another and they both sat. “This is a beautiful apartment,” Detective James said.
“I know, isn’t it? My place in London isn’t like this at all. Just an ordinary flat.”
“So, in your conversations leading up to this apartment swap, did you two talk about neighbors at all? Did Corbin ever mention Audrey Marshall?”
“No, nothing. He didn’t talk about anyone. Can I ask you what you’re hoping to find by looking in here?”
The detective pressed her lips together, then said: “I’m not hoping to find anything, but we need to look. We have no reason to suspect that Corbin was involved in anything, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No, no, I know.”
“What can you tell me about your cousin’s flight from here to London?”
“All I know is that he took a night flight that got into London on Friday morning, so he would have left on Thursday night.”
Detective James wrote in her notebook, while one of the police officers came through the living room heading to the other side of the apartment. They seemed to be searching quickly.
“And you didn’t meet up with him in London before you left to come here?”
“No. Like I said, I’ve never actually met him.”
“Okay.” The detective slid her notebook back into the inside pocket of her jacket. She pressed the palms of her hands against her knees and stood. “I’m going to see how the search is going. Should be almost done. Have you found any locked doors here, or were there any rooms or closets that you were told were off-limits?”
“No.”
Kate stayed seated as Detective James slowly walked toward the west side of the apartment, pausing to look out a window. It had stopped raining, and the clouds were breaking up. The detective moved a curtain with a finger, stared outside, then moved on. She was tall, with perfect posture, and Kate automatically hitched back her own shoulders. One of the police officers with the latex gloves came back into the living room. The detective looked questioningly at him, and he said, “Nothing.” It sounded as though he had a cold. The other policeman emerged from the kitchen. Kate hadn’t heard the sound of drawers being opened. Should she mention the key she’d seen with the initials on it? Was that the type of thing they were looking for?
Before she could decide, all three were headed toward the exit, the detective thanking Kate and asking her to call if anything came up. Kate stood, but they were through the door before she could even respond. She was alone again in the apartment.
Chapter 5
Kate made bread and cheese again for dinner, and opened a bottle of wine. She ate in the den, flipping through cable channels, then settling on an American reality show about crab fishermen in Alaska. When that was through, she found a channel that was showing a thriller called Midnight Lace, with Doris Day and Rex Harrison. She started watching; it wasn’t very good, but it had just enough of a plot to distract her from thinking exclusively about what was happening down the hallway.
Halfway through the film, Kate discovered a lever on the leather sofa that caused the end seat to recline separately from the rest of the sofa. She maneuvered it all the way back so that she was practically prone and continued to watch the film. She was suddenly exhausted, her limbs like dead appendages. And then, almost instantly, the film was different, something in black and white, although it also starred Rex Harrison. He was bearded and in a black turtleneck. The movie was familiar, and Kate thought she’d seen it before. She’d fallen asleep—she must have—without even knowing it. She felt disoriented and alarmed. The clock on the cable box said it was 5:45 in the morning. Kate’s mouth was gluey, and she had a sliver of a headache from the wine she’d drunk. She felt that the past day had been many days, punctuated by naps as deep and troubling as full nights of sleep. It was only Sunday, but it felt like she’d been in Boston for a week.
She flipped the television off, returned the reclining sofa to its normal position, and stood. Her nose was running and she slid a hand in her dress pocket to look for tissues. She didn’t find any, but her fingers touched a single key. She pulled it out of her pocket. It was the key she’d seen earlier, in the cutlery drawer, the one with am written on its label