FOUR

When she left her room, dressed for work in boots, her last pair of smart black trousers and a white shirt under her coat, the interior of the house was still dark enough to require lights in the communal landings and on the staircase.

The ceiling lights were on timers and didn’t remain switched on for long. They came on for a few seconds to reveal dated green wallpaper, torn down to plaster in places, or interspersed with long panels of newer paper, painted white. There were scuffed skirting boards and ancient wainscoting so thickly covered in paint it was impossible to determine the original decorative features. And if she was quick enough, she could reach the next circular light switch before the darkness fell with a horrible suddenness behind her. Not a building she would want to move through at night. She suppressed the thought.

Uncomfortably eager to leave the building, Stephanie jogged down the stairs. She wondered if she would ever have the courage to cross the threshold later when she finished work, even if it was just to collect her stuff and . . . go where?

As she turned into the last flight of uncarpeted stairs leading to the hall, she heard the scuffle of leather-soled feet on the floor tiles: footsteps preceding the unlatching and the creak of the front door. It gave her a start until she realized it could be one of the other tenants leaving the building ahead of her. She sensed a man. But this place was for girls only, so maybe this was the landlord.

If she could share her experiences, she might receive an explanation about the noises in the house. Stephanie hurried down.

The front door closed before she made the bottom step. She raced along the ground floor passageway, the heels of her boots scraping and clattering across the tiles, to struggle with the front door.

Outside, the world was reluctant to reach whatever served for light in this grey time of year, but there was no one on the path and the gate was closed. She could not be that far behind whoever had just left the building.

On the short front path six wet rubbish bins stood sentinel on either side of the little rusty gate that rose as high as her hips. The rest of the front yard was a combination of broken paving slabs, litter and long weeds. Clumps of wet leaves, drooping from unkempt trees, flopped against the ground floor windows and concealed the lower storey of the house, which was why she hadn’t noticed the security bars yesterday. Behind the ancient white cages of iron bars, all she could see behind the windows were black curtains. Rain rustled the pennants of crisp packets and plastic bags caught up in the unruly privet hedge that screened the front of the house from the street.

Gripped with a need for human contact, Stephanie unlatched the gate and stepped into Edgehill Road. Traffic from the T-junction at the end of the road became loud around her head. She looked left and right. The streetlights glowed yellow and lit up the vertical descent of the rain that had fallen for hours. The road surface appeared oily, the cars heavy with a second skin of water, the trees tense with cold. The dim and miserable world was soaked but empty. So where had the man gone?

Stephanie looked at the house. Sooty red bricks running with dirty water. Black drainpipes. Old wooden sash window frames on the second floor, visible above the trees. Faded curtains. Only the top floor windows boasted venetian blinds. Not a flicker of light escaped the interior. The building appeared deserted. She could not recall it looking this way yesterday. Must be the light and weather, or her lack of sleep. Had the sun not briefly appeared for yesterday’s viewing she doubted she would have even set foot inside.

Huddled into herself, with her head dipped from the rain, she made her way to the top of the road to find the bus stop and typed a quick text message to Ryan: