my shoes away from my hot, aching feet and have a cold drink. All I remembered from that conversation was her name, and that her ‘partner’ – which always sounds odd to me, not ‘boyfriend’ or ‘husband’ or ‘fiancé’ – was called Graham. I never met him. I think he moved out that autumn, and although I saw her coming and going a few times up until last winter I assumed she’d moved out some time after Easter because I hadn’t seen her after that, and the garden she’d previously tended had grown wild and tangled.
At first it was just a feeling, a creeping sense of dread, and then I heard a noise from the direction of the empty house. Something was wrong. I peered across into the darkness as the cat pushed her way through the gate and trotted over to me, winding herself around my legs. She was covered in something, some mess, sticky and foul-smelling, wrapping herself round and round my skirt. My hand flew up to my nose and mouth to block out the smell.
At that point I thought about going back to my kitchen and phoning the police. Looking back, that was exactly what I should have done. But it was Friday night, and because I worked at the police station I knew that all the patrols would be busy, if not mopping the blood and puke off the streets of Briarstone town centre, then back at the station booking people into custody. I’d worked with the police for years and never once had to call them out myself. I didn’t even know what to say. That there was a bad smell next door? They’d more than likely suggest phoning the council on Monday morning.
The low metal gate to the back garden hung off its hinges; beyond it the remains of what had once been a neat patch was now an untouched wilderness. The grass and weeds were waist-high in places, having outgrown their own strength and flopped over on themselves like an army midway through a battle. I stepped over the grass on to the brick path that led to the back door. The kitchen windowsill was covered in dead flies. I shone the torch into the empty room. A few flies were still crawling on the glass of the window and still fewer followed an angular flight path around the centre of the room. The door to the dining room was ajar and the light glowed through, a dim golden light from somewhere inside.
I looked down. The lower pane of the back door was missing. Dark smears marked the bottom of it, tufts of cat hair around the edge as though cats of various colours and breeds had all been in and out as many times as had taken their fancy. I tried the door. Too much to hope that it would be unlocked, of course. Then I knocked on it, the sound of my knuckles rapping on the glass, which rattled in the frame. I pushed the pane gently, and then a little harder, and before I knew what had happened the glass had fallen in and smashed into pieces on the tiled floor of the kitchen inside.
‘Oh, shit!’ I said aloud. I was really in trouble now.
I should have turned away from the door. I should have gone back into my own house, and locked my door, and thought no more about it. It wasn’t my problem, was it? But, having practically broken into the house already, I thought I might as well finish what I’d started, and see if anyone was inside.
I put my hand through the empty frame and reached around to the inside. The key was in the lock. I struggled to turn it – it was stiff, hadn’t been opened in a long time – and at the back of my mind was the thought that there were probably bolts at the bottom and top of the door as well. But when I twisted the key in the lock it eventually turned, and the door opened easily enough. The smell from within was powerful, and sudden. And then it faded just as quickly, as if all the badness from inside had escaped and fled into the night.
‘Hello?’ I called, not expecting a reply and not knowing what the hell I would have done had one come. ‘Is anyone there?’
The house felt warmer than mine, or perhaps that was just because I was coming inside from the cold