“Yes.”
When she ensured the rear door was locked, she checked upstairs. “There’s nobody here.” Satisfied she was alone in the house, she turned on all the lights in the bedroom and threw herself on her bed.
“Well done Alice. That was very brave. Now, tell me, how badly are you hurt?”
Relief flooded her at having escaped the immediate danger. She sobbed. “I don’t know.”
There was a brief pause, before he spoke again. “There’s a police car on the way. Will you be able to let them in when they arrive?”
“Y-yes.”
“Would you like me to stay talking to you until they arrive?”
Alice took a deep breath. “No. I’ll be all right. But, t-thank you.”
“Maybe you could call a friend?”
“Yes. I will. T… Thanks.”
She let the phone fall onto the bed, drew her knees up to her chest and hugged herself. A friend? Who? Ian? Connie? Kristin? Ian was in Birmingham, Connie and Kristin in Copenhagen, leaving no-one for her in London. She realised all she had was Ian, and she picked up the phone. Ian’s mobile rang straight to voice mail, but she didn’t leave a message. Instead she sent a text - Please call me. Someone broke in. Attacked me. There was no point in calling Connie or Kristin. She stared at the phone for a minute and called Ian again. Same result. She threw the phone down and grabbed a pillow to cling to.
She lost track of time. It could have been two minutes. Or twenty. After several deep breaths, she focused her mind on the rational rather than the emotional. Her thoughts went to the alarm, she knew she had set it earlier, but it had been unset while the intruder had been in the house. That meant two things. One, he knew the alarm code, and two, he had a key to her front door. She knew of only one person who had such access. The estate agent. Mark Flanagan. The guy with the clammy hands.
Alice thought of the things he’d said. About watching her. That eyes were on her. He’d said something about a camera too. A sudden shiver ran over her, and the peculiar buzz rose in her head again. She swallowed hard and sat up. Her eyes scanned the bedroom with an investigative zeal.
There was a small transparent bag on the floor. She got off the bed and picked it up by the edge. The bag contained about a dozen pills and she placed it on the bedside table, figuring Flanagan must have dropped it. She’d hand that over to the police.
As she looked around for anything unusual, she noticed a motion sensor above the bedroom door. Something about it didn't seem right. She rolled off the bed and dragged a chair to the door. Why was there a sensor it the bedroom? This was new. It didn't look like the one in the hall, and there was a dark circle near the top which suggested a lens.
At first, she refused to accept the possibility. The thought that someone, Flanagan with his lecherous grin, had watched in her bedroom. Exposed. Naked. She trembled and steadied herself against the wall. Her stomach convulsed. She rushed to the bathroom, where she lifted the lid of the toilet and vomited. Tears ran down her face. The foul taste of bile filled her mouth and the sense of invasion left her crushed. Alice hugged the porcelain bowl as if it was her best friend.
But wallowing in a heap wouldn't solve anything. Get a grip, she told herself. You can do this. She clambered to her feet with determination, washed her face and rinsed out her mouth.
Then it occurred to her the device would still be watching the bedroom. The temptation to smash it was enormous, but she resisted. Best to cover it instead. She took a cloth from a cupboard and covered the sensor in the bedroom. She made sure the cloth was tight in place over the lens and double wrapped over the front. Security specialists would have to examine them. Or the police. The estate agent may have left fingerprints on it. It occurred to her she shouldn't have covered it with a cloth and perhaps wiped away evidence. Too late now.
She examined the office for any other unusual devices. Satisfied there were no other rogue devices in the office, she then checked every room in the house. When she found no other potential spy cameras, she reasoned things out.
The intruder must have put the camera in place. He’d been watching her for days. Once more she shivered at the thought of a stranger watching her walk around her bedroom naked. Her privacy violated in the worst way. Putting a name to the stranger helped and she bolstered her conviction that Flanagan was the intruder.
She took those thoughts down to the kitchen while she waited for the police. As the last vestiges of the fear subsided, anger rose in its place. She knew she had been lucky and thanked herself for listening to Ian and keeping the mace nearby. Ian’s foresight had saved her, and for moment she wondered what had prompted his precaution, but it didn't seem important now.
What had Flanagan done to her? There had been no penetration. It would be a case of sexual assault, not rape. Perhaps it would count as attempted rape. The ease with which she fell into legalise surprised her, as if it was a way of standing aside from the incident, objectifying it, making it less real. Almost as if it had happened to someone else. A virtual Alice. Flanagan had tried to rape a different Alice. An Alice that could fight off an assailant and survive unscathed. This Alice only had a scratch on her chest, and another on her neck. They were painful but wouldn't scar, unlike the ones on
