Viggo made a low hruffing sound deep in his throat. She shushed him. ‘We’re not scaring anybody off this time,’ she whispered. ‘And I don’t much feel like being attacked again. I want to see what they’re up to.’
Her window was top-hinged and only opened a few inches – to prevent burglars, ironically – and with it cracked she thought she could hear voices murmuring, though it was too far away to be sure, let alone hear what was being said.
‘I wonder if…’ She felt around the shelves, not needing any light to know where everything was, moving tins and boxes and cartons and bottles around like a game of three-dimensional blind Tetris until she’d uncovered the thing she was searching for. Back when the allotment had been a novelty for her young family, and ten-year-old Christopher had helped with the digging, he’d been fascinated by the robins that would come to inspect his handiwork, and this fascination spread to include the other birds – chaffinches, thrushes and sparrows – and so, because it seemed that this might become a hobby that would keep him outdoors and away from the television, she and Brian had bought him the Observer’s Book of British Birds and a pair of binoculars for his eleventh birthday. Of course, the fad had lasted only a few months, and when she’d cleared out his room after he’d left home she kept the binoculars for the allotment, though she’d never used them to spy on her neighbours. Not until tonight.
It was tricky to get them at the right angle against the glass, and they didn’t pick up any more light so focussing them was difficult too, but they did magnify what little she could already see and that was better than nothing.
‘Let’s see what you’re up to,’ she growled.
A hulking silhouette approached the door. The light from underneath it went out, then the door opened and the silhouette went inside, reappearing a moment later with a large bundle slung over its shoulder. It went around the side of the shed to the front, where she couldn’t see, followed by two more silhouettes, one of whom lingered for a moment to lock the door. Then all three were gone. All the same, she stayed at the window, holding her breath as much as possible to avoid jogging the view, in case they came back.
Then she heard soft footsteps creaking on the boards of her own makeshift decking, and the breath escaped from her in a tiny, terrified squeak. Someone was standing outside. Inches away.
Viggo tried growling, but she shushed him again, her fingers curled tightly around his collar. She thought she’d be brave and defend her territory when it came down to it, but all she wanted to do was hide and freeze and wait for the menace outside her door to go away. This was different from confronting trespassers. There was something happening on the allotments that went far beyond a bit of vegetable theft and vandalism, and the last thing she wanted to do was see who, or what, was standing on her deck. Absurdly, what came to mind right at that moment was reading Watership Down to her children, and the way the rabbits had their own words for everything, such as the paralysing terror of an approaching predator. Tharn, she thought. I’ve gone tharn.
The footsteps paused, as if whoever owned them was thinking. Wondering what to do about her. Then there was a soft wooden scraping sound against the door. This was too much for Viggo, who barked a single warning shot. She shook him silent and he whined reproachfully at her as if to say What am I doing wrong?
There was a soft snigger from outside. It knew she was awake and aware of it. It would come in now and Viggo would be powerless to stop it from taking her and killing her and cutting her up and burying her under the brambles…
The footsteps receded, and were gone. A few moments later she heard the sound of a car or van engine, and a few moments after that the glare of headlights appeared on the road outside the allotments, fading into the night.
6
HOT POT
DAVID DIDN’T REALISE HOW MUCH ON EDGE HE WAS until the front doorbell rang, making him jump nearly out of his skin. He was in the kitchen chopping onions for dinner and nearly sliced his finger off.
‘I’ll get it!’ called Becky from the living room, where she and Alice were hard at work on the long division questions that school had sent home for her. He freely admitted he was rubbish at maths and had been more than happy to leave them to it while he got on with the man’s business of cooking and cleaning. Plus, it gave him a chance to think about what he was going to do about the whole Farrow Farm thing, and doing things with his hands always helped him to think more clearly.
‘Dennie!’ said his wife. ‘This is a pleasant surprise! Why yes he is, please come in!’
‘There goes that plan,’ he said to himself, putting down the knife and washing his hands at the sink.
When his wife ushered Dennie Keeling into the kitchen his first thought was of how tired she looked. He’d heard all about her sleepwalking episodes but had thought that maybe she’d been prescribed some sleeping pills or something, but it had been four days since he and Angie had tried to warn her off overnighting in her shed and it looked like she hadn’t slept in all that time. He dried
