Saskia could not believe what she was seeing. She'd gasped with amazement and horror at the man in the hoodie that was looking right at her.

“How! How had he found her!” she muttered under her breath. The anger in her eyes showed that she was not pleased with this development.

Saskia was some three thousand miles from where she'd last encountered 'him'. She wondered how on earth he had found her in this backwater. She had made every effort to live very much under the radar. Her agent had rented the property for the summer. Saskia remembered him selling the idea of it to her.

“Secluded Cape Cod property. Not overlooked and just across the road from the beach.”

It sounded just the place for her to finish her latest novel. In the almost three months she’d been staying there, she'd done just that. Saskia had written about a third of her fifth book and had drafted an outline of her sixth novel. Her agent had been pleased with the plot ideas which, had made her even happier.

The summer peak was almost over, and what her nearest neighbour called the 'Shoobies' had left the past weekend, which just happened to be Labor Day. Some of the trees were starting to turn, and 'Fall' would soon be there. She'd arranged to head up to Vermont with that neighbour during the peak 'fall colour' season so that she could get a different perspective on life in rural New England. That was an essential part of her sixth book plot.

Saskia wiped all those ideas from her mind as she stepped away from the window and picked up the phone. She dialled ‘911’.

"Police, please, I'd like to report a stalker."

As she waited to be connected to the local Police Department, Saskia wondered if they would take her report seriously. She had been due to leave the property at the end of September. It had been the perfect retreat until now!

“Yes. This is Saskia Rayner. I’m renting twenty-five twenty beach road. I saw a man standing staring at my house. I believe it to be my former husband.”

“Yes, I’m British. I have been here all summer. I’m a writer.”

"We divorced a couple of years ago. He has been following me ever since. I came three thousand miles to escape from him, but here he is."

“Thank you, officer. I will look forward to seeing one of your colleagues very shortly."

---

Saskia and her former husband Shane had divorced a few years before. She was the one having an affair with a married man. He'd done nothing wrong but, he'd not taken the divorce very well. It had ended with them having words outside the London Court. Shane had accused her of being a gold-digger when nothing could be farther from the truth. He was the man making all the money dealing shares. Saskia was a nursery school teacher and erstwhile author. The man that she'd had an affair with was long gone but not before telling her that he played squash with her husband. It was easy for her to see the message that he was giving her loud and clear, it was a setup. Her husband had known about the affair even before it had begun.

Saskia retreated to a tiny bedsit and picked up the draft of a novel that had lain dormant since the end of her first year teaching. With renewed vigour, she completed it, and to her immense surprise, a publisher picked it up after she'd done a reading of a small part of it at a literary festival.

A year after the divorce had become final, that first novel had reached the top of the bestseller list, and her money worries had gone away. Shane had been very quick to return to court to get his maintenance reduced. Saskia had been furious when the Judge had cut her off entirely. Somehow, Shane's legal team had found out that she'd received a huge advance for her second novel.

Her lawyers had tried their hardest but to no avail. Shane didn't have to pay her one penny more ever again. He'd won, which Saskia had found hard to accept just like she took no blame for having the affair because of her being set up.

Her opinion of Shane went even farther downhill when he started turning up at her book signings and verbally abusing her. Most of the abuse was about her affair. With the release of her fourth book, it had gotten so bad that she'd gone to court to get him to stop stalking her in the UK. Not long after that, she decided to spend the summer writing a long way from home.
Saskia ended up at a cottage on Cape Cod, that had been rented by her American literary agent.

All was fine for the first few months. Saskia had settled into a routine of an early morning walk along the nearby beach, work until around 2 pm when she'd go for a 5k run. After an early meal, she would review what she'd written the previous day before turning in around 9 pm. Every other day, she'd go into town and visit the library instead of the run. In her mind, it was all very civilised.

She’d even made a friend with a neighbour. They had dinner once a week together at a local restaurant. The neighbour had returned to Washington for a few weeks but would be back at the end of the month.

Now, Shane had turned up like a bad penny. Just when her life seemed to be on the up and up.

---

Two Police Officers turned up half an hour later. Saskia was beginning to think that stalking wasn't very high on their priority list. 'He' was still there. Just standing there on the beach looking at the house and by implication, her.

To her relief, one of the officers went straight onto the beach and confronted the man.

She watched from the relative safety of her temporary home. From the gestures that the officer was making, it was clear to her that Shane was being told to 'get out of town'.

Shane walked slowly along the beach, glaring at her the whole time.

“He does not like you, does he?” said the officer who had remained at her side.

"He hates that I have become more famous than him. Fame is relative by the way. My books are hardly known here, but I hope to change that with the one I am writing now. It is set here around 1905."

“He seems to have gone.”

“For now,” added Saskia.

The officer who had confronted Shane joined them on the porch of the cottage.

"I've warned him off. I've also taken the license plate of the car that he is driving. If we see it, here again, he will be stopped."

“Is there nothing more that you can do?” asked Saskia.

"Short of getting a restraining order on him, there is very little. The beach here is public property. He was parked in a proper spot. Unless he escalates his behaviour, our hands are tied by the law."

"Thank you for your assistance today, officers. I think that I may have to move away which, is a shame because I very much like it here."

One of them smiled.
"A lot of writers and artists come here mostly in the offseason. That's when rents are cheap and, we get used to some of their eccentricities."

Saskia chuckled. She’d met a few fellow writers in the town. One was well known for going shopping wearing his pyjamas.

“I’ve met a few of them at the store and the coffee shops.”

“One question,” said the older of the two officers.
“How many people back in England know where you are?”

"Three. My mother, my publisher and my friend Alice. Alice checks on my home every few days and deals with the post and the like. Only my Mother and Agent know exactly where I am.”

“Could it be that one of them has accidentally let on where you are?”

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

"According to your former husband's passport, he only arrived in the country three days ago."

“Three days? That’s when I saw him for the first time.”

“That tells me that he came here straight from the airport,” said the officer.

Saskia didn’t say anything for several seconds. The expression on her face told the police officers everything that she needed to know.

“Is there anywhere that you can go and not be alone?” asked the older officer.

Saskia thought for a second and shook her head.

“I’m very much a newbie here. I am on nodding terms with a few people. The one person that I got to know a bit went back to Washington last Friday.”

“Sarge?” said the younger officer.
“Could Ms Rayner go and stay with Veronica Shaw?”

Saskia looked at both officers in a bit of a state of bewilderment.

The younger one noticed this.
"Veronica or Ronnie as she likes to be called is a Potter. She lives on the other side of town. She runs the local Karate Dojo in her spare time.”

Saskia understood the implications of what the officer had said.

"I don't know. I like the tranquillity here."

“Which is part of the problem. We can’t easily protect you here. Ronnie’s place backs onto the home of the Chief,” said the older officer.

“We could go with you to see Ronnie if you like?” asked the younger officer.

“Thanks, but I need some time to think about this. I will also need to call my agent in London. He arranged for the rental of his house.”

“We understand,” said the older officer.

Both of them gave Saskia their contact information.
"If he returns, please give us a call. If in doubt, call 9-1-1. We do not like stalkers in this part of the world. People come here for the peace and s.”

---

When the officers had left, Saskia sat on the porch. It was so peaceful with only the sound of the sea and the occasional seagull that Saskia was lulled into a false sense of security. Her eyes felt heavy, and soon they were closed.

Saskia woke with a start when the house phone began ringing. She'd only used it twice in her time at the cottage. The first was to call her U.S. agent to let her know that she'd arrived safely, and the second was to call the Police that day.

“Hello?” said a still slightly sleepy Saskia into the phone.

“Is that Saskia?” asked a female voice.

“Yes? Who’s calling.”

“This is Ronnie Shaw. I gather that you are having a bit of a problem with an ex?”

Saskia guessed that one of the officers had contacted her.”

“I am.”

"Good", said Ronnie. I'll be over in half an hour, and we can talk over what you do next. Former partners who become stalkers are the scum of the earth, in my opinion."

Saskia was in two minds. One part said 'send her packing', and the other was saying 'say yes. It is time that you properly met some of the locals'.

“Er… Ok. Do you know where I am?”

Ronnie laughed down the phone.
“I do. I’ll see you soon.”

The line went dead, with Saskia wondering just what had happened. Since the divorce, Saskia had become a very private person. She'd kept herself to herself even in London. Well… that was easy in London as no one talked to anyone that they didn't know, but here, she'd soon understood that things were a little more laid back and relaxed. The episode with the police officers had reinforced that idea. There was none of the 'what did you do to deserve this man stalking you?' and other 'it is all your fault' things that she'd seen on so many US-based Cop shows on TV. Once they knew that it was a former husband who had followed her all this way, they seemed satisfied that she was not complicit in any crime.

Saskia had been watching a lot of local TV in the evenings. It was surprising to her just how much petty crime was reported in the media. On the surface of it, Cape Cod was other than during the holiday season, a sleepy backwater of a place. The local paper had one page devoted to the plethora of court cases that were dealt with every week. Most of it was in her view not worth bothering about.

At one point, she chuckled as the plethora of crimes that were dealt with in ‘Murder She Wrote’ every week might have had some truth behind them.

One ‘crime’ that fell into that category was from just twenty miles away from her. The owner of a property had fallen badly. She had fractured her hip and was taken to hospital. That meant that there was no one to mow the grass that surrounded her property. Her hospital stay had racked up more than $1000 in fines from the homeowners association. She had refused to pay because she was incapacitated in Hospital. The HOA, or local Gestapo as they were known, said that being hospitalised was no excuse. She was found guilty and fined an extra $500 on top of having to pay the fines. She refused to pay the fines and was threatened with spending a month in the county jail. All over some uncut grass. Defiantly she proclaimed that she was ready to go to jail, but some anonymous benefactor stepped in and not only paid her fines but paid for a gardener to keep her lawn in top condition.

All of this seemed like laws going crazy to Saskia but the feisty woman had presented an intriguing character. As a result, she had been crafted into her story as a suffragette.

Along with the trivial cases, there were a good number of domestic violence cases. By contrast to the uncut grass, these were in her eyes dealt with very leniently. Many cases, were pled down to what was called a misdemeanour and given a small fine.

Remembering them had made Saskia wonder what would happen if her stalker continued to bother her? In her mind, he should be put on the next flight back to London, put on a 'no-fly list', and that would be the end of it. Deep down, she knew that things didn’t work out that way.

Her daydreaming was interrupted by the sound of tyres on the gravel of the driveway. She had another visitor. Two in one day was a bit of a record for her since her divorce.

---

After checking that the visitor was not her former husband, Saskia opened the front door.

Her latest visitor was a woman. She guessed that this must be Ronnie Shaw.

"Hi, Saskia. I'm Ronnie. We spoke on the phone?"

“Oh yes. Please, come in.”

Saskia stepped to one side to let Ronnie enter the house.
“Go on through to the back. It gets the sun all day.”

Ronnie did as she was asked and found herself in the large kitchen.

“This is a lovely place. I wish my place was as nice as this.”

“Thanks. It belongs to a friend of my Literary Agent.”

“Oh… So, you are a writer then?”

Saskia smiled.
“I try. I’m trying to write my fifth novel, but seeing him there today has made me lose all inspiration.

“Then we shall have to try to get you back on track then, won’t we?”

“What do you mean?”

"What I mean is that you come and stay with me. I have two very large wolfhounds called Dick and Tracey. For some reason, they don't like men. I don't know why that it but, any man who comes near them causes them to go a bit loopy if you know what I mean."

Saskia had gone very white in the face.

“What’s wrong? Are you allergic to dogs or something?”

Saskia shook her head.

“No… it is nothing like that. Nothing at all.”

Ronnie looked at Saskia. She knew that something was wrong, but her gut feeling told her that it would be wrong to ask.

Eventually, Saskia said in a very quiet voice…

“It is like this…”

[to be continued]

Authors Note:
This piece was inspired by this painting. We were given the task of writing a story from what the image that the picture told us in my Creative Writing Class. Saskia is the woman in the window.
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/cape-cod-morning-10760