The Apartment - K. L. Slater Page 0,44

and come up with a better plan of where we’ll live.

‘Someone out there . . . a builder working next door. He just told me something shocking and—’

Dr Marsden stares at me. My face feels hot and I gulp in more air, but it still feels like I can’t breathe deeply enough.

It’s not so much what might have happened here, it’s more the worry about why they never told me in the first place. Putting that together with the other odd things around here, it makes my skin prickle.

‘Come through, come on.’ He sweeps his arm towards his apartment before turning around. ‘You, too, Miss Skye.’

I hesitate but stop short of saying I’ve got things to do. If I’m going to get to the bottom of it, then this is my chance. It’s only going to get more awkward to raise the issue if I leave it to fester.

I beckon Skye and she jumps off the bottom stair and gallops across the hallway on the unicorn and into the Marsdens’ apartment.

Inside, piped classical-piano music provides a calming backdrop. Audrey is waiting in the lounge as if she was somehow expecting us.

‘Take a seat, dear, I’ll make us some tea.’ Audrey phrases it as a statement, not a question, and I don’t feel I can decline even though I just want to get back upstairs and close the door.

She glides past me out of the room in that elegant way of hers. I inhale the cloud of Joy parfum she leaves in her wake. It feels almost like existing in a parallel universe in this house, a peaceful bubble compared to the outside world.

I perch on the end of one of the voluptuous sofas and fold my hands in my lap. Skye is about to sit down next to me when Audrey pops her head back around the door.

‘Skye, would you like to come through for a moment? I’ve something very exciting to show you.’

Skye freezes and looks at me. I know she still feels a bit nervous around Audrey. I can’t help but make a comparison of how relaxed she was around Lily Brockley yesterday.

I don’t want her to feel pressured that she has to do what Audrey says. Besides, I can’t get the picture out of my head of Audrey and that guy canoodling. She isn’t all that she purports to be.

I put my arm around Skye and throw Audrey an apologetic look.

‘She’s been feeling a bit delicate today, haven’t you, poppet?’ I say lightly, although a few minutes alone with Dr Marsden would actually be useful under the circumstances. I don’t want Skye hearing too much and getting worried, but neither do I want her feeling uncomfortable with Audrey.

‘It’s a very big secret,’ Audrey adds cleverly, her deep voice swirling around the room so enticingly, I almost want to be let in on the secret, too. ‘So if I do show you, you mustn’t tell another soul. Promise?’

Curiosity wins out and Skye nods quickly, turning from me and heading for the door.

I reassure myself she’ll be fine, it’s not as if I’m leaving her here and going back upstairs.

‘What is it with little ones and secrets?’ Dr Marsden chuckles. ‘They simply can’t resist them.’

He sits down opposite me and crosses his legs. His feet are encased in regimental smoking slippers. Rich mulberry velvet with a gold insignia on the front.

‘Now, there was something you wanted to speak to me about. Something that seems to be bothering you.’ He gives me a small wry smile and reaches for a cut-glass tumbler from the side table that’s filled with an amber liquid that looks suspiciously like whisky. Surely, at nine forty-five, it’s a little early in the day?

He takes a sip and waits.

I listen to the reassuring tick of the regal mahogany grandfather clock. A car passes by outside the front bay window and I hear only the very faint whirr of it.

It feels like time runs at a far slower rate here inside Adder House. ‘In your own time, Freya,’ he gently prompts me.

This is my chance. I just have to jump in, I think.

‘I – I know you said, when we first came to view, that we were the first tenants to live in our apartment?’

‘Absolutely. And that remains the case,’ he replies smoothly, replacing his glass on a brown leather coaster.

Somewhere else in the apartment, I hear Skye’s tinkling laugh and I feel my shoulders drop a little. It sounds like she’s warming to Audrey.

I swallow, wishing