Simon said, “We really should get out of here, guvnor. Half the street knows we’re in here, and it only takes one old busybody to call the Old Bill.”
“I’ll be quick, I promise you,” said Josh. He opened the kitchen door and found himself in a narrow corridor that led to the front door. Beside the door was a mahogany hat-stand with a mirror in it. Josh caught sight of his own face: the stained-glass galleon cast a green-and-yellowish pattern across his cheeks, so that he looked as if he were dead and decayed.
He opened a door leading to the right. There was a small living room with a dull brown carpet. It was here that the television was still switched on: a black-and-white set showing a test card from the BBC. Josh went into the room and switched it off. Nancy came in close behind him and looked around. She picked up some framed black-and-white photographs from the mantelpiece: one of them showed a group of people at the seaside, paddling in the water in long one-piece bathing costumes. Another one showed a white-haired old lady sitting in a sunny room somewhere, with a cat nestling in her lap.
“Josh,” said Nancy, and passed him the picture.
Josh angled it so that the gloomy light from the window fell across it. “It couldn’t be, could it? But it looks so much like her.”
“I’m sure it’s her. Look at the way she’s sitting. And that smile.”
“But what’s her picture doing here?”
Nancy took the picture frame, turned it over, and unfastened the clip at the back. She took out the photograph and held it up. “Mother. Iverna Court. 16/08/99.”
“So the old lady in the hospital was Mrs Marmion’s mother. That’s deeply weird.”
Simon was growing agitated. He kept peeping out through the net curtains into the street to make sure that the police or the Hooded Men hadn’t showed up. “I dodged them once. I don’t think they’ll let me dodge them again.”
Josh clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t lose your nerve, kid. Be calm. Think about something soothing, like the sea.”
“The sea makes me sick.”
Josh slipped the photograph of Mrs Marmion’s mother into his coat pocket. Then he went back out to the hallway and climbed the steep flight of stairs that led up to the first-floor landing. There was a bedroom immediately on his right and another on his left. Ahead of him was a door with a ceramic plaque on it marked Bathroom.
He went into the right-hand bedroom. It was wallpapered with pale pink flowers, and there was a cheap oak-veneered double bed with a pink satin quilt on it. Behind the door stood a 1950s-style wardrobe and under the window stood a chest of drawers with a crochet cloth on top of it. An electric alarm clock chirruped loudly on the nightstand.
Nancy went through the chest of drawers. “Nothing, only two buttons and a light bulb.”
Josh opened the wardrobe doors. There was nothing inside except an odd collection of wire hangers, the kind that Joan Crawford detested so much, and two pairs of women’s flat-heeled shoes, right at the bottom. Josh picked up one of the shoes. Inside, faded gold lettering said Steps, San Francisco.
“This is Julia’s,” he said, holding it up. “She always bought her shoes at Steps.”
“Well, that proves that she was here. But that doesn’t prove who killed her,” said Nancy.
“She was killed in this world, I’m sure of it.”
“By this guy Frank Mordant, from Wheatstone Electrics?”
“It looks suspiciously like it, don’t you think?”
“I think you should be very careful. Just because the love of John Farbelow’s life disappeared when she was working for Frank Mordant, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he murdered her, and it certainly doesn’t prove that he murdered Julia. I’ve met guys like John Farbelow before. They’re charismatic, they’re revolutionary, but they’re usually full of shit.”
Josh picked up the other shoe. It was blue suede, stained with grit and rainwater, as if Julia had been wearing it when she walked through a park. Its toes were packed with newspaper to stop them from curling up. Josh wormed his finger into the toes, pulled out the newspaper and spread it flat on the bed. It was a page from the appointments section of the London Evening Standard. Circled in red was a small display ad which read:
Looking For A New Job? Looking For A New Life? If you’re looking to leave your old job and your old life behind you, if you want to work somewhere totally fresh and totally different, our international electrical company has vacancies for young and enthusiastic secretarial staff. Above average pay. No computer or w/p skills required. Apply Box 331 for details.
“There’s no date on it,” said Josh. “But I can guess.”
“So what do you think this man Frank Mordant is doing? Hiring girls in our world, bringing them through to this world, and murdering them?”
“The ideal crime, isn’t it? Nobody misses them in this world, because they never existed. No birth records, no school records, no social security number. And nobody in our world can find the murderer, because he’s here.”
“But why is he murdering them?”
“Why does anyone murder anybody else? Maybe Frank Mordant is a psychotic serial killer who has found a way to kill as many women as he likes and get away with it, and maybe that’s good enough for him.”
“So what do we do now?”
Josh folded up the paper. “What I’ve seen here today … that’s proof enough for me that Julia was living here. All we have to do now is go see what Frank Mordant has to say for himself.”
He crossed the landing and opened the door to the second bedroom. It was similar to Julia’s room, except that it had a bay window, and there was a small brick fireplace with a damp patch beside it. He opened the wardrobe but it was stacked with neatly-folded blankets, a hot-water bottle, and an old electric fire without a plug.
He went back out to the landing and opened another door. Airing cupboard, filled with sheets. Then bedroom three, a smaller bedroom at the back, crowded with cardboard boxes and books. “Looks like the boxroom,” said Josh, peering around. But with a prickle of shock he suddenly caught sight of a dark figure standing in the corner, half-hidden behind the wardrobe.
“Jesus!” he said, jumping back, and jarring his shoulder against the door frame.
“Let’s go!” shouted Simon, and launched himself down the stairs. But Nancy said, “Stop it! Stop it! What are you afraid of?”
Josh stopped, and took another look in the corner. The dark figure remained motionless. It was nothing but a dressmaking dummy with a large felt hat tilted sideways on top of it. He covered his face with his hands and shook his head. “I must be letting this whole thing get to me. Scared of a one-legged dummy.”
He closed the bedroom door and went across to the bathroom. Simon stayed where he was, halfway down the stairs. He didn’t say anything: he had given up trying. But he remained poised, ready to run out of the house at the slightest suggestion of trouble.
“I just want to check that Julia didn’t leave anything personal here,” said Josh. “If she left a toothbrush or a razor or something, we could have that checked for DNA.”
“Who by? The police in this world won’t be able to do it. Even if they have the inclination, I doubt if they have the technology.”
“I just want to gather as much proof as possible,” said Josh. “I’ll worry about the way we’re going to use it when I’ve got it.”