Her panicked brain scrambled for an explanation. She kept darting her eyes away and looking back, hoping not to see it. Was it a hallucination? Just when she’d started to feel on top of things? Oh, she thought, perhaps it could be a reflection, somehow, of me, standing here. But when she took her own hand down from the glass, the figure’s hand remained, white against the surface of the window. And beyond the hand, looming from the darkness, a pale face like the moon, with dark eyes that stared into her own. The face came closer to the glass, almost pressing up against it, a ghostly vision. Ruby ducked down, trying to hide, even though it was too late: she’d been seen.

Whoever it was—whatever it was—turned and walked away, back into the room.

For a while Ruby stood gazing at the blank eye of the big window, heart pounding, wondering if she was dreaming. No, of course she wasn’t; she could feel the cold kitchen floor beneath her feet, the rim of the stainless-steel sink under her fingers. She blinked and the woman was back, standing in the same place, but this time there was a bundle in her arms. It looked like a baby. Holding the child with one arm, the woman placed the other hand on the window, palm out, fingers splayed. With the baby she seemed less like a ghost, more like a human, though Ruby was still afraid; the way she stared, as if in accusation. The way her hands clutched the child, and her eyes, unblinking. Who was this woman to Gregor? His wife? Girlfriend?

Oh, Gregor. Ruby felt the disappointment bodily, the sensation of falling from a height, and gripped the edge of the sink to stop herself stumbling. At the same time she chastised herself: Why was she so upset by this? She hadn’t lost anything, not really, because she hadn’t had anything to start with, only a glimmer of hope. In a sick kind of a way, she was glad to have seen the woman—wife, partner, whatever she was—because it meant that Ruby knew where she stood: back on firm ground, where good things only happened to other people, and all the best men were taken or not interested. Not that Gregor would have been interested in her. How would she have explained the spying, for a start?

The woman in Gregor’s darkened apartment continued to stare across the drop and into Ruby’s eyes. After what seemed like a very long time, the woman reached across for the blind cord and slowly rolled it down, keeping her eyes on Ruby until the very last second.

CHAPTER

9

NOW

Joanna

Friday, December 21, midnight

“SO, ALL THE flats in this block are attached to the video-entry system,” said Thrupp.