Page 1 of Hide In The House

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How do you steal from an unsuspecting suburban couple?

You start by knowing their routine.

He always leaves the house first. Him and his slicked black hair, the hair he so obviously dyes because there’s no way it would have that much colour when he’s in his fifties. But where he has continued to make an effort with his hair, he has failed to do the same with the rest of his body. He’s out of shape, clear from the way he is already huffing and puffing as he leaves the house and walks towards his car.

The white shirt beneath the black suit is straining as the excess weight he carries around his waist does its best to push at the buttons that have been optimistically fastened across it. It’s plainly easier for him to buy some black bottled bleach and wash it into his hair in the shower than it is for him to get some exercise at the local gym and shift his protruding pounds.

I watch him from my hiding place, him getting behind the wheel of his black Mercedes while I crouch down behind this garden wall across the street. There’s a large rosemary bush beside me if I need more shelter, but I think I should be okay here. He hasn’t seen me, and as I watch him fiddle with the dials on his dashboard, the only thing he seems to be worried about is finding the perfect song to soundtrack his commute to the office.

Eventually, he finds it, and while I can’t hear it, I imagine it to be something from the eighties, maybe Duran Duran, or something like that. I might only be thirty, but I’ve heard all those types of songs from those types of groups plenty of times before. Whatever is now playing from the speakers of the sleek car as it steers off the driveway, I keep well-hidden until the driver passes me, his jet-black hair as stark as the paintwork on the flashy vehicle he is controlling.

With him gone, that just leaves one other person in the house.

His wife.

I know she leaves a little later than him, so I will remain in my hiding place for a while yet. I could get out and walk around, stretch my legs up and down this street, but I’d rather not be seen if I can help it. I came here when the sky was dark and have been hiding here during the sunrise. Now the sky is a heavy grey, a common sight in this part of England, and still, I lie in wait.

I gaze across the sleepy suburban street at the house I will soon be inside. It’s a semi-detached property, utterly unremarkable from the outside, but like many of the homes in this area, that doesn’t mean the occupants don’t have anything valuable on the inside. Many people in this neighbourhood have plenty of money and have just chosen to spend it on something other than a large mortgage. You only have to look at some of the expensive cars parked in driveways or the large TVs visible through some front windows to see that.

Some thieves would target the huge homes across town, seeking the bigger prizes, but they come with the bigger risks too. Countless cameras. Sophisticated security systems. Growling guard dogs with terrifying teeth. But there’s barely so much as a Ring doorbell around these parts, and while there are a few obligatory ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ stickers on display on a few of the windows around here, they are more for show than substance.

Nobody is watching.

Except me.

I check my watch and see another ten minutes have passed since I spied on the male occupant of the house driving away. He’ll be well on his way to work now, but his wife remains. She is due to leave in the next five minutes, and I don’t expect her to deviate from that routine.

If there’s one thing you can count on in suburbia, it’s routine.

Sure enough, four minutes and fifty-one seconds later, I see the front door open and a woman with mousey brown hair emerges. Unlike her husband, she hasn’t made as much effort to hide the grey hairs that are forcing their way through from her roots, but maybe that’s because she’s naturally better looking than he is. She’s slim too, having kept in shape, and while she isn’t exactly muscly or toned, she looks good for her age. She walks with more vigour too, moving towards her car with more of a spring in her step than he had when approaching his.

Why is that? Does she like her job more than he does? Is she more of a morning person than he is? Or is she just generally happier than the man she married?

All the above could be true, but I note that the woman does seem to be moving with more enthusiasm than usual, and that causes me to take note. The slightest deviation from routine is to be carefully considered. But it’s the only change because she gets in her car, starts the engine and then drives away, turning the same way down the street that her husband did before her.

Both will now spend the next several hours sitting at a desk in an office several miles away from here. Neither return home for lunch, which means the house will be unoccupied until at least six o’clock when she will arrive home. She’s always first, followed by him shortly before seven. He’s always worked late. Perhaps he likes how important it makes him seem. Or more likely, he just isn’t in any particular rush to get home.

But I am keen to get inside his home now.

I look both ways down the street to check for pedestrians, but all is clear, so I step out of my hiding place and walk quickly across the road. Then I move up the vacant driveway, passing the empty patch of tarmac where two cars were once parked. Within seconds, I am moving down the side of the house, past the different bins that are colour-coded to allow for waste segregation and recycling. In this part of England, it’s yellow for cardboard, red for bottles and plastics, and green for garden waste. The bins are collected and emptied every Tuesday morning. At the same time. By the same truck. Driven by the same driver.

Suburban routine.

Itching to break out of this modern mundanity as much as I am to break into this house, I keep moving until I’m in the back garden. Here I see flowerpots that need some attention, flowerbeds that need more of the same and a patch of green that consists of more weeds than grass.

No gardeners live here.

I approach the back door and try the handle on the off chance that it has forgetfully been left unlocked. Wouldn’t that be nice? But no such luck.

I peer through the window that makes up the top half of the door and see the kitchen. It shows signs of a hurried breakfast. Burnt breadcrumbs. A cereal bowl with a spoon poking out of it. An almost-finished glass of orange juice. No sign of croissants or bacon or anything more exciting than basic breakfast staples. I guess those more appetising things are saved for the weekends or maybe just holidays.

They can’t break their routine.

But I will break something.

I pick up one of the flowerpots, feeling the weight of the soil in it and determining that this should be more than enough to do the job. The frail flower that has its roots inside the soil is sure to be disturbed when I hurl it at the window, but looking at the wilted petals, I think I’d be putting it out of its misery.