, the wide street would be framed with pale pink and white flowers, alternating down the avenue. The road was quiet, the commuter rush and school run over with an hour ago. The occasional car passed her where she’d parked, and rocked her vehicle gently as she sat and gathered her thoughts.
A man walked towards her car, away from the houses in front of her, and polished his glasses before replacing them on his nose. Sarah glanced in her rear view mirror as he went by. He appeared to slow as he passed her car, then changed his mind and continued along the road before he disappeared down a side street.
She reached down for the package which lay on the passenger seat. She’d have recognised Peter’s handwriting anywhere – four years of marriage and six years of typing up his hastily scribbled lecture notes put paid to any doubt as to who had scrawled her address across the padded envelope. Fondly, she ran her hand over the writing and then pulled out the contents. She’d organised them a bit better after Dan had left – a full set of Peter’s most recent lecture notes, clipped together with newspaper cuttings, photographs and a list of bibliographical references in date order.
‘Who were you after, Pete?’ Sarah whispered softly to herself.
Unfastening her seatbelt, she reached for the door handle and pushed the car door open. Stepping out onto the road, she leaned into the car to get her bag.
The explosion caused her to instinctively duck behind the car door, using it as a shield. A gust of warm, debris-filled air fled past her as she tucked her feet back up into the car, trying to get out of the way. Closing her eyes tightly, she gasped as the air from her lungs was forced out.
Sarah felt the whole vehicle shift backwards with the blast, dragging her with it, the tyres squealing in protest as the force of the explosion fought the parking brake, while Sarah fought to keep her balance.
As the roar of the explosion died away, Sarah climbed out of the car and lifted her head above the car door, surveying the scene in disbelief. Paper and other debris, still burning, fluttered through the air. A car alarm shrieked further along the street. Sarah pushed her hair out of her eyes, blinking. Her ears were ringing, a high-pitched whistle that reverberated in her skull.
The right-hand side of the house had disappeared. Glass from the windows had peppered the street, shrapnel sticking out of the telephone pole that now arched precariously into the road. The force of the blast had destroyed the front wall, flattening it onto the pavement. Behind it a scorched lawn smouldered, debris strewn over the garden. Flames and black smoke billowed from the front of the house where the study had once been, while hot ash fell through the air. A siren sounded in the distance. Sarah started at the sound of it, and glanced around her.
Then she saw him.
The man with the glasses stood watching her from the side street. Suddenly, he began to walk towards her, never taking his eyes off her. Sarah’s heart began to race. Instinct took over. She climbed into her car and turned the key in the ignition. The car turned over once, and then stalled. Sarah glanced in the rear view mirror – the man was beginning to run towards her car. Heart pounding, Sarah turned the key again.
‘Come on!’ she urged the car, hands shaking.
With a choke, the car started, blue smoke belching from the exhaust. Sarah turned the vehicle around in the street, glass and debris tumbling from its roof and bonnet as she fought to keep the vehicle under control. She swerved to avoid the man who had now stepped out onto the road. Sarah screamed, pushing her foot down hard on the accelerator as he tried to grab hold of the car as it drove by. The sound of his fingers scratching against the paintwork, scrabbling for a hand-hold made Sarah’s skin crawl before she shot past him.
At the end of the avenue, she turned left, forcing herself to slow down so any police cars didn’t stop her. Somehow, she didn’t think they’d be able to protect her from the stranger in the street. Catching a flash in the mirror, she looked up to see a fire engine and police car entering the road – both too late to save the house, while the stranger stood on the pavement and watched her, polishing his glasses, before he turned and ran back to a parked car.
Slamming her foot on the accelerator, she drove a weaving course through the suburb and, when she could no longer hear the sirens, she pulled over and took out her phone.
Chapter 7
Bright shafts of sunlight broke through the window blinds as a crow cawed noisily from the tree outside. A van drove past, the tyres splashing through puddles of water from the melting ice. A car engine was being choked to death in the background, the sound of kids playing in a school yard carrying a mile down the road. The phone rang, loudly, coarsely.
Dan moved slightly and groaned, buried under a blanket thrown messily across the bed. The pub was always a bad idea. It was just so hard to leave.
‘Whoever it is, go away.’