It isn't empty. We want that clear before anything else. Number 9 has no car in the drive and never has, not once in the eleven years we've lived here, but that doesn't make it empty.
The first time is July, hot enough that half of us have the windows open. Dave's Astra goes off first, that flat double-honk, and before he's even swearing at his key fob the whole close joins in. The Kellys' Corsa. The Okonkwos' people-carrier. Sheila's little Fiat that she never locks properly anyway. Nine cars, nine alarms, all within about four seconds of each other, and not one of them has been touched. We stand on our step in dressing gowns counting them off like a register. Dave walks down in bare feet to look at his car for scratches and finds none. Nobody looks at number 9. There's nothing to look at. No car, no lit window, just the dark gravel where a car should be and isn't.
The second time is October, and it's raining, so at first we think it's the weather setting them off. A loose branch, a gust. But there's no wind that night — we checked the forecast after, because by then we'd started checking things. Same order. Dave's first, then the Kellys, then everyone down the row like dominoes, ending at the house nearest number 9, which is ours. We stand in the porch this time instead of the street because none of us wants to be the one standing in the street.
Sheila says, quiet, that she counted eight, not nine, and that hers didn't go. Her Fiat sat there silent the whole time, indicator lights dark, and she says it like she's proud of it and also like she isn't. Dave goes down again. This time there's a smear on the gravel outside number 9, low down, the width of a car door, though nobody's parked one there in a decade. He says it's oil. Nobody asks oil from what.
The third time is February, the middle of the day, which none of us have got used to yet. We're all out doing ordinary things. Bins, school run, Dave washing a car that's about to have its alarm set off for no reason at all. Sheila's dog gets loose around this time too, some terrier thing that goes missing for two days and turns up three gardens over eating out of a bin bag, and everyone talks about the dog for a while like it matters, and then it stops mattering.
When it starts, it's every alarm again, but this time in a different order, starting from the house nearest number 9 and working outward, the way ripples go. This time it doesn't stop after the first minute like it always has before. It carries on. Sheila's Fiat joins in for the first time, siren wailing flat under the grey sky, and she stands very still in her doorway with her key fob in her hand, not pressing it, not needing to.
We all end up on the pavement without deciding to. Number 9's gravel is wet though it hasn't rained. Something has parked there and gone. Tyre tracks pressed shallow into the stones, four of them, the right width apart for a car, leading up to the empty patch by the fence and stopping there. No tracks leading away.
The alarms go on for six more minutes. We count. Sheila's key fob is still in her hand, still not pressed, and her thumb is resting right on the button when the last one finally goes quiet.