Walking to the window, Yates pulled back the curtain and looked out onto their garden – it was overrun, the flowerbeds choked with knee-high weeds knotted together like witch’s hair. The lawn had died a long time ago, the earth split into rock-hard chunks: jagged fissures between clumps of lank yellow grass, like the surface of some inhospitable moon. Set among the perfectly tended gardens of their neighbours it was an abomination. Yates had proposed hiring a gardener but his wife had refused, unsettled by the idea of a stranger moving in and out of the house, making noise, talking to the neighbours. Yates had suggested asking the gardener not to speak, never to come inside and to make as little noise as possible, anything so that their house wasn’t such a vision of shameful neglect. His wife had refused.

Ready to leave, he went through the exit routine, checking the windows, making sure they were shut. He stopped by the phone, making sure it was unplugged. With these checks complete, he descended the stairs. At great expense they’d been carpeted with the thickest and finest material, of exotic foreign origin, to muffle any noise. Yates left the house, pinning a note on the door:

PLEASE DO NOT RING THE BELL

PLEASE DO NOT KNOCK ON THE DOOR

Originally he’d concluded with the explanation that no one was at home. But that line had been cut since his wife was worried it might attract burglars. When he returned after work he’d take the note down. Whenever he went out, even if it was for an hour, even if it was for five minutes, he went through the checks and put up the note. His wife did not react well to disturbances of any kind.