All the doors on the landing were open, save the one into the bathroom. He could see the light coming from the crack under the door. The smell was denser here, and he had to lift the hem of the sweatshirt, exposing his stomach, to cover his face as he reached for the light-switch at the top of the stairs. The bulb pinged, died. Shit. Reaching inside one of the open doors, he found a switch and this time the light came on, throwing a rectangle of yellow out into the small landing. Quickly, breathing shallowly, he checked inside the doors. In two of the rooms there was nothing just an empty Coke can and a few squares of carpet on the bare floorboards. In the third he discovered where Penderecki had been living.
The mattress was covered with stained nylon sheets, worn almost to transparency, a pile of newspapers next to the bed, a cup and an empty baked-beans can with a fork sticking out of it rested on top of the pile. There was only one decoration in the room on the far walclass="underline" an Athena poster of two boys wearing straw hats, sitting on a wooden jetty, one with his arm draped around the other's shoulder. It was a photograph from the seventies the sun had been a different colour three decades ago: softer and more yellow than a third-millennium sun. The two boys looked about the same age that Jack and Ewan had been when… He had to stop.
"Shit, shit, shit let's get this over with."
He pressed the sweatshirt into his nostrils, went back on to the landing, took a deep breath and tried the bathroom door.
It opened smoothly and there, in front of him, in the centre of the pale green bathroom, covered and moving with flies, hung Ivan Penderecki.
Somewhere someone was screaming. Benedicte fought up towards it, through hot layers of sleep, and sat up in the cool darkness of the bedroom, her pulse elevated, her skin damp.
"Muuuuuum!"
"Josh?" Sleepily she dropped out of bed and padded along the corridor. "Coming, tadpole." In his bedroom she flicked on the switch and stood in the doorway, blinking in the light. Josh was sitting against the bed head a pillow clutched to his chest. His feet were stretched rigid in front of him, his hair sticking up from his head as if electricity had passed through him. He was staring at a crack in the curtains.
"Mum the troll '
"It's all right, tadpole." Benedicte went straight over and pulled back the curtain. The garden was dark and silent, the window closed. Over the fence the outline of Brockwell Park was purple against the stars and in the distance the Crystal Palace transmitter lit up the sky. "Troll's not there, darling. Nothing there at all." She dropped the curtain and sat down on the edge of his bed, putting a hand on his hot little forehead. "It's Mummy's fault. I shouldn't have put you in these pyjamas, they're too warm." She tried to pull the flannel pyjama top up over his head. "You're wet through, I'll put you in a T-shirt '
"No!" Josh jerked away from her, moving his head so that he could see past her to the window.
"Now, come on, darling, it's the middle of the night and Mummy just wants to get you out of these wet jammies so you can go back to sleep."
"Nooo!" He pulled his hands away. "He's watching me. He was there."
"Josh, I think you dreamed it the troll couldn't get this high. You're all the way up in the air here, you're quite safe."
"You all right, peanut?" Hal was standing in the doorway blinking like a sleepy cat.
Benedicte turned. "Oh, Hal, I didn't mean to wake you up…"
"That's OK." He looked at his son bolt upright in bed bracing the pillow against his chest. "What's up, peanut?"
"He thinks maybe he saw the troll '
"Not maybe."
"He saw the troll at the window, you know, the one from the park."
"OK, ssh, ssh." Hal came to the bed and kissed his son's head. "Want me to go and check he's gone?"
Josh nodded.
"Ooooh." Hal went to the window, whistled softly and pressed his nose to the pane, looking down into the back garden. He pretended to squint and jiggle around, trying for a better view. After a while he stood back and smiled. "OK, all over. He's gone now."
"NOO-OOO!!" Josh began to cry. "You can't see him like that, he's hiding under the window. You can't see him if you don't open the window."
Hal sighed, pulled back the curtains and unscrewed the window lock. He put his hands on the ledge and leaned out. The air was balmy, a delicious, palm-frondy night, and he could smell the rank green water of the four ponds in the park. The crackle of electricity came like cicadas from the building-site spotlights. He pantomimed looking carefully down at the garden. "Hmmm… Well, he's run away now -absolutely not here. Do you want to see?"
Josh wiped his nose on the sleeve of his pyjamas and blinked at the window.
"Want to see?"
He shook his head.
"OK." Hal pulled the window closed and was about to lock it, when Benedicte noticed him hesitate. He opened the window again and stretched his arm round, rubbing his fingers on the outside of the pane.
"Hal?"
He didn't answer. He frowned momentarily, then pulled the window closed, locking it carefully, drawing the curtains.
"There you are, tadpole all gone. No trolls out there."
But Benedicte didn't like Hal's expression. Something was wrong. She leaned over quickly, pushing her face towards Josh. "Come on, tadpole. Kiss on the nose for Mummy?" But Josh turned on to his side, harrumphing like a girl, his little face knotted and angry. "OK night-night, then, darling."
At the door she waited for Hal to blow Josh a kiss, then switched off the light, closed the door and beckoned Hal to follow her downstairs. In the kitchen she slipped bare feet into Hal's muddy trainers and took the torch into the garden. Hal followed in his slippers. "What?" he hissed. "What's up?"
She shone the torch around the garden, looking at the grass for any sign that someone had walked across it. "What did you see, Hal?"
"Eh?"
"Up there." She turned and shone the torch up the side of the house to Josh's window. "On the window?"
"Oh, nothing. Just a handprint."
Benedicte turned to him, her face white. "A handprint?"
"Sssh. I don't want to frighten him even more."
"Well, just a bloody moment," she hissed, 'you're frightening me now." She went to the bottom of the wall and shone the torch into the flower-bed. "Josh thinks he saw something and now you tell me there was a handprint. I mean '
"Ben," he looked up at the window, 'it's twenty feet above the ground someone would have to float up there."
She looked up and down the wall. Hal was right -someone would need a ladder and she couldn't see anything in the flower-beds. No footprints. Nothing disturbed down here.
"Come on, Ben." Hal was starting to feel cold in his pyjamas. "One of the workmen left it on the pane when he put it in."
She stood in the grass biting her lip, feeling stupid.
"It was one of the workmen, Ben, we haven't cleaned the windows on the outside. And anyway '
"Anyway what?"
"It was upside down."
"What?"
"It was upside down so it must have been there before the pane went in."
Benedicte sighed. She hated these night fears of hers. She hated the park for being where it was, just over the fence, she even hated poor little Rory Peach for getting himself kidnapped and killed. She couldn't wait to get to Cornwall. She shone the torch around the little fenced garden. Josh's paddling-pool reflected the moonlight but nothing else stirred. OK fair enough, but don't blame me for being nervous. Reluctantly she clicked off the torch and followed Hal back up the steps, locking the door behind her and pulling the little curtain. Hal was awake now, so he got a beer from the fridge and leaned on the kitchen work top looking at her.