‘Have you tried, Madi? Really tried? Calling once, and hanging up without leaving a message … well, I think you may have to make a little more effort than that.’

‘What size? Eight to nine and a half? Or ten to twelve?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Socks, Tom.’ She held up two different packs, side by side.

‘If I didn’t know better I’d say you’re trying to change the subject.’

Madi didn’t answer.

‘And I’m a ten, by the way. You know what they say. Big feet, big …’

She wanted to laugh, but this time her heart wasn’t in it. What with fretting over Joe’s secret, worrying that Tom was about to palm her off on Ken, and having to deal with George’s obstinate silence, she sometimes couldn’t help but think men were more trouble than they were worth.

Chapter 23

So, I’m going to meet her at last. The visitor at number nine. She’s certainly made her mark on the young men around here. First Aaron, and now that boy who does the mowing. Flirting, spreading herself about. It can’t end well.

And now she’s been shoving notes through doors, trying to get support for some scheme or other, inviting everyone into the flat she’s taken over as if it’s her own, and it seems she wants me there too.

I’ve never been invited in before. There’s never been any occasion for it. The actress and I have never been friends. She keeps herself to herself, and so do I. Before that solicitor came, I would never have believed we had anything in common. How wrong I was!

But I’ll have to be careful. Act like it’s all unfamiliar, the inside of her flat, like I don’t know where her fancy sofa is until I sit on it. If I turn up at all, that is. But I’d be crazy not to, wouldn’t I? Although sometimes I think that must be exactly what I am. Crazy. To have kept my silence, let her carry on as if nothing ever happened. She needs to pay for what she did. The actress, that is. Not the other one, although she’s shaping up to be no better.

She’s still away. I’m hoping something might be said, about why she left, when she’s coming back. If she ever is. Because it’s time I confronted her. It really is. She thinks she’s got away with it all this time, that nobody knows who she is. That’s the trouble with the likes of her. She thinks the past can be put away in a drawer, like her posh knickers or her old theatre programmes. That it can all be written over, wiped clean. Thinks that nobody got hurt, except her. Huh! If only that were true.

I lost him too. And when someone dies before their time, there’s usually someone to blame. Someone who set them on that path, someone who pushed them over the edge. She was faceless before, but not any more. Now I know her for who she is. For what she is.