Nothing.
Before I go down to the basement, I peer into the lounge and out through the net curtains. His car is still not back. Good. Okay. I return to the basement door, take a breath, and pull it open. What am I going to find down here?
There’s a light switch on the wall which I press, illuminating a newish-looking wooden staircase. At the bottom lies another door with key sticking out of the lock. What is behind that door, and why does it need a lock? I give a shiver. My fingers are shaking. I check that I still have my bag over my shoulder with my phone inside, in case I need to call the police. Yes.
I can’t put it off any longer. I have to go down there. The blood whooshes in my ears as I put one foot on the first step, then my other on the next. Soon I’m halfway down and I throw a panicked glance up over my shoulder, listening out for footsteps above me. All I hear is my own breathing, amplified in the narrow space.
I take the final few steps to the bottom and stand in the small uncarpeted area before an innocuous, veneered wooden door. Despite the air being cooler down here, I feel sticky and short of breath, like the walls are closing in. I grasp the key and try to turn it while throwing glances behind me up the staircase. Down here, I’m vulnerable. I wonder if I would even be able to get a phone signal if I needed to. The key doesn’t turn, but I realise that’s because the door is already unlocked. So I press down on the handle and push open the door.
‘Kirstie? Is that you?’
I whimper, frozen in place.
He’s standing there behind the door, a puzzled expression on his face. ‘What are you doing down here?’ Martin asks, his frown turning into a half-smile.
Thirty-Two
I’m in shock. Martin’s face is so close to mine that I can smell his rank eggy breath. But I’m too terrified to turn away. My instinct is to run as fast as I can back up the stairs and out of his house. But the door to the basement is open. I have to see what’s back there. If I don’t find out now, I’ll never know.
‘I saw someone hanging around your house,’ I say, bluffing, my voice unnaturally high.
His eyes narrow. ‘Where? And what are you doing down here? You know you shouldn’t have come down here.’
I can’t help shuddering. He reminds me of an anaemic spider, gangly and creepy.
‘Anyone there?’ I cry out, trying to look over his shoulder into the space beyond.
He presses a switch and the room behind him goes dark. ‘What are you doing, Kirstie? Why are you shouting? No one else is down here.’
‘Hello!’ I yell, ignoring him. ‘Is anyone in there?’ I try to edge past him, pushing at his torso through his thin shirt, feeling an unpleasant combination of protruding bones and loose flesh.
‘Kirstie,’ Martin says. ‘Are you quite all right? I witnessed your behaviour yesterday at the party, and I have to say it seemed quite out of character. I never pictured you as the drinking type. Are you intoxicated again?’
Finally, I manage to move past him into the breathless dark of the room. I slam the heel of my hand into the wall, trying to locate the light switch. Martin is behind me, agitated, still talking. I know I’m in a vulnerable position now. He could easily lock me in here. I realise too late that I should have taken the key out of the door. I can’t seem to find the light switch, so instead I turn around and stare into the gloom, shards of light from the stairwell helping me to see. But I still can’t quite understand what it is that I’m looking at.
The room is large. It must be around thirty foot long and twenty wide. A massive table takes up the majority of the space, on top of which sit strange shadowy shapes. I also notice a pile of bulging Toy Shack carrier bags stacked up in the corner of the room. My heart thumps uncomfortably. I want to get out of here, but my feet are glued to the ground. I can’t seem to move.
‘What is that?’ I whisper, turning back to look at Martin, who has followed me into the room.
‘I don’t appreciate you barging in like this, Kirstie…’
Then I spot something else. Something that makes my skin go cold. To my left, pushed up against the wall, stands a child’s cot. With a cry, I stumble towards it.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Martin shouts.
Suddenly the room is bathed in artificial light and I blink and squint against the brightness. My eyes gradually take in the struts of a white painted cot, pink blankets inside and the hard, plastic, unmoving face of a doll. The doll from the photograph in Martin’s lounge upstairs.
‘Get away from her!’ Martin shouts, making me jump.
I ignore him, pulling aside the blankets, my hands scrabbling around inside the cot, searching beneath the covers for a baby. But there is no baby inside this cot; not a real one at any rate. ‘It’s a doll,’ I say, letting out a sigh.
I turn back to face Martin, his mouth a hard, thin line, his eyes narrowed, blazing, his body trembling. ‘Priddy keeps me company while I’m working down here,’ he says, folding his arms across his chest.
‘Keeps you company? Working down here?’ I step away from the cot, my heart beating wildly. Martin has kept his late wife’s doll to keep him company, to give him comfort. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for him or completely creeped out.
Martin glares at me. ‘I was trying to keep my project a secret until it was finished. I was going to have a grand unveiling. But you’ve spoiled the surprise.’ His voice is petulant, like a child who didn’t get their own way.
‘Unveiling?’ I echo stupidly, slowly realising that I may have got things completely wrong.
He holds his hand out, gesturing to the space behind me.
I turn around, still disorientated by the brightness. The table I saw earlier is now thrown into sharp relief beneath two buzzing, fluorescent strip lights. On top of the table are hundreds of multicoloured blocks – Lego blocks. Most of which have been made into buildings. ‘Lego?’ I say, exhaling. ‘I thought you were… Actually, what is this?’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘like I said, I was hoping to keep this a secret until I had my grand unveiling… But if you must know, I’m actually creating a replica of our cul-de-sac. It’s Magnolia Close in Lego form.’ His features become more animated. ‘It’s a scale model and will be an exact copy of our close and of each house and its occupants.’
‘I… I don’t know what to say.’ I’m aware my mouth is hanging open and that I’m trembling with shock. I’m also aware that I may have made a monumental error in judgement. I don’t know whether to laugh with relief, or to cry with the realisation that all my paranoia regarding Martin was totally unfounded. ‘But why did you need to build a basement for this?’ I ask. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to put it all in the loft?’
‘No, Kirstie, I couldn’t do that. My train set’s in the loft.’
Of course it is. Of course his train set is in the loft. Here’s me thinking my odd neighbour is some kind of pervert, when in reality he’s a harmless man who I’ve managed to malign with my paranoid thoughts. I’ve been so obsessed with Martin and his basement that I didn’t even consider the possibility that I might have been mistaken. My instincts were way off. I think about what Dom will say when I tell him about this. He’ll probably laugh his head off. I miss Dom already. I miss our easy relationship. Where did it go? How did I let it deteriorate? I’ve screwed this up so badly.
‘I would show you my train set-up,’ Martin says apologetically, ‘but it’s undergoing track repairs at the moment, so maybe another time.’