In the Still of the Night

He reached Annie’s house, parked and walked up the path to the front door, then put his thumb on the bell and kept it there. Let her ignore that!

The murderer sat in Annie’s house, listening to the imperious summons of the bell.

Through the slits in the blinds covering the sitting-room window, Sean was clearly visible. Once it became obvious that he wasn’t giving up or going away, the murderer walked slowly towards the front door, working out how to kill him.

Sean was going to be difficult. He had been a cop. He was big and powerful. And he would be on his guard now. But he had to die and now was as good a time as any.

12

Annie rang for a taxi before she left the hospital. ‘I’m afraid all our cabs are out. There’ll be a ten-minute delay,’ said the receptionist booking the call.

‘I’ll wait,’ Annie said in resignation. It would be too much hassle to ring round the other firms. Hanging up, she got herself a cup of coffee from the machine in the hospital reception area, pretending to be unaware of the stares she was getting, and sat down near the door where she could watch for the cab.

There was a large television set into the wall above the rows of chairs where patients sat waiting for appointments.

Annie sipped her coffee, staring at the TV to avoid catching the eye of anyone around her. She ignored the whispers.

‘Annie Lang … there, over there … No, it isn’t. Is it? Smaller than you expect … pale, isn’t she? What’s she doing here? She looks so … ordinary … don’t think much of her clothes …’

The news began. The first few items were international news; a war zone zoomed into shot, a face talked at them, there was a sound of gunfire, refugees limped along a wide road lined with burnt-out cars and tanks.

What a world we live in! thought Annie grimly. Why do we kill each other with such enthusiasm?

She finished her coffee, scrunched up the paper cup and hurled it into a nearby bin, looked out of the glass doors, watching for her taxi, but there was no sign of it yet.

At that instant she heard the newsreader say, ‘A body was discovered today in an isolated house in Epping Forest …’

Annie instinctively looked round, wondering if she knew the place, and then her heart almost stopped as she saw a shot of Johnny’s house, blackened and ruined, the arch of the Gothic windows empty of glass.

‘Fire broke out somewhere upstairs during the night,’ the newsreader said. ‘The fire service believe it may have started in electrical wiring. The house was unoccupied at the time, although it looked as if tramps had been camping out downstairs.’

Had a tramp broken in and somehow accidentally set fire to the house? Oh, poor Johnny – he wouldn’t be able to sell his home now. It was a shell. Of course, there would be the insurance – if he had any!

Then she remembered the drawing-room the way they had left it yesterday; candles burnt down, in candlesticks and on saucers, the fire almost out in the fire place, cushions and a rug on the floor where they had made love.

Was that what had made the police think a tramp had been there? How easy it was to make something beautiful sound ugly!

Oh, but then whose body … Johnny? Oh, God, it wasn’t Johnny they had found dead in the house?

Then the newsreader said, ‘It was while the fire brigade were clearing debris that they found a skeleton under the floorboards in a cupboard under the stairs.’

Annie was trying so hard to hear what he was saying that she almost screamed at a nurse who came to call one of the waiting patients, her voice booming over the sound of the television, drowning the next couple of sentences.

Annie ran towards the set and stood as close as she could, straining to hear. It was an old house; there might not be a crime involved, the skeleton could have been left there by a medical student, by a doctor. There could be a dozen explanations.

She just heard the newsreader’s next sentence. ‘The body has been identified as that of Roger Keats, a teacher from a London drama school, who disappeared eight years ago.’

Annie’s taxi deposited her home half an hour later. She paid the driver and was walking towards her house when she noticed Sean’s black Porsche parked just up the road.

She had been trying to ring him from the hospital, but he hadn’t been at work or at home. Annie hadn’t been able to get Harriet, either. She desperately needed to talk to someone. Her heart lifted as she recognised Sean’s car and she hurried over there, but when she bent to look inside the car was empty. Straightening, she looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of him.

Her heart sank again. There was a man sitting in a small blue van parked across the street, but he was black, wearing workmen’s blue denims, and wasn’t looking at her, but gazing fixedly at a house opposite hers which had a For Sale sign up in the garden.

Frowning, Annie walked back towards her home. Dusk was falling and there was a scent of spring on the air. It had been much warmer today; there were a few early daffodils out in a terracotta urn in her garden, their fragrance lingered now that the sun was going down, but Annie was cold to the marrow of her bones.

Where was Sean? For days he had been following her around, and now when she really needed him he wasn’t here.

She was still in shock, still trying to decide what to do. After all, the police knew about her connection with Roger – they would come looking for her if they wanted to talk to her, and obviously they would, sooner or later. Should she ring them? She wanted to know if it really was Roger – yet at the same time she was afraid of the answer.