Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

hour and a half ago and everything was fine.’
    Charlie picked the bin up and stood before noticing the papers at his feet. They were from the phone company, with details of the installation.
    ‘I didn’t think we’d need them,’ Esther said, answering the question he hadn’t asked.
    There was no breeze, so Charlie was lost. ‘Could it be a fox?’
    ‘It’s still light – I think they only come out after dark.’
    Charlie passed Esther the phone paperwork and opened the gate, walking through to the front. Both of their cars were parked on the drive and there didn’t appear to be anything untoward. He reached the edge of the property and peered both ways along the road. Aside from a few kids kicking a football around at the far end, there was nobody else around.
    Back at the side door, Esther was flicking through the pages. When she saw Charlie approaching, she folded them over and cupped them under her arm.
    ‘All right?’ Charlie asked.
    ‘Yep.
    ‘We should probably get a bigger gate. This one’s ridiculous. It was probably just kids or something – either that or a cat, though it’d have to be the size of a tiger to have knocked the bin over.’
    Esther was biting her bottom lip but smiled softly. ‘You do hear about big cats roaming the countryside. Perhaps one of them wanted to drop into the suburbs to come and say hello to the new people?’ Charlie reached towards her but she stepped away. ‘Wash your hands first, bin boy.’
    He returned her smile as they went inside. As Charlie cleaned himself up, Esther relocked the door, before rattling the handle up and down half a dozen times.
    ‘Happy?’ Charlie asked, drying his hands on a tea towel.
    ‘Tired.’
    He looked his wife up and down, enjoying the way the dress clung to her hips. ‘Would you like to practise making that baby we were talking about?’
    Esther gazed over his shoulder towards the back garden, before stepping towards the hallway. ‘I think I just want to get some sleep.’

FOUR: CHARLIE
     
    Charlie had never been good at sleeping in new beds. When he’d driven up for the induction day at the hotel, they’d put him up for the night but he couldn’t get comfortable and had spent most of the early hours twisting the covers into knots. When they’d first moved into Esther’s parents’ house, he’d heard every floorboard creak, every groan from the plumbing system, every car going past late at night. It had taken weeks before he’d become used to the king-size bed and finally managed to get a good night’s sleep. After that, he could sleep well there but anytime they ended up anywhere else, he would lie awake, counting the hours until he actually had to get up.
    One of the few things Charlie and Esther had agreed to spend money on for the new house was a decent bed with a rock-hard mattress. With the fresh sheets, solid pillows and the house residing in a quiet spot away from the main road, Charlie had surprised himself by dropping off almost instantly.
    In a complete switch around from how they usually were, Esther spent the night tossing and turning, accidentally waking him up with flailing feet and errant elbows, before apologising with a yawn and a rub of his leg. Charlie asked her if she was okay the first time but couldn’t keep doing it. In the end, he got up at half-five, an hour before his alarm had been due to go off.
    Downstairs, the house felt like someone else’s. There was an uncanny silence coupled with early morning sunlight pouring through the blinds and rippled glass windows. Esther’s father was always up at five o’clock on the dot when they lived at her parents’ house, so for Charlie to be up by himself was an unfamiliar experience. He stood in the doorway of the living room, staring towards the dining table at the back. The main room had been in a reasonable state when they bought it and, aside from filling it with furniture, they hadn’t done anything to it. He knew that as soon as Esther had