I take a breath and cross the street towards the house. There are no windows on the ground floor that I can look through. The windows at this level must look out on to the high-walled garden at the back. But there is a letter box.
Through the flap my vision is blocked by a fringe of bristles. I put my ear to it and listen. Nothing. Until I hear the noise of a door being unlatched and the faint drift of voices being chased by their makers. They are coming back. He’s safe. I drop the flap and run back to the car and crouch.
A minute later the door opens and to my relief there is Amit, framed in light. He is shaking the man’s hand. Ebadi. He waves as Amit turns to leave, and slowly the door shuts.
I breathe again.
On my feet I beckon to Amit, who is twisting his neck, looking for me. He catches sight of me at last and runs over. I scrutinise his face for signs of harm or alarm until, at last, he reaches me.
Smiling.
‘Amit. Are you okay?’ I say, staring into his expression.
‘What? I’m fine,’ he says, putting a hand through his hair.
‘What the hell happened? When you went inside I thought you might have been killed!’ I am losing control over my voice.
‘It’s fine, Xander,’ he says, laughing. I find myself relaxing a little but my throat is still tight.
‘So how did you get in?’
‘Oh. I told him I used to live here when I was a kid and if it was okay could I see my old room again,’ he says, straightening up.
‘You did what?’ I can’t quite believe how brazen he had been.
‘I found something out you’re definitely going to be interested in,’ he said and nodded at me to follow him down the road.
27
Tuesday
I’m back in Hyde Park. Alone again. I have found a dry patch in a dense clump of bushes on the outer edges even though I shouldn’t be here in the dark after the Squire thing. What if he ends up back here again and starts bothering me? Could that get me into trouble? I beat the thought away. Squire’s playground patch is at the other end of the park, and I need to be near number 42B – that is the most important thing right now.
The bushes are thick enough to shelter me from wind and rain, and from other people. In the deep blue of the night, I venture out to forage for food and packing material. I get dry boxes from the front gardens of houses I pass. The world has become a place where everything is delivered to the door and there is no shortage of boxes. Food is harder to come by. In the end, because I am desperate, I simply walk into the supermarket and ask for any expired sandwiches. The young woman at the till tells me that they aren’t allowed to give me any for health and safety reasons but that if I happened to take them, she wouldn’t stop me. I thank her, and take three packets and a wrapped slice of currant cake.
Then I think about Amit and the danger I led him into. For what? And at what price to me? I am unsettled now by this responsibility I seem to have for him and the uncomplicated way in which I completely failed him.
As I walked with him he replayed the encounter. He told me how he’d been allowed to wander freely through the house as Ebadi, interested only in ensuring he didn’t steal anything, lazily followed him. But Ebadi could tell from Amit’s voice, his uniform, his kind of school, that he was safe. I imagined how Ebadi would have relaxed when he was sure there was no threat from Amit. This genuine young man with eyes brimming with life.
‘But then I got talking to him,’ Amit said, those same eyes flashing now. ‘I asked him how long he’d been at the house.’
‘And?’
‘He’s only been there a few months, he said. He has a family in Yemen – a wife and two children.’
‘Okay.’
‘And I tell you what. That place is immaculate. There’s no dead body smell in there at all.’ He was eyeing me to measure my reaction.
‘The hall. The floor. Did you notice it?’
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘The grouting. Was it new? Did it look like it could have been recently done?’
He looked up as if searching. ‘The floor?’
‘I think it’s a new floor. It’s a long story but I think he’s just had it laid,’ I say.
‘Oh. I don’t think so.’
‘Did it smell damp or of cement?’ I said, pressing him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It was normal. Clean. And there was one other thing,’ he continued, excited.
‘What?’
‘He was really nice.’
‘Amit …’
‘No, wait. He was. He asked me what I was studying and I told him English and History and French.’
‘So?’
‘So, he went over to a bookcase and gave me this.’ He pulled a small hardback from his pocket. I took it from his hand. It was similar to the school copies I’d had once: L’Étranger.
‘He gave you a cheap Camus, that doesn’t change anything,’ I said.
‘Xander,’ he said, looking around. ‘I don’t think it was him. He even told me I could pop round tomorrow and he’s going to dig out some more books for me. For free!’
My heart dropped. ‘No – Amit. You can’t go back there. You don’t know what I know,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what he’s capable of. Sure, he can act nice. Just as he must have done with the police. He might even be nice, most days. But he killed a person, Amit. Stood over her and strangled her.’ I snatched the book from his hand and flung it high into a neighbouring garden.
Amit’s face hardened and he ran quickly in the direction I had thrown it. He returned empty-handed. ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ he said and stormed off.
The cold night passes slowly and I fall asleep not long before dawn. When I wake it’s with the terrifying idea that someone has killed Amit. Of Amit being rolled up in a curl of turf.
When I reach out with my hand and touch the hard, icy ground, I am pulled back into wakefulness. I need to move. I gather up the flattened boxes. I don’t want to leave them here. If I leave the den whole, it will become cuckooed, and places like this one, safe and dry and obscure, are hard to find. I fold the cardboard before pushing it deep into the bush, out of sight.
It is still too early for there to be many people around. I get up and walk into the lifting sun. My thoughts cycle back again and again to this question: where is she? I need to find out where he has dumped her body. She can’t have just vanished. She is somewhere. For now. Until she surrenders to disintegration.
After some minutes of walking, the blood has warmed my muscles through. By the time I get near, the traffic on Park Lane is in full commuter flow. A right down South Street and I am on the road heading straight towards Farm Street. The building is washed in golden morning light and it makes a fraud of what happened in that house. There is only one thing to do now and that is to confront him. If I challenge him, what can he do? I will present him with what I know. That I was in the house at the time he killed her. That it was I who made the noise that startled him. That it was my strange smell that caused them to comment. And that I watched as he strangled the life out of that poor woman.
Some twigs cling to me and I brush them from my clothes, marching straight to his front door. The brass numbers shine in the morning light as I approach. Now I am here, in touching distance of the bell, I hesitate. How will he react? Will he let me in or will he just shut the door on my accusations? In the end it doesn’t matter. I have to do it. But then, just as I am about to knock, there is the sound of movement coming from within. I back down the front path and walk a little way up the road. When I am at the next house along, I stop and look. My heart is beating. I don’t understand this sudden skittishness that has overcome me. Am I afraid of him, or of what I might do? Ebadi emerges between next door’s laurel hedge and the wall. I watch as he leaves, taking care to double-lock his door. The Yale and then the deadbolt. And then he is out of his paved area and on to the street, walking away from me.