Page 72 of The Bodies

SIXTY-SEVEN

Joseph wakes to darkness, with no idea how long he’s been sleeping.

As always, the first moments of consciousness belong to the before and not the now . When his heart rebounds, he reaches instinctively for Erin. Beside him she’s warm in slumber.

He hears something, then, or thinks he does, even if he can’t describe it. Maybe he just senses it. A wrongness about the house. A feeling that something chaotic has crept close while he’s been sleeping. Something ruinous and wicked.

His chest tightens.

And then a floorboard creaks, further along the hall.

On his bedside table his phone buzzes, lights up.

Joseph grabs it, sees the notification – a video shot by the camera no one knows about, hidden inside the smoke alarm mounted on the hallway ceiling.

He hits play, sees Tilly’s door swing open. His stepdaughter emerges, wearing her favourite Pokémon nightdress. The image is monochrome. Her eyes are sharp white dots.

She glides along the hall, navigating the darkness with one hand extended in front of her. When she reaches Joseph’s bedroom door, she stops.

For the next ten seconds she stands motionless.

Then her fingers find the door handle. She turns it gently, but the door itself doesn’t move.

Tilly remains there a moment longer. Lifting her head, her white eyes slide towards the hidden camera.

It looks like she’s staring right at him.

Her lips retract, forming a smile. Finally, she creeps back down the hall to her room.

Joseph returns the phone to his side table.

He can’t understand how Tilly can have learned of the camera.

He recalls what Erin had told him about Robson: that after winning joint custody, Tilly’s birth father had woken in the night to find her leaning over his bed; that on the last occasion she’d had a knife.

Joseph wonders what his stepdaughter is planning.

Silently, he begins to plan too.