Kates friends part 3

As she walked down past the shops her hands burning from the bag handles she could see that one of the police cars was still parked outside. She slowed her pace right down until she was barely sauntering; she’d really hoped that they would be gone. Her shoulders and arms were tense and she could feel a headache coming on. Well she would have to go in now. She got her keys out so that she could just slide in unnoticed, put the key in the lock and go in with the least amount of fuss and time.

As she got close to front door she could hear the hammering, oh well it was now or never. As she rounded the stairs she saw that her door was open. She stopped, Oh God what have they done. She paused and then turned and started down the stairs.

“Excuse me...Excuse me Miss?”

She stopped. She’d been seen, she would have to deal with it now. She turned around.

“Hi there, sorry to bother you but you don’t happen to know the woman who lives in 1B do you? It’s just we’re trying to find her, she was burgled this afternoon and we haven’t been able to reach her yet.”

Kate stared up at the man, a policeman, judging from the uniform and then at her doorway. Burgled, what the... Now what? She looked left and right at the walls.

“Sorry, but do you know her, 1B?” He stood aside and pointed at her flat. He wavered a little, smiled, nodded and slowly shook his head a little.

“Sorry, Yes....” then she stopped talking, how could she tell this man that it was in fact her flat. Oh God what the hell was he going to think? What was she going to tell him that she’d seen the door and gone I’ve gotta get out of here and turned around to leave.

He walked down the top few steps towards her.

“Right, well... yes.”

He looked her straight in the eye.

She looked away, shuffled her feet a bit and then started up the stairs. “That’s my flat. You’re looking for me.” She saw him mouth oh and then frown. Oh dear this was horrific. “Yeah sorry I...”

“Bit of a shock.”

“Yeah something like that.” She couldn’t look at him.

He turned and walked up the steps and then turned back and looked at her.

She could hear he’s stopped moving and looked up. Right, yes better get moving. “Sorry been out.” Duh like he didn’t know that. “Bit busy today.” She couldn’t look at him.

“No problem. Look it’s a bit of a mess in here.” He stopped and let her pass him.

Mess her home was gutted, there were things everywhere, on the floor, on the furniture, broken glass, broken TV, broken just about everything, it looked like someone had come in and done as much damage to as many of her things as they could. She bent down and picked up the nearest thing, a DVD case or what was left of one.

“I’m sorry.”

She turned around. “Yes, me too.” She hadn’t owned that much, she really didn’t have the money so anything that was broken would probably not be replaced either and just as she’d got a few nice things.

“Right, well my partner is just canvassing the neighbours to see if anyone heard anything, or noticed...”

Kate had tuned out; everywhere she looked her things were strewn, some broken, some not, her mail was being walked on, her plants were up ended their soil spread on the floor, her TV was broken, now was not a time for talking. She bent down and picked up her African violet and placed it back the right way up, then her spider plant but it made no difference the room was a mess. She looked around until something brought her attention back to the policeman still talking in the middle of the room. He didn’t seem to have noticed that she wasn’t listening and her eyes then travelled down to the floor and saw he was standing on something. What was it? She waved him back and bent down to it. It was a bank statement. What else was down here? She started picking up the other papers, gas bill, electric, another bank statement, more statements, a letter from the dentist, the doctor. This was her life, all of her life laid out for anyone to see, anyone to read. She started collecting things up; no one should be able to come in and just see it, no one. She picked up more and more until more was falling out of her hands than she was holding on to. A hand grasped her arm.

“Miss...”

She looked up.

“Miss please...” He held out a hand towards hers.

She pulled away.

“Miss, you’ll need the crime number for your insurance company...”

She shook her head. Not insured mate, another thing I haven’t quite got around too.

“Well anyway we’ll be in touch to let you know how it’s going in a few days.” He stopped and looked around the room. “Do you have a number we can call you on?”

She shook her head. “No, no phone.”

He frowned. “What no mobile?”

“Huh.”

He raised an eyebrow and mouthed ‘mobile phone.’

“Oh mobile...yes, yes somewhere, if they haven’t stolen it.”

“Stolen it? It was here?” He turned side to side looking at the room.

She shrugged and went into the bedroom, picked her way across the room and reached into the wardrobe, her coat wasn’t there. She turned and looked back across the room. Arrh there was her coat, now if only the phone was still there.

The constable waited in the doorway, note book in hand.

Kate fumbled around and was beginning to think that the phone had been taken when she saw it next to the bed. It wasn’t likely to have been of any interest to them it was about six years old and very basic even in its’ day but still you never knew they. She picked it up and started pressing buttons, it was still working.”Okay so my number is, 07798 341 682.” She looked over at the constable writing.

“Hey, you still there Mat?”

The constable looked behind him and nodded. “Yeah, still here.”

“Well not many in, as you’d expect, and none of them know anything about her either let alone have a number for her.”

“Not a problem.” He nodded towards her.

A second police officer appeared in the doorway. “Oh Hi, didn’t see you there.”

“Anyone see anything?”

The man shrugged.

That said it all didn’t it thought Kate, oh well, it wasn’t like she’d had much hope that they’d get the guys.

“Right well I think we’re about done and it looks like you’re door is about done too.”

She walked across to get a better look. A piece of board now covered where the glass panel had been so no one could reach in and open it; not pretty and it wouldn’t let any light into the hall, but functional. She guessed the landlord would get around to fixing it properly later, probably much later but at least it was secure. “Right. So you’ll get back to me if anything comes up.”

Mat may have smiled but it was that small that she couldn’t tell. “Yup, you never know.”

“Yeah sure, but really I think I do.”

The other policeman nodded and turned and started walking to the door leaving his partner behind him.

“Right well, as I said we may need to get your fingerprints and if you can get that list of your property to the station as soon as possible it would be a help but otherwise we’re all done.” He put his pad away and nodded before following his partner to the door.

Kate followed them out and lingered at the door. The work man was just tidying up his tools but she wanted to see him leave before she shut the door on him.