Pirates of the asteroids, p.1
The Stranger at No. 6, page 1
THE STRANGER AT NO. 6
GEMMA ROGERS
For Mullers
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Thank you!
More from Gemma Rogers
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Gemma Rogers
The Murder List
About Boldwood Books
Phrogging
[frog-ing]
Phrogging is the act of secretly living in another person’s home without their knowledge or permission.
A person who engages in phrogging is sometimes called a phrog or, less commonly, a phrogger. The verb form phrog is sometimes used.
Phrogging is similar to squatting, except that phrogging involves living in an occupied property.
PROLOGUE
If I could go back, I wouldn’t have stepped a foot inside the house. Just remember that whenever you next cross a threshold, you don’t know what could be waiting for you. What you see on the outside, the beautiful structure and the picturesque setting, can appear like a dream, but it doesn’t always represent what’s inside. The house contained secrets; ones it took me too long to discover. By the time I did, I was too caught up in it to leave. People got hurt, someone died and lives were changed forever, mine included.
Blog Post #1
www.phrogging.com
After two successful phrogging experiences so far, I wanted to share my tips and tricks with you and record my third attempt from start to finish. I’ll be posting daily so you can follow my journey, but before we begin, below are the rules I live by.
Property must be watched for two weeks minimum before attempting access.
No home workers or those on night shifts in residence. They must have regular, contractual office hours. Travelling on business is permitted.
Large house, enough space to cohabit without owners suspecting.
No internal or external cameras covering rear of property or point of access.
No pets.
No children under five.
Three months maximum before moving on. Use only enough food/toiletries/supplies from owners to remain unnoticed.
If caught… run.
The rules are to keep me safe. The main purpose of phrogging is to cohabit peacefully without being detected. Free room and board with minimal interference with homeowners’ lives.
1
The house was huge, undergoing a renovation despite it only being thirteen years old. Modern in design but still managing to keep a certain Sussex charm, the first floor was russet brick, the lower rendered and painted an elegant cream. As you faced the picturesque building, the welcoming covered entrance was in the centre. Maintaining the country style, a large panelled oak front door with an adjacent patterned glass insert matched the double garage. A sweeping resin driveway led to waist-height sage wooden entry gates. The only stain on the canvas was a giant yellow skip filled with the remnants of kitchen cabinets and a bathroom suite. My initial thoughts were that although it was a great size, it would likely be chaotic inside with workmen coming and going, but during the course of the two-week reconnaissance they had almost finished.
The owners were new, having only lived there for about a month, which meant plenty of hiding spots may lay undiscovered, noises which could be deemed ‘just the house’ and, best of all, no cameras at the rear. From what I could gather, they had a camera doorbell like most properties now, but that was it. The burglar alarm was old and rusted, with no flashing light to indicate it was working, and I guessed the buyers thought it was pretty secure, as adjacent to the house was a disused railway line with a steep embankment. At the rear, although overgrown and thorny, it was relatively easy to climb through the jungle and over the fence into their landscaped back garden which wasn’t overlooked by the neighbouring house.
I’d made a couple of visits, which meant walking almost around the block to get to the woodland, breaking off branches and clearing a path each time. I got as far as the garden, nestling beneath the overgrown shrubs to watch, more inconspicuous than doing it from the quiet road at the front. Dressed in black, armed with binoculars and my dad’s old thermos filled with tea, I sat under the cover of dusk and watched the couple and their young son through the bifold doors of their open-plan kitchen/diner in the late February afternoon. On both occasions, the wife arrived halfway through her husband cooking dinner. Sharply dressed in a fitted suit, lips slicked in pillar-box red and wearing patent heeled boots, her son rushed across the parquet floor into her arms the moment she entered the room.
For all intents and purposes, it looked like a happy home and one which would be perfect for phrogging. I’d seen no dogs being walked, no cats, no cameras or alarms and, from what I could tell by the lights glowing through the windows when it got dark, all of them slept on the first floor, leaving the loft conversion empty.
Spotting the house had come at the right time. I needed to move on from my best friend Megan’s sofa, picking up the vibes from her flatmates that I was slowly outstaying my welcome. To be fair, it was cramped. Megan lived in a flat above a betting shop in Crawley high street and there were already three of them sharing before I’d turned up a few weeks ago.
I’d lived at home until last winter when my parents had decided they were selling up to move to Spain as retiring expats and had a secured a long-term visa that would be renewed if they decided to stay. Most of my things went into storage and Megan kept some of my clothes for me, but I preferred to travel light anyway. I’d considered going with them, but my life was here and so were my dreams and aspirations. Strangely, they didn’t involve sandy beaches and weekend trips to Benidorm. I wanted to be on the editorial desk of a tabloid newspaper. For now, I’d have to take the snippets I was given at the Crawley News, a local rag where my job as Junior Reporter mainly involved reviewing the latest cinema releases and covering the odd school fayre.
I was Molly Hudson the aspiring journalist – that being a misnomer – who didn’t even have a proper desk, the one who was outsourced to do all the shit the others deemed not worthy and it paid peanuts. Being the youngest at twenty-two and the least experienced, I understood. It would do for now, but I’d work my way up, and because it was all done remotely, I didn’t have to put up with the nine-to-five life.
That’s how the phrogging started, I could barely afford a bedsit, the money Mum wired occasionally didn’t stretch far and I was running out of friends with sofas. Fed up with working out of the local library every day using their free Wi-Fi, I had looked first at getting a live-in job, like a nanny, but my heart wasn’t in it. I wanted to write and even though I was at the bottom of the ladder, a change of career wasn’t an option. I dreamt of owning my own camper van, being free to roam wherever I wanted, but I couldn’t even afford a car. Things would change, they always did, and when someone at the Crawley News Christmas bash mentioned phrogging occurrences were steadily growing in the UK, I was intrigued and did my research.
More common in the States than here, cohabiting secretly with an unwitting family fascinated and terrified me in equal measure. It was against the law as far as breaking and entering was concerned, perhaps even stealing as you’d use their electric, water and internet during your short-term stay, but the main appeal was living for free.
A journalist to my bones, was I even committed to my job if I wasn’t going to blog about doing it? Anonymously, of course, no YouTube videos or TikToks but good old-fashioned articles people had to read. I’d phrogged twice so far, since my parents left, in between sofa-surfing at Megan’s. Using those as trial runs to build my confidence and learn how to live undetected. This time, I wanted to record the whole thing from day one, so I had to make sure I picked the right house and the right family to ensure I wasn’t discovered. It had slipped my mind with the upcoming festivities until Megan and I had gone for a long walk on Christmas Day after stuffing ourselves at her parents’ house. Our intention was to walk the length of the Worth Way – a seven-mile expedition which started in Three Bridges, Crawley, and ended in East Grinstead. We made it halfway before blisters from our inappropriate footwear crippled us and we hobbled back the way we came.
It was along Church Road, before the small stone bridge over the disused railway line, we passed the beautiful house with its sold b
‘They must be moving soon,’ Megan had said as we blew warm air into our frozen hands.
‘They must be, not having any decorations up. Unless they belong to a religion which doesn’t celebrate Christmas,’ I’d pondered aloud.
‘I don’t think so, Mol, my dad knows the owners. They’re downsizing as their children are grown up. Wonder who the new occupants will be.’
‘Lucky, that’s who’ll they’ll be! Lucky to live in such a gorgeous house.’
We had carried on limping in our Converse trainers, but the idea had blossomed again in my mind.
I always overdid the research, but better safe than sorry. I knew the floor plans and had photos of the inside of the house thanks to the particulars still being available on the internet when it was up for sale for a whopping eight hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. I didn’t know specifics of what the new couple did yet, but the wife left early and the husband took the son to school at eight o’clock before heading off for his day, returning with him around four. He wore a suit to work, although it was lived in; his appearance relaxed in contrast to her sharp yet glamorous attire. If I had to guess, I’d say she was the breadwinner. The couple looked to be in their mid- to late-thirties and I estimated the son, a blond boy with freckles, was around six or seven. It seemed a perfect fit.
Now all I had to do was get in.
I climbed over the fence, my large rucksack which contained all my worldly possessions snagging on a rusted nail that had come away from the post.
It was a grey, miserable day, the sky full of drizzle and through the bifold doors number six Church Road looked gloomy and uninviting. I checked my watch; it was just after two o’clock, but I waited in the shrubs for a while to ensure the place was empty. When I eventually approached the house, I tried the door, knowing it would be locked but worth a go. Moving down the side to the utility-room window, I saw that too was closed and locked.
Gaining entry was usually the most difficult part of phrogging, people were more security-conscious these days and never left the house without making sure their property was secure. Perhaps it would be like the last house, where I’d had to slip inside the garage as the owners were leaving, the door slowly lowering as they drove away. I shivered, partly from the memory, but also, despite the many layers I was wearing, the air temperature was only a few degrees above freezing. I didn’t want to wait around outside for too long, but at the same time I had packed all my things and was reluctant to come back another day.
As I was debating, a shadow passed by the window and I ducked down beside the water butt, my heart jumping into my throat. No one was supposed to be home. Muffled voices carried from behind the double glazing, followed by the noise of the bifold door sliding open. I shrank back against the rendered wall, exposed. If they came down the side of the house, I’d have nowhere to hide. The side gate leading onto the driveway was locked and my only option of escape would be to scale the six-foot fence and tumble down the steep bank to the disused railway line.
I tried to steady my increasing heart rate. Calm down, Mol.
‘I wanted to show you this.’ A man’s gruff voice intertwined with the slap of heavy boots on the patio. I held my breath, praying I wasn’t about to be caught trespassing by these strangers – a man, maybe two, who weren’t the owners. Had they broken in? Were they here to burgle the property? Could I have stumbled across a crime being committed, and if so, what would they do when they discovered me hiding?
2
I was finally able to exhale when the sound of footsteps led away from the house and towards the end of the garden. If I’d still been tucked in the shrubbery, they would have seen me for sure. I stole a look over the water butt and watched the two men with their backs to me, pointing out various sections at the end of the garden.
I had to act fast and while I had the chance, I crept out from behind the water butt and towards the rear of the house, my eyes never leaving the men talking. In my haste, I kicked a trowel, the metal scraping the patio jarring the stillness. My entire body froze, the sound seemed to ring in my ears, but neither of them turned around. They were too far away, the pair deep in conversation discussing improvements to be made, new fence panels to be put in, potentially a rockery and vegetable patch. They weren’t burglars, they were workmen. With my heart almost exploding out of my chest, I darted around the edge of the house and through the open bifold door while they were distracted.
The warmth from the central heating smacked me in the face as soon as I crossed the threshold, turning my cheeks pink. There was no time to appreciate how neat everything was as I struggled out of my muddy boots, not wanting to be seen by the men in the garden when they turned around. Keeping low, I carried them through the kitchen with its midnight-blue cabinets and into the bright magnolia hallway, where a grand oak staircase awaited me. Taking the stairs two at a time, the heady mix of fabric softener and pine-scented toilet cleaner hit me as I climbed to the first floor. The carpet was seagrass and rough beneath my socks, flowing into each room off the landing, all of them painted the same magnolia.
I stepped into the boy’s room first, where the name Nathan was spelt out in large green wooden letters on the wall above a single bed. The duvet was a pattern of racing cars and tucked tightly beneath the mattress like my mum used to do to my bed when I was little. Through the window overlooking the back garden, the two men were finishing their cigarettes and I struggled to tell the difference between the plumes of smoke and their hot breath wafting into the air around them. Now that I could take a better look at them, I recognised the shorter man as someone I’d seen at the property before when I’d been staking the place out. He had to be managing the refurbishment and looked relatively smartly dressed in chinos and a shirt. The other one, tall and thin with close-cropped hair, was more dishevelled in grubby faded combats and a sweatshirt. I guessed he was a landscape gardener.
More people coming and going in Church Road could potentially be a problem for my stay. I’d thought the work on the house was finished, the kitchen downstairs and the bathroom across from Nathan’s room were both brand new, but perhaps next on the list were plans to sculpt the garden.
With my pulse slowly returning to its usual steady rate, I peeked into the other bedrooms, committing to memory where the squeaks in the floorboards were. I’d been right about the sleeping arrangements, the largest bedroom on this floor was clearly being used by the couple. Their bedside tables contained books, sleeping medication called Heminevrin that my mum used to take, a water bottle each and framed photos. They had a small en suite which seemed to be Helena’s domain when I looked inside, by all the bottles of body wash, scrub and shampoo. Back in the bedroom the smell of expensive perfume lingered in the air and I picked up a book on what had to be the wife’s side, a Lisa Jewell thriller she was halfway through. The king-size bed had been hastily made, a bright mustard rumpled duvet cover was the only pop of colour in what otherwise was a bland room.
In the third bedroom, there was no bed, just a beige sofa and a desk beneath the window where a monitor and keyboard had been placed. The hard drive was stored underneath, with box files stacked beside it. I spotted the Wi-Fi router and took a photo of the sticker on the back where the password was printed. It would come in handy later if they hadn’t changed it. I guessed the room was going to be used as an office, although I’d not seen either of them work from home while I’d been watching the house. They usually came and went like clockwork.
