1

Beth

Today

Her eyes fly open, her heart thudding under the weight of the doona. The room is middle-of-the-night dark. A noise woke her up. The click of a door. Dream or real? She strains to hear. Silence, except for her own panicked breathing.

She swings her legs out of bed to check on Tilly. She is used to making this journey in the dark; turning on lights would make it easier to navigate but harder to fall back asleep afterwards. Her eyes adjust, the carpet cushioning her footsteps across the landing. The house is warm after the hot March day, with heavy rain forecast for later in the week. The rain is badly needed but Beth isn’t looking forward to it. There’s a leak in the garage roof that strikes with the same unpredictability as her ex.

Tilly is lying on her side, the sheets kicked off, her lava lamp bathing the room with a pink hue. She’s snoring softly, her hair in its usual tangle, and Beth is overcome with a rush of love. Seven years old. Enjoy this age, other mums have told her. They’re fairly independent but still need you; still playing and riding their bikes, instead of being glued to their phones and social media. Beth is enjoying it, when she’s not stressing about making ends meet, or worrying about Kane.

She backs out of Tilly’s room, leaving the door ajar, which her daughter insists upon. She is almost back to her own bedroom when she stops short. Another faint sound from downstairs. The roll of a drawer being opened? Someone is down there.

Beth knows what to do, she has practised for this, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. A four-metre walk feels like four kilometres; she waits between each step to regain her balance and listen for further sounds. The bedside table is nothing more than a black shadow. Her hand feels around its surface, cautious not to knock the glass of water or the photo frame, before closing in on the familiar shape of the alarm fob. Now, step by careful step back to Tilly’s bedroom, closing the door as softly as she can, locking it from the inside.

Beth sits on the bed and takes Tilly’s small hand in hers; her daughter is going to be petrified when she wakes up. Beth braces herself, steadies her own shaking hands, before pressing down hard on the red button.

The wail of the alarm splits the night apart.

~

The panic button goes straight to emergency services. Two weary-looking male officers are on Beth’s doorstep in less than ten minutes.

‘Nothing’s been taken, as far as I can tell,’ she tells them breathlessly. ‘This way … The back door was left open … My car keys are on the floor just there.’

On the face of it, the break-in was a foiled attempt to steal her car, the thief abandoning the keys once the alarm began to scream. The fact that Beth’s handbag is still on the kitchen counter, with her purse and credit cards intact, supports this theory.

Her house is known to the local police, which is why they were so quick to respond. Kane’s name is suggested almost immediately. When did she last hear from her ex? Does he still live at the same address? Is there a reason he would feel entitled to the car? The answer to the last question is that Kane feels entitled to everything. Every item she owns. Every cent in her bank account. Every thought in her head.

The police officers have a look around, noting some damage to the lock on the sliding door that leads out to the back garden. It is a dark, cloudy night; not a lot can be done beyond sticking a head inside the shed and running a high-beam torch along the fence line.

‘It looks like the intruder has gone, Ms Jenkins.’ The older one, a heavy-set man in his fifties, has done most of the talking. ‘Do you have somewhere else you can stay tonight, to be on the safe side?’

Beth tries to weigh it up while Tilly clenches her hand. Descending on her dad in the dead of night seems extreme, given that the threat has obviously passed.

‘It’s okay. I feel safe enough to stay here.’ Her voice sounds feeble and unconvincing.

The police officers leave with the promise to send detectives first thing in the morning. Beth deadlocks the front door and arms the alarm system. She became complacent about setting the alarm every night. Tilly triggered it a few times sleepwalking, frightening the life out of both of them, but that’s not a good enough excuse. No more complacency, no more letting her guard down. The only positive is she continued to keep the fob on her bedside table, the panic button within reach.

Tilly comes into Beth’s bed with her. Poor thing. Waking up to the shriek of the alarm. The intimidating presence of the police officers. The worry that whoever it was might come back. It takes a long time to settle her down.

‘But what if they are hiding somewhere, Mummy?’

‘The police would have found them, pumpkin. They know all the best hiding spots.’

Tilly finally stops twitching and succumbs to sleep but Beth has never felt more alert, her muscles rigid and ready to spring into action, her thoughts going a hundred miles an hour in the darkness.

Is there a reason your ex-husband would feel entitled to the car?

There is a reason, although Beth felt too tired and mortified to go into it. Suffice it to say, the car was a sore point, for both sides.

Is this the start of another battle round with Kane? Just as she was beginning to relax a little. Just as she was beginning to hope that they had reached an understanding. Maybe he needs the car as collateral. Maybe he is out of his depth in some new venture. She’ll make discreet enquiries tomorrow. See what she is up against this time.

The old saying comes to mind: what’s worse, the devil you know or the devil you don’t? Kane terrorising and stealing from his own family, or a faceless stranger creeping around her house?

Beth eventually falls into a turbulent sleep. She dreams of desperate hands rifling through drawers, cupboards and clothes. Possessions are strewn on the ground, trampled on, smashed. She experiences a paralysing sense of violation. Until she realises that she is not the victim: she is the guilty one, the thief.