Em seems to be in a reflective mood, and it doesn’t take long before she’s reflecting it my way too. ‘What do you think of him?’
‘Who? Dead Man Davy?’
‘Yeah.’
I’ve been considering that too, strangely. ‘I can’t help sort of … liking him.’ It’s true. In my memory, he’s practically holding a toy gun.
‘Why do you like him?’
‘Because …’ A number of inaccurate answers tumble together. ‘Because he seems a bit like us.’
‘I don’t identify with out-of-shape middle-aged con artists. I’ve never threatened anyone with a gun, and I’ll bet you haven’t either.’
‘No, but … Think about him. He was basically a small-time crook. Whatever he was doing with all these homes, I don’t think he was the chief beneficiary of it.’
Em nods. ‘He was another parasite living off people with too much money.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Just like you.’
‘As before, I prefer “uninvited house-sitter” to “parasite” and “interloper” to both, but yes.’ It feels like Em is going to interrupt and gainsay me again, so I cut across her. ‘And clearly he was more of a crook than we are, and he must have got involved in something really bad, but … I don’t know. I just like him. Opportunistic yet un-malicious. He has – had, rather – an energy about him that I think I could acquire in thirty years.’
‘Maybe you could,’ says Em.
‘Thank you.’
‘If you really let yourself go.’
I ignore the insult. ‘You feel it too, though, don’t you? It’s because he was murdered. And obviously Iknowmurder is wrong, but seeing it actually happen …’ I shrug, and we pause as some kids on scooters cross our path. ‘He won’t see any of this. Not this lovely day, this week, nothing ever again. He won’t have a chance to confess, or get arrested, or change. Someone took it all from him.’
‘I know.’ Em nods.
And with that established, we walk in silence until we reach the western gate, where a distant but cheerful stick figure is waiting for us.
Elle greets us both with hugs, and together the three of us walk to Holland Park. This is one of thereallyfancy bits of town. I used to interlope here, but honestly, the places are just so big that you feel a bit of a fool by yourself, and if you hear a distant door slam you have no idea which way to run. These are streets where the main neighbourly arguments are not over parking permits, but over whether one decrepit rock star is allowed to excavate a four-storey basement for his supercar collection despite the objections of the decrepit rock star who lives next door. You might have enough money to move to the moon, but if you don’t like your neighbours, life is hell.
Palace Gardens is a street of honest-to-goodness mansions, right near Kensington Palace itself. A couple of them have national flags dangling out of the front. If your immediate neighbour is an actual embassy, you’re probably doing all right for yourself. The houses on this street are so big that you think you can’t possibly be in central London. If you went out as far as, say, Croydon, and saw how tight the city packs people in all the way out there, and then you saw this place, you’d laugh and laugh.
Number 34 is in just this mould. It’s covered in stucco – that’s the white plaster stuff, I think? – and it’s got a rounded porch sticking out of the front, with a balcony above it on the first floor. The front garden also has immaculate palms, although I’m guessing the people who live here don’t. Elle pressesCALL HOUSEon the buzzer by the gates.
‘Dial 0. It’ll let you in automatically.’
There’s something about the house I find familiar, but Ican’t place it at the moment. Before I can pull my keypad trick, the gates swing open, and the three of us walk to the porch. God, what is it? I’m getting serious déjà vu. Footsteps approach the door, and a man opens it.
He’s in his mid-seventies, I’d guess, but one of those vigorous oldies who are constantly climbing dangerous mountains or launching charity campaigns on behalf of small hunger-struck nations you couldn’t even find on a map. His hair is a thick white shock, all still present and correct, and his eyes are a crisp pale blue.
‘You must be Elle! And these are …?’
‘This is my sister, Emara, and this is our friend A—’
‘Francis,’ I say. I mean really, how hard is it to just come up with a name?
‘Wonderful.’ His accent is thoroughbred public-school-Oxbridge. He’s probably never eventhoughtabout sanding the edges off his vowels to fit in anywhere. He turns and raises his voice. ‘Patricia! Those people have arrived!’
He steps back to let us into the hall – chequered tiles on the floor, some surprisingly modern art on the walls, a little lacquered table that doubtless costs as much as a small flat – and I realise with a lurch why I’ve had déjà vu for the last ninety seconds.
I’ve interloped this place before.
