The two shelves that held books and toys and the school photograph – three smiling faces with well-brushed hair – were the only clues that the place was inhabited by children.
How do people do that? Are they perpetually cleaning? Wiping up sticky finger marks, hoovering up crumbs and crisps, sorting toys…or do they somehow train their children to be neat, tidy, clean and careful – in other words, to behave completely unlike children. How?
I’d long since reached an uneasy truce, accepting, against all the lessons my mother had drummed into me, that a basic level of mess and grime came with the territory. Life was messy, kids were messy, there were more important things than a clean swing bin. Now and then, when I could no longer bear the jumble in the toy boxes or the layers of food particles and felt-pen marks on the doorjamb and the television, I’d have a binge. It would look OK (never pristine, I could never do pristine) for an hour or two until it got lived in again.
Somehow Debbie had got it cracked. I sat opposite her on one of a pair of winged armchairs, drew out my notebook and began my enquiry.
I established her full name, her home situation (divorced, living alone here with three children), her place of work. She was a bit like her house, neat and trim. She was dressed in a fuchsia-pink ribbed sweater and a black skirt. Her hair was dark blonde, pulled into a low bun at the nape of her neck. She wore a little make-up, a silver cross on a chain, silver studs in her ears. ‘Well turned-out’ was the phrase. She looked good but her hands trembled as she spoke and at times she became breathless and stumbled over her words.
I asked her to tell me about the man who had been following her. When had it started?
‘It was about three months ago, just after Easter. I came out of work and he was there across the road. The first couple of times I thought he was waiting to meet someone.’
‘But you noticed him, you were aware of him?’
She played with her chain. ‘He was staring at me longer than you normally do. Then he started to follow me.’
‘From work?’
She nodded. ‘He’d walk behind me, not close but in sight. Follow me to the bus stop. I…it wasn’t…I didn’t like it. One day I went to get Jason’s birthday present,’ she motioned to the photograph, ‘and he was behind me. That’s when it got to me, because I was sure he was actually doing it. There wasn’t any doubt any more.’
‘Was he there every day?’
