A Noise Downstairs

by Linwood Barclay

  Dresser back in place, he grabbed the remote and turned on the television. He propped himself on the corner of the bed, as if nothing had happened.

  Anna, wearily, went back downstairs.

  The moment she entered her office, she let out a short scream.

  Gavin Hitchens was sitting in his usual chair, waiting for her.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said.

  He made an innocent face. “I never canceled. This is when I come.”

  “Leave.”

  He raised his palms in a gesture of surrender but did not get out of the chair. “I came here to tell you I forgive you.”

  Anna blinked. “You what?”

  “Forgive you. For thinking I had something to do with that woman and that dead dog, and with whatever happened here a couple of days ago that made you send the police to see me. I know you probably violated some kind of doctor-patient privilege when you did that, but I’m willing to overlook it.”

  “I mean it, Gavin. You need to leave.”

  “Because, you see, I think maybe I deserved that. When you’ve done the kinds of things I’ve done, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself when you find yourself facing false accusations. You’ve set yourself up. I appreciate that now.”

  “I’m calling the police.”

  Gavin’s look of innocence morphed into one of hurt. “Does this mean you’re not going to be counseling me anymore?”

  “You could have gotten my father killed.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Well, yes, I do, because the police told me. It must have been awful, a SWAT team coming into the house like that.”

  “You’re sick, Gavin. I hope someone can help you, but it’s not going to be me. Honestly, I don’t know that anyone can.”

  He stood. “If you want to know what I think, I think it’s some kind of a copycat. Someone who knows I’m seeing you and wants to frame me. You might want to look at your other patients and see who might be capable of something like that.”

  Anna strode into the room, past Gavin, and went behind her desk. She reached for the phone. Before she could lift the receiver, Gavin put his hand atop hers, pinning it there.

  She looked into his smiling face.

  He said, “Did you know, when you sleep, you don’t snore, but when you exhale, your lips do this adorable little dance?”

  Anna felt a chill run the length of her body. She wanted to scream but couldn’t find her voice.

  Gavin released her hand and grinned. “Just kidding.” He walked to the door but turned one last time before leaving. “Good thing you don’t have any pets,” he said.

  Anna slowly dropped into her chair and gripped the arms to stop her hands from shaking.

  Twenty

  The first thing Paul did when he got up was head straight to his office. Charlotte was still under the covers when he slipped out of bed and trotted barefoot down to the kitchen in his boxers.

  He hadn’t heard any more typing noises in the night, but it was possible, he told himself, that he’d slept through them. If the keys of the typewriter had—somehow—been touched in the remaining hours of the night, the evidence would be on that sheet of paper he had rolled into it.

  This is crazy, Paul told himself. Why am I even doing this?

  He swallowed and felt his heart flutter as he slowly pushed open his office door.

  The Underwood sat there.

  The page was blank.

  Paul put a hand on the jamb for support and took a breath. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved, or disappointed.

  “I really am losing it,” he whispered.

  In the light of day, the events of the night seemed clearer. As much as he had fought Charlotte’s conclusion that he’d been dreaming, what other possible explanation was there?

  Think about it. Does it make any sense at all that someone would sneak into your house in the dead of night to tap on the keys of an old typewriter?

  Paul knew the answer.

  He’d mention it today at his session with Dr. White. He’d ask some questions. Could someone be half-awake and half-asleep at the same time? When he thought he was awake and hearing chit chit chit was it possible he was not fully conscious? Could it be a kind of sleepwalking?

  That, he had to admit, made more sense than anything else.

  He went back up to the bedroom and slid under the covers as Charlotte was waking.

  “Hey,” she said groggily. She blinked a couple of times, pulled herself up into a sitting position and said, “How are you doing?”

  “Good,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “How I acted last night. I was short with you, and you were only trying to help.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  When he told her what he was going to ask Dr. White, Charlotte nodded with enthusiasm. “That could explain everything,” she said.

  Paul looked down as his face flushed with embarrassment. “I went down and checked.”

  “Checked?”

  “To see if anything had been typed onto that page.”

  “And?”

  He looked up. “I think you know the answer.”

  _________________

  PAUL FELT OPTIMISTIC ON THE WAY TO HIS SESSION. HE COULDN’T wait to tell Anna White that he not only had made a good start on his writing project, but also had come up with a theory about the noises in the night.

  He’d decided to pop into Staples for some printer cartridges and the Barnes & Noble for a quick look at new fiction releases first. He was heading south on River Street when he saw the Volvo.

  It pulled out in front of him from Darina Place, just ahead of the underpass below the railroad tracks. The driver either didn’t see Paul, or didn’t care. Paul had to hit the brakes to avoid broadsiding the vehicle.

  Paul didn’t get to see who was behind the wheel, but that might have been because he was consumed with looking at the entire vehicle.

  The Volvo was a station wagon. It was dark blue. It was the same vintage as Kenneth Hoffman’s.

  Paul felt his heart starting to race. His hands almost instantly began to sweat. His breathing became rapid and shallow.

  As the car settled into the lane ahead of him, Paul looked to see if one of the taillights was broken. But as he tried to focus, he found his vision blurring.

  I’m having a panic attack.

  I’m going to pass out.

  Paul hit the brakes and steered toward the edge of the road. Behind him a horn blared. He got the car stopped under the bridge and huddled over the wheel, his head resting atop it. He closed his eyes, fighting the dizziness.

  Suddenly, overhead, the roar of a passing commuter train.

  Paul’s heart was ready to explode from his chest.

  “Breathe,” he told himself. “Breathe.”

  It took him the better part of five minutes to pull himself together. Slowly, he raised his head from the wheel, propped it against the headrest. He released his fingers from the wheel and wiped his sweaty palms on the tops of his legs. When he was confident his heart rate and breathing were back to normal, he continued on his way.

  _________________

  ANNA WHITE WASN’T IN HER OFFICE.

  Paul peeked in from the waiting area and did not see her behind her desk or seated in the leather chair she used when they had their chats.

  He allowed a couple of minutes to go by before he poked his head into the main part of the house and said, “Dr. White? Anna?”

  He thought he heard the sound of clinking cutlery, as though someone was doing dishes in a sink. He followed the noises to the kitchen, where Anna, her back to him, was standing at the sink.

  “Anna?” he said.

  She whirled around, her eyes wide and fearful. In the process, a wet glass slid from her hand and hit the floor, shattering into hundreds of pieces.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry,” Paul sa
id, moving forward. He scanned the floor to assess the level of risk. “Don’t move your feet.”

  Anna surveyed the bits of glass around her feet. “Shit.” She looked apologetically at Paul. “You startled me.”

  As he knelt down to gather up the larger pieces of glass he said, “When you weren’t in your office I . . . I should have just waited.”

  When she started to kneel down to help pick up glass, he said, “No, I’ve got this. As long as you don’t move you won’t step in any of it.”

  But she ignored him, crouching and gathering pieces around her feet.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said, holding up her index finger. Blood trickled down the side.

  “Hang on,” Paul said. “Hold it over the sink. I’ve got almost all of it.”

  With a dish towel, he swabbed the floor of any shards that were too small to pick up with his fingers.

  Standing, he said, “Where do you keep your first-aid stuff?”

  She pointed to a drawer. Paul found a package of Band-Aids and peeled one from its wrapping. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Anna, he gently took her wrist in his hand and ran some water over her bloody finger.

  “You’re trembling,” Paul said.

  “I’m . . . a little on edge today is all.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know why I was doing this. I have a dishwasher. I just . . . needed to clear my head.”

  Paul turned off the tap and gently dried her finger with a paper towel. He studied the cut closely.

  “I don’t see any glass.”

  Paul wrapped the tiny bandage tightly around her finger. “If it’s none of my business, you don’t have to answer, but what’s got you on edge? Is it your father?”

  “No,” she said. “Well, some.”

  “What happened?”

  “A fake 9-1-1 call. The police came, guns drawn. My father was pretty shook up.”

  Paul held on to her hand a few more seconds before letting go. “There. You should be okay now.”

  _________________

  IN THE OFFICE, IN THEIR RESPECTIVE CHAIRS, ANNA SAID, “I REALLY am sorry. I should have been in here when you arrived.” She took a breath.

  “We don’t have to do this today,” he offered.

  She raised a hand, waving away any further debate. “I’m good. Go ahead.”

  “I actually thought I was going to be late,” Paul said. He told her about what had happened when he saw the car that looked like Hoffman’s. “I don’t know all the symptoms of a panic attack, but I think I might have had one. I know it wasn’t Hoffman, and I don’t even think it was his car, but seeing it triggered something. I’ve really felt like I’ve been moving forward these last couple of days, but that was a real reminder that I’ve got a way to go.”

  Anna wanted to be sure that he was okay now, and that he would be okay to drive home. Paul said he was confident that he was.

  “But I should tell you . . . it happened again.”

  “What happened?”

  “Those typing noises in the middle of the night. And I was as sure as I could be that I was awake. I got Charlotte up, but she never heard a thing.” He tossed out his theory about being awake and asleep at the same time.

  “Possibly,” Anna said, “but that’s not really my area of expertise. But yes, I think it’s possible. You were still under the influences of a dream while you presented as awake.”

  Paul stared at her for several seconds. “I think that has to be it. Unless,” and at this point he forced a chuckle, “it’s a ghost. That’s what Bill—a friend of mine—suggested, although he was joking.”

  Anna managed a wry smile. “If that’s the problem, you’re absolutely in an area I don’t know much about.”

  As the session came to its conclusion, Paul again asked Anna how she was.

  “Better,” she said, holding up her bandaged finger and offering a crooked smile. “You’re my new hero.”

  Twenty-One

  I gave Bill shit today,” Charlotte said over dinner.

  “What for?”

  “Seriously? Letting you get into a squash court with him?”

  “Oh, that.”

  “I don’t know who’s the bigger idiot, you or him.”

  Paul smiled. “Tough call.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “It’s not funny.”

  They moved on to other things. She asked if he had the ticket for the dry cleaning. She’d be going by there tomorrow and could pick it up.

  “What dry cleaning?” he asked.

  “The dry cleaning I asked you to drop off.”

  “You didn’t ask me to drop off any dry cleaning.”

  “This morning, I said to you, please drop off the dry cleaning. I pointed to the bag on the chair in our room. And you said, no problem, you’d do it on the way to your session.”

  Paul stared at her. “No, you didn’t.”

  Charlotte said, “Maybe this will help you remember. I said, tell them to be careful with that black dress. And you said, the one that looks like it’s painted on? And I said, why, you got some paint remover? Does that help?”

  Paul’s face fell. “I don’t remember any of that.”

  Charlotte tried to look upbeat. “It’s no big deal. I’ll drop it off tomorrow.”

  _________________

  TO HIS SURPRISE, PAUL SLEPT WELL. MAYBE TACKLING THE HOFFMAN business was having an impact, Volvo incident aside.

  When he woke up at five minutes after seven, he heard water running. He threw back the covers and traipsed into the bathroom. Charlotte stood naked behind the frosted shower door, her head arched back to allow the water to splash across her face.

  “Hey,” he said loudly to be heard over the water.

  She turned the taps off and opened the door far enough to retrieve a towel hanging on a hook.

  “When did you come to bed?” she asked. “I waited for you for about twenty minutes before I finally went to sleep.”

  “I stayed up for a while, that’s all,” he said. “I was doing some writing.”

  Paul studied his face in the mirror, examined his eyes. Charlotte dried off behind the glass, then opened the door and stepped out, the towel wrapped around her.

  “But you slept through the rest of the night?” she asked.

  “I did,” he said. “I feel kind of logy, but I slept pretty good.”

  Paul knew what she was really asking. Had he heard anything in the night? He ran his hand over his bristly chin and neck. He opened a drawer, brought out a razor and shaving cream.

  “You want to start the coffee while I get dressed?” she asked when he was done shaving.

  He nodded wearily and, after another look at himself in the mirror, said, “It’s gonna take more than coffee to fix this.”

  He slipped out of the bathroom and headed to the floor below. Charlotte took off her towel, dried her hair as best she could, and retrieved a handheld dryer from the cabinet below the sink. She plugged it in, flipped the switch, the small room suddenly sounding like the inside of a jet engine. She aimed the device at her head and let her hair fly.

  Less than a minute later, Paul stood at the bathroom door, his face drained of color. She turned the machine off.

  “For Christ’s sake, didn’t you hear me?” he said.

  She waved the dryer in front of him. “With this on?”

  “Come downstairs.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just come.”

  She ducked into the bedroom to grab her robe, threw it on, and quickly knotted the sash. She ran after her husband, who was already halfway down the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” Charlotte asked.

  He led her straight to the small office, stood just outside the door, and pointed to the typewriter.

  “Look,” he said.

  “Look at what?”

  “The paper,” he said. “Look at the paper.”

  From where she stood, she could make out the letters. A partial line of them on the sheet of paper Paul
had rolled into the machine a few days earlier.

  “What the hell?” she whispered.

  She slowly stepped into the room, bent over in front of the black metal typewriter, close enough to read the words that had somehow appeared between the time they’d gone to bed and now: We typed our apologies like we were asked but it didn’t make any difference.

  Twenty-Two

  I don’t want to alarm you, but it’s possible someone got into the house without our knowing it, so we need to be on our guard. I debated whether to even tell you, because I didn’t want to upset you.”

  Frank White looked at his daughter with weary eyes. “Someone broke in?”

  Anna reached across the kitchen table and put both hands over his. “I don’t know. He might have been just trying to rattle me.”

  “Who is this?”

  “One of my patients. Well, a former one,” she said. “It was something he said yesterday.”

  “Is he the one you think sent the police here?”

  “I don’t have any proof, but yes, that’s what I think. The police have already talked to him about the other incident. But they don’t have any real proof for that one, either. But some things you just know. I’ve been through the whole house. I’ve checked the windows, the sliding glass doors, everything, and they all look secure.”

  Frank nodded slowly, then said, “We need to tell Joanie all this.”

  “Of course,” Anna said.

  “But don’t make too big a deal of it. I don’t want to worry her needlessly.”

  “I’ll look after it.”

  Her father smiled. “Or I could tell her when we go see her.”

  She smiled. “Sure.”

  “What did you do to your finger?” he asked, looking down at the Band-Aid and lightly touching it.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “I broke a glass yesterday.” Anna paused. “There’s something else on my mind.”

  Frank waited.

  “It’s a bit of a professional dilemma,” she said. “I have a feeling that this one patient might be a threat to my others. I’m wondering whether I need to warn them.”