The Girl Before

“Hello?” I call out. There’s no reply.

I reach out and push the door all the way open. Inside is a deep, tall cupboard, full of a cleaner’s bits and pieces: mops, squeegees, a vacuum, a floor polisher, even an extendable ladder. I almost laugh aloud. I should have realized there’d be somewhere like this in One Folgate Street. The cleaner—a middle-aged Japanese lady who speaks almost no English and who resists all my attempts at interaction during her weekly visits—must have left it ajar.

The cupboard looks as if it’s designed to give access to the house’s other services too. One wall is covered with wiring. Computer cables snake off into One Folgate Street’s innards, through a hatchway in the roof.

I pick my way around the cleaning products and push my head up through the hatch. By the light of my phone I can see a kind of crawl space running the length of the house, its floor thick with more cables. It opens into what looks like a bigger, attic-like space above the bedroom. At the far end I can just make out some water pipes.

It occurs to me I may have just found a solution to something that’s been bothering me. I couldn’t bring myself to send Isabel’s unworn clothes and other things to Oxfam along with my books, but unpacking them and putting them neatly away in One Folgate Street’s cupboards seemed wrong too. The suitcase has been sitting in the bedroom ever since I moved in, waiting until I decide what to do. I go and get it, then push it along the crawl space until I reach the attic. It can stay up here, out of the way.

The light from my phone isn’t very strong, and it’s only when I feel something soft under my feet that I look down and see a sleeping bag, pushed between two rafters. It has clearly been up here a long time—it’s covered with dust and dirt. I lift it up, and something falls out. A pair of girlish pajama bottoms, printed in a pattern of tiny apples. I feel around inside the bag but there’s nothing else except for some balled-up socks, right at the bottom. And a business card, very scrunched up. CAROL YOUNSON. ACCREDITED PSYCHOTHERAPIST. A Web address and phone number.

Turning, I see a few other things scattered around: some empty tins of supermarket tuna, candle stubs, an empty bottle of perfume, a plastic bottle of energy drink.

Strange. Strange and inexplicable. I have no way of knowing if the sleeping bag belonged to Emma Matthews—I don’t even know how many other tenants there have been in One Folgate Street. And if it was Emma’s, I’ll clearly never know what nameless fear caused her to leave that beautiful, sleek bedroom and sleep up here instead.

My phone rings, very loud in the confined space. I pull it out.

“Jane, it’s Edward,” a familiar voice says.

THEN: EMMA

I try to get Simon to meet me somewhere neutral, like a pub. But although he says he’ll sign the papers, he point-blank refuses to do it anywhere but One Folgate Street.

I need to come around anyway, he goes. I left some of my things there when I moved out.

Reluctantly I say, All right, then.

I put the lighting on the brightest setting and pull on some scruffy jeans and my least glamorous old shirt. I’m just tidying the kitchen—it’s extraordinary how even with so little, clutter builds up—when I hear a sound behind me. I gasp.

Hello, Em, he says.

Christ, you gave me a shock, I say furiously. How did you get in?

I’m just keeping the keycode till I have my stuff, he says. Don’t worry, I’ll delete it after that.

Well, okay, I say reluctantly. I make a mental note to ask Mark, the agent, how to block the code from this end.

How have you been? Simon asks.

I’m fine, I say. I know I ought to ask how he is too but I can already see he’s not good. His skin has the pale, blotchy look he gets when he’s drinking too much, and he’s had a terrible haircut.

Here’s the agreement, I say, handing it to him. And a pen. I’ve already signed it.

Hey! Hey! Aren’t we even going to have a drink together first?

I’m like, I don’t think that’s a good idea, Si. But I realize from the way he smirks he’s already had one.

This is all wrong, he says when he’s read the document through.

It was drawn up by a lawyer, I say.

I mean, what we’re doing is all wrong. We love each other, Em. We’ve had our problems but deep down we do love each other.

Please don’t be difficult, Simon.

Difficult? he goes. That’s a bit rich, isn’t it? When I’m the one who’s been thrown out with nowhere to live. If I didn’t know you were going to take me back eventually, I’d be really upset.

I’m not going to take you back, I say.

Yes you are.

No I’m not, I say.

But I am back, aren’t I? Here I am.

Just to get your things.

Or to come back here where my things are.

Simon, you need to go now, I say, starting to get angry.

He leans against the counter. Only when we’ve had a drink and a proper discussion, he announces.