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The clothes were still swinging on their hangers when I heard the bedroom door creak open and the sound of the officer’s boots on the rug. My heart was thumping in my ears and I clasped the bag hard to my chest as though it could muffle the sound. Through the crack of the wardrobe door I could see his shape, dark against the window, and I watched, breath bated as he bent and looked under the bed, then straightened. Even through the door, I could hear the heavy sound of his breathing. He sounded like he had a cold, or perhaps was asthmatic. Could police officers have asthma? If he wasn’t very fit then I might be able to outrun him. I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
I closed my eyes, willing myself not to make a single sound, even though the wardrobe was painfully cramped, and the faux fur stole I had bought for Hel’s wedding was tickling my nose. Please, please, I begged him telepathically. Please get the fuck out of here…
And then, almost as if I’d willed him into it, he turned and I saw him walk back towards the door.
I let out a silent, shuddering breath of relief.
And then I sneezed.
For a second, stupidly, I almost thought I’d got away with it—that the officer had put it down to a noise from outside.
And then he turned on his heel and came back into the room and I knew I was sunk. There was only one thing in my favor now, and that was the element of surprise.
With a wild yell, I crashed out of the wardrobe, sending the doors flying open and the officer tripping backwards in shock. He recovered and came for me, round the end of the big bed, and I dodged right, not left, as he had apparently been expecting, leaping over the mattress and using its spring to catapult myself towards the bedroom door.
“Stop!” I heard him yell from behind me. “Stop! Police!”
But I didn’t. I wasn’t stupid enough for that. Instead I pounded down the corridor and then paused with a split second of indecision at the landing. Downstairs and onto the street, or out the back the way I had come?
Both had risks; in front of the house was the police car and the very real possibility of another officer inside it, warned by the commotion inside the house.
But going out the back meant if they closed off the alleyway, I would be trapped.
There was no time to weigh up the options. Barely pausing, I slammed into the bathroom, yanked open the sash window, and threw myself out onto the icy roof, rolling across the graveled surface with the puddle ice crackling at my back.
There was no time for the careful, controlled descent I had planned. Instead I almost launched myself off the other side of the roof, into my neighbor’s garden—his fence would make one more obstacle for the police if they were coming out of my back door.
“Stop!” I could hear from behind me, and the sound of heavy, panting breaths. “I am ordering you—”
I landed with a thump, the shock radiating up through my knees, caught sight of my elderly neighbor’s startled face, gazing out of his kitchen window, then straightened painfully and made for the gate into the alleyway. I had to get out before the officer called for backup and the alley became a dead-end trap.
The gate was padlocked, and there was no time for picks, even assuming the rusted mechanism worked. Instead I threw the go bag over into the passage, backed up, and took a short run up to the wall. I dug my fingers into the crumbling mortar at the top, ignoring the screeching protest of my nails as they cracked and splintered, scrabbled until my foot found a convenient loose brick, and then pulled myself up to flop chest-down on top of the wall.
I felt it as soon as I landed, a stabbing pain in my side, just below my ribs. Glass? A knotty bit of clematis? There was no time to pause and check. From up here, I could see the police officer levering himself painfully out of the bathroom window, his radio to his mouth, and I could hear his wheezing breaths and the crackle of response codes.
Ignoring the tearing noise from my coat, I swung one leg over, then the other, and landed on all fours in the back alleyway.
From here, I ducked down below the shelter of the garden wall, so the officer on the roof couldn’t see me, and ran in the wrong direction—not towards the open end of the alley, but the other way, towards the blind end. At last, when the sound of the police radio had faded into the distance and I had reached a promising-looking gate on the opposite side of the alley, one with a bright shiny padlock. These gardens belonged to the houses on Lancaster Lane—a terrace that backed onto Salisbury Lane, and shared our back alley. If I could just get access to one of those houses…
I pulled out my picks and, with trembling fingers, set to work as fast as I could, praying that I could get it open before Officer Wheezy made it over the garden wall. Luckily it wasn’t anything fancy, just a regular off-the-peg lock from Halfords, and it was only a few moments until it opened with a reassuring click, and I slipped through into the neat little garden inside.
There, I stood up, smoothed my hair, and tried to calm my trembling breathing. This bit was going to be the hardest in some ways. I just had to hope my cheerful girl-next-door demeanor would see me through.
With my best confident smile, I rapped on the door, and stood back and waited.
For what felt like a long time, no one came, and I looked over my shoulder, feeling my anxiety rising. But just as I was considering trying another garden—or getting out my picks again—I saw a shadow behind the glass, heard the sound of a key in the lock, and saw a woman’s astonished face peering out at me.
“What the hell are you doing in my garden?” She had a baby on her hip. I made my smile a little wider, and a lot more rueful.
“I’m so sorry. The gate was open.” A lie, of course, but I just had to hope she’d blame her partner. “I’m your neighbor from number…” I paused infinitesimally, not wanting to give my own house number in case the police came knocking. “Forty-five. My name’s Ella. This is so stupid, but I locked myself out. I thought I could get out of the gate at the end, but I couldn’t remember the code. Do you know it?”
“I’ve got no idea.” She looked me up and down, apparently reassessing her initial hostility. I smiled at the baby and it smiled back. From far up the alley I heard a crash and the faint sound of swearing. It sounded like the police officer was over the wall. I willed the woman to make up her mind—but I couldn’t ask. She had to offer. And then, thank God, she did. “You want to come through the house?”
“Would you mind? I’m so sorry.” She stood back and I followed her, into a tiny kitchen that was a messier, more kid-friendly version of ours, cupboards fastened with child locks and a fridge spattered with magnetized letters. “Thank you—you’re a lifesaver.” I was chattering now as the back door closed behind us, almost giddy with relief. “I feel like such a plonker—turns out the key doesn’t work in the back door.”
“Ours is like that.” She was thawing a bit as she led me through the narrow hallway to the front door. “Only locks from the inside. No worries. What number did you say you were?”
“Forty-five.” I had to pray she didn’t know her neighbors too well, but this was London, and we were far enough down the road I thought the odds were good. “Really nice to meet you.”
