Page 58

“Because it’s Sunday. Len and the kids are home all day.”

“She came here on a Sunday before. You said so. That was the day you followed her here last time.”

“Yet it’s still the hardest day to get away.” I groan. “It’s the best I’ve got. Either help or leave, okay?”

Over the past few days I’ve pretended to agree with Peggy’s affair idea, as bringing up what I really think only leads to a row. Not unlike the one we’re having now. While I’m not sure why her mind changed so rapidly and so fixedly, it certainly changed. But I also can’t offer proof of anything better. Or, in our case, of anything worse. But, to be fair, she has about as much hard evidence for her theory as I do for mine—none.

Peggy rolls her eyes. “Just go and get back out here.”

I lift my wrist, then nod to her arm for her to do the same. “Twenty minutes, okay? If I’m not back by then come find me.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

Both my hands flash up in exasperation before I can stop them. “I don’t know. Be creative. Ring the bell and claim you’ve lost your dog, or that you’re faint and need a spot of tea, or maybe you’ve lost the house number you’re going to and need to borrow a directory. I don’t know. Think of something that might buy me a little time to get out.”

“Fine.”

“And you’ll keep watch?”

“It’s why I’m here.”

I point back to the house. “In which window did you say you saw the man?”

Confusion passes through her eyes before her expression hardens. She studies the house, a middle one in a row of five. “Top left. Why?”

I shrug. “Maybe that’s his room or where they meet.”

She sniggers. “You really are looking for a big bed?”

“No, I’m looking for the answer to that massive radio antenna, but if I find a big bed I’ll let you know.”

With that I stomp across the street. Before I reach the house, however, I turn around as if confused and decide upon which of the excuses I just gave Peggy I’ll use for myself. Then I pop up the two porch stairs and ring the bell. No one answers. I knock loudly against the door’s window. Nothing. Once again, I push open the post slot in the door and call out. No reply. I listen. Not a peep. The draperies on the window to the right of the front door have a gap in them so I try to peer through without, I hope, appearing too suspicious from the street.

Inside no lights are on, nor can I see any sign of life. I do notice, however, there’s very little furniture. From my vantage point I can only see a single wooden chair in the entire front parlor.

I walk down the stairs and set off to the end of the row, opposite where Peggy is standing. In the alley I stop at the proper back door and, once more, study the large antenna on the roof. That’s my proof this isn’t about an affair. That’s my proof there’s something more going on here. Perhaps it’s only for me, but it’s enough.

I step down the one stair to the lower door to the kitchen and wiggle the knob. It, too, is locked. But there are a few empty pots on the brick ledge, so I start lifting them one by one, just in case. I find nothing and am about to give up when I remember where Nina placed the cellar key. I lift on my toes to sweep my hand across the door’s lintel. Bingo! Only a few jiggles of the key within the lock and the door swings noiselessly open.

Pocketing the key and shutting the door behind me, I survey the kitchen. It’s a small, dark room with only the single high window opening to the alley. The stove is dead cold with a layer of grey dust resting upon it. The coal scuttle sits empty. I walk up a narrow flight of shallow stairs and find myself in the house’s one room on the street-level floor. The parlor with one chair. Yet pressed against the wall there is more—and it’s exactly what I expected to find.

On the left side of the room sit two tables. One is stacked with piles of papers. The other holds a large wireless radio, just as big, if not bigger, than the one I saw in Ursula’s cellar. And while the stove downstairs seemed endlessly cold, the ash in this room’s fireplace appears light. It almost floats, as if it has been recently created. Cold ash always looks weighed down, heavy and lifeless.

I stoop and put my hand above the ash. I feel no heat. I poke it with a finger and find a little warmth within, and I guess a fire was lit either early yesterday or possibly the day before.

I turn back to the wireless and to the table next to it. I pick up a few papers here and there but understand nothing. They are full of numbers and schematics. Deeper in the pile I find some writing and names upon the sheets but don’t take any time to examine them. Instead, I gather up a handful across each of the piles and at different places within each pile, maybe thirty or so pages in total. I fold them tight and force them into my handbag to examine later.

I walk around the room. My low-heeled Mary Janes make a heavy thud on the thin wood floors. If someone is here, they can definitely hear me. But I’d hear them too. I stop and listen. Again, the house is silent and I’m certain I’m alone.

Nevertheless, I tiptoe up the stairs. There is no furniture in the first bedroom at the top. There’s no sign that anyone’s been up the stairs in ages. The floors have a thin layer of dust upon them as well. I enter the room with the “window on the left” and it, too, is as cold and undisturbed as the first. More importantly, there is no bed. There is no furniture at all.

I open a closet door. Suddenly I feel a darkness overtake me, almost like a shadow, a pressure against my shoulder, a shot of pain . . .

I blink. Am I awake or asleep? It’s so dark I can’t tell. But I can tell I’m on my side. My hip hurts, and my palms, still tender from when I fell upon the curb all those weeks ago, sting as I push myself to sitting. At least I think I’m sitting. I blink again. Wake up! Then I realize I am awake. A thin light runs along the floorboard. I trace it with my finger. I follow it to the end and up and find it’s a door in front of me, with a knob. A knob that’s locked.

My brain slowly reconstructs the house and I remember where I am.

I wiggle the knob again, but it doesn’t turn and the door feels sturdy. I sink back down onto the floor, my head pounding, and I start to wonder and worry if I am going to die in here, if anyone will ever find me. I slump against the wall and hear a clink. I mess around in the dark until I find the source of the noise and come up with a key. The key from the back door! I scramble to hold it by the end and fit it into the keyhole, vaguely aware it’s unlikely to work but hopeful it will.