He adjusted his binoculars to bring the house into focus as he had done a thousand mornings. He watched the girl on the roof in ragged shorts hanging out washing. He liked it best when she bent over the basket.

Later she was at the kitchen window, working hard – preparing vegetables, cooking, washing up. She never ate with the family; always alone on the fenced-in balcony and quickly, looking over her shoulder. Scared.

The next morning the man of the house was painting the balcony wall.

He focused his binoculars and could just make out the letters H E L before they too, were gone.

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For those who don’t know how Friday Fictioneers works, this picture, this time from Bjorn Rudberg, is our inspiration for our weekly online writing group hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Each story is only about 100 words long, so why not read a few others: click here to read some more or to join in.

And please comment below with any suggestions on mine, or just to show you’ve visited.

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I’m very excited to let you know that one of my short stories – Baker, Emily and Me – has won the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition, which means it will be read out on Radio 4 on 29th August at 3:45 BST. So do listen out for it and let me know what you think. For those readers not in the UK, it will be up on the BBC website for a week afterwards.