The Apartment - K. L. Slater Page 0,40

hung on a hook I found in the hall. I haven’t found the time to clean it yet. I give up finger-combing my shoulder-length brown hair and instead scrape it roughly back into a bobble.

‘Are we going to see the palace again?’ Skye asks.

‘Not this time.’ I grab my key card and pop it into my purse. ‘We’re going the other way for a change.’

I make sure the apartment door latch catches behind us, and we step out on to the landing. I remember the voices I’d been so sure I heard last night. There had been nobody out here when I looked through the spyhole. I suppose it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that I could have been mistaken, it takes time to get used to how sounds carry in an old house like this.

I look down and see that the red Persian rug is rucked up along the edge opposite our apartment door.

‘Come on, Mummy!’ Skye tugs impatiently at my hand and we walk downstairs. Weak sunlight streams in through the small stained-glass windowpanes at the top, freckling the cream walls with shimmering blobs of colour.

As we walk past the wide wooden doors of the apartments on the floor below us, I slow down to see if I can hear any signs of life behind them, but it seems so silent, as if there are just the two of us in this house.

For all that I feel insanely grateful for the opportunity to live here, something about this place makes me want to creep around on my tiptoes and whisper.

But that’s no example to set for Skye. We both need to feel comfortable here, so it’s important we’re not treading on eggshells around the place. We need to feel we belong.

‘Which door is Miss Brockley’s, Mummy?’ Skye asks in hushed tones. Even she feels the expectancy of restraint that hovers in the air here.

‘This one, remember?’ I say as we approach it, the brass number gleaming in the sunlight.

I hesitate as the door creaks slightly, and I think I hear gentle knock sounds from the inside as if someone is pressing up against the door. I look at the convex spyhole just above the brass knocker.

But of course it’s impossible to tell if someone is watching through it from the outside.

When we get to the foyer, I sit Skye down on the chair by the lamp table. ‘I just need a quick word with Dr Marsden, sweetie. Wait here.’

She sits happily playing with a little fairy figurine she pulls out of her pocket. I walk over to the leafy corner, and I’m about to knock on the Marsdens’ apartment door when I see it’s already slightly ajar.

I push it open a little way further and I’m about to call hello when I involuntarily suck the breath right back in without speaking.

There, in front of the bright light of the lounge window, Audrey is in the embrace of the tall man I spotted before. He’s casually dressed in jeans and a simple white T-shirt and looks quite a bit younger than her. I can see he is most definitely not Dr Marsden.

I back away quickly and gather Skye up, chivvying her outside. What the hell is it with this place? Nothing is as it seems.

Of her own admission, Audrey told me Dr Marsden frequented a dodgy gentlemen’s club and now she’s snogging some guy in their own home!

Must be what they call an ‘open marriage’, I think sourly. Well, I intend to keep away. No more Earl Grey or ancient sherry in there, if I can help it.

At the bottom of the entrance steps of the house, we turn left and walk along the road in the opposite direction of the park.

Two doors away from Adder House, another grand mansion stands, its redbrick grandeur marred by a web of scaffolding across the entire frontage.

‘There’s the smiling man again, Mummy.’ Skye squeezes my hand.

I look up to see that the builder who was there when we moved in is watching us again. He smiles and nods at me from the second floor of the structure.

He’s wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and his tanned arms are toned. Maybe he was in that famous Diet Coke advert, I joke to myself.

He raises his hand and Skye waves back.

I look quickly away, feeling my cheeks heating up. I’m not used to male attention and I wilt under it. I’d rather be invisible than have someone stare hard and take in all my faults.

There’s