Warhol's Prophecy

Hailey selected the front door key from the others on her chain and pushed it into the lock, then stepped into the hall.

Silence.

She frowned.

Why wasn’t the alarm going off?

She crossed to the key-pad and opened its plastic flap.

She had set it when she left that morning – she was sure she had.

Perhaps there was some kind of fault.

She’d check it now and call the maintenance firm if necessary.

She pressed the reset keys.

Nothing.

She glanced up.

The sensor that normally flickered red in the top right-hand corner of the ceiling was dead.

The alarm wasn’t working.

She wandered into the kitchen to retrieve the alarm-system maintenance firm’s business card from the notice-board.

As she stepped into the room she felt a draught. It was coming from the window over the sink.

Hailey swallowed hard as she moved closer.

The window was slightly ajar.

And in that split second she knew why. Just as she knew why the alarm wasn’t working. The realization set her heart hammering.

Whoever had broken into their house had disabled the alarm first.

63

FOR INTERMINABLE SECONDS, Hailey stood motionless in the centre of the kitchen.

The silence seemed to crowd in on her until the only thing she could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears.

She swallowed hard and looked around.

There didn’t appear to be anything missing. And if someone had broken into the house, they had been very careful. Even the crockery on the draining board close to the open window didn’t seem to have been disturbed.

Hailey moved back into the hall.

She glanced across at the phone.

Call the police. Do it now!

Instead she passed through into the sitting room, the breath now catching in her throat.

What if the intruder was still inside the house?

Intruder?

Even the word frightened her.

There was so much to steal.

TV. Video. Stereo.

She pushed open the sitting-room door.

It was as neat and tidy as it had been when she’d left earlier in the day.

The television still occupied its usual position in one corner of the room. The VCR was still beneath it. Untouched.

Hailey took a couple of steps inside the room, glancing round to make an inventory of their other possessions.

Nothing was missing.

Except . . .

There was something, but she couldn’t quite work out what it was.

Something was missing, but . . .

She noticed some mud on the carpet close to the sofa.

Brought in on the shoes of the intruder?

She looked around the room again.

Call the police. For Christ’s sake, call the police!

Someone had definitely been inside the room, and yet it remained undisturbed.

She spun round, passed through the hall and began climbing the stairs, cursing every creaky one.

Slowly she made her way towards the landing, ears alert for the slightest sound from above.

If the intruder was still inside the house . . .

Above her, a floorboard groaned protestingly.

Didn’t it?

She froze, straining her ears.

Outside, the wind was gathering ferocity as it swept around the house.

Perhaps it hadn’t been a floorboard she’d heard. It must be some trick of that violent wind.

Of her mind?

Hailey waited a moment longer, then began to climb the last few steps to the landing.

When she reached it, she stopped again. She glanced at the four firmly closed doors that confronted her.

More mud on the carpet close to one of the guest rooms.

She remained motionless.

Hailey was having trouble controlling her own breathing now.

Which room first?

She crossed to the guest room which had mud trodden into the carpet outside it.

She waited a moment, then pushed the door open.

It swung back on its hinges and she peered in.

Everything in its place. Untouched.

Nothing stolen.

She quickly checked the second guest room.

Also nothing missing.

Hailey moved towards the master bedroom she and Rob slept in, moving as quietly as she could across the groaning floorboards of the landing.

She pushed the door gently and stepped inside.

More mud inside this room, trodden into the thick-pile carpet.

Hailey tried to swallow, but her throat was dry.

Then she saw the heads.

64

ONE ON EACH pillow.

Hailey moved further round the room, eyes riveted on the double bed.

She put her hand on the wall, as if to support herself, as she approached the bed.

The heads had been propped up carefully so that, as Hailey advanced towards them, their sightless eyes held her in an unblinking gaze.

One with flowing black hair; the other with long blonde hair.

Had she been able to think straight, she may well have realized which of Becky’s dolls they had been taken from. As it was, all she could do was stare down at them.

For fleeting seconds she wondered if this was some kind of bizarre joke perpetrated by Becky herself, but the thought disappeared almost instantly.

This was no joke.

There was real malice in this act.