The flat, newly painted in patches, glistened unnaturally and there was a disconcerting whiff of pot-pourri spray polish in the air. She grimaced at her reflection, suddenly feeling extremely foolish. She was bound to drop grease on her best blouse. It would be hell to get out. After all, why the fuss? This was simply fried chicken with an old friend, nothing more, just a quiet meal for old times’ sake. She snorted, who was she trying to kid? She slipped the freshly ironed trousers and blouse on over her best bra and matching knickers, feeling about fifteen and just as uncertain.
Finally, gilding the lily with a touch of lipstick, she looped a pretty navy, peach and jade scarf around her shoulders and checked the clock again.
Did ‘about eight’ mean eight? Quarter to? Quarter past? Tying the scarf in a loose knot Dora went into the sitting room, flicked on the gas fire and stood nervously looking round, plumping cushions, tweaking things into submission.
Maybe the flat would look better with a few magazines around to make it look more homely? Sheila had tidied away most of the ambient chaos.
The drawers were stuffed with bits of paper, the odd spoon, cotton reels, cassette tapes, discarded cardis … Glancing at the cupboard, Dora considered the merits of holding back a tower of debris while trying to find something that said, ‘together woman, with contented satisfying lifestyle’. It didn’t do to look too needy.
In the kitchen cupboard were some magazines Sheila had brought to line Oscar’s cat litter tray, but the People’s Friend and the local church magazine weren’t exactly the image Dora had in mind. The decision was whipped away by the intercom bell ringing.
Dora glanced into the mirror one last time before hurrying into the office and pressing the call button. She stopped short of pushing the entry button – another thing she remembered about being fifteen was that it didn’t do to appear too eager either.
‘Hello?’ she said warmly.
There was an abstracted scuffling noise through the loudspeaker.
‘Is that you, Jon?’ Dora suddenly felt a tiny creeping tremor of disquiet. ‘Jon?’
She moved across to the office window and craned to see who was standing in the street below. In the twilight the street lights were still dull; it was impossible to see the door below, her view interrupted by the porch.
Another dark glittering thought made her gut contract – was the downstairs door locked? She desperately tried to remember. She’d arrived home soaked through to the skin, the girl from the shoe shop had followed her inside and then the phone had rung. Peering into the shadowy street below, Dora knew with a sickening certainty that the door downstairs was unlocked.
She stepped back to the intercom. ‘Who is this, please?’ Speaking more firmly now.
Nothing came over the speaker. She hurried into the hall and dropped the catch on the flat door, sliding the security chain on behind it. It would be simple to open it and look down the stairs but she didn’t want to contemplate what might be waiting outside.
A tight sick feeling lifted into her mouth. Images of Lillian Bliss’ animated handsome face filled her mind, memories of walking into the flat to find it wounded and in disarray. The sense of excited expectation trickled away like water. She shivered, letting the fear wash over her in uncomfortable shivering waves.
Back in the office, the little call button flashed brightly once more and then went dead. She hesitated for a second and hurried over to the office window, grateful she’d left the office lights off.
The twilight had leeched everything into a chilling monochrome, stripping the colour from the bricks and the hoardings. Under the street lights, a stockily built hunched figure hurried across from her side of the road, hood up, hands stuffed into his pockets. As he got to the far kerb he glanced back up at the flat. Dora stepped away from the window, but not before catching sight of his pale plump face, rendered anonymous by the light of the lamp above him.
When she looked again, he was gone, and the only thing she could hear was the manic rhythm of the pulse in her ears.
She stared into the street, wondering whether it would be better to go downstairs and lock the street door. A millisecond later, a car pulled up on the far side of the road and she sighed with relief as she recognised Jon Melrose climbing from the driver’s seat.
‘There was someone downstairs, a man,’ Dora said far too quickly as Jon stepped into the hallway. ‘Just before you arrived.’
Jon looked at her, dark eyes registering concern.
‘Are you all right?’ He glanced back over his shoulder into the dark stairwell. ‘Would you like me to go downstairs and take a look around?’
Dora swallowed down the metallic taste of fear. ‘He’s gone and I’m fine now. The intercom rang and I thought it was you.’
‘Did you see who it was?’
Dora shook her head. ‘I couldn’t see him clearly from the window. He’d got his hood up and he didn’t answer me when I asked him who he was.’ She laughed nervously. ‘I’m overreacting, aren’t I? It was probably just a mistake. He realised he’d got the wrong address and pushed off.’
Jon lifted an eyebrow. ‘Well, you’ve got me convinced,’ he said dryly.
Dora realised that it wouldn’t take a lot to make her cry. She looked up at him, trying to regain a sense of control. Her mind was full of disjointed jigsaw-piece thoughts.
‘The builder,’ she said flatly. ‘The girl downstairs from the shoe shop said the builder was coming round. It might have been him.’
So why hadn’t he spoken? Dora stopped again; for some reason something Calvin had said over lunch appeared in her mind.
‘I can’t find my diary either –’
John grinned at her. ‘Hang on a minute. Are these the cryptic clues?’
Dora frowned, sifting thoughts, looking for the straight edges, corners and bits of sky, trying to make some sort of sense of what she was feeling. ‘Why don’t you go through into the sitting room.’
She opened the kitchen door a fraction and then thought better of it. Her diary ought to be in the office. She turned round, ignoring Jon and threw open the office door.
Inside it was very still and unnaturally tidy. Her eyes worked along the shelves, touching spines. She looked around, eyes searching frantically for the slim maroon book, by the phone, on the directories, on the coffee table, working backwards and forwards from the doorway, coming to the same conclusion over again and over again. Her diary wasn’t there.
In the kitchen? She opened drawers frantically, turning over piles of accumulated junk, while on the kitchen unit beside her the kettle clicked off the boil. She didn’t notice Jon in the doorway.
‘What’s the matter?’
His voice surprised her. Dora stared up at him and realised with astonishment that she had forgotten he was there.
‘Something Calvin said. The people who broke into his office took his filofax, nothing else. My diary’s not here, either.’ She opened the fridge to take out a pint of milk and glanced into the freezer compartment – stranger things had happened.
‘Where was it?’
Dora pointed into the office. ‘Usually I keep it by the phone, but it’s not there now.’
Jon nodded. ‘And what? Keep appointments, pour out your soul?’
‘It’s mostly “dentist, two thirty”, that sort of thing. I keep them for years, so I don’t have to copy out phone numbers and things like –’ She stopped and headed back into the office. Above the doorway was a narrow shelf where she stacked diaries from previous years. It was a habit. Old numbers, old contacts, stacked away in Boots A5 diaries that went back to the 70s.
She