Grant turned back to the window and stared over at the Francis house. The lights were on in the downstairs front room, the flicker of a TV evident behind the curtains, but he saw no signs of anyone either within the room or outside of the house.

‘You’re absolutely sure?’ Grant said.

‘Of course I’m bloody sure,’ Mary scolded. ‘Why else would I say it?’

Wait, was that a shadow moving across Francis’s drive? His security light hadn’t come on, though. Grant did his best to focus on the dark space, but the more he looked, the more the thin shadows and glow from the streetlights jumped and danced at random.

He really couldn’t be sure.

‘Steven, just go and check, will you?’

‘Fine,’ Grant said.

He headed out of the room and across the hall to the cupboard under the stairs. He opened the door and soon spotted what he was looking for among the clutter. A black wooden baseball bat. Grant had bought it for his son while at a convention in Chicago years ago. The bat had always been more an ornament than a plaything, and had long been consigned to the darkness. He’d spotted it the other day for the first time in an age. It was the first thing Grant could think of grabbing in that moment.

Mary saw him lugging the bat towards the front door. ‘Steven?’

‘Just in case,’ he said, not looking at her.

He stood into his shoes without doing them up, and before he could talk himself out of it, he opened the front door and headed into the darkness, laces flapping. He was only two steps from the house when his movement triggered the security light fixed up above the front door. It lit up most of the drive in bright white light, though Grant knew the corners of the front garden, which contained numerous shrubs and trees, were out of its reach.

Grant stomped across the soggy drive and over into one of the dark corners. He gripped the bat tightly. Was he really ready to clobber someone with it?

He never found out, because despite his careful search, he couldn’t find anyone out there at all, or even any signs someone had been there.

After a couple of minutes, by which point he was shivering, Grant traipsed back over to the house. As he stepped through the open front door, Mary was still in the hallway, waiting in expectation.

‘Whoever was out there, they’re long gone,’ Grant said, though he still wasn’t particularly convinced anyone had been there at all.

Mary said nothing to that. Grant turned to shut the door. As he did so his gaze inevitably sought out the Francis house across the road. As he pushed the door shut, he was certain he saw the curtains of the downstairs front room twitch.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Day 527