With my heart thumping in my chest, I snuck a glance around the doorframe. The man had his back to us, looking in through the bedroom at the back where he must now be able to see the open wardrobe full of man-sized ladies’ clothes.
Mindy saw him too but unlike me, she made a decision and reacted.
‘Here, hold Buster,’ she whispered as she thrust the rear end of my dog at me. She was already running by me and into the upstairs landing when the full weight of my bulldog hit me.
I still had him by his chest and the sudden imbalance was too much for my slight frame to hold. Falling to the side with Buster beneath me, I got to see Mindy’s bottom as she yanked her pencil skirt up around her waist.
The man sensed or heard her coming. Or perhaps just heard me doing a bad job of keeping quiet as I fell on top of Buster, but he was starting to turn around when Mindy got to him.
His eyes went wide in surprise about a half second before Mindy kicked him in his ribs. His feet were still facing into the room – only his top half was twisted to look at my niece, but the effect would have been much the same no matter which way he might have been standing.
Catapulted into the room, the average looking man bounced along the carpet and sprawled in a heap against the far wall. Mindy yanked the door shut.
‘Quick, Auntie! Leg it!’
How did my life get to this point? Barefoot, wearing an oversize rainmac and winded from falling on top of Buster, I nevertheless did as suggested and ran for it.
‘I could have taken him out,’ growled Buster. ‘Adventure Dog needs to express his dark nature.’ He stopped at the back bedroom door to bark at it.
‘What’s he saying?’ asked Mindy, holding the door shut.
I ran down the stairs, tugging at Buster’s lead to make him follow me, but managed to answer her question, ‘Nothing sensible.’
With another, more determined yank on his lead, I got the daft dog to follow me. Once I was near the bottom of the stairs, Mindy started to follow. Less than half my age with legs several inches longer, she caught me in seconds.
Also, I went down the drive to the pavement before turning left to run along the road. Mindy cut a diagonal across the garden and flipped over the wall at the front in a kind of sideways somersault which landed her on her feet facing the right way and somehow already running.
I risked a glance back at the house but of the man there was no sign. Not yet at least.
‘See, Auntie!’ yelled Mindy. She was about to get to her car, the lights on it flashing as she operated the central locking, but her right arm was pointing across the street. Fifty yards back was a black BMW.
Maybe it was the same one. Maybe it wasn’t. I wasn’t going to hang around to find out. Mindy was in her seat and had the engine started before I got to the car. Buster had me running faster than my legs wanted to go and bits of gravel on the pavement were biting into the delicate soft soles of my feet.
I didn’t try to reel him in though, I egged him on instead. At the car, I ripped the door open and dived in. Feeling like I had the devil himself chasing me, I wasn’t going to fiddle around getting Buster’s harness attached. He piled in on top of me and with a yank of the door to get it closed, Mindy was burning rubber.
She didn’t pick a straight line though. She stomped on the accelerator and spun her steering wheel so the back end got thrown out. My face hit the passenger’s window and stuck there as centrifugal force made it feel ten times heavier than normal.
Abruptly, we were facing the other way and Mindy’s car fishtailed as she powered it down the street. I thought we were going to get away, but no sooner were we moving than we were stopping again.
Not yet wearing my seatbelt, I got thrown forward in my seat. Fortunately, with Buster on my lap – squashing me with his bulk – I merely bounced off him.
‘What are you doing?’ I begged to know as I righted myself and fumbled for the seatbelt.
Mindy was opening her door, but paused to explain, ‘Making sure he doesn’t follow us.’ With a flick of her hand, a butterfly knife shot out of its handle, the blade rotating around to face outwards.
She was parked right next to the black BMW and before I could question how certain she was it belonged to the man who’d been following us, she hung out of her door and thrust the blade through the sidewall of a tyre.
An outrushing of air accompanied the sight of the black car leaning awkwardly to one side as its front right tyre deflated. Then, with another flick of her wrist, the blade went back into the handle of the knife and her car took off like a tiger with its tail on fire once more.
Mindy cackled in delight. ‘This is so much better than planning weddings, Auntie. We should do this all the time.’
I doubted I could survive a week of this, and as I sunk into my seat and held onto Buster, the sick feeling returned. With my eyes closed against the horror my brain had just delivered, I
