Simon Beckett - Where There's Smoke

She came out of King’s Cross into the weak afternoon sun and made her way to the agency. The burned-out warehouse was still standing, although the lower-floor windows had been boarded up. Its blackened roof timbers stood out against the blue sky like steepled fingers, and a faint scent of charred wood lingered around it. Kate had almost grown used to the blackened shell, but now she walked past quickly, like a child hurrying by a graveyard. She threw herself into her work as best she could for the rest of the day, succeeding in holding back the disappointment for a little while, at least. But it was still there waiting for her. With a sense of dread she heard the others preparing to go home, and knew it couldn’t be avoided for much longer. She was still trying to, even so, when Clive came up to her office.

“We’re going for a quick drink,” he said. “Do you fancy coming?”

“Oh... thanks, but I think I’ll skip it for tonight.”

Clive nodded, but didn’t go out. “Look, don’t mind me asking, but are you all right?”

“Fine. Why?”

“You just seem a bit preoccupied lately.”

The impulse to tell him almost won out. “It’s probably trying to guess what quibble Redwood’s going to come up with next,” she said, lightly. “Thanks for asking, but I’m fine, really.”

He looked at her for a second or two, then accepted it. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

Kate said goodnight. Clive went back downstairs, and a little while later the front door slammed. In its aftermath, the office sank into the hollow quiet of an empty building. She tried to continue working, but found herself listening to the stillness until it seemed to be soaking into her. She cleared her desk and went home.

The sun was setting when Kate arrived at her flat. As she went down the path, she took her keys quietly from her bag, hoping to get in for once without being intercepted by Miss Willoughby. But as she reached out to unlock the front door, it swung open of its own accord. Cautiously Kate pushed it open the rest of the way. The door to her flat was still closed and unmarked, she saw with relief, and afterwards she would recall with guilt that her first concern had been a selfish one. Then she saw that the old lady’s door was ajar.

“Miss Willoughby?” Warily, she stepped into the entrance hall and knocked on the half-open door. “Hello?”

Silence greeted her. Kate gave the door a gentle nudge. The flat’s hallway yawned in front of her. At the far end a doorway led into what looked like the lounge. A noise was coming from it, a low murmuring, indistinct but constant.

“Miss Willoughby? Are you there?”

There was no answer. Kate stood uncertainly, not sure whether to close the front door or not, torn between wanting a quick means of escape and not wanting anyone else to walk in. Finally, she shut it. Then she went into the old lady’s flat.

A fusty smell of boiled vegetables and camphor, a distillation of old age, closed around her. Kate slowly made her way down the hallway towards the lounge. She stopped just before she reached it, suddenly struck by the absurdity of what she was doing, wondering if she shouldn’t simply run upstairs and call the police. But the silence of the place mocked that as cowardice. She stepped forward and pushed open the lounge door.

The noise she had heard came from the television, playing a quiz show at low volume in one corner. Light from it flickered over the dark Edwardian furniture, and over the parlour palms, aspidistras and rubber plants that filled the room. Their profusion was so great that it took Kate a moment to see that the drawers on the old bureau were pulled out. The cupboard doors of a sideboard were also open, their contents strewn untidily on the floor.

“Miss Willoughby?”

There was a low moan. Kate turned to where it came from and saw a pair of thin, stockinged legs sticking out from behind the drop-leaf table.

She ran over to them.

The old lady was lying on her back. Her head was turned sideways, and her forehead and cheeks were smeared with blood that looked like black oil in the dim room. One eye was swollen shut. The wig she always wore had slipped off, exposing a bony scalp covered with thin strands of white hair. She looked like a baby bird fallen from the nest.

The eye that wasn’t swollen flickered open as Kate crouched beside her. She muttered something indistinct.

“Don’t try to talk,” Kate told her, frightened that the effort would cause the ragged breathing to slow and stop. She looked wildly around, both for a telephone and to make sure that no one was behind her. But there was neither. She hesitated a moment longer. Then, as the eye slid shut and the voice slurred into silence, she turned and ran upstairs.

The running machine whirred at a higher pitch as Kate stabbed her finger on the touchpad to increase its speed.

The rubber belt of the treadmill whipped away from under her feet, almost throwing her off it. She picked up her pace, arms and legs pumping, chest heaving as she went into the final sprint.

Of all the equipment in the gym, Kate liked this the best. There was something faintly absurd about running as fast as you could without actually getting anywhere, like a hamster on a wheel. It was exercise reduced to its most basic, most pointless form, yet she still found it satisfying. Its repetitive nature relaxed her, loosened the kinks in her mind.

In the early post-Paul days, she had tried different types of meditative techniques, from simple deep-breathing to yoga. She had abandoned them all, finding the effort of sitting still too taxing. But pounding away the miles on the treadmill, Kate found she could pass whole chunks of time either thinking about nothing at all, or concentrating on a particular problem while her body exercised itself.

It didn’t help now, though. There seemed too many strands, all plucking her in different directions at once.She had slept badly after finding the old lady the night before. The hospital had told her that morning that, as well as suffering from severe shock, Miss Willoughby had a broken hip, broken wrist and concussion. From what the police could gather, two youths, one white, one black, had knocked on her door claiming that one had been taken ill.

Once inside, they had punched her and then ransacked every drawer in the flat. Probably looking for money for drugs, the police had said.

Kate hammered away on the treadmill, trying to burn away some of her anger and disgust. Her emotional landscape was clouded enough as it was after the visit to the clinic. She was still unable to reconcile herself to the idea of becoming pregnant by someone she knew virtually nothing about. She had tried telling herself that there was no option, that if she was serious about having a child she would be happy to abide by the clinic’s rules, and the clinic’s choice. But she couldn’t accept that, either.

The running machine beeped as the programmed time elapsed. She stabbed at the touchpad again, reducing the speed until she was running at a gentle jog. She continued for a few more minutes at that pace, then gradually slowed the treadmill to a stop and stepped off. Her breathing was deep and heavy, but not laboured. She went to the water cooler and drank two paper cupfuls before going into the changing room and stripping off her sweat-soaked leotard.

The shower jets peppered her face as she held it up to the spray. She waited until it stung, then turned off the stream and went into the wooden box of the sauna.

The dry heat wrapped itself over her like a hot towel. The scorched air, spicy with the smell of baked pine, pricked the inside of her nose when she breathed. Another woman was sitting on the lower of the three benches, sweat running off her. She offered Kate a smile as she closed the door and stepped up to the highest bench. Kate returned it and spread her towel on the hot slats before she sat down.