‘I’m here to meet a friend of mine from 42B, only I can’t seem to get an answer at the door.’

‘Oh, you mean Mr Ebadi?’ she says, her voice glass.

‘Erm, yes,’ I say. ‘That’s the chap. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is?’

She looks at me blankly.

‘At his girlfriend’s perhaps?’ I offer.

‘Oh,’ she says then, frowning. ‘I wasn’t aware he had a girlfriend.’

‘Ah,’ I say, my heart dropping but my mind racing forwards.

‘And you say you’ve tried his bell?’ she says, cocking her head.

I nod in assent.

‘Well, you see it can be a bit what I would call sticky. There is a trick to it. If one sort of wiggles the button. Come on, I will show it to you. We used to own that flat too, you see.’

At this I panic. I cannot have her ring the bell but at the same time I can’t think of a way to stop her.

‘There must be a loose connection,’ she says as she bustles over to 42B. My heart beats as I scramble about trying to think of a way out of this. It feels like a ludicrously small thing to panic over but I can’t have her ring that bell. Her hand quivers over the button and just as she is about to press it, I take her wrist.

She turns to me in alarm.

‘Sorry!’ I say, my voice softening in a way that I hope reassures her. ‘I just. You see the thing is I don’t really know the chap. The truth is, I’m an FI,’ I say, scraping at memories from my banking days.

‘An FI?’

‘Oh. Financial Investigator. I’m just conducting some routine due diligence. It’s a tax thing. Look do you mind, Mrs—?’

‘Wilbert,’ she says clearly.

‘Mrs Wilbert. Would you mind if I were to ask you a couple of questions?’

‘Oh,’ she says, frowning. ‘Only’ – she inclines her head conspiratorially – ‘the police were here just yesterday.’

I feign surprise. ‘Really? What about?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she says, walking back towards the pavement. ‘I only caught a glimpse of them as they were leaving. None of those flashing lights or what have you. I didn’t think anything of it.’

I walk in step with her as she goes back in the direction I came from.

‘Mrs Wilbert, is Mr Ebadi in the habit of entertaining late-night guests?’ I say, twisting my language around her upper-class settings.

‘Oh,’ she says, stopping. ‘Let me see. I don’t sleep so well these days. You know they always told me that I’d go deaf with age but it hasn’t happened yet, unfortunately. And these walls let in all the sound, you see, from down below. Yes, I think it was Tuesday night. I heard a lot of banging about. And definitely voices.’