grabs my arm and yanks me backwards.
‘Are you on drugs or something? I said you’ve scalded my son.’
A woman wearing a puffer jacket thrusts her face into mine. I pull away and look down. It’s the toddler from earlier, his red coat stained and dripping with coffee.
‘I … I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘Sorry isn’t good enough.’
She still has hold of my arm.
‘I don’t think he’s hurt.’ It’s Paulo. He gently detaches me from the woman’s grip.
‘What – are you a doctor?’ she says.
Paulo kneels down to the boy. ‘Are you hurt, pal?’ he asks.
‘Wet,’ the boy says.
‘See, he’s just wet. No harm done, eh?’ Paulo says.
‘No thanks to her.’ She glowers at me. ‘Look – she doesn’t even care – high as a kite at eleven o’clock in the morning.’
‘Let me deal with this,’ Paulo says.
He picks up my coffee cup from the ground and pulls me onto the nearest bench. Some survival instinct impels me to place the phone face down on my lap. I sit there, shaking.
‘Bad news?’ Paulo asks.
He glances at the phone. I keep the screen downwards.
‘Yes. I mean no. It’s nothing.’
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Thank you. I’ll just sit for a moment.’
‘Sure.’ He looks concerned. ‘I’ll be over there if you need me.’ He points to his friend.
The mother’s still glaring at me, after he leaves. I think she’s going to come over, but the boy is pulling at her sleeve and pointing at a squirrel running up a tree and she turns away.
I flip the phone over in my lap and press on the link. It takes me to a news website.
Environmental Science students from the University of Surrey have discovered human remains while taking soil samples on the North Downs, just outside Guildford. Police have confirmed that the death is being treated as suspicious but refuse to speculate further.
No further information is being circulated at this time.
I knew this day would come. I always thought I’d face it with grim resolve and a rational, cool pragmatism. It feels like I’ve been hit by a train. My lungs won’t draw air, my limbs are weak and shaky.
I need to act normally. I’ve already been foolish. Paulo might remember this. Tactfully, he’s turned away from me and is talking to his friend. I have to pull myself together. I steady my hand, go to the phone settings and delete the message and browsing history.
Once I’ve managed to stop shaking and am able to breathe, I put the phone in my pocket and walk over to Paulo. He looks up as I approach.
‘Everything all right now?’ he asks.
‘Fine. Sorry about all the drama. Some family trouble, I over-reacted. It’s all good now.’
‘Great,’ he says. ‘See you back at the office.’
A light drizzle has started. Drops slide down my neck. I shiver and turn up my collar. The man I saw outside the Sensuous Bean slips into the nearest newsagent. I’m alert to him now. Is it a coincidence he arrived at the same time as the text? It doesn’t matter. I must act normally – whatever that is.
I have to calm down and think. The shock of the news, the picture of the Downs bathed in golden light, the shaded dells hinting at the darkness, the tightness in my gut – all this has stopped me from asking the most important question. Who sent the text?
Stepping past Genevieve and into Downsview Villa for the first time, Julia was struck by its sense of space. The entrance hall was double-heighted, stretching to the roof and opening up the whole house. A window spanning both floors flooded the room with light. It was as far from her friends’ poky dives in North London as Audrey’s was from the dog hair and coffee-mug rings of the charming cottage she’d viewed earlier.
‘And where have you come from today?’ Genevieve asked.
‘Flaxley, Worcestershire. You won’t have heard of it. It’s a tiny place just south of Birmingham.’
Genevieve’s face expressed a mixture of horror and pity.
‘Oh dear, never mind, you’re here now and you’ll very much like it – so much greenery.’
‘There’s greenery in the Midlands too.’
Julia suddenly missed the fields and woods in which she’d played, growing up.
‘I thought it was all factories,’ Genevieve said. ‘Queen Victoria used to insist the curtains of her railway carriage were lowered when travelling through Birmingham. Like me, she was unable to tolerate ugliness. I’ve never been north of Cheltenham, except for Norway, but that’s something quite different. Have you ever been?’
Julia was unsure if Genevieve was referring to Cheltenham or Norway. But as she’d visited neither, she simply said, ‘No.’
‘You’re young, there’s still time,’ Genevieve said.
Perhaps the first house hadn’t been so bad. The mug stain could be cleaned and the dog smell Shake n’ Vac’d from the carpet.
‘Can I see the room?’ Julia asked.
‘First, you must see the rest of the house.’
Genevieve skipped around her and opened the door on the other side of the hall.
‘This is the kitchen,’ she said. ‘My lodgers are free to use this room. The lounge and dining room are for my personal use, but the kitchen is large enough for you all to socialise in. And there’s a television if that interests you. Can’t bear the dratted thing myself.’
The room was large, its mahogany cabinets outdated but not unpleasant. Patio doors opened onto a terrace with steps leading down to a well-maintained garden. At the far end, a woman in a burgundy body warmer pottered about clipping at plants and placing discarded stems into a bucket. Another woman, Julia’s age or a little older, twenty-five perhaps, was sitting at a wooden table in front of the doors, eating a cheese sandwich. Her mouth was full, and she merely lifted a hand in greeting.
‘This is Lucy,’ Genevieve said.
‘Hi,
