Page 15 of Close to You
I’ve dialled two nines when I stop and query whether a stolen car counts as an emergency. There are those lists every year of people who dialled 999 because they’d lost their umbrellas, or something similar. I call 101 instead and wait on hold for a minute until a handler asks why I’m calling.
‘I think my car’s been stolen,’ I say.
I hear a tap of a keyboard and then she checks my address and the registration plate. My mind instantly turns into an abyss in which I can barely remember any details about the vehicle. The colour, make, model, year and especially the plate number are up for grabs. I find a photo on my phone and describe that.
When she has the details, the handler moves onto the specifics: ‘Where did you park the car?’ she asks.
‘Right outside my house.’
‘Is that a road, or…?’
‘Sort of a private driveway.’
‘OK… and have you checked along the street, just in case…?’
It’s a fair question. I have visions of people calling the police because they’re on the wrong floor of the Tesco multi-storey – and their car is a level below.
‘I’ve looked,’ I reply. ‘It’s nowhere around here. I know where I left it anyway.’
‘Are there any signs of breakage around where the vehicle was parked?’
‘There’s no glass – but my spare set of keys are missing from my apartment.’
The handler says, ‘I see’ as I hear the gentle clatter of a keyboard and then she replies with: ‘Are you saying you’ve been burgled – or could someone else have access to the keys?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Like a family member, something like that?’
‘I live on my own. The spare keys are kept at the back of one of my drawers. I’ve not checked on them in a while. I’ve not needed to.’
‘When did you last know the keys were there?’
‘A few weeks ago, maybe? I’m not sure.’
‘And does anybody else know where you keep the spare keys?’
‘I don’t think so.’
There is a final clack of the keyboard and then: ‘OK. An officer can visit you this evening. You—’
‘This evening?’
‘That’s the earliest I can get anyone to you.’
‘I thought someone would come now…?’
‘I’m afraid that there’s nobody available.’ She says it with a twinge of a person who’s gone through this before. I’ve heard stories about there being no budgets and no officers. I guess a person only notices when something happens to them directly.
We arrange for the officer to come around at nine to take a statement and then I hang up.
I’ve not been entirely truthful. David knew where I kept my spare car keys. He also had a set of keys for the apartment. After I killed him, I didn’t really think to check where he had them. There are far deeper things going on in a person’s mind after an event like that.
A few days afterwards, when it finally dawned on me, I assumed his keys were in a pocket, or something similar. There seemed little point in getting the locks changed, because it wasn’t as if he was coming back. It might have looked strange to the neighbours, too, if my husband had seemingly disappeared and then I promptly got a locksmith over to make sure he couldn’t get back in.
Because of that, my next call is to an emergency locksmith. He says he’ll be right over and then I’m left sitting on the front step, staring at the gap where my car used to be. I check the road for a second time, figuring it would be typical if it was outside the front door after all. I’ll have to call the non-emergency number again to make clear that my car is outside my flat after all and that, yes, I will go for an eye exam.
It’s almost a relief when it’s nowhere to be seen.
