TOYL

‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
    Mrs Henderson blinked and looked across at her. ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said, tears still running down the wrinkles in her face like streams down a craggy hillside.
    Emma placed a comforting hand on her face, trapping one of the tears. ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.’
    ‘I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone,’ said Mrs Henderson, hardly able to look at Emma. ‘He said he was doing it for love – because of you. You’re a lucky girl, Jane, to have a man fighting over you like that.’
    ‘Mrs Henderson,’ said Emma, getting her to meet her gaze. ‘Who did you talk to? Who did you see out on the corridor? Was it Dan? Was it my fiancé, or did you see someone else? You know who Dan is, don’t you? You’ve seen him – he lives with me upstairs.’
    The old woman muttered something under her breath.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘I promised,’ she whispered.
    ‘What did you promise?’ Emma pressed.
    ‘He’s doing it all for love,’ she repeated. ‘He’s going to help you understand.’
    ‘Understand? Understand what?’
    ‘He’ll help you understand,’ she reiterated.
    ‘Who said this?’ Emma begged. ‘Was it Dan, or someone else? If you can remember who you spoke to, then please tell me.’
    ‘He’s your number one fan,’ she said.
    This stopped Emma dead in her tracks, making her catch her breath. The phrase was a shocking blast from the past.
    ‘Did he say that to you?’ Now her questioning took on more urgency. ‘Is that what he said?’
    ‘He’s your number one fan,’ she repeated, as if someone had taken possession of her body, and was just using her as a mouthpiece.
    ‘Did the person who said this have brown hair, quite scruffy?’
    Mrs Henderson didn’t respond.
    ‘Did he tell you his name? Was he called Stephen? Mrs Henderson, was the man you spoke to called Stephen Myers?’
    ‘Would you like another cup of tea, Jane?’ Mrs Henderson smiled, seemingly oblivious to the important conversation she had just been engaged in.
    Then Emma heard the key being put into the lock of the outside door.
    She got to her feet, not knowing whether to go into the kitchen and hide. But she decided to face up to Mr Henderson as he emerged into the apartment. At first he didn’t notice her, but he did a double-take as he went to close the door. Her adrenaline was pumping, just like it used to do all those years ago in the karate competitions. But this situation needed tact, not physical force, and it seemed all the harder for it.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ he said, looking more afraid than angry. ‘I told you not to bother us. I told you to stay away from my wife.’
    ‘I’ve been having a good chat with Jane,’ Mrs Henderson said.
    ‘She’s not Jane,’ he rebuked with surprising disdain. ‘Jane’s been dead for almost ten years.’
    ‘Just let me explain…’ Emma began.
    ‘Get out and leave us alone,’ he demanded, his voice rising. He seemed more emboldened but Emma still sensed he was being driven by fear more than anything.
    What was he so scared of?
    ‘Your wife said she’d made a promise to someone. Has she told you anything? Please, Mr Henderson, I really need your help.’
    ‘My wife says lots of things,’ he said dismissively, ‘and most of the time they don’t make any sense at all. Can’t you see that she’s not well? She can’t help you.’
    ‘She helped the police,’ Emma countered. ‘She told them that she saw Dan on the staircase, running from the flat.’
    ‘Well, I told the police the same as I told you,’ he replied, as he began unloading shopping from his bag. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s saying. How can you take the word of someone who believes she’s just had a discussion with her dead sister? If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have even let her talk to the police.’
    ‘But I thought you must have been the one who came forward?’
    ‘No, I did not. The police invited themselves in here, and then when they found out Edna had been in the flat during the fight, they just started asking her question after question, until she told them whatever came into her head.’
    ‘Fight?’
    ‘Excuse me,’ he said.
    ‘You just said during the fight. How do you know there was a fight? Is that what Edna told you, that she’d heard people fighting?’
    ‘Please,’ he implored, ‘leave us alone. We didn’t ask for any of this.’
    ‘Any of what? What did Edna tell you?’
    ‘Go,’ he demanded,