Chapter 4: Small Things You Can't Prove
The recycling bin went first.
I didn't notice for two days because the collection had already passed.
It was Paul who spotted it — the bin simply wasn't there.
Not knocked over, not blown down the road.
Gone.
"Could it have been taken by mistake?" he said.
"Whose mistake?"
He didn't answer.
I went to the council website and reported it missing.
They said they'd replace it within ten working days.
In the meantime, I started keeping a new log.
Not just photographs now.
A notebook.
Date, time, what was there, what wasn't.
Carol had warned me.
I believed her.
But believing something and watching it happen are different things.
---
On the Wednesday, I came home from the school run to find the gate to our side passage open.
I always close it.
Paul always closes it.
The boys aren't tall enough to reach the latch.
Nothing inside was disturbed.
Nothing was taken.
But the gate was open.
I wrote it down.
Thursday, a letter addressed to us was found in Carol's postbox three streets over.
She texted me a photograph of it.
It was from the boys' school — a standard newsletter, nothing urgent.
But it had been in our postbox first.
Someone had taken it out.
I called the Royal Mail complaint line.
They logged it.
I wrote it down.
---
On Friday evening, Denise knocked on our door.
Paul answered.
I was in the kitchen and I heard her voice before I heard his — bright, easy, like she was returning a borrowed dish.
"Is your wife in?
I just wanted a word."
I came to the door.
She was standing on the step in a pale blue jacket, arms loose at her sides, completely relaxed.
"I wanted to apologise," she said.
"About the car.
I didn't realise it was causing such a problem."
I looked at her.
"I've spoken to someone at the council," she continued, "and they've explained the rules more clearly to me.
It won't happen again."
Paul shifted slightly beside me.
"Thank you," I said.
"No hard feelings?" She smiled.
It reached her eyes.
It always reached her eyes.
"Of course not," I said.
She nodded, satisfied, and walked back down the path.
Paul closed the door.
He turned to me.
"Do you believe her?"
"No."
"Neither do I."
I went back to the kitchen and wrote it in the notebook.
*Friday.
6:42 p.m.
Denise knocked.
Apologised.
Smiled.
Said it won't happen again.*
Then I underlined the last line.
---
Saturday morning, Carol texted again.
*She knocked on mine too.
Same speech.
Word for word.*
I typed back: *When?*
*Thursday.
Before she came to you, I think.
She's done this before — the apology tour.
Makes herself look reasonable before the next move.*
I sat with that for a moment.
*What's the next move?* I typed.
Carol's reply took longer this time.
*Last time, it was a complaint.
She went to the council and said the Okafors were harassing her.
Said they were knocking at all hours, leaving things on her doorstep.
None of it was true, but it muddied the water enough that the council closed both complaints at once.*
I read it twice.
*She's going to file something against us,* I typed.
*I think she already has,* Carol replied.
*I saw a council officer on the street Tuesday morning.
He was parked outside number 14 for about twenty minutes.*
I put the phone down on the table.
Paul was watching me from the doorway.
"What?" he said.
May you like
"She's not done," I said.
"She's just changed tactics."
