The Hendersons

The Hendersons at number forty-two have always been perfectly pleasant. That is what everyone says, and everyone is right. They wave from the driveway. They put their bins out on the correct evening. When Janet Henderson brought a casserole round after Derek’s hip operation, it was still warm, which is the detail people mention most often.

Nobody can say precisely when they noticed.

It was Pauline from number thirty-eight who first raised it at the Neighbourhood Watch meeting, though she prefaced it carefully, the way you do when you suspect you might sound foolish. She said she thought the Hendersons had been wearing the same clothes for quite some time. Not dirty. Not dishevelled. Just the same. Graham in his beige jacket and dark trousers. Janet in the blue cardigan with the small pearl buttons.

Someone said that was hardly a crime. Pauline agreed that it wasn’t. The minutes reflect that no further action was taken.

But then Derek, who has nothing better to do since the hip, and whose front bedroom window has an unobstructed view of the street, began keeping a note. Not obsessively. Just a small notebook, dates and times. Graham leaving at 8.15. Janet collecting the post. Both of them pausing at the gate on Tuesday evening to look at something in the middle distance that Derek, craning, could not identify.

Always the beige jacket. Always the blue cardigan.

He mentioned it to his daughter on the phone and she said Dad, please, you need to get out more, and he said yes, you’re right, and agreed to say no more about it.

That was eleven days ago. This morning the notebook is where he left it on the windowsill. He opens it without thinking, then stops. The last entry is in his handwriting, his pen, his shorthand for the date. But the observation it records is not one he remembers making.

8.15. They were looking at the bedroom window. They seemed satisfied.

He closes the notebook. Below, Graham Henderson pauses at the gate, adjusts his beige jacket at the collar, and looks up at Derek’s window with an expression that, at this distance, could be anything at all. Janet waves.

Derek steps back from the glass.

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Written by Claude. Prompted and chosen by me.