While You Were Gone

British accent

The Green family arrived home just after nine on Sunday evening. They were tired after a long journey from the airport. Their ten-day Mediterranean cruise had been relaxing, but now Sarah Green wanted a shower and her own bed.

Her husband, Daniel, carried the suitcases from the car while their sixteen-year-old son, Jamie, went to the front door.

“Dad, the key doesn’t work.”

Daniel took the key and tried it himself. It went into the lock, but it would not turn.

“That’s strange.”

Sarah was about to suggest trying the back door when she noticed something through the window.

“Daniel. The lights are on.”

They had switched everything off before leaving.

Sarah moved closer to the window. Through a gap in the curtains, she could see the television. A man and a woman were sitting on their sofa, watching the news. There were two mugs on the coffee table.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

“Who are they?” Jamie whispered.

Daniel knocked hard on the door. The television went silent.

A man appeared behind the glass. He stared at Daniel but did not open the door.

“This is our house!” Daniel shouted.

Sarah took out her phone. “I’m calling the police.”

Then the door opened.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” the man said.

“A mistake? You’re inside my house.”

A woman appeared behind him. She looked frightened.

“We rented this house,” she said. “We moved in four days ago.”

The couple introduced themselves as Mark and Helen Foster. Helen showed them a rental agreement. They had paid three months’ rent in advance to a man called Richard Cole.

The agreement looked professional. It included several photographs of the house.

Sarah stared at a picture of her kitchen.

“These photographs were taken inside.”

Someone had entered their home before the holiday.

Daniel called the police.

Two officers arrived twenty minutes later. Mark and Helen explained that Richard had shown them around two weeks earlier.

“But we were still living here then,” Sarah said.

“He said the owners worked during the day,” Mark replied. “He had keys. Everything seemed normal.”

Daniel suddenly remembered something. Three weeks earlier, Sarah had lost her keys. They had called a locksmith, who had replaced the lock on the back door.

Then Jamie looked up.

“The security camera!”

Months earlier, he had installed a camera above the garage after somebody damaged his bicycle. It recorded anyone using the path to the back door.

Jamie opened the camera app and searched through the recordings.

Five days after repairing the lock, the locksmith had returned. He unlocked the back door and entered with another man.

Helen pointed at the screen.

“That’s Richard.”

The men stayed inside for eighteen minutes. It was enough time to photograph the rooms and prepare the false advertisement.

Mark’s phone suddenly rang.

“It’s Richard,” he said.

One officer told him not to answer.

At that moment, they heard a noise from inside the house.

A door had closed.

Everyone became silent.

The officers immediately went inside.

“Police!” one shouted.

There was a crash, followed by fast footsteps. Sarah held Jamie’s arm. Daniel stared at the open front door.

A few minutes later, the officers returned with a man in handcuffs.

Sarah recognised him immediately.

It was the locksmith.

The police soon discovered what had happened. When the Greens arrived, Mark had sent Richard a message saying that people claiming to be the owners were outside. Richard realised the scam had been discovered and contacted the locksmith.

The locksmith still had a copy of the back-door key. While everyone was talking outside, he had entered the house to remove the false documents, spare keys and other evidence. When he saw the police car, he panicked and hid under the stairs.

His phone contained messages between him and Richard. The two men had done the same thing before. They found houses whose owners were going away, advertised them for rent and collected advance payments from innocent people.

Richard was arrested the following morning.

Mark and Helen had lost thousands of pounds, but the police confirmed that they were victims too. Before leaving, Helen turned to Sarah.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Sarah shook her head. “You thought it was your home too.”

The following afternoon, Daniel had every lock changed.

That evening, the Greens finally sat together in their living room. The house looked the same, but it no longer felt quite the same.

Jamie looked at the new keys on the table.

“Next year,” he said, “can we just go camping?”

Sarah laughed. Then she picked up the keys and put them safely in her pocket.

📒 Key vocabulary

• cruise – a journey on a large ship for pleasure
• lock – a device used to keep a door closed and secure
• gap – a small open space between two things
• curtains – pieces of cloth that cover a window
• mugs – large cups, usually used for hot drinks
• whispered – (whisper, whispered, whispered) – speak very quietly
• rental agreement – a document that gives someone permission to use a property in return for payment
• locksmith – a person whose job is to repair locks and make keys
• replaced (replace, replaced, replaced) – remove something and put another thing in its place
• recordings – saved video or sound that can be watched or listened to later
• unlocked (unlock, unlocked, unlocked) – open a lock with a key or another method
• footsteps – the sounds made by someone walking
• stared (stare, stared, stared) – look at someone or something for a long time
• handcuffs – metal rings used by police to hold a person’s wrists together
• claiming – saying that something is true, although it may not be proven
• hid (hide, hid, hidden) – go somewhere where other people cannot not see or find you

🤔 Comprehension quiz

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