Cory pressed the buzzer and they waited. Rowan felt the knot of tension in her stomach pull tight. He was in there, the light was on in the window that overlooked the road here, too, so why didn’t he answer? They were under cover of the porch, hidden from view, but had he seen them coming? She wondered suddenly if he’d seen Cory break in. If he had, she realised, he would know that the door was broken, no longer secure.
Cory buzzed again. Seconds later, the intercom crackled, and a voice said ‘Hello?’ They looked at each other. It was a woman’s voice, cautious but not unfriendly. Had he hit the wrong buzzer? No, she’d seen him press number three.
‘You speak,’ Cory murmured. They changed places and she leaned towards the microphone. ‘Hi,’ she said, holding the button. ‘My name’s Rowan. I wonder if I could talk to you for a moment.’
Another crackle. ‘Can I ask what it’s regarding?’
She looked at Cory then pressed the button again. ‘I’m not selling anything,’ she said. ‘I promise.’ Trying to sound human. ‘I wanted to ask you about an old friend of mine.’
‘Who?’ Warier now, unsurprisingly.
When she looked at Cory, he nodded. ‘Marianne Glass.’
‘Marianne? Oh.’ A pause. ‘Okay, yes, come up.’ With a buzz, the lock on the outside door clicked open.
On the communal stairs, the building’s less well-to-do past was closer to the surface, evident in the grey lino with its raised tuppenny spots and the push-button timed lights that reminded Rowan of her hallway back in London. The doors of the flats were ugly, plain expanses of wood veneer whose only detail was the cheap brass number screwed on to each one above the suspicious glass bubble of a spy-hole.
Cory stood to one side while Rowan knocked. The spy-hole darkened then cleared and a bolt was drawn. The sound of a second one caused her a fresh twinge of unease: who would need two bolts in this secluded middle-class enclave? She composed her face as the door began to open then was stopped by a chain. Through the gap, she saw large brown eyes in the anxious face of a woman of sixty or so.
Seeing Rowan, the woman released the chain and it fell against the doorframe with a rattle. As she opened the door, however, Cory stepped into view and there was an audible intake of breath. Rowan realised what he might look like to someone who didn’t know about him, tall and broad as he was, shaven-headed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have told you I had a friend with me – I didn’t want to come alone. This is Michael. He’s an artist – a painter. He was a friend of Marianne’s, too.’
‘Oh.’
‘Good to meet you,’ he said. ‘We appreciate you talking to us. We’ll try not to take too much of your time.’
The woman registered his accent. ‘You’re not police then?’
‘No.’ Cory’s answer contained a question.
‘They came to all the flats, of course, when she died. To ask if any of us had seen anything suspicious. Not that they thought there was anything like that . . .’ she said quickly.
‘No, of course not.’ Rowan tried to sound reassuring.
The hallway was narrow, the only furniture an arrangement of dried flowers in a vase on a pine chest of drawers and a small tasselled rug patterned with pink roses.
‘Who told you we knew her?’ asked the woman, with a glance over her shoulder at Cory.
‘No one.’ Rowan looked at him too – we? – but his expression was carefully neutral. ‘May we come in?’
The woman hesitated a second then stood aside. The archway behind her led directly into the sitting room, which, as Rowan already knew, ran most of the width of the flat. On the right-hand side, a slice had been carved off for a skinny galley kitchen but the table, which sat four, was at the rear of the main space. At the front, arranged to make the most of the light through the large metal-framed windows, were the sofa and two matching armchairs. The room was immaculate – the tang of Windolene in the air, unmistakable, told Rowan that the glass coffee table and a small display cabinet had been recently polished – but despite the busy floral print of the upholstery and a handful of tapestry cushions, there was a sparseness to the furnishings that spoke of scant money carefully stretched. There were just two small pictures on the wall – a pair of autumn landscapes – and the television in the corner wasn’t much bigger than a computer monitor.
‘Please – sit down,’ the woman said.
It was thoroughly dark outside now but the curtains – terrible shiny faux-taffeta with basic crenellations along the top – were still open and, as she sat, Rowan glanced across the gardens to the back of the house. They’d turned on the studio light before leaving and she could see in as far as the wall of the old bathroom, about a third of the total area.
The woman perched on the edge of the sofa as if she might make a run for it at any moment.
‘I’m sorry, we don’t know your name,’ Rowan said.
‘Sarah – Johnson.’
‘Rowan Winter and Michael Cory.’ She smiled. If Cory’s name meant anything to this woman, it hadn’t registered on her face. ‘Apologies again for coming round like this. I’m staying at Marianne’s house at the moment, looking after it – house-sitting – while . . .’
‘Oh.’ The woman’s face suddenly brightened. ‘Then it’s you he’s been seeing.’