Dead Wrong - [6]

‘Are they all like this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I keep a couple?’

‘You can have the lot as far as I’m concerned,’ she said bitterly. ‘I can’t stand having them in the house.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I can keep them somewhere safe, they may be useful evidence.’ She passed me the large envelope. ‘Mrs Henderson says he’s been here too.’

‘Yes, just the last three weeks. That’s when I went to the police. They said there was nothing they could do, that there’s no law against it. But they said I could see a lawyer, maybe try getting some evidence of harassment.’

‘When has he been here? Day or night?’

‘Both. The first time, Sunday it was, I was taking the children to church. He was across the road by the alley, leaning on that wall.’

I went over and looked through the nets. Almost directly opposite there was a cobbled alleyway between two terraces leading to the back alleys.

‘I didn’t let on, I didn’t want the children to know. He’d gone when we came back. Then a few days later, the Tuesday it was, my Mum had come round for her tea. I rang for a taxi to take her back, and I kept looking out so we wouldn’t miss it, and he was there. Just staring, watching the house.’ She caught her breath. ‘I asked Mum to stay and I called the police. They sent someone round but he’d gone by the time they arrived.’

‘Was he driving?’

‘I never saw a car.’

‘Describe him to me.’

I made notes as she spoke. Medium height, slim build, dark hair thinning on top, curly round the edges. Clean-shaven. Wears suit, neither flash nor ancient. Slightly out of date, ordinary dark suit, shirt, tie. Carries black umbrella. Age early thirties? Hard to tell.

‘Has he spoken to you again?’

‘Sometimes he calls out after me; sometimes he gets on the bus.’ She chewed on her chain. ‘It’s awful,’ she blurted out, ‘I can’t stand him. I just want him to go away. I’ve never done anything to him – why’s he doing this to me?’

I’d no answers, only more questions. ‘Has he ever threatened you?’

She shook her head. ‘But the whole thing is threatening,’ she complained. ‘It’s as if he’s hunting me, getting closer all the time…’ there was panic in her voice.

Stalking, that’s the word they use. The man pursuing Debbie was a stalker.

‘It must be terrible,’ I agreed quietly, ‘and you’re obviously very frightened. It is a frightening situation. What we need to do now is gather evidence; if we can get some clear proof, it’ll help the police even if it can’t actually go to court. They might be able to scare him off. You’ve already got the letters, now we need to keep a record of everything else, so we can show the level of harassment he’s subjecting you to. The next time you see him, ring me, no matter what time it is. If I can come I will.’ I gave her my card and wrote my home number on the reverse. ‘Try this number if the answerphone’s on or I don’t answer the mobile.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I’ll take photos, maybe even use video, and I’ll follow him – find out where he lives and who he is.’

She saw me to the door. I motioned to the array of locks and bolts. ‘You’ve made the house secure – that’s good. But he’s not likely to hurt you,’ I tried to reassure her. ‘I realise it’s an awful strain but it’s very unlikely he’ll use violence against you.’

‘I know,’ she said, ‘that’s what Mrs Henderson told me. But it doesn’t change what it feels like. I’m really scared; he’s hurting me already, it’s messing my life up.’ I could hear that panic again. Then she whispered: ‘I’m so frightened.’

Yeah, so would I be, I thought, and I would take great satisfaction in running the little creep to ground.

Chapter Three

‘Mummy,’ Maddie stood in the kitchen doorway, hands on her hips. ‘There’s a gigantic slug in the sandpit.’

‘Is there?’ I emptied the washing machine. Too late to peg it all out now but the forecast for the morning looked promising.

‘Come and get it out now.’

‘And slug poo,’ Tom shouted from outside.

‘It’s nearly bedtime,’ I warned them.

I scooped the brown and orange slug onto a trowel. It shrunk to a glistening lump of muscle and I dropped it into one of the beer traps I’d got dotted round the garden. At Tom’s insistence I removed the slug poo too and put that on the soil.

While Maddie carefully sculpted a mermaid’s house in the sand I wandered round dead-heading the pansies and the petunias, tidying up the tubs and baskets. Tom trundled the toy wheelbarrow round after me. Although there was only a year between Tom who was four, and Maddie, five going on six, he was still very much a little boy, short and stocky, hardly more than a toddler, while Maddie, in the midst of a growth spurt, looked lanky and skinny. Her body had assumed the proportions of a child now and she scorned anything she regarded as babyish.

It took me an hour and a half to get them both bathed, dressed and into bed, stories told and books read.

Ray was out. He’d gone for a drink with some of his fellow students from the computer course he’s doing at Salford University. He earns his living as a joiner but he wants a change. He says he’s had enough of manual labour and lousy working conditions.