The Apartment - K. L. Slater Page 0,47

now, as far as laptop models go, and the antivirus software is long out of date, but it will have to do.

When we were still together, Lewis used the laptop far more than me. I’ve never been that technologically savvy, never needed to be, save for my Facebook account, and I haven’t logged into that for months.

I feel a bit guilty sitting next to my daughter, both of us not talking and glued to our separate screens. But it doesn’t happen that often, and today, it’s really important I get online and hopefully get this stuff straight before it grows bigger in my mind.

I might not use a computer much these days, but I’m pretty sure it takes about five times as long as usual to boot up. I open up Google and run a search for ‘Adder House London death’. Lots of press stories come back, but they’re all regarding people or animals who’ve been bitten by adders in London parks.

I tap in the actual address of Adder House and get back various nearby properties that have been listed on Rightmove for eye-watering sums in the last few years. None of them is this property.

I try: ‘death of woman at Palace Gate’.

Incomplete search results boomerang back. Most featuring unexplained deaths of females in London, but missing various keywords in my original search query.

I try a whole host of other phrases – no joy – and finish with: ‘Suicide of woman in Kensington’.

Unexplained deaths, murders, assisted suicides of the terminally ill, but that’s it. According to the search results, almost no one has committed suicide in Kensington, or indeed the whole of London, in the last ten years. Which must be far from the truth.

It seems Mark was right. This stuff is not widely reported in the media, and that’s something I never realised. It seems even journalists have their boundaries, and suicide is beyond what is deemed acceptable.

It occurs to me, in the tragic cases of young people who had been bullied, or university students who fell prey to depression and feelings of hopelessness, far more exposure is needed to shine a light and raise awareness and disrupt the taboo.

But in the case of a young mother who takes her life, leaving her young daughter behind, there is barely a whisper, online or otherwise.

The lack of information only serves to make me determined to find out more.

But for now, I close the laptop and snuggle up to my daughter, inhaling the scent of shampoo in her hair, my cheek resting on the soft skin of her upper arm.

Thinking about the as yet anonymous little girl who used to live somewhere in this house makes me feel very sad.

‘You’re missing it, Mummy!’ She nudges me gently, thinking I’m falling asleep as I nuzzle close. ‘Belle is about to fall in love with the beast!’

‘Ooh, my favourite bit,’ I say and sit up straight again. But watching Belle acting all coy gets my sleepy mind wandering.

Lewis and I met at a house party on Christmas Eve, thirteen years ago. We were both with other dates, and afterwards, we both said it was clear neither of us wanted to be there. I saw his bored face from across the room and felt vindicated that I wasn’t the only party pooper present.

Later, when we bumped into each other at the drinks table, our dates appeared to have both drifted away somewhere.

‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ I asked him boldly when he offered to pour me a wine.

Unsurprisingly, when I look back, our period of dating didn’t consist of expensive meals out or romantic breaks away in boutique hotels. We couldn’t afford that stuff, but truthfully, we never wanted it.

Our time getting to know each other was full of cycling, bowling, hiking, and sleeping. Lewis was the first man I’d met who relished an afternoon nap after a cheap lunch of cheese, crackers, and wine.

These were the precious moments we shared together. It gave me an intimacy, an acceptance I’d never known, and I thrived on it.

The happy times don’t mean any less now because of what has happened since. It just means that mostly, I simply can’t bear to think about how perfect everything seemed to be back then, our lives full of possibility and promise.

Of how being together was the singular, most important thing.

‘Work to live, not the other way around.’ That had always been Lewis’s motto in the early days.

Given time, that had changed, too. And afternoon naps were looked upon as being