TOYL

inside and take a look.’
    She pulled out her keys from her handbag, but they slipped from her grasp and fell into the gutter, narrowly missing a drain.
    ‘That was lucky,’ Will commented, as he picked up the keys. ‘Hey, Em, your hands are shaking – are you okay?’
    ‘I’m fine,’ Emma lied, taking the keys. Although mentally she had recovered her composure, her body was still in overdrive. ‘I’m just a bit on edge, that’s all. I guess I’ve been thinking through different scenarios and it’s shaken me up.’
    ‘Come on,’ Lizzy said, ‘let’s get up there and sort this out. He’s probably flat out on the bed and has slept through the calls.’
    They could hear the music as soon as they entered the apartment foyer. It seemed to be coming from one of the upper floors, travelling down the wooden staircase. And from the bass vibration across the ceiling it sounded like it was set on maximum.
    ‘Someone’s having a party,’ Will commented. ‘U2, if I’m not mistaken. Sounds like the band are actually up there rehearsing.’
    ‘Dan was playing that CD just before I left,’ Emma said, beginning to hurry up the stairs, with Will and Lizzy following close behind.
    She took the steps two-by-two; with each step the swirling music from above seemed to get louder. Something definitely didn’t feel right about this. Her imaginings flooded back, but now they weren’t about whether Dan had got cold feet – they were of something more sinister, more tragic. Maybe Dan had fallen and hit his head, and he’d been lying on the floor while she’d been out partying.
    As she reached the middle floor, Mr Henderson, her elderly downstairs neighbour, blocked her path, stopping her dead. Judging by his reaction it seemed he had been waiting for her.
    ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ he said, poking a wrinkled, liver-spotted finger in Emma’s direction.
    ‘Excuse me?’ Emma was taken aback by his unusually aggressive tone. Normally he was so placid. He and his wife had been living in the apartment for over twenty years, and had welcomed them with offers of help when Dan and Emma had first moved in. They were amongst the few people in the apartment not to be renters, and seemed to revel in their role as the building’s surrogate grandparents. But although Mr Henderson still said hello when they passed on the stairs, Emma hadn’t seen much of his wife in recent months. Some time ago, while looking out of the window, she had seen her being helped into an ambulance. But she didn’t know what had been wrong and felt it would seem overly nosey to ask them.
    ‘That music,’ Mr Henderson said angrily, gesturing upstairs. His face was blood-red and his eyes burned in a way that Emma had never seen before. ‘Your boyfriend’s had that on full blast ever since I got back from the shops. Edna’s trying to get to sleep in here; she’s not well, you know. She gets distressed easily. She was crying when I got back home, sitting in the corner of the room, covering her ears. People think just because you’ve got dementia that you don’t matter. But she matters to me. I love her.’
    Tears welled up in his eyes as his anger faded.
    ‘Doctor says she’s dying,’ he added. ‘Please let her rest. Please get your boyfriend to turn the music down. He won’t even answer the door for me. I’ve been up there three times, but it hasn’t done any good.’
    Emma looked at Will and Lizzy, who returned anxious glances.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said, feeling desperately sorry for the old man but also wanting to get to the top floor without delay. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, sidestepping Mr Henderson and heading for the next set of stairs, almost launching at the first step.
    ‘I’ll call the police if you don’t turn it down,’ Mr Henderson shouted, before breaking out into a bronchial cough. But Emma had already turned the corner at the top of the stairs.
    She reached the front door, fumbling with the keys to a rock soundtrack. The music was coming from inside their apartment, and it was extremely loud. Dan never played music that loud, and that thought only intensified her sense of foreboding about what lay inside.
    ‘Dan!’ she shouted. ‘Are you in there?’
    She was really panicking now, feeling dizzy with nerves. The key wasn’t going into the lock, so she began banging on the heavy wooden door with her fists.
    ‘Dan!’
    ‘Come here, Em,’ Will said, taking the keys gently from her. ‘Let