It’s winter now and the woman in the pub has taken to wearing a long fur coat, fake, by the look of it, and mittens, which she peels off at the bar and folds one into the other. She also has a fabric wrap of some kind over her ears that she pulls off before smoothing down her fine brown hair with bony fingers. The dog is wearing a coat with a fur lining.
“Vodka tonic, please,” she asks crisply, as though it is normal for a young mother and housewife to order a vodka tonic at 12:04 on a Wednesday.
“Single or double?”
She pretends to think about it and then says, “A double. Thank you.”
She notices me in the corner as she carries her drink across the bar, and I see her change direction slightly. I nod at her unthreateningly and continue scrolling on my phone.
I watch her take off her fur coat, fold it neatly into itself, and drape it on the back of the chair opposite her. I know that in under three hours she will be pulling that same coat on messily and inelegantly, struggling to find the armholes, the sleeves.
Someone calls her an hour later. I see her stare at her phone in horror,pick it up, look at the screen, put it down again, and then sigh heavily, pull herself straight, and answer it.
“Hello. Yes. Is everything… Right. OK. How bad is it? Should I—?… Yes? OK. OK. I can be there now. I mean, in ten minutes or so. I’m just up the road… Great. See you in ten. Fifteen… Yes. Thank you.”
She ends the call, and I see her mouth “Shit” under her breath. Then she lifts the remaining half of her vodka tonic to her mouth, tips it down her throat in three hard gulps, goes to the bar, asks for a double espresso, necks it in one, pulls on her coat, pulls on her headband, pulls the dog to his feet, and heads for the door.
As she leaves, I see that she has left something behind. Her mittens, on the table. I finish my pint and pull on my jacket and my hat, I pick up her mittens, and from a distance of around two yards I follow her through the streets of Hampstead.
chapter ten
Tony had folded something into the palm of Jane’s hand as she left his house that morning. It was a key. “Use the house,” he’d said. “Whenever you want. I’m going back to Nevada tomorrow, and I won’t be here again in London until October.” He’d closed her fingers over the key, then put one of his own fingers to his lips and said, “Just don’t let it get back to Maddy.”
Jane had stared down at the key, her stomach swirling. “Seriously?”
“Absolutely seriously! You’re losing yourself out there in the country. You need a change of pace.”
“Do you trust me not to change the locks and keep it forever?”
“Yes.” He’d laughed. “Of course I do. You and I—whatever it was that went wrong between us, it was never about lack of trust. If anything, it was about too much honesty…” He’d smiled and tipped his head to one side. “I would trust you with my life. Just don’t bring all those crazy dogs here and let them on the beds, OK? Especially that one that drools.”
She’d smiled. “That would be great. Honestly. Just what I needed,” she’d said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Well, you are so great with the kids, especially Dexter, I feel better being all the way over there knowing that you’re here for them if they need anything. I should have thought of it before. But I always assumedyou were down there in the chaos living your best life. I didn’t know you were lonely.”
“I’m not lonely, Tony. Just bored.”
“Bored. Lonely. Whatever. Use the house. Have some fun. Meet some people. Solve some crimes.”
Helen meets her at the front door of her smart cottage. She’s crisp and charming as always in a white blouse and blue turned-up jeans, her gray hair tied back into a ponytail and her feet in Birkenstocks. Her dogs follow them as they walk across her land toward the annex, a black-clad rectangle with a wraparound terrace set in a quiet corner out of view.
“She was so young,” Helen is saying. “Felt almost too young to be out here on her own. She told me she was studying for her A levels, that she couldn’t concentrate at home because it was too noisy. She said she needed some space and peace. She just seemed really, really sweet.”
“What did she look like?” Jane asks as Helen turns a key in the door of the annex.
“Pretty, I suppose,” says Helen. “Tiny bit overweight. A little scruffy. Dyed blond hair, kind of to here.” She touches her collarbone.
“Accent?”
“Normal. London, I’d guess. Not posh. Just average.”
“And what was she like? I mean, did she seem happy?”
Helen sighs. “Happy? No. Definitely not happy. Subdued, I would say. And I just put that down to shyness. Maybe stress about her exams. But polite, and sweet. Yes. Very.”
“And she didn’t tell you anything about herself?”
“No. Nothing. But then—I didn’t ask. I never ask about my guests. It’s not my place.” She leads Jane into the annex and pulls open the curtains. “I haven’t touched anything. I’m still half expecting her to come back.”
