‘Yes. I could quite literally use a heater in here.’
Erika knew that a housewarming present was the last thing on Lenka’s mind. She wanted the address so she could look it up online.
‘What’s the area called?’
‘Blackheath.’ Erika went back to the front room and put her hand on the ancient radiator under the bay window. She felt a slight warmth through the cold metal. There were no curtains, and she saw her reflection in the glass. Erika was six feet tall and had always been thin, but she noted how particularly scrawny and drawn she looked. Her short blonde hair stood up in messy tufts. She moved to the wall, flicked off the light, and could now see out of the window to the dark expanse of the heath opposite. A row of streetlights lit up the road running through the middle, casting pools of orange across the scrubby grass.
‘Does Blackheath mean anything?’ asked Lenka.
Erika sighed.
‘Yes, a heath is a patch of semi-wild ground, and…’ She hesitated. ‘And it’s Black heath, because, apparently, it was used as a plague pit after the Black Death.’
‘Dead bodies are buried there?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Don’t you deal with enough dead bodies at work on the murder squad?’
‘It’s not like that. It’s in a lovely area. With independent shops, and bars.’
‘And a plague pit outside your front door!’ Lenka snorted.
‘They’ll never build on it, so I’ll always have uninterrupted views,’ said Erika, repeating what the fresh-faced young estate agent had told her, with a straight face. ‘It’s close to work, and my colleague, my friend, Isaac lives round the corner. You remember Isaac?’
‘The gay undertaker?’
‘He’s not an undertaker. He’s a Forensic Pathologist.’
‘Erika, how will you ever find a boyfriend if you surround yourself with dead people and gay men?’
‘Lenka, I don’t want a boyfriend, and I don’t surround myself with gay men. He is one friend. Anyway. This is a fresh start for me. I sold the house in Manchester and after far too long renting here in London, I’ve bought my own place. I finally feel like I’m moving on since…’ Her voice tailed off. She was going to say, since Mark died. Erika’s husband, Mark, had also been a police officer. He’d died on the job over four years ago, during a botched drug raid. A few months after his death, Erika had moved down from Manchester to take up a post in London. It had been a rough four years, personally and professionally, but buying this house, for all its faults, truly felt like she was making a fresh start.
‘Are you happy?’ asked Lenka, her voice softening.
Erika had to think about that for a moment.
‘Not quite, but it’s the closest I’ve felt to happiness for a long time. Listen, I’ll get my new phone set up so we can video call. But there’s a lot of work to do on the house, and the garden is a mess.’
‘I won’t judge you. I’m just interested to see it.’
‘I’ll hold you to that. Give my love to the kids, and Marek.’
When Erika got off the phone, she found a woolly hat in the pocket of her coat and pulled it on. A bare bulb hung at the bottom of the stairs, but the light didn’t reach to the landing above. She carried on along the hall, past the boxes and the door to a small downstairs toilet, which she kept closed. When Isaac had accompanied her to the second viewing of the house, he’d commented that the toilet reminded him of the movie Trainspotting, and he’d half expected to see a young Ewan McGregor crawl up out of the bowl.
It looked as if the kitchen was last decorated sometime in the 1970s. There was a small wooden work surface with a Butler’s sink under the window, and Erika’s new fridge freezer hummed in the corner, looking out of place against the yellowing walls. All Erika had unpacked so far was a kettle, the microwave, and a couple of coffee mugs. The thought of rummaging through boxes for plates and utensils and then heating something up in the grimy kitchen was too much. There was a chip shop two streets back, and it was getting on for 8pm, so she decided to go and get something to eat.
When she left the house, the streets were empty and a mist was hanging in the air. Erika put her head down and her collar up as she walked to the chip shop. A delicious warmth and the smell of fried fish enveloped her as she stepped through the door. It was an old-fashioned British chippie with a huge silver fryer. The long, green Formica counter was dotted with grains of salt and vinegar spills, and next to the till were two huge jars of pickled eggs and bottles of vinegar and ketchup. Erika ordered a large cod and chips with a can of Dandelion and Burdock, and ate the fish and chips out of the paper sitting at one of the booths in the window. The road outside was quiet, and the mist seemed to be thickening. The other customers had taken their food home, so she was alone inside.