The Stranger Upstairs

by Melanie Raabe

  I count to three in my head, then fling open the door. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the stranger standing there, but the dark corridor outside my room is empty. I give a sigh of relief and realise that I’ve been holding my breath without meaning to. I wait until my breathing is steadier, until my eyes have grown accustomed to the darkness, then I glance left and right down the passage to make sure that I really am alone, and make my way to the stairs. A glimmer of light shines up from the ground floor.

  Soundlessly I creep downstairs, skipping the fourth step from the top because it creaks—I know this house like my own body. The light is coming from the living room. How could I let it come to this? How could I let him spend the night here with me?

  I breathe as quietly as I can and tiptoe into the living room. Cautiously, I peer around the corner. The little reading lamp next to my armchair is on, but the chair is empty, and so is the sofa. The television is on mute. One of the commercial channels I never watch is on. An advert shows a good-looking young family of four, the boy brown-haired like the father, the girl blond like the mother. They are eating yoghurt on a day out in the country in their big dark family car with their big good-natured family dog.

  Three beautiful teenage girls chat about boys as they wash their faces with a foamy cleanser; drops of water spray, the girls giggle. An attractive middle-aged couple look at each other amorously over a deep-freeze pizza; a housewife thrills at her clean washing; a model preens over her long lush lashes; a sportsman over his dandruff-free hair. I wish I could just lie down on the sofa and watch the yoghurt families being normal and happy. I switch the television off.

  A faint creak makes me jump. I spin round and stare into the darkness of the dining room behind me. But there is nobody there. Nobody. It was just one of those noises this old house sometimes makes to remind its occupants that it is still alive.

  Where is he? What is he doing?

  I suddenly can’t bear the thought that I don’t know where the stranger is. Enough of this creeping about. I walk from room to room, turning on the lights. Then I go upstairs. Here too I fling open doors, flick switches. The bedrooms, the bathrooms—all empty.

  In Leo’s room I pause. My gaze falls on the pencil marks and dates charting Leo’s growth on the doorframe. One of his shirts is lying on the bed—the blue checked one. He couldn’t make up his mind what to wear to his first meeting with his father and had changed more than once. I’d watched him rub gel into his hair and inspect his outfit in the mirror, making an effort to conceal my emotion.

  ‘Time to go,’ I said eventually. ‘Are you ready?’

  Leo nodded. Then paused.

  ‘Nearly ready.’

  He’d pulled the blue checked shirt over his head—mussing up his painstakingly gelled hair. Then he’d thrown the shirt on the bed and grabbed the olive green one instead. I watched him do up the buttons, resisting the temptation to help him, to try to speed things up. I waited as patiently as I could while Leo carefully smoothed his shirt.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and fetch Dad,’ I said.

  I could hardly get the words out.

  It all seems so long ago now.

  The phone rings and I tear my eyes off Leo’s blue checked shirt. I dash down the stairs and into the living room and pick up.

  ‘Hello?’

  Nothing.

  No, not nothing—breathing.

  ‘Hello?’ I say again, feeling my pulse shoot up.

  Then the breather hangs up.

  Frowning, I put the phone down. I’m only a few metres away when it begins to ring again. I pick up.

  ‘Hello?’

  No answer.

  ‘Who is it?’

  A click. Hung up again.

  Bewildered, I hang up too and go into the kitchen. I put bread and peanut butter on the table and get myself plate and knife. I know that, like everything I’ve eaten lately, the food won’t taste of anything, but I have to get something inside me. I take a slice of bread and put it on the plate, doing my best to ignore the phone, which has started to ring again. I take the knife, spread some peanut butter on the bread and take a bite. The telephone stops. No taste in my mouth—only texture. Wallpaper paste on cardboard. The phone starts up again. I feel sick. I try to swallow the pap in my mouth, but it’s an effort. The phone stops, then starts again. I throw the bread and peanut butter in the bin. Quickly I put plate and knife in the dishwasher and go back to my bedroom. I block out the ringing phone and collapse onto my bed. As I wait for the nausea to subside, I think things over.

  It ought to come as a relief, but it only makes me more nervous than ever—the stranger has vanished.

  This place is full of spiders. My shady old house, whose myriad hidden corners provide them with such excellent shelter, is crawling with the things. Nowadays I get along all right with the timid creatures I sometimes see scuttling across my floorboards, but this wasn’t always the case. I used to call Philip to get rid of them. The key at such moments is not to take your eyes off them. Spiders are quicker than you think and there is nothing worse than seeing one and then letting your attention wander for a moment and realising it has given you the slip. Not knowing the whereabouts of the thing I’m so afraid of—that’s the worst. An enormous spider in full view on the wall may be horrible, but at least you know it’s not suddenly going to walk over your bare legs. An enormous spider you can’t see, but which you know is somewhere about—that really is unbearable. It’s the same with the stranger—that’s why I feel so jittery not knowing where he is, or what his plans are. Even his bag is gone.

  My head is so full of questions. What does he want from me? What are his plans? Why is he doing what he’s doing? And most important of all, how did he manage to hoodwink the authorities? How does he know so much about Philip? Once again I wonder why the stranger agreed to the DNA test. It can’t all—

  I fight back my anger and confusion, and force myself to calm down and think logically—to consider the problem objectively.

  The stranger agreed to a DNA test.

  Firstly—at least from the point of view of Barbara Petry—that gives him an air of credibility.

  Secondly, it presumably takes a few days for the results of such a test to come through.

  Thirdly, whatever the stranger’s plans are, he can’t be expecting to keep this up for long, because however good a job he may be doing at present, it’s only a matter of time before he’s unmasked—at the latest, when a DNA test is carried out.

  Fourthly, if the stranger doesn’t mind undergoing a DNA test, which would unmask him within three or four days, that must mean he needs at most a few days to implement his plan.

  But what, for God’s sake, is his plan? And where do I fit in? And what’s the idea behind the telephone terror? Is someone trying to wear me down?

  When I climb the ladder and open the hatch to the loft, I’m met by waves of stuffy air, baked by the hot sun of the previous days. It’s like crossing an invisible boundary. Dust tickles my nose. I don’t know when I was last up here—I avoid the loft with its boxes full of the past. I’m not one of those people who keep a diary, wallow in old photo albums or dissect the first years of their life with expensive therapists. I’ve never understood people like that. The old diaries I kept as a teenager are lost, and I’m sure I wouldn’t recognise myself in the thoughts of the person I was then. When I look at old photos of myself, I see a ghost, a being who no longer exists.

  The loft is strewn with old boxes and all the stuff I haven’t needed these last years but haven’t been able to bring myself to get rid of either—mostly because it isn’t connected to my own memories, but to Philip’s. Heirlooms his father left him. A surfboard. Other sports equipment. An acoustic guitar. I sneeze, sniff and open a box at random. Leo’s old baby things. Philip’s old Nikon, which he had with him in hospital when Leo was born. I swallow hard and force myself to close the box back up.

  I find the case where I keep Philip’s pistol without having to hunt for it
. The code that opens the combination lock is his date of birth. Reluctant to take the gun in my hand, I stare at it. I remember Philip convincing me to learn at least the basics: I know how to hold the pistol, how to load and unload it. I hesitate all the same. A gun should never be taken out unless it’s absolutely necessary.

  I haven’t touched the thing for years. My aversion to guns is so strong it’s almost physical. It shouldn’t be possible to kill like that, I think, whenever I see the pistol—not animals and certainly not humans. If you can help it, you shouldn’t kill other human beings at all, but if you’re absolutely set on it, then it should at least be difficult—it should require exertion and determination. Anyone who really wants to kill another person should have to strangle them, to squeeze the life out of their body, using nothing more than their own bare hands, very close, face to face. Hardly anyone can do that—our inhibition against killing is far too strong, our physical strength too weak. But what if you only have to crook a finger? It’s so easy. So terrifyingly easy.

  I come down from the loft, the gun in my hands. I listen out for a long time. All is quiet.

  Back in my bedroom I lock the door behind me and then open the safe where I keep an emergency supply of cash and a small box of ammunition Philip stashed away years ago that I have never touched. Again I hesitate. Then I load the gun, put it back in its case, close the case, scramble the numbers on the lock, open my wardrobe, push the case to the back of the top shelf and arrange some T-shirts in front of it. I feel better, but at the same time worse. I slip off my sandals and collapse onto the bed. Then I think again, and get up to open the door. If there’s a strange man moving around in my house in the night, I want to be able to hear him. I sit down on the bed, knowing I won’t be able to stay awake if I permit myself to lie down, but sleep overtakes me almost instantly, and I succumb to it, letting myself drift down into the darkness.

  I am walking along a passage. Bare walls. All around me it is silent, and I am scared—very scared. I don’t know what I’m so scared of, but the fear is driving me almost out of my mind. Then I hear it and stop in terror. A rumbling. The noise terrifies me, but I walk towards it all the same. There is a door. I stop a short way off and listen. There it is again! It’s coming from the other side of the door. I walk towards it, steeling myself for whatever is lying in wait for me on the other side. Then I push down the doorhandle and fling open the door. I see what is lying there on the other side. I blink in confusion and—

  I wake up, struggling to free myself from sweat-drenched sheets. My heart is fluttering in my ribcage like a frightened bird. I blink. It must be the middle of the night, because it’s pitch black, not a glimmer of light coming through the slats of the blinds. I’m groping for my phone to see what the time is when it hits me. I fell asleep with the light on! The lamp on my bedside table was on!

  He has been in my room.

  I gasp for breath and reach for the light switch, feeling blindly for it in the dark. I am terrified of brushing up against something—or someone—in the darkness, but I try to calm down, telling myself I must have turned the light out when I was half asleep and forgotten about it. How many times had I done that—fallen asleep with the light on and turned it out when I was half asleep? Must be hundreds. I give myself a reassuring nod. Then I find the switch. The room is bathed in warm light—and I catch my breath.

  A nightmare within a nightmare.

  I hadn’t sensed his presence. I cannot at first process what I see.

  My bedroom. The light of my little bedside lamp. And in the glow of the light, the stranger, staring me in the face.

  The room begins to spin and my heart beats faster and faster and faster.

  He is like a ghost—no sound of breathing, no smell, nothing. Only a slim figure, dressed in black. Pale skin, dark eyes. He is standing at my bed, looking at me.

  Instinctively I crawl as far away from him as I can, until I feel the bedhead against my back. The stranger blinks, as if I had torn him out of a kind of trance. He screws up his eyes. Who knows how long he has been standing like that in the darkness, watching me. Like a shadow.

  For a few moments I’m too shocked to react, but then I’m on my feet and at the door, the stranger behind me. I feel dizzy—I’m not thinking straight yet, still doped with sleep. I trip over the chair I used to barricade the door earlier in the night, stumble and bang my ankle. The sharp pain jolts me into alertness and I bolt through the door. I run barefoot along the passage, feeling the coolness of the floorboards beneath my feet. Behind me, the stranger, the stranger’s footsteps. I pick up speed, fly down the stairs, almost fall, don’t fall, reach the bottom. It’s only now I remember the gun I’ve left in my room, but it’s too late.

  Then I hear the stranger.

  ‘Sarah,’ he calls.

  Nothing else.

  And then again.

  ‘Sarah!’

  Everything in me resists his voice.

  I run through the dark towards the front door, his footsteps behind me. I daren’t look back—I can feel him behind me, quicker than me, behind me. He’ll get me at the front door, I think. I’ll have to stop and open it, and I’ll lose a few seconds—I’ll be almost out and he’ll get me. I run as fast as I can. I see the front door, almost skid towards it in a raging panic, tear it open—and just as I’m about to burst through it as if through some magic portal, he gets me. Grabs me by the waist and drags me away from the door. I struggle to free myself from his grasp—out of here, let me out, through the door, down the dark street, let me run and run and never stop. But I can’t get free. He pushes the door shut, spins me round by the shoulders to face him, and then twirls me round, as if we were dancing, interposing himself between me and the front door. Again I try to tear myself free and am amazed when I succeed. I run for dear life, not thinking about where I’m going, dodging past the television, round the sofa, towards the back of the house. I’m going to make it, I think. This time I’m going to make it.

  I push open the back door and set off at a run, the almost full moon shining coldly and wanly on the lawn. I feel cool dew under my feet, slip in the high damp grass, run past the fruit trees. The garden shed comes into view. I hear nothing behind me, no footsteps, no breathing, but when I glance back he’s only a few metres away. I don’t even have enough air in my lungs to scream. I have to get out of here, get out. I tread on something slippery, maybe a slug, but I don’t get as far as feeling disgust. Run, run. The idea of barricading myself in the shed flashes through my mind—into the shed, shut the door, drive the bolt home. He’s so close now, so close, it’s my only chance. I struggle with myself for a moment—for two, three—but I can’t make up my mind to it—no, then I really would be trapped. I race past it and make for the fence. There’s an access road on the other side and I know that somewhere in the fence there’s a hole Leo sometimes wriggles through, although I’ve asked him not to so many times because he’s always tearing his clothes. I run towards the spot where I think the hole is, the stranger behind me. I get down on my knees and grope about frantically, but I find it, I actually find it, and I push my way through. A sharp pain shoots through my left leg, but I ignore it, keep crawling, struggle up, limp off. I’m on the road. A street lamp shines dimly. I race barefoot over the asphalt towards the main road. There’s not a soul about at this hour of the night, not a soul, but the main road can’t be deserted, it can’t. I hear him behind me again—he’s discovered the hole in the fence and is coming after me. What is he hoping for? What does he want from me? I run on, over the asphalt, which is strewn with sharp gravel so that I’m soon running on sore feet—and reach the main road just as a car goes speeding past. I wave frantically. Spinning round, I see the stranger approaching. I look left and right—no other car in sight, only the dark sedan that just shot past me and whose driver watched my desperate waving in the rear-view mirror, if at all. I turn round—turn to face the stranger, who is only a few metres behind me now—and prepare to fight. Then I hear it. />
  The car. The driver of the estate has stopped and gone into reverse. The car comes hurtling towards me, whirring and whining. Without a moment’s hesitation, I run to meet it, and it stops in front of me. I sense the stranger behind me. Sweat is streaming down my face, a few strands of hair clinging to my forehead. I push them away as the driver lowers the passenger window with a hum. He is in his early sixties maybe—Johann’s age—burly, dark-haired, bearded. A strong, kindly man, who looks as if he works in a DIY centre.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asks.

  ‘Please,’ I gasp, ‘help me. This man’s chasing—’

  That’s as far as I get, because the stranger has come up to me.

  ‘God, Sarah, what on earth are you doing?’

  I spin round again and see the concerned face he has put on for the driver.

  ‘You’re not my husband!’ I hiss at him.

  It’s all that comes into my head. I try to open the car door to get in, but it’s locked.

  ‘Let me in,’ I shout, my voice shrill with panic. ‘For God’s sake, let me in!’

  ‘Please excuse us,’ the stranger says, turning to the driver, ‘my wife’s in rather a bad way.’

  I lose all self-control and rattle the handle of the passenger door.

  ‘Let me in! Can’t you see what’s going on?’

  The driver’s gaze shifts between the stranger and me. I am suddenly aware of the picture we must present—me barefoot and distraught, the stranger composed and serene, neatly dressed, that benevolent mask on his face, the one he put on for Barbara Petry.

  ‘I know you,’ the driver suddenly says. ‘You’re that hostage. I saw you on television.’

  His gaze wanders to me and travels over my face.

  ‘I know you too!’

  The stranger smiles winningly at the man, with just the degree of exhaustion you’d expect from someone who’s returned home after a long odyssey.

  ‘My wife’s in rather a bad way,’ the stranger repeats.