The door to Soames’s second-floor flat was open and he stood just inside, waiting. He was a shambling figure, with day-old bristles and dressed in a jumper and pajama bottoms, the frayed cord holding them up dangling limply.
“I hope we didn’t get you out of bed,” Kate said. Soames eyed her suspiciously.
“Bit of a slow starter these days,” he said and led them into his sitting room. It looked like a burglary had taken place. A table was overturned, a spilled bowl of Rice Krispies had pebble-dashed the carpet, and a landslide of books and stray pieces of paper littered the floor.
“Excuse the mess. Had a bit of an accident this morning,” the old man said, waving his hand over the disaster zone.
Kate stooped to pick up the bowl and table. “There you go,” she said. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Soames looked pleased at the attention. “No, no. Just a bit clumsy when I first get up. It’s my age.”
“Shall I make you a cup of tea?” Kate asked and smiled at him. He had lonely old man written all over him. A bit of a gift for her. Lonely people loved to talk.
“How lovely,” he said. “What was your name again?”
“Kate, Kate Waters, Mr. Soames.”
“Call me Al,” he said and grinned roguishly. Kate’s stomach turned. Be nice, she told herself.
“This is Joe Jackson, my colleague,” she said. Joe was standing behind her, apparently afraid to move in case he set off another avalanche of detritus in the flat.
“Pleased to meet you, Joe,” Soames said, extending his hand. They shook and Joe balanced himself on the arm of an overstuffed armchair.
“Goodness, you’ve got a lot of stuff in here,” Joe said.
“Souvenirs of a life well lived. And a lot of rubbish,” Soames said, standing by a mantelpiece studded with dusty ornaments and ancient stiffies—gilt-edged invitations—to parties long over. Kate noticed that his pajama bottoms were coming adrift and hoped they’d stay up.
“Why don’t we sit down, Al?” she said sweetly, mouthing to Joe to put the kettle on.
“Yes, of course. Where would you like to sit, my dear?” He was now clutching his pajamas to stop them from falling down, and she looked round desperately. Every seat was taken, but she moved a stack of magazines from a dining chair and brought it close to the old man’s armchair. He hovered at her elbow as she arranged things, patting her shoulder as she sat and then taking his own seat. Always the gentleman, she thought.
“Now then. You want to talk about my properties in Howard Street,” he said and settled back to give them the benefit of his experience.
“Yes, particularly in the eighties, Al,” Kate said.
“I had five houses in that street, if I remember. Dozens of others elsewhere. Quite an empire,” he said.
“Really? That’s amazing,” Kate said, egging him on. “So, you must have had hundreds of tenants.”
“Of course.”
Soames grinned. The rogue emerging again. “Turned them into bedsits. Lots of lovely young girls, I remember.”
“I bet,” Kate said and Soames winked at her. A quick wink. But it spoke volumes. She felt sick.
A rattling of china heralded the return of Joe, carrying a tray of cups and saucers. Everything had a patina of grease on it and Kate tried to drink without her lips touching the rim of the cup.
She had been in worse homes. There was one where she had to step over dog mess in the hall, and a house where a mother served her child’s tea, a fried egg, from the frying pan straight onto the arm of the sofa. Other people’s lives, she told herself.
She put the sticky cup on the floor. “I’ll wait until it cools down,” she said.
“Have you kept lists of your tenants in Howard Street, Mr. Soames, er, Al?” she asked. “Would be great to see who was living there at the time Alice was buried. And I’d love to hear more about you in those days. Your memories, I mean.”
Soames went pink with pleasure. “Well, if you really want to, my dear.”
“Have you got any photographs of you from those days? It would be great to see them.”
“Oh yes. I kept everything,” he said.
? ? ?
Kate had sent Joe out to get some sandwiches while she carried on charming the old man. It was getting towards one o’clock and she’d offered to get Soames some lunch, but there was nothing in the fridge apart from a pork pie with a fuzz of mold blurring its outline and a half-empty bottle of gin.
“Haven’t managed to get to the shops yet,” Soames had said and she wondered when he had last been out of the flat.
“Don’t you have any help here, Al?” she asked.
“The girl in the flat downstairs sometimes pops by to see if I’m still alive,” he said gloomily. “Lovely girl. Beautiful long hair and a darling figure.”
“Right,” Kate said. “I meant a cleaner or someone to do the shopping.”
“No. I don’t need anyone to do that. I’m fine. Been on my own for years. Since my wife buggered off, really.”
“It must be lonely, though,” she said. “Do you have a family, Al?”
“Yes, two children. Girl and boy. But they are off doing their own thing. Got their own sprogs now. They don’t want to bother with an old fart like me. I prefer to be independent, anyway,” he said. He looked a bit teary, Kate thought, and patted his hand automatically.
He grasped her fingers as she moved her hand away and held on tight, surprising her with the strength of his grip. “You’ve got lovely eyes,” he said.
“So have you, Al. Now shall we look at those photos?”
“They’re in my bedroom,” he said softly. “Bet you go into strange men’s bedrooms all the time.”
“No, not really,” she said, easing her foot off the flirtation pedal and praying that Joe would come back soon. She was pretty sure she could fight off a man of Al’s age if it came to it, but she didn’t fancy the skirmish.
“You stay there, Al. I’ll get them,” Kate said firmly.
He told her there was an album and a carrier bag of loose pictures on top of his wardrobe so she took the dining chair to stand on.
The bedroom curtains were still drawn so she yanked them open to let some light into the room. The pale sunlight filtering through the dusty panes revealed a scene of Dickensian squalor. The sheets on the bed were gray and stained and there appeared to be a chamber pot under the bed. She tried not to breathe through her nose as she clambered up on the chair to peer into the dark space above the wardrobe. Al’s voice suddenly came from far too close to her.
“Have you found them?” he said. “I’ve got a lovely view from here . . .”
Kate looked down, silently cursing the fact that she’d worn a skirt, and saw him propped in the doorway, ogling her legs. Bloody hell, he must be desperate, looking at fifty-year-old knees, she thought.
“Think these must be them,” she said quickly.
“Let me help you down,” he said and moved towards her, but Kate stepped smartly off the chair, keeping it between her and the eager Soames.
“No, all sorted,” she said. “Here, you carry this and I’ll bring the rest so we can go and look at them in the other room. There’s better light in there.”
Al Soames turned, disappointed, and shambled back to his seat. Kate quickly got back on the chair and felt around for anything she might have missed. Her hand brushed something papery and she pulled it out. It was an old manila envelope that had become wedged between the wardrobe and the wall. It was dusty but not sealed and “Parties” was written carelessly across the front. She took a quick look inside and saw a bundle of Polaroid photographs.
“What are you doing in there?” Soames called.
“Nothing. Coming. Just dusting myself off a bit,” she called back.
As she emerged, Joe rang the doorbell, making them both jump. Kate put the envelope down by her handbag and let him in, then got involved in the flurry of activity as he unpacked their picnic.
“Come on, let’s spread the pictures from your albums on your table,” she said. “Then you can see them all.”
She cleared the surface, heaping the detritus on the floor and placing the photos like tarot cards.
“There we are,” Soames said, now standing at her elbow. He was pointing to an image of himself and another man with two girls. The men were laughing into the camera. The girls weren’t.