Page 63 of A Face in the Crowd
‘Hang on.’
The line goes muffled for a moment and there’s a distant sound of Lauren chatting to someone else. When she returns, it sounds as if she’s been laughing.
‘I’m not sure what you’re asking me to do,’ she says.
‘Can you tell me who lives there? Is it a man? A woman? Just a name.’
I’m sounding desperate and weird; something at which I’m apparently good.
There’s another silence and, when Lauren replies, there’s pity in her voice. ‘There are privacy issues, Lucy. I can’t go around telling tenants the details of other tenants. If there’s a problem, I can deal with that…’
I could make something up – but I’ve already done too much of that in recent days. If I were to claim the music was loud, one of the first things Lauren would do is ask other tenants if they’ve heard anything. Regardless of their response, it wouldn’t get me the name of who’s on the other side of the hall. It all feels rather hopeless.
‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘Sorry for bothering you.’
Lauren offers a brisk ‘no worries’ and then she’s gone.
I open my door a crack and listen as ‘Rocket Man’ loops back to the beginning. Aside from bashing down the door, I’m not sure what else I can do.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I lock my door and then wedge one of the dining chairs in front of it. Everything is a swirling mess of suspicion. There’s Harry, with whom I’ve had two dates. Is he some strange internet hacker and stalker? There’s the bloke with badges on his jacket who was hanging around outside the building and the memorial. Melanie’s coat was in the opposite apartment – and whoever’s in there keeps playing what was – at one point – my favourite song. Someone poisoned Billy – but was it Mark? Melanie? Harry? And then, beyond all that, someone left me more than three and a half thousand pounds for seemingly no reason.
I apologise to Billy, but he doesn’t seem quite ready to accept it. It’s not often I go around slamming doors and shouting at people. He remains in his corner and closes a single eye, watching me with the other in case I haven’t got the tantrum out of my system.
There are no emails from the person who put up posters about losing the envelope. The last one I received read a simple ‘See you at 11’ – except I waited at Chappie’s and nobody appeared. I send a new message:
Where were you?
I wait for a minute or two, but there’s no instant reply. After that, I go back through the CCTV photos from the bus again; looking through all the images, not only the ones with Harry. There are other people who are impossible to identify. Some are wearing caps or beanies; others are angled away from the camera and never turn to look at it. There is one image in which someone in a cap is between Harry and myself, but they are gone in the next shot. It’s hard to know what to think.
My phone rings with a number I don’t recognise, which reminds me I’ve not been bothered by ‘Unknown’ for a little while.
When I answer, it’s a woman’s voice: ‘Is that Lucy?’
‘Who’s calling?’ I ask.
‘It’s Gloria, love. We spoke at the pub after the memorial.’
She’s right in as much as we definitely spoke – but that’s only half of what happened.
‘What do you want?’ I ask.
‘Sorry about the other day. I think we might have got our wires crossed somewhere along the line.’
‘Do you mean when you ran away after the memorial?’
‘Well, er… yes… I’m sorry about that. Things were a bit emotional after the service and…’
She’s presumably waiting for me to say it’s fine, but I stay quiet and she’s forced to fill her own silence.
‘I should’ve told you the other day, but I’m working on a documentary,’ Gloria says. ‘It’s all a bit hush-hush, so I’m sure you understand, but—’
‘I’m not interested.’
Gloria has barely stopped for breath but hesitates and then ends up almost talking over herself: ‘Sorry, did you say youweren’tinterested?’
She sounds stunned at this development.
