'All I know is they're not mine.'
'What am I supposed to do with them? I don't even have a turntable.' I didn't bother telling him the records were comfortably lodged with a couple of friends.
'Flog 'em,' said Miles, sounding like Captain Bligh. 'Take 'em to the Record and Tape Exchange.'
He called for the bill, we split it down the middle, and then he looked at his watch and said 'Well,' in that definitive way he had. As we got up to leave, he asked, as he always did, confident in the knowledge that I wouldn't take him up on it, 'Can I give you a lift to the nearest station?'
'You can do better than that,' I said. 'You can drop me off at my door.'
Miles instantly regretted his generous offer. I enjoyed watching him struggle not to let it show on his face. 'But you live in Stepney,' he said flatly. I could see his mind churning, trying to think of a way of backing down without seeming mean.
'It's Hackney,' I corrected him. 'But not any more. Now I live in Hampshire Place.'
Miles was visibly relieved at being let off the hook. Then what I'd just said sank in. 'Isn't that the same street as…?'
'The same house as Sophie,' I said. 'But you know she's not there right now.'
'Yes, of course,' said Miles. He showed no curiosity about the circumstances that had brought me to W11. Like Sophie, he simply assumed there was no obstacle to anyone living wherever they wanted. And the relief on his face grew ever more palpable as it dawned on him that my living in the same house as Sophie would absolve him of much of the responsibility he still felt towards her. Miles was not difficult to fathom.
We trotted out to his Peugeot — Sophie had a half-share in it, but didn't drive in town if she could help it. Miles, on the other hand, drove everywhere; it was a wonder his legs hadn't atrophied. Today he had driven all the way from Holland Park to White City and back, and now he was going to set out on that same journey all over again. You could have covered the distance by foot in half the time it took to inch through the traffic and find a parking space.
As we negotiated the one-way system into Hampshire Place, Miles politely declined my invitation to pop in and have another coffee. I wasn't going to let my disappointment show, even though I'd gone out and bought a cafetière and china cups and a packet of continental beans, just in case.
'You'll keep an eye on Sophie when she gets back, won't you,' he said, as I got out of the car.
And I assured him I would.
Chapter 3
Sophie, confronted with the information that the man she loved had been pushing up daisies for over a decade, had thrown a major hysterical fit and screamed, 'I don't believe you!' over and over again. Between us, Marsha and I managed to steer her into bed and force-feed her with a couple of Marsha's sleeping pills.
And then Marsha led me upstairs, so that I could see for myself that flat number four was an ectoplasm-free environment. I followed numbly, feeling strangely bereaved. I'd listened to Sophie babbling on about Robert so much that it felt as though one of my own friends had just died.
The door was locked, but Marsha stuck her fingers under the edge of the hall carpet and groped around till she found a key.
Like Sophie's flat, this one was on two levels. On the first level, just inside the front door, was the kitchen. I stopped on the threshold and looked around, not wanting to soil my fingers by touching anything. It was the size of Sophie's kitchen and bathroom combined, but the fittings were cracked and antiquated, and spiders abseiled idly down the dirty green walls. On the draining-board sat a single glass tumbler turned mossy and opaque with the encrustations of time, and the hob of the electric cooker was besmirched with rusty stains which might once have been tomato sauce.
We went up, without speaking, to the living-room. I'd imagined it as Sophie had described it — shabby but comfortable armchairs by the gas fire, walls lined with bookshelves, a donnish atmosphere — but it wasn't like that at all. There was no furniture, the floorboards were bare, and the dust so thick that here and there it had gathered into clumps, like ghostly tumbleweed. There was a dank smell, as though the windows hadn't been opened since the Stone Age. There were curtains, but the fabric looked frangible, as though it would crumble away if you tried to draw them.
'You see,' said Marsha. 'No one's lived here for years. Not really. Not since Robert…'
'What happened to his furniture?'
'He was always behind with the rent. All his stuff must have gone to the landlord. Not that it would have amounted to much.'
I wandered into the bedroom, and behind me the dust closed over my footsteps. There were signs of life in here, as though someone had made a half-hearted stab at cleaning up.
'So tell me,' I asked Marsha, 'why is it still empty?'
'I really don't know,' said Marsha. 'There's the suicide, of course, but I don't suppose that would put anyone off, not these days. I imagine there are some people who might even think it enhanced the value of the place.'
'I'm surprised no one's squatted,' I said.
Marsha made a non-committal face. 'Friends of mine sometimes put sleeping-bags down here. Mostly nomadic types who are just passing through and need a temporary base.'
'You give them the key?'
Marsha gave me a sidelong glance. 'Why? Do you want it?'
'Why not?' I said jokily, knowing she wasn't being serious.
We retraced our steps. The bathroom was wedged between the bedroom and living-room, as though squeezed in as an afterthought. We peered into the shadows. There was no natural light, and nothing happened when I yanked on the light cord, but we could just about see the cracked mirror over the washbasin, gleaming dully in the shadows.
'This was where he…?'
'In front of that very mirror,' Marsha said with a shudder that was not entirely devoid of pleasure. 'Just after my birthday, it was. The thirty-first of October. Halloween. Can you believe it?'
We both stared hard at the floor. There was plenty of dust and grime, but I couldn't see anything that might have been bloodstains. Then again, you couldn't see much in that Stygian gloom.
'Why did he do it?' I asked.
Marsha shook her head. 'Why does anyone do anything? He was just depressed, I guess. Always was a bit of a misery.'
'Were you good friends?'
'No,' Marsha said quickly. 'We weren't friends at all.'
Something in her manner made me stop asking questions. Talking about Robert Jamieson was obviously making her uncomfortable.
We returned to the relative brightness of the living-room. 'The first time we ever met,' I said carefully, 'you said I should ask the agents about this flat. But that was when I thought poor old Robert was still in residence, so I never followed it up.' I paused, hardly daring to breathe, and then asked, 'How much rent would they want?'
Marsha made a face. 'I wouldn't ask them,' she said. 'They'd charge you an arm and a kidney. My rent's pegged, but Sophie's paying through the nose.'
Another of my dreams evaporated. 'That's what I thought', I said, trying not to let the edges of my mouth droop.
Marsha suddenly cackled. 'But Sophie can afford to pay through the nose, can't she? Sophie's rolling in it.' She thrust her hands into the pockets of her suede trousers and did a peculiar little shuffling dance step, dislodging a great many clumps of dust. I watched silently, wondering if this were her normal behaviour or an aberration.
When Marsha had finished her soft shoe shuffle, she turned back to me with a mischievous gleam in her eyes and said, 'Why don't you just move in?'