Kissing the Dragon - 8. Break-In

As if the day could get any worse, I crunch my way through thawing slush along the tree-lined Benson Road as winter darkness descends just after five, mentally preparing myself for two weeks of isolation. Over the weekend a blight has hit the neighbourhood, not the natural blanket of snow, but fresh graffiti appearing on the whitewashed wall of an end-of-terrace house. A random name emblazoned in red, black and yellow, the kind of self indulgent display I find garish bordering on offensive. Adding to the assault on my nerves, a distant house alarm rings loud, incessantly and oddly familiar, and I almost miss Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyeries playing on my mobile.

“Mr McCann. This is a representative of AMB home systems. I need to ask you security questions before I continue. Is that acceptable to you?” says the woman’s officious voice, essentially alerting me to the fact that my home alarm has been activated. As I begin to pick up pace, I rattle off answers to the three simple questions allowing the person to continue. “This is to let you know that the alarm to 26 Cyder Drive has been activated. We have contacted the police who are sending officers to check on the premises. Are you on your way home, sir?”

“I’m just approaching now,” I reply, my already heavy mood deep diving. What is happening? As if the news of Denny has not been enough, now my alarm system has decided to play up. Had he still been alive, my uncle Dom would have put this down to the rule of threes; when things go wrong in your life they come along three at a time. Two down, one to go. Rounding the corner I am greeted by the scene of a blue flashing light from the top of a police car untidily ramped up on the kerb outside my house and a uniformed police constables standing by my front gate.

“Are you Mr McCann?” shouts the young red-headed female police officer, as I approach hastily, pulling my front door keys from my jacket pocket. I can barely hear her above the clammer of the alarm. Along the road one or two neighbours stand at their doors or windows observing the scene.

“Sorry about this,” I shout back, moving past her to the front door. “The alarm company just phoned. Probably went off by accident.”

“I’m afraid not, sir,” she says, reaching out and staying me with her hand. She nods to the half open front door, where the other police constable, a young man, shines a torch and smooths a gloved hand over the door frame. “Looks like an attempted burglary. But if you could deactivate the alarm, sir, I think we’d all be very grateful.”

After moving inside and flicking on the house lights, I do as asked. Both police constables stand behind me, the man speaking something inaudible into the walkie talkie on his lapel. Once silence reigns again, I am about to enter the house, but the woman, who introduces herself as PC Barnes, stops me again with a surprisingly firm hand on my upper forearm.

“Chances are they’ve scarpered, sir. But let PC Robinson and myself take a quick look around first,” she says, stepping past me into the interior. In that moment, the reality and seriousness of the scene sinks in. Someone has violated my private space, my home. As PC Robinson passes me, I hear him murmur something that sounds like ‘nice gaff’.

I stand vulnerable in the open doorway like an observer, waiting for them to return, looking at my house through fresh eyes. He is right, it is a nice abode. Built between the wars, the interior of the semi-detached house has been nipped, tucked and made over so often by my father’s brother during his ownership, that it is barely recognisable from the numerous photos and blueprints of the original hanging on the wall in the den. Uncle Dom was quite the flamboyant architect in his lifetime, never one to resort to the norms of the day, always happy to push the boat out where design was concerned. Individuality in the sixties and seventies meant a steady stream of high profile, high paying clients. When he bought the place at the end of the seventies, he took a hiatus from his career and set about putting his own individual stamp on the interior—leaving the 1930s exterior and faithfully matching extension spruced up but otherwise unremarkable.

Even now, almost a year since his demise, whenever I open the front door and step inside I feel his presence. Previously a standard three bedroom affair with attached garage, Uncle Dom opened up the whole of the inside front of the property from floor to roof, losing one of the bedrooms in the process. He added an upper balcony rail, a gallery, leading off to the remaining three bedrooms and bathroom. Creating arches leading from the main structure, he converted the downstairs garage into a large sunken den, building an extension above to house a huge master bedroom with ensuite bathroom. His final masterstroke had been to build a glass extension into the garden along the length of the back of the house, and install a spacious open plan kitchen and adjoining dining room. The only part of the reinvention that I still have a problem with is the spiral staircase of reinforced glass connecting the floors, which looks incredible, but is a nuisance to keep clean.

PC Barnes returns a few minutes later. Her casual movement and relaxed expression tell the story before she opens her mouth.

“All clear,” she says, scanning the front interior again, “But I’d ask if you could come through with me. See if you think anything’s missing.”

As she leads me through the house, starting in the downstairs living areas, leading to the upstairs rooms and ending in the kitchen, everything appears the same as I had left it that morning. Only as we reach the kitchen, where the young man kneels examining the back door, does something niggle me as being out of place.

“Do you usually keep this locked and bolted, sir?” asks the man, standing and peering around at us.

“Always. Although I leave the key in the lock. Not such as good idea, I suppose.”

The man says nothing, but twists the handle and pulls the door which swung open freely, allowing a gust of chill air into the room, rustling the bills pinned to the cork-board on the kitchen wall. Both top and bottom bolt have been pulled open, and although the key remains in the keyhole, the door has clearly been left unlocked. The two of them share a look but say nothing.

“Could you have left the door open by mistake this morning?” he asks.

“Not a chance. I haven’t been out in the back garden since early November. I’m a fair-weather gardener.”

“Does anyone else live with you?”

“I have a lodger. But he uses the garden less than me. Sometimes in summer for sunbathing.” Billy claims to be allergic to gardens. He has a pollen allergy which usually flares up in spring with the arrival of newly mown lawns and cherry blossom. But that does not stop him from whipping off his clothes and sporting a leather thong in summer largely to scandalise the neighbours. “The only member of this house that regularly uses the back door during the winter months is my cat. That’s why I keep him shut in the kitchen during the daytime. So he can use the cat flap without setting off the alarm.”

“Looks as though your burglar came in through the front door and left by the rear. Don’t suppose your lodger could have come home early from work?”asks the man, while closing, bolting and locking the door.

“It’s a possibility, but he knows the alarm code. And even if he’d set it off by mistake, he would have called me,” I say, before finally realising what’s out of place. “Hang on. My laptop.”

“What’s that, sir,” asks P C Barnes.

“I leave it on the kitchen island. It’s missing.”

“Are you sure?” She has taken out her notepad and starts making notes.

“Positive. I checked the online newspaper over breakfast this morning.”

“You keep anything important stored on it?”

I have to think about that for a moment. All I use the laptop—an old model that Uncle Dom bequeathed—for is checking emails and surfing, and even then it has been slow and clunky of late. All my research, school work, photos, music and important documents I keep either on flash drives or on my desktop computer in the make-do study. Thank goodness they did not find the far more valuable desktop computer. Whoever pinched the laptop is in for a shock.

“Fortunately no, nothing important.”

After I offer to make them both tea, which they accept, she leads me back into the main house, to the den, where I provide details of the make and model. While seated, I also answer a list of her questions: Who else has keys to the house? Can I call them now to verify they have not entered? Could me or the lodger have left the front door open by mistake? I am so transfixed making sure my answers are consistent that the voice from the front door gives me a start.

“What the butt-fuck-naked is going on?” comes the shrill tones of Billy, as both myself and PC Barnes peer around from the sofa. “Why is there a pig wagon ramped up on the pavement outside our house?”

“This is the lodger I told you about,” I say to the woman, as Billy enters the room, his designer backpack slung across one shoulder. On seeing us he freezes, and slaps a guilty hand over his mouth. “Been quite a day, Billy boy. The police constables are here because the alarm was activated and I came home to find the front door wide open. We’ve been burgled. Although only my old laptop appears to be missing. But you might want to pop upstairs and check your room.”

“Oh shit,” he says, dropping his pack on the floor and bounding towards the spiral staircase. “Hope they didn’t find my porn.”

“Joking,” I say to the young smiling constable.

By six-thirty the officers have done their stuff, reassured me and left. The male PC who had gone upstairs to chat to Billy in his room has now left, but since then I have seen nothing of Billy. I wander upstairs and knock on his bedroom door. After waiting for a few moments, he cracks open the door wearing an oatmeal face mask and a pink towel turban. I stumble back a step.

“Beyoncé?”

When he smirks, the molten surface cracks around the edge of his mouth, and he mutters an expletive, which only makes matters worse.

“Sorry. Just checking everything’s okay. Nothing stolen?”

“Nope,” he says, cupping a hand beneath his chin to catch falling oatmeal. “All good. Although I’m sure that hunky bluebottle was coming on to me. He gave me his number in case I find anything missing. What kind of a line is that?”

“Think that’s standard practice,” I say, with a smirk. Trust Billy to turn a crisis into a pick-up opportunity. “Look, I’ve ordered take-away. Got your favourites, but do you mind if we skip the film? I’m not really in the mood now. Think I’ll shower, change and do some marking.”

“No problem, mother. Let me grab a shower and then I’ll come down and watch a bit of TV. You okay?”

Vaughan would have been my shoulder during times like these, someone to reduce the events of the day into common sense. Although Billy would never be able to provide the same level of emotional support, at least he is here.

“Yes. Awful day at school. And now this,” I say, wondering how much to tell him but quickly deciding to keep the peace. He will find out sooner or later. Instead I decide on a little white lie. “The deputy told me to take a few days off to sort things out. Change the locks on the back door and stuff.”

“Quite right. Enough drama for one day, Meryl.”

If only that were true.