Page 42 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

Instead of the key turning easily and the door sliding open as it always did, it stuck in the lock and wouldn’t move; he had his key in on the other side, which meant he was in the house. That wasn’t surprising, considering the binge he’d had yesterday. She wondered how many of his friends had called in sick today to nurse their hangovers.

Kate rapped on the door. There was no answer, but that would make sense if he was in the big, glassy kitchen. Or fast asleep in bed.

‘Chris!’ She leaned over and pushed open the letterbox. ‘Are you in there?’

She peered through the gap and could see a rectangular view of his hallway, clean and white and empty. She squinted, trying to look into the recesses of the back rooms, but there was only a slab of light falling through the open doorway from the glass walled kitchen.

‘Chris!’ She tried again. After a moment, she stood up and got her phone out of her bag. She dialled his mobile, which was switched off, then the house phone which echoed from behind the locked door. The phone was picked up and Kate was greeted by silence. ‘Chris! Open up. It’s me!’ The only thing that happened was that she heard the soft click as the handset was replaced and she was left listening to the hum of the disconnected tone.

Well, at least he was in. Kate hunkered down and propped open the letterbox, fixing her sights on the slab of light at the end of the hallway. A shadow blotted out some of the light and she knew from experience that the phone was in the corner of the room, so Chris must still be standing next to it. She redialled his number, and the shadow cleared, as if he was moving back towards the phone; but he didn’t answer.

He’d mentioned some issues with his broadband recently — one of the many reasons why it was so hard to stay in touch — and Kate cursed, wondering if the phone line was affected. She leaned further forward; if the flap of the letterbox had suddenly dropped, she would have been minus a nose and be the bearer of two very nice black eyes. Fortunately, it didn’t and she managed to peer to the left, towards the shoe rack and the umbrella stand and the coat hooks on the wall.

‘What the—?’ Unless Chris was a secret cross-dresser and the reason he was ignoring her was because he was wearing a basque of some description, she could think of no logical reason why a pair of cerise, six-inch heeled Manolo Blahniks — she could see the imprinted name on the sole — were lying at a crazy angle by the shoe rack, or why a matching belted raincoat was hanging on the coat hooks. And let’s be honest, the raincoat was like Barbie doll size — a size 6 at the most. And Chris’ feet were much, much bigger than those tiny, doll-like shoes.

This might make things a whole lot easier. She stood back from the letterbox and let the flap slam shut, her heart pounding, and looked around helplessly, as if someone from the street would just appear and say, ‘Hey, here’s a handy jemmy; let yourself in, Kate.’

She didn’t have a jemmy, but by God she had the back door key as well. Or rather, the key which opened the glass monstrosity. Clutching the bunch in her hand like a talisman, she walked around the side of the house. There was a very, very narrow gap between his house and the start of the next block. Kate turned herself sideways, sucked in her tummy, thanked the Lord her boobs weren’t any bigger, held her arms out gracefully and ballet side-stepped along the cold, dank passageway. She prayed there would be no rats scurrying out and only dared to breathe again when she was through into Chris’s garden.

Kate peered around the corner of the house, hugging the walls, feeling exactly like a cat-burglar might, until her breathing steadied and she felt confident enough to try the key in the door.

This time, it turned and she slid the doors smoothly to the side. She crept inside the house and stood in the middle of the kitchen.

The place was deserted. Kate stared around her, listening carefully; and then she heard it. The soft creak of a floorboard in the hallway. She looked up sharply, and saw the door was closed — the one that had been open when she had been peering through the letterbox, the one that had been letting the light through.

She was in no mood for playing cat and mouse.

She stomped up to the door and flung it open. ‘Christopher Buchanan. I know you’re in here. You’d better tell me what’s going on before I call the police and tell them you’re a missing person!’

It wasn’t the most sensible of challenges; but it had the desired effect.

‘He’s not in,’ said a female voice in round, Queens’ English. ‘But he’ll be back shortly.’

A vision of polished, blonde professionalism peered around the door. Kate’s first thought was, God isn’t she short? Her second was, that woman has an attitude. Her third was, why the hell is she wearing my dressing gown?

‘I’m Kate,’ she said, placing her hands on her hips. ‘And that, I believe, is mine.’ She pointed to the pink, fluffy bathrobe.

The girl — Saffy, obviously — pulled the edges of the robe closer and stared at her defiantly. ‘I know. That’s why it’s too big for me.’

Kate was stunned into wordless rage. This woman looked different close up. She’d only seen her bent over her work in the office on the odd occasion she’d gone into the building to meet Chris.

‘I’ve just got up. Sorry I can’t be more welcoming.’ She yawned elaborately. ‘It was a long night. How awkward.’

‘I trust you didn’t use my toothbrush.’

‘Oh, Kathryn. I use my own. Not yours. Don’t you worry about that.’ The use of Kate’s formal name, as well as the way Saffy addressed her, as if she was a five-year-old, riled her.

‘You hung up on me when I rang. You’re alone in his house.’

‘I doubt he was expecting you. He said you’ve been busy with your little job in the countryside. I hope the weather was nice. We didn’t see much daylight.’

Her little job? They saw no daylight? The bitch!

‘I sometimes wish I had a job that was more fun than this one,’ Saffy continued. She shrugged. ‘But mostly it’s good. We’ve been so busy it’s unreal. You know, with work and — other things. Chris had a hell of hangover. He’s gone for a walk to clear his headache and said he’d bring a latte back.’

A latte? She looked more like an espresso sort of woman. In fact — Kate studied her more closely — she looked a bit familiar. A vision of the Midsummer Ball drifted into her mind — Cat Tredegar’s Midsummer Ball. There had been that girl in the corner, the one with the elaborate head-dress and the frothy pink dress . . . Maria. Of course.

‘You’ve never changed, have you?’ Kate murmured. Saffy was the double of that girl. The one who had been staring lustfully at Edward. Kate recalled a friend once telling her that her nemesis from high-school was ‘really rather plain, if you take away the bleach and the make-up’. Saffy, she was afraid to say, also met that criteria very well.