Lisa Stone - Stalker

A little after 10.30pm Derek heard footsteps on the stairs and then the floorboards on the landing creak as his mother came up to bed. She always switched off the television at half past ten and went to bed straight after, although she never slept well. He often heard her moving around in her room at night and sometimes she went downstairs for a drink. Now, following her usual routine she went first to her bedroom to fetch her nightwear and then took it to the bathroom where she washed and changed. Exactly fifteen minutes later she returned to her room calling ‘goodnight’ as she went.

‘Goodnight, Mum,’ he returned, keeping the irritation from his voice.

His eyes were sore from staring too long at the footage of the break-ins. He admitted defeat for now and closing the file returned all four screens to the images of his clients. He loved spending time with them, which he did as much as possible. They reached out to him with friendship and support in a way real life didn’t. In return for keeping them safe and on track, they gave him (although, apart from the girls at The Mermaid, they didn’t know it) their unfailing company.

As he watched and shared in their daily lives, he felt a warm frisson of belonging to a family in a way he never had with his own family. Even when his parents had been together he couldn’t remember feeling their warmth and being cherished. He particularly enjoyed it when his clients had friends or relatives visit; he felt included in their social circle – a unique feeling, for he and his mother rarely had visitors. Sunday lunches were his favourite; they often stretched for hours, the adults remaining at the table, talking and sipping their wine as the children played nearby. These people loved and cared for each other in a way that was foreign to him and moved him deeply. If they did fall out – which he’d discovered even the closest of families and friends did sometimes – then they always made up. Being with them, embraced by their families, calmed and soothed him so much that he often left the images running while he did other things in his room, reassured that his extended family were just a few steps away.

By midnight, most of the downstairs rooms in his clients’ homes were empty, the occupants having gone to bed. Only the night owls remained up and the few on shift work – doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who were either about to leave for work or had just returned and were winding down. Mostly the houses were in darkness, the alarms set for night-time and the occasional security light flashing on when a cat or fox walked by. A crescent moon shone between passing clouds. Derek yawned. He needed to get some sleep too. He had to be up early in the morning. He was meeting prospective clients at 8am, a professional couple who had asked him to give them an estimate before they went to work.

Stifling another yawn, he prepared to shut down the system, calmer now from spending quality time with his families. He gave the screens one last glance ready to say goodnight, but then stopped dead.

What the hell! Screen two: he enlarged the image to full size. It was the house where Mr and Mrs Khumalo and their three children lived, one of his larger properties. Oh no! Please no. Someone was in their back garden. He could make out the outline of a figure in the shrubbery, moving low and cat-like, keeping close to the fence, going from bush to bush. Derek stared in horror, his breath coming fast and shallow. The figure crept along the right-hand side of the lawn, then, breaking cover, ran from the shrubbery and quickly across the patio to the conservatory. Dressed all in black and with a three-holed balaclava covering his head, he appeared to know how to avoid the light sensors. The floodlights concentrated on the conservatory and patio doors didn’t come on.

‘Shit!’ Derek cursed under his breath.

He watched helplessly as the intruder moved one of the wrought iron chairs from the garden table and, placing it at the foot of the drainpipe, shimmied up like a leopard climbing a tree. His stomach churned. Dear God, this couldn’t be happening. Not another one! The bedroom window directly over the conservatory was slightly open. The figure knelt on the toughened glass of the conservatory roof and, sliding his hand into the gap, eased open the window. A second later he was in the bedroom and out of view, the window left open behind him.

Sick with fear, Derek grappled with the keyboard, hands trembling as he pulled it towards him and began to type. He glanced between the images of the house on screen two as on screen three he brought up the Khumalos’ file. He needed to know how they wanted to be notified – phone, email or text. They’d opted for phone message – to Mr Khumalo’s phone. Sweating profusely, Derek moved the cursor to the phone icon, entered Mr Khumalo’s number and clicked send. It was his red alert message, the highest of all his warning messages, and only used when there was imminent danger.

The sound of Mr Khumalo’s mobile phone ringing came through the computer, but the call was redirected to voicemail. Oh no! Derek’s message played – his voice disguised with a digital recording: ‘This is a security alert from your surveillance company. Check your monitor, windows and doors immediately. There may be an intruder on the premises. If you see anything suspicious call the police. Do not ignore this message.’

The messaged ended and the phone reset. Hopefully Mr Khumalo had heard his phone ring and was now checking the message.

Derek stared again at screen two, his heart drumming loudly, his palms sweating. What was happening inside their house? What was the intruder doing? He couldn’t see into the bedrooms. Take what you want but don’t harm them, please, he begged. They’re my friends.

Suddenly the figure reappeared at the open window and climbed out. He’d only been inside for a couple of minutes and didn’t seem to be carrying any stolen goods. No bag or rucksack, which might have contained stolen items. Perhaps he’d stuffed smaller items like jewellery into his pockets, Derek hoped, as the alternative – that he’d done them harm – was too awful to contemplate. Or maybe – and please let this be so – he’d been disturbed.

Derek watched, his heart racing, as the figure slid effortlessly down the drainpipe and dropped to the patio. As he landed he must have been caught in the range of one of the light sensors for a floodlight flashed on, but the figure was already away, running back along the edge of the garden and then out through the gate at the rear, presumably as he’d entered. Derek knew that a small paddock lay behind the house where the Khumalos’ daughter kept her pony. At the time Derek had surveyed the property to estimate for the security system he’d pointed out the gate was an easy access point for any would-be intruder, but Mr Khumalo had said his daughter needed to get in and out to tend to her pony, and anyway you couldn’t secure all the grassland beyond, which was true. So Derek had been instructed to fit an additional security light in the paddock, which came on now as the intruder completed his escape.

He remained very still, staring at the image of the back of the house. Had Mr Khumalo listened to his phone message now? Had he, his wife or any of his children been woken by the intruder or the security light flashing on? Or – heaven forbid – was the crime so heinous they would never wake at all?

From memory Derek knew that the main bedroom was at the rear, and he thought the bedroom over the conservatory might be that of the Khumalos’ youngest son, but he couldn’t be sure. If they’d raised the alarm then the police should arrive shortly, but as he watched and waited and the minutes ticked by, no lights came on in the house and the bedroom curtains remained closed. Half an hour later, Derek conceded his message had remained unheard and feared the worst.