Dead Man's Footsteps

in front of them. ‘Every damn person in this city got a loved one in there.’
    Ronnie nodded and moved away. It had been much easier than he had thought.

72
OCTOBER 2007
    ‘Here,’ Abby said. ‘Just past the lamppost on the left.’ She glanced again over her shoulder out of the rear window. No sign of Ricky’s car or him. But it was possible he could have come a quicker route, she thought. ‘Could you drive past, turn left and go around the block, please.’
    The taxi driver obliged. It was a quiet, residential area, close to Eastbourne College. Abby scanned the streets and parked cars carefully. To her relief, she could see no sign of Ricky’s rental car or him.
    The driver brought her back into the wide street of semidetached red-brick houses, at the end of which, totally out of character with the area, was the 1960s low-rise block of flats where her mother lived. It had been built cheaply at the time and four decades of battering from the salty Channel winds had turned it into an eyesore.
    The driver double-parked alongside an old Volvo estate. The meter was reading thirty-four pounds. She handed the driver two twenty-pound notes.
    ‘I need your help,’ she said. ‘I’m giving you this now just so you know I’m not doing a runner on you. Don’t give me any change, I want you to keep the meter running.’
    He nodded, giving her a worried look. She shot another glance over her shoulder, but still she wasn’t sure.
    ‘I’m going inside the building. If I don’t come back outin five minutes, OK, exactly five minutes , I want you to dial 999 and get the police here. Tell them I’m being attacked in there.’
    ‘Want me to come in with you?’
    ‘No, I’m OK, thanks.’
    ‘You got boyfriend troubles? Husband?’
    ‘Yes.’ She opened the door and climbed out, looking back down the street. ‘I’m going to give you my mobile number. If you see a grey Ford Focus – a four-door, clean-looking, with a bloke in it wearing a baseball cap, call me as quickly as you can.’
    It took him several agonizing moments to find his pen, then, with the slowest handwriting she had ever seen, he began jotting down the numbers.
    Once he’d finished, she hurried to the entrance door of the building, unlocked it and went into the dingy communal hallway. It felt strange being back here again – nothing seemed to have changed. The linoleum on the floor, which looked as if it had been there since the building was put up, was immaculately clean, as ever, and the same metal pigeonholes were there for mail, with what could even have been the same pizza, Chinese, Thai and Indian takeaway advertising leaflets poking out of several of them. There was a strong reek of polish and of boiled vegetables.
    She looked at her mother’s mail box, to see if it had been emptied, and to her dismay saw several envelopes wedged into it, as if there was no further room inside. One of them, almost hanging out, was a Television Licence Renewal reminder.
    The post was one of the highlights of her mother’s day. She was a competition fanatic, subscribing to a number of magazines that included them, and she had always been good at them. Several of Abby’s childhood treats and evenholidays had been from competitions her mother had won and half the things her mother now owned were prizes.
    So why had she not yet collected her post?
    With her heart in her mouth, Abby hurried along the hallway to the door of her mother’s flat at the rear of the building. She could hear the sound of a television on in another flat somewhere above her. She knocked on the door, then opened it with her key without waiting for a reply.
    ‘Hi, Mum!’
    She heard the sound of voices. A weather report.
    She raised her voice. ‘Mum!’
    God, it felt strange. Over two years since she had been here. She was well aware of the shock her mother was going to get, but she couldn’t worry about that now.
    ‘Abby?’ Her mother’s voice sounded utterly astonished.
    She hurried in, through the tiny hallway and into the sitting room, barely noticing the smell of damp and body odour. Her mother was on the couch, thin as a rake, her hair lank and greyer than she remembered, wearing a floral dressing gown and pompom slippers. She had a rose-patterned tray, which Abby remembered from her childhood, balanced on her knees. An open tin of rice pudding sat on it.
    Torn-out newspaper and magazine competitions were spread all over the carpeted floor, and the lunchtime weather