‘Keep moving,’ Amber says, all professional now. ‘I’ll show you round upstairs and then you can poke your head outside.’
At first I don’t hear it above the sound of the rain. We are in the master bedroom, inspecting some water damage to the window frames, Amber saying how wonderful the room will look once the shutters are restored. It’s only faint, but it’s such a familiar sound that it makes me turn and prick up my ears. I walk to the door and listen. It’s coming from upstairs. A baby is crying.
‘Vicky?’ Amber says, touching my arm.
I ignore her and go up. The stairs to the top floor are uncarpeted and dusty, as if the owners stopped bothering with that part of the house a long time go. An eclectic collection of pictures line the walls: old-fashioned hunting prints, nondescript watercolours, uninspiring oils; the kind of things that turn up in job lots in auction houses or stacked forlornly against the walls of charity shops. The wailing draws me like a magnet. On the landing I stop, confused. The rooms are devoid of furniture but I can hear it clearly now, the hiccupping sob of a child who no one has come to comfort.
‘It’s only next-door’s baby,’ Amber says. ‘They’ve got a little girl too. That noise really gets to you though, doesn’t it?’
‘I’ve got to go home,’ I say abruptly.
‘But you haven’t seen the garden yet.’ It’s as dark out there as a November afternoon, the rain coming down in sheets. A fat pigeon sits on a branch looking miserable.
‘I’ll come back tomorrow, when I don’t need an Ark.’
I’m in such a hurry I slip on the stairs, scraping my elbow against the wall. Amber reaches under my arm and pulls me up.
‘Slow down. What’s the panic? My next lot aren’t due for a couple more minutes. Tell me what you think of the place.’
‘It’s great. I’ll call you later. I’ve got to get back. I can’t expect Magda to babysit when she’s supposed to be cleaning.’
‘She’s babysitting for us tomorrow evening,’ Amber says, moving away from me and brushing a speck of dust from the bottom of her trench coat. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without her.’
Shit. What if she tells Amber she didn’t come to me? I shouldn’t have left him. What the hell was I thinking?
‘Oh, and just to warn you, I’ve already booked her to babysit Sophie for the Forsyths’ drinks party.’
She stares at me, waiting for a reaction.
‘Sorry,’ I say, opening the front door. ‘The house is wonderful. I need to have a think and talk to Tom, but I’d love it, obviously.’
As I leave, she shouts after me, ‘Do you want me to come and value your house? Would that help?’
There’s something in her voice, a touch of desperation that hangs in the air as I run into the rain.
Amber, standing in the doorway, watches Vicky as she runs out, wincing as a car drives through the puddles, splashing her. She’s puzzled but she shakes it off and looks away, peering through the rain at a car slowing down. Her next appointment. The woman in the passenger seat gesticulates at the driver. Amber forgets about Vicky and waves cheerfully at them, puts up her umbrella and hurries over.
‘Mrs Tarrant?’ she says. ‘Hello, I’m Amber Collins.’
Mr and Mrs Tarrant know exactly what they want and don’t need Amber’s sales pitch. Not that the house needs one. Seventeen Browning Street sells itself. Amber runs her fingers over the chipped woodwork on the windowsill of one of the upstairs bedrooms. She feels like she’s in love, as though the smell of the house is male musk, its walls arms waiting to embrace her. She has a fanciful idea that she could touch her lips to the peeling wallpaper, lean into it. Why can’t she and Robert have a place like this? Perhaps she should do as Vicky says and take a risk. She looks around, imagining herself climbing newly carpeted stairs, lying in a claw-foot bathtub, wafting round a sleekly beautiful kitchen. She couldn’t. Could she? Vicky would never forgive her.
She nibbles at her bottom lip. Perhaps that doesn’t even matter. Vicky has broken the first rule of their friendship. She lied. Amber has always aspired to be like Vicky, but now she’s not so sure. She can’t believe her friend was prepared to risk it all for a sordid fling. Poor Tom. Poor children.
‘So what do you know about the local schools?’
She jumps – she hadn’t realized the Tarrants were there – and turns with her brightest smile.
‘Are you looking for private or independent?’
‘Private.’
They talk education and small children, the innocuous conversation a comfort to Amber. Mrs Tarrant moves around the room, looks out of the windows and frowns at the swollen frames. Amber’s phone rings.
‘Your eleven o’clock,’ Sarah says. ‘They’ve cancelled.’
Amber glances at her watch. She’s going to have over half an hour to kill in this freezing house. Great.
My bag knocks against my hip and I’m out of breath before I reach the end of the next street. I slow down, panting, and power-walk the rest of the way. My mind feels overheated.
Amber will guess.
Maybe I can bribe Magda?
But that would mean someone else knowing.
Maybe I should text Magda and advise her not to mention the upset stomach. Then she would have to avoid saying she hadn’t been to my place.
Yes. That would do it.
Josh is crying. I hadn’t expected that and it chills me; the noise loud enough to be heard across the street. As I shove my key into the lock the telephone starts ringing. I’m supposed to be in so I sprint to the sitting room and grab the phone off the sideboard.
‘Vicky?’
‘Mum. I can’t talk now. I’ll call you back.’
‘It’s just a small thing, I …’
‘Mum. Josh is having a paddy. Please. I’ll call you back.’
Something is wrong. The sitting-room door was open when I left earlier. It’s rarely closed. I put the phone down slowly. The French windows are ajar, splinters of wood and glass on the floor beside them.
‘Shit.’
I sprint upstairs and charge into Josh’s bedroom, come to an abrupt standstill and scream with fright. There’s someone there: a large figure in the gloom, shockingly out of context. He’s dressed in dark clothes and he’s holding Josh clamped against his chest, his hand covering my son’s mouth. Josh has frozen. He isn’t fighting or protesting but his eyes are big and confused and shining with tears.