Warhol's Prophecy

The room was instantly illuminated.

Rob stepped inside. He hefted the bat before him.

If you’re in here, you fucker, I’ll beat your lousy fucking brains out.

The room was empty. Nothing looked disturbed.

He headed across the hall towards the study.

Again he pushed the door open. Again he snapped on the lights.

Again there was nothing.

Dining room or kitchen next?

If it was the kitchen, then the intruder would have had time either to escape the same way he’d entered, or to have armed himself with any number of implements.

Knife? Carving fork? Cleaver?

Rob held the bat with both hands as he approached the door, pausing a moment, trying to slow his breathing as much as anything.

He threw open the door and hit the light switch.

The fluorescents in the ceiling sputtered into life, for fleeting seconds their cold stroboscopic glare faltering.

Rob gripped the bat tightly and advanced into the room.

Empty, too.

That only left the dining room.

‘All right, you cunt,’ he said at the top of his voice, one hand on the door.

He shoved it open.

Slapped the lights on.

Nothing.

Rob swallowed hard and lowered the bat, then he wandered slowly back across the hall, past the open doors of rooms now bathed in light.

From upstairs he heard Hailey call his name.

‘It’s clear,’ he told her, wiping perspiration from his brow with a trembling hand. He was no hero – he would be the first to admit it.

‘The alarm must be faulty,’ Hailey heard him say.

Like it was the other day?

‘Who was Dad shouting at?’ Becky wanted to know.

‘Just the alarm,’ Hailey said, smiling. ‘You know how he gets sometimes. It’s OK now.’

She herself closed her eyes tightly as she heard doors downstairs being shut.

‘Did you check the downstairs bathroom?’ Hailey called.

She heard him open a door.

Then she heard his grunt of pain.

‘Rob,’ Hailey shouted.

Silence.

‘Rob!’ she yelled again, her eyes bulging wildly.

She got to her feet and moved towards the landing.

‘Mum.’

Becky was climbing out of bed, following her.

‘No, stay there, babe,’ Hailey said, her mouth dry, her voice cracking.

‘Rob,’ she shouted again, moving towards the doorway of Becky’s room.

She heard another groan of pain. Louder this time.

Then she heard footsteps on the stairs.

Uncontrollable panic seized Hailey, and for brief seconds she considered slamming Becky’s door and trying to haul the chest of drawers across to block the path of any intruder.

She daren’t even think about what had been done to Rob down there.

What had . . .?

Rob appeared halfway up the stairs, his face creased with pain, his eyes narrowed.

‘Stubbed my bloody toe on the bathroom door,’ he said.

Hailey wanted to laugh with relief. Wanted to shriek hysterically that it didn’t matter. So what if he’d stubbed his toe? At least he was all right. Their house hadn’t been broken into.

‘The alarm must be playing up,’ Rob said. ‘Or a spider crawled across one of the sensors, or something. That would set it off. They’re pretty sensitive those things.’ He was still holding the baseball bat. ‘I’ve reset it anyway.’

‘Can we go back to sleep now, Mum?’ Becky wanted to know.

‘Yes,’ Hailey said, stroking her daughter’s hair. ‘Yes, we can.’

71

SHE REPLACED THE mobile phone and sat staring at it for a moment.

Hailey rubbed her eyes. She’d felt tired all day. A combination of precious little sleep the night before and a steadily growing feeling of something akin to depression.

Time for a wallow in self-pity?

She felt as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders – a weight that was growing by the day. Hailey hadn’t felt this down since she’d first discovered Rob’s affair.

Rob’s affair?

Pressures of work?

Fear?

Was that the newest burden she carried?

Did fear feel like a crushing weight on your mind and soul?

She had received no phone calls from Adam Walker for more than a week now. But the knowledge that he was responsible for slashing the tyres of Rob’s car, for the dog excrement . . .

The knowledge that he’d broken into their house.

It was an assumption, nothing more. There was no proof that was Walker.

She started the car.

The trip to his house the previous day had done little to allay her

(fear. It seemed to be the most apt description)

concerns about the man.

Why had he lied to her about his family?

If the sister and brother were inventions, then how much more of what he’d told her was fantasy?

The abuse?

Thoughts whirled around inside her head as shedrove.

It should take less than fifteen minutes to reach Becky’s school. She had phoned Caroline Hacket earlier in the day and told her she’d do the run herself.

Caroline?

As long as she was involved with Walker, it kept him in the picture.

Kept him around.

Hailey exhaled wearily.

And now Rob’s phone call . . .

There were problems at work that he had to sort out immediately. One of their biggest customers hadn’t received a delivery he needed, blah, blah, blah.

He wouldn’t be home until late tonight.

When he’d told her this, for fleeting seconds she’d almost asked if that was the real reason he would be late.

A totally unwanted image of Rob with Sandy Bennett slipped into her mind, and she pushed it aside with difficulty.