looking at her. That’s not Alan, Kate thought. That must be George. But it was Alan. His fingers dug at the floor of Audrey’s apartment, as though he was trying to find something buried in the wood. He opened his mouth, and a cat’s meow came out. He dug some more, his nails making plucking sounds against the floor. Then he meowed again, louder, almost a keening sound. Kate woke with a jolt, both books sliding with the comforter to the floor.
Sanders was back in the apartment, scratching at the couch’s arm.
Chapter 12
Corbin Dell emerged from the taxicab into the cool air of late morning. It wasn’t raining but the atmosphere was damp, the sky low and white. Corbin hadn’t been to London since the spring semester of his junior year, which he’d spent at the Hutchinson School of Business and Economics, and because of that, he wasn’t sure how he’d feel arriving back in this haunted city. But he felt okay. Tired, because he’d only slept for about one hour during the flight from Boston to Dublin. He’d drunk some bad coffee during the lengthy layover and now he was jittery and slightly nauseous, his mouth coated with a bitter taste. The outside air was nice after the long ride from Heathrow.
The driver removed Corbin’s matching luggage from the cab and placed it on the sidewalk. Sheepscar Lane was long and gray, the sidewalks lined with pollarded trees. Workmen were fixing a portion of the road, and the air smelled sharply of warm tar. It was that smell, more than anything else, that brought London flooding back. As a student, Corbin had lived in Camden Town, also in North London, and that sticky, slightly sweet smell of tar had always been in the air. He’d forgotten all about it. He felt twenty years old again, walking back in a cold dawn from Claire’s flat on the other side of Regent’s Park, having finally lost his virginity. He had been happy, exhilarated almost, but the memory of it was painful, for so many reasons. Maybe he shouldn’t have come back after all, Corbin thought.
Kate’s flat was in a squat stone building with a patch of front garden large enough for one midsized bush. The trim was white, and the front door was painted a deep shade of blue, edged by small panes of glass. There were three mailboxes affixed to the inside of the entryway, and Corbin pulled the envelope from the box for apartment 2. He could feel the contours of the key inside. He slipped it out, opened the outside door, and hauled his giant Victorinox suitcase over the threshold into a narrow, high-ceilinged foyer. When the outside door rattled shut behind him, it was dark inside, even with the multiple small windows. Corbin found a switch; it turned on a hanging lamp that cast a yellow light. The floor of the foyer was covered in black and white linoleum and the walls were thickly painted in a light blue. He carried his luggage up the steep stairwell to the second-floor entrance and walked into the flat.
Kate had described the place in one of her e-mails, but the layout was still surprising. The exterior door opened into the bedroom, then a short stairway led to the bathroom, halfway up the stairs, while the rest of the rooms, a kitchen and a bay-fronted living room, were located at the top of the stairs. There were windows overlooking the street from the living room, and windows down the stairs in the bedroom that looked out over a paved back patio, but that was it, since the building was attached on either side. It should have felt claustrophobic, but it didn’t to Corbin. It felt comforting, almost, and it was decorated, not in a feminine way, but in a way that seemed cozy. There were throw rugs in bright colors and large pillows on both the bed and the living room couch. The walls were painted white and hung with graphic prints.
Corbin used the bathroom, then unpacked all his clothes, putting them in an empty drawer that had been marked with a sticky note from Kate, indicating that it had been emptied for him. He thought of showering, but he was too tired. A low, throbbing headache was starting up in his temples, and his shoulders and neck were stiff from the flight. He swallowed four ibuprofens. The tap water was terrible, and he made a mental note to buy a