She didn’t know how she had managed it, but with superhuman effort (and very little sleep) Sarah’s deadline had been met. Brownie points had been won back from the boss, and she was still on speaking terms with her family which was always a bonus. She was now free to spend the weekend exactly how she liked, and what she intended was to spend the entire weekend wrapped up under her duvet. So she was unsurprisingly deep in slumber land when the telephone woke her up with a start.

She sat up, slightly disorientated and looked at the clock. Four in the morning?! No wonder she was still knackered, she had been hoping to be unconscious until at least late afternoon. Then the panic set in, who was it? What had happened? Had Mum taken ill? Her groping hand finally found the telephone.

“Hello?”

There was silence.

She wondered if there was something wrong with the telephone. She hoped that it was just a wrong number. There was no escaping the fact that it could be something else entirely.

She switched the light on and sat up in bed, hugging her knees, fearfully waiting for the telephone to ring again. It didn’t. It hadn’t rung ten minutes later. It hadn’t rung half an hour later. It still hadn’t rung an hour later and in all that time she hadn’t moved, the primal childhood fear of something under the bed ready to grab her ankles if she made a move was mingled with the reality of her adult fear.

By the end of the hour though, she started to relax. It must just have been a wrong number and she would be laughing about this in the morning. She would call Sue once her friend had returned from her illicit weekend away and they could have a bitch about people who didn’t even have the decency to apologise when they dialled the wrong telephone number in the middle of the night. She persuaded herself to turn the light back off and try to sleep. With her exhaustion from the week of work, it wasn’t long before she’d drifted back off into a deep sleep.

The telephone rang. This time she was awake quicker and turned the light switch on first before making a grab for the telephone.

“Hello?”

Silence again.

“Who is this? Who’s there? Is that you Ben?”

Still no answer.

“Look, just leave me alone!” She half screamed down the telephone, then slammed it down. Then after thought picked it back up and dialled 1471.

“The caller withheld their number,” the recorded voice informed her.

Damn. Not that she was really expecting him to have been that careless. She sat there waiting for the next call, hunched up as before and chewing on her nails, a habit she’d broken in her early teens. This time she didn’t have long to wait. This time she didn’t pick up.

After five rings, the answer phone in the other room took the call. She heard the muffled recorded message kick in through the wall, but she couldn’t tell if a message had been left. It wasn’t long before the telephone rang again – another call she let the answer phone take.

Sarah received another twenty calls at random intervals through the rest of the night. All of them she let the machine pick up but didn’t dare venture into the next room to check if any messages were left until there was daylight streaming through the window between the cracks in the curtains.

Cautiously, she stepped out of the bed, pushed her feet into her slippers and pulled on her dressing gown hanging on the back of the bedroom door. She put her hand on the doorknob and opened it with care. She knew logically there would be nothing waiting for her on the other side, but logic had been replaced with mindless fear after about the third call. She peered into the hallway, then crept along to the lounge door and opened that with the same care. She looked at the blinking red light on the answering machine – twenty two new messages. She took a deep breath and pressed play.

The twenty two messages were all completely identical. Nothing for a minute or two, the sound of a receiver being replaced, then the electronic voice over informing her of the time of the call. Was absolutely nothing ever quite so chilling?

She had a vague notion that she should contact the telephone company or the police or something, but she had no real proof of who had called her, had she? Whoever it was had withheld their number and hadn’t even said anything. Surely they’d require a bit more than that before swinging into action? Sarah almost found herself wishing that he had spoken just so that she could be absolutely certain before making a fool of herself before the authorities.

If it had been Ben, what did he think he had to gain? Why had he got in contact now after so many years? It just didn’t make sense! So much had changed since they used to go out with each other and Sarah doubted that he’d been searching for her all that time as he would surely have discovered her whereabouts much sooner. Would she ever know the answer? On the whole, she could live with the ignorance if he would just go away and leave her alone.

She yawned and it was only then that she realised the extent of her mental, physical and emotional exhaustion. Now it was daylight, she had begun to feel slightly safer. After all, it was only a telephone – how silly was it to be afraid of that? She pulled out both telephones from out of their sockets, something she realised she should have done last night if only the panic hadn’t clouded her judgement. Double checking that the front door was bolted with the chain across, and all windows securely locked, she went back to bed, finally falling asleep curled up into a ball facing the doorway just in case.

Her dreams were full of moving shadows with an underlying sense of dread running through them. Some images were bizarre, the sort that are only scary while dreaming them but comical once safely awake: angry telephones chasing her through the streets, flashing answering machine lights congregating just outside her windows as if out of a Hitchcock scene. Others were far more sinister: walking lost down dark alleys then feeling a hand on her shoulder only to turn around and find no-one there, the faces of friends morphing into shadowy spectres. She woke up with a yell, convinced that there was a silhouette of a man leaning over her bed. Of course, it had just been part of the dream, but somehow that didn’t bring the reassurance she hoped for.

She looked at her clock, it was midday. Perhaps she would go and see if Philip was in – he’d said to knock if Ben showed his face again. Well, okay, he hadn’t exactly shown his face, and she wasn’t even totally sure that the telephone calls had been from him, but Philip would be good to talk to. Maybe he would be able to give her some advice on if there was anything she could do about it.

With new resolve, she went to her wardrobe and pulled out some clothes at random. She ran her hairbrush quickly through her hair and then glanced in the mirror – she may well be frightened, but that was no excuse to look a complete fright, was it? Well, apart from the no makeup (which was usual, normally she could never be bothered with the stuff) and the dark rings under her eyes (which was not so usual, admittedly), she’d pass for vaguely human. That would have to do.

Carefully unlocking her front door, she peered out having almost convinced herself that she would see Ben’s silhouette behind the frosted glass of the main door. Nothing. She started to breathe again and made her way quickly up the stairs. Now, which flat number had he said? Flat four, that was right, up another flight of stairs.

She hadn’t had the occasion to go upstairs in the building before and she felt nervous and out of place. She was relieved when she finally spotted the correct brass numeral and, after offering a quick prayer up to deities she didn’t believe in anyway, knocked sharply on the door.

No response.

She was getting used to silence today, she thought ruefully. She tried again, hoping that maybe he just hadn’t heard her. Still nothing. He must have gone out or something. She found herself feeling cross with him, although she could hardly blame Philip for having a life of his own on a Saturday afternoon! How could he go out? She needed him!

She thumped slowly back down the stairs, feeling very alone and sorry for herself. Lost in an inner world, she didn’t see the silhouette through the glass panes and was fumbling for her flat key when she heard the letterbox squeak open.

“Sarah, that is you. I know it’s you. We need to talk.”

Ben! She knew she should just ignore him and casually step inside her flat, shutting him from her life, but from somewhere she heard her voice answer him. “You didn’t seem that keen on talking when you called me last night!”

“Eh? Last night? What are you talking about?”

He did sound genuinely mystified and her guard dropped slightly, her hand hovering on the doorknob.

“Look, I saw your boyfriend leaving earlier, so I know he’s not there to intervene this time. Why can’t we just talk like two adults? We can go for a walk outside if you don’t want to invite me in.”

His voice sounded reasonable, but his mention of Philip leaving the flats made it sound like he’d been watching out there for a while. It gave her a severe case of the creeps and all her indecision evaporated. “Look. You just don’t get it do you. I don’t want to see you. I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say. I just want you to leave me alone!” She opened the door to her flat.

Ben started to bang on the door, making her jump. “Just open this door, Sarah Lewis!”

“Go away!” She yelled back. “I’m calling the police!”

She slammed the door to her flat, locking it securely behind her then ran to the telephone in the living room, fumbling with the plug while trying to get it into its socket. As soon as she managed it the telephone rang and she stifled a small scream. At least with Ben still banging on the external door, she knew it couldn’t be him ringing. She lifted the handset and slowly put it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Sarah! Where have you been, I’ve been trying to call you all morning, I’ve been worried about you!”

“Mum!” She breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m okay, but is Dad there? Can he come over? Ben’s at the door and he wants me to let him in and I’m scared and I want to come over and stay, but I can’t get out of the flat with him there and…”

“Hang on, hang on. Slow down, love. What’s going on? Ben? What’s he doing there? I thought you hadn’t heard from him in years?”

Damn, she had just assumed that Darren would have told them. In the activity of the previous weekend, she hadn’t really had a chance to talk to her parents and by the time she had got home she had been so buried in work it had completely slipped her mind.

“Look, I’ll explain when I get there. Please, can Dad come round?”

“Don’t worry, darling. We’re leaving right now. We’ll be there as quickly as we can.”