“I have no idea.”
“Check.”
I wanted to tell Luna to go away, but something in her voice made me glance at her, and the look in her eyes changed my mind. I took out my phone and studied it. “She’s not going to answer.”
“She hasn’t been picking up all day.”
“So maybe she left her phone off.”
“She never leaves her phone off, and if she does she always calls back. Even if she doesn’t want to talk she leaves a message.”
I opened my mouth, but Luna cut me off. “Look, I’ve talked to Anne more than you have. The only times I’ve ever seen her do something like this is when something’s wrong. I want to go and check up on her.”
I looked at the pile of uninventoried items. “Can it wait?”
“No,” Luna said. “I’m worried and I’m going to her flat. Coming?”
“Why should I come?”
“Because I think something’s happened to her,” Luna said. “And if I’m right, then it’ll be dangerous. You’re my master so you’re supposed to protect me, and the only way you can do that is if you come too.”
“How about I just order you not to go?”
“I only have to follow your orders when I’m acting as your apprentice. You can’t order me not to visit my friends.”
“You just said it might be dangerous and that you’d need my help.”
“So you agree it’s dangerous?”
“No! There’s no reason to believe it’s dangerous!”
“Well, in that case, you shouldn’t mind me going, should you? You know, to the place you just agreed might be dangerous. And if I do just decide to go, you can’t actually stop me. So you can let me go off on my own to something you’re supposed to be protecting me from, or you can come too.” Luna looked at me expectantly. “Up to you.”
I stared at her.
“You are the most annoying apprentice I’ve ever met,” I told Luna fifteen minutes later.
We were in a taxi heading south, the rain drumming on the roof as the wipers swept back and forth across the windscreen. Other cars swooshed past, their lights turning them into luminous ghosts though the curtain of water. The taxi driver, a heavyset man with close-cropped black hair, had taken one look as we got in and wisely elected to keep his mouth shut.
“You can shout at me afterwards,” Luna said. She was in the backseat and looking out at the rain.
“Why did I get stuck with you? Everyone else gets apprentices who do as they’re told.”
“Right, like you did?”
We would have kept arguing, but the presence of the taxi driver put a lid on how much we could say and the argument tailed off into silence, which was probably for the best. Luna kept staring out the window as we crossed London.
The weather hadn’t improved by the time we reached Honor Oak. I paid the driver and watched the taxi disappear into the rain. “So now what?” Luna asked. She’d brought along a big golf umbrella and was quite dry. The umbrella was more than big enough to share, except that her curse meant that I couldn’t get close enough and had to stand out in the rain getting wet instead, which seemed highly unfair.
“Wait out here and watch the door,” I said shortly. The weather wasn’t improving my mood. “I’ll check her flat and then we’ll go.” I headed for the building without waiting for an answer.
Once I was inside, I shook water out of my hair and started upstairs. I hadn’t path-walked to see what would happen when I knocked on the door—it’s a hassle to do it while your movements are under the control of a driver and quite frankly it hadn’t been worth the effort. I tried it now and found to my absolute lack of surprise that Anne wasn’t going to answer.
I wanted to walk away, but I knew Luna would just do something even more annoying if I didn’t do a proper check. I climbed the stairs to Anne’s flat. There weren’t any would-be patients this time. I knelt on the concrete landing, put my ear to the wooden door, took out my phone and called Anne’s number, then let out my breath and listened.
After a moment, I heard the faint sounds of Anne’s ringtone through the wood. Apparently she hadn’t changed it since last year. It rang, then went to voice mail. I redialled and got the same result. Looking through the futures I could tell she wasn’t going to answer.
I looked to see what would happen if I just kicked the door down. Nothing. She definitely wasn’t in.
So why had she left her phone?
It probably didn’t mean anything, but it was enough to make me stick around. I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then took out my picks and got to work on the door. It wasn’t a particularly good lock and after only a few minutes it clicked open. I stepped though and shut the door behind me. Anne really needed better security in this place.
The flat was pitch-black and I stood for a minute in the darkness, letting my eyes adjust. There was no sound in the present and no movement in the future. I took out a torch and clicked it on; the entry corridor was bare and so was the room I’d been in before. I moved deeper into the flat. The bathroom was neat and clean and empty, bottles stacked by the shower and on the glass shelf above the sink. In the kitchen, dishes and cooking pans for a meal for one had been washed and were sitting in the rack by the sink. Flashing my light over them, I saw that they were dry.
Still nothing definite. If Anne suddenly showed up (which so far, I had no reason to believe wouldn’t happen) then I’d have serious trouble explaining what I was doing here. All the same, something felt off—I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was, but something was making me feel uneasy and I’ve learnt to listen to those instincts. The only room I hadn’t checked was the bedroom, and the door was ajar. I slipped the sleeve of my coat down over my hand so that it covered my fingers, then pushed it open.
Anne’s bedroom was small, sized for only one person, with a window that would have given a view over the nature reserve if the curtains hadn’t been drawn. It smelt of some fragrance I couldn’t place but which made me think of flowers. Again, most of the room was neat and tidy—closed cupboard, clean desk, clothes folded on a chair—except for two things. The first thing was that the bed wasn’t made. The bedclothes had been pulled off and were lying in a trampled heap half on and half off the floor.
The second thing was that the bedside table had been knocked over.
I crouched beside it, careful not to touch anything. The contents of the table had been scattered across the carpet and the wooden planks. In the middle of the mess was Anne’s phone; it had been charging and the power lead was still plugged in, tethering it to the wall socket. There’d been a glass on the table and it had shattered when it had hit the floor, leaving a spray of shards all the way to the wall. They glinted in the light of my torch; as I studied them I saw that several had been crushed, as though from footsteps. Spread throughout the broken glass were the remaining contents of the table: a bedside lamp, small plastic jars of face cream, cotton buds, a set of keys, a hairbrush, nail polish, hand lotion . . . a wallet. Looking into the futures in which I opened it, I saw money and a bank card.
If Anne was going out, why would she leave her phone and her keys and her wallet?
I wasn’t just uneasy now, I was worried. I quickly checked the rest of the room. The window was closed and locked from the inside and didn’t show any signs of tampering. I’d already seen that the front door had been locked and unforced. As far as I can see, there weren’t any other ways in.
What had happened here?
I saw that my phone was going to ring; it was Luna. I took it out and answered before it could sound. “I’m inside.”
“Someone just went into the building,” Luna said. Her voice was sharp and tense. “I couldn’t get a good look but think it was a woman. Too big to be Anne.”