“Oh, not too loud,” Irene said. “It’s ever so late; I wouldn’t want to wake the little boy.”
The girl gave her an odd look. “It’s six thirty in the morning,” she said. “If they’ve got kids, they should be awake by now.”
“Oh . . . no,” Irene said. That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be six thirty in the morning. That would mean William hadn’t come home at all, that he’d been out all night. “Oh,” she said, her freezing fingers raised to her mouth. “Where is he? Where is William?”
The girl looked stricken. “I’m sorry, darling, I don’t know,” she said. She took a crumpled Kleenex from her pocket and dabbed at Irene’s face. “We’ll sort it out, all right? We will. But first I’ve got to get you inside; you’re ice cold, you are.”
The girl let go of Irene’s hands, turned back toward Angela’s front door and banged hard with the side of her fist, then she crouched down, picking up a pebble and hurling it against the window.
“Oh dear,” Irene said.
The girl ignored her. She was kneeling now, pressing her fingers against the flap of the letter slot, pushing it open. “Oi!” she yelled, and then all of a sudden she jumped backward, flailing in the air for a second before landing heavily on the flagstones on her bony bottom. “Oh, fucking hell,” she said, looking up at Irene, her eyes impossibly wide. “Jesus Christ, is this your house? How long . . . Jesus Christ. Who is that?” She was scrabbling to her feet, grabbing Irene’s hands again, roughly this time. “Who is that in there?”
“It’s not my house, it’s Angela’s,” Irene said, quite perturbed by the girl’s odd behavior.
“Where do you live?”
“Well, obviously I live next door,” Irene said, and she held out the key.
“Why the fuck would that be obvious?” the girl said, but she took the key anyway and unlocked the door without a problem. She put her arm around Irene’s shoulders and guided her inside. “Come on then, you go in, I’ll get you a cup of tea in a minute. Wrap yourself up in a blanket or something, yeah? You need to warm up.” Irene went into the living room, she sat down in her usual chair, she waited for the girl to bring her a cup of tea, like she said she would, but it didn’t come. Instead, she could hear sounds from the hall: the girl was making a call from her phone in the hallway.
“Are you calling William?” Irene asked her.
“I’m calling the police,” the girl said.
Irene sat in her favorite armchair, and she heard the girl saying, “Yeah, there’s someone in there,” and “No, no, no chance, it’s way beyond that, definitely, one hundred percent. You can smell it.”
Then she ran off. Not right away—first, she brought Irene a cup of tea with a couple of sugars in it. She knelt at Irene’s feet, took Irene’s hands in her own, and told her to sit tight until the police came. “When they get here, tell them to go next door, all right? Don’t you go yourself. Okay? And then they can help you find William, all right? Just . . . don’t go outside again, okay, you promise me?” She scrambled back to her feet. “I’ve gotta scarper, I’m sorry, but I’ll come back.” She crouched down again. “My name’s Laura. I’ll come see you later. Okay? You stay golden, yeah?”
* * *
? ? ?
By the time the police arrived, two young women in uniforms, Irene had forgotten the girl’s name. It didn’t seem to matter, terribly, because the police weren’t interested in her; all they were interested in was whatever was going on next door. Irene watched from her own doorway as they crouched down, calling out as the girl had done, and then starting back, just as she had done. They spoke into their little radios, they coaxed Irene back into her own home, one of them put the kettle on, fetched a blanket from upstairs. A while later, a young man appeared, wearing a brightly colored jacket. He took her temperature and gently pinched her skin, he asked her lots of questions, like when she’d last eaten and what day it was and who was prime minister.
She knew the last one. “Oh, that awful May woman,” she said tartly. “I’m not a fan. You’re not a fan either are you?” The man smiled, shaking his head. “No, I’d imagine not, what with you being from India.”
“I’m from Woking,” the young man said.
“Ah, well.” Irene wasn’t sure what to say to that. She was feeling a bit flustered, and very confused, and it didn’t help that the young man was handsome, very handsome, with dark eyes and the longest lashes, and his hands were soft, and so gentle, and when he touched her wrist, she could feel herself blush. He had a beautiful smile and a kind manner, even when he admonished her gently for not taking care of herself, telling her she was very dehydrated and that she needed to drink lots of water with electrolytes in it, which was exactly what her GP had told her.