Not Dead Enough

floors of the flat were piled high with books, CDs and DVDs, ordered from Amazon and from Play.com . During the past two months she had read more books, seen more films, watched more television than ever before in her life.
    She had come back because she thought she would be safe here. That this was the one place where he would not dare show his face. The only place on the planet. But she could not be sure.
    She closed Sussex Life magazine, in which she had been browsing dream country houses, crushed out her cigarette, drained her glass of Sauvignon and began her pre-exit checks.
    An old flame some years back, Phil Homan, used to take her places in a helicopter. She remembered sitting beside him in the cockpit of the blue four-seater Robinson as he went through his pre-flight checks from a printed list he held in his hand. And that’s what she was doing now in a way, her pre-flight checks. Except after four months she didn’t need to look at her list, she knew them by heart.
    First she walked to the window and peered down through the blinds at the wide street of Regency terraced houses. The sodium glow of the street lights bled orange into every shadow. It was dark enough, with a howling autumn equinox gale blasting rain as hard as buckshot against the window panes; tomorrow night the clocks would go back, making the evenings even darker still. As a child she used to be scared of the dark. Now, ironically, it made her feel safe.
    She knew all the cars that were regularly parked on both sides, with their residents’ parking stickers. Ran her eyes over each of them. She used not to be able to tell one make from another, but now she knew them all. The grimy, bird-shit-spattered black Golf GTI. The Ford Galaxy people carrier belonging to a couple in a flat across the street who had grizzly twins and seemed to spend their lives lugging shopping and collapsible strollers up and down their front steps. The odd little Toyota Yaris. An elderly Porsche Boxster belonging to a young man she had decided was a doctor – who probably worked at the nearby Royal Sussex County Hospital. And another dozen or so cars, all of whose owners she knew by sight. Nothing new down there, nothing to be concerned about. And no one lurking in the shadows.
    A couple, arms linked, were hurrying by with a bloated umbrella threatening, at any moment, to turn inside out.
    Window locks in bedroom, spare bedroom, bathroom, living/dining room. Activate timers on lights, television and radio in each room in turn. Check CCTV cameras activated in each room and tape running. Blu-Tack single cotton thread, knee high, across the hallway just inside the front door.
    Paranoid? Moi? You’d better believe it!
    She’d learned how to take care of herself from watching CSI , reading crime novels, surfing websites. And plain common sense.
    She tugged her long mackintosh and umbrella from the hooks in the narrow hallway, stepped over the thread and peered through the spyhole. The dull yellow fish-eye glow of the empty landing greeted her. And the scratched grey metal door of the lift.
    She unhooked the safety chain, opened the door cautiously, then stepped out, and smelled the boiled vegetable smell of old people’s cooking. Then she closed it behind her and turned the keys in turn in each of the three deadlocks.
    Then she stood, listening. Somewhere downstairs, in one of the other flats, a phone was ringing unanswered. Friday night. She shivered, pulling her fleece-lined mac around her, still not used to the damp cold after years of living in the sunshine. Still not used to spending a Friday night alone. But she couldn’t be a recluse forever. Approaching thirty, single, and uncomfortably aware of her biological clock ticking away, she knew she had to try to get her life back. Step by step.
    Her plan tonight was to catch a movie at the multiplex in the Marina, Notes on a Scandal with Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, and grab a bite to eat – a quick bowl of pasta – then, if she had the courage, go to a bar for a couple of glasses of wine and at least feel the comfort of mingling with other humans. Maybe the Karma bar, which she had walked past and liked the look of. Although she knew that when she got there she probably would not feel brave enough to go in.
    Dressed discreetly, in designer jeans, ankle-length boots, and a black, knitted polo neck beneath the coat, wanting to look nice if she did go into a bar but not to draw attention to herself, she opened