Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [12]
Clothes, antiseptic and some 10p pieces. All three items should be in the house.
If the couple who lived here had children they'd be heading to school by now. There might be other people living or staying here, but there was no evidence of them. Christian knew he'd need to be careful. He had a couple of advantages, the main one being the element of surprise: the owners didn't know they had an intruder. He should be able to keep hidden, even if they came back. If not, he'd be able to overpower them.
Clothes and change: Bedroom. Antiseptic: Bathroom.
Christian kept hold of the newspaper and stepped through a dilapidated wooden door into the kitchen. One hi-tech item sat incongruously amongst the pre-war range and an old tin bread-bin. It looked like a TV set, but a nameplate said it was a microwave oven. Everything else looked like it had been sitting there undisturbed since the fifties. The kitchen lino was faded, and curling up at one end of the room. Christian began searching the drawers and cupboards. He briefly considered taking a bread-knife, for self-defence, but decided not to. He'd not taken a gun from the helicopter, either. He assembled the most basic of survival kits: a box of sugar cubes, a candle and a handful of the matches from by the cooker, a couple of black bin bags and one of the bars of chocolate from the refrigerator. After a quick search, he couldn't find any salt or tea bags.
He heard the wicket gate swing shut. They were back. Christian stuffed everything he'd col ected into a plastic carrier bag and moved deeper into the house. There was nothing in the hall except doors to other rooms and a staircase. The bathroom and bedrooms would be upstairs, so he had no choice but to climb. Every step squeaked as he made his way up. Outside Christian could hear their voices: she was a Home Counties gal, her husband's accent was harder to place.
'I'll wait for you here,' the man said.
'Won't be long. Oh, Doctor, it looks like we've run out of bin bags.' She was inside the house as Christian reached the top of the first flight of stairs. He was halfway up the second flight when she began climbing up after him.
Christian reached the landing. A big water tank sat in one corner, but it wasn't big enough to hide behind. There were three doors and another, shorter, flight of stairs up. One door was open: to the bathroom. The other two were closed. Why was she coming upstairs? Chances are it was to have a wash or to use the loo, so she'd be heading for the bathroom, but the woman could just as well be looking for a book, her make-up or an item of jewellery, so she'd end up in her bedroom.
Christian chose one of the bedrooms, hoping she'd pick the other. He closed the door behind him. The curtains were drawn back, the sheets were freshly laundered and neatly folded: this was not the room the owners slept in.
14
It was someone's room, though, a teenager's judging by the model aeroplanes hanging over the window. There was a glass ashtray on the windowsil - it contained a handful of change and a couple of small keys.
The woman reached the landing. Christian ducked behind the bed, but as he had expected, she carried on up the short flight of stairs. Christian started to breathe again, and checked the wardrobe. There were about a dozen items in there, mostly T-shirts, but thankful y they were in adult sizes, in fact they would fit a chap even bigger than he was. One of the T-shirts bore a slogan that made Christian laugh: 'My Friend Went to San Francisco and All He Got Me Was This Lousy T-shirt'. Another one read 'It's Pronounced "Cwej"'. Christian pulled out the smart grey suit and cotton shirt that hung at the other end of the rail.
The ceiling above him creaked as the woman moved about upstairs.
Christian ran his finger very slowly