Just like Ruby to help an old lady. Just like her to keep on helping, every week, to see someone in need and step in selflessly.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” asked Mrs. Stefanidis.

“Oh,” said Joanna, realizing she’d been staring into space, not speaking. “Not for now, thank you. I might need to talk to you again. I can have the police liaison officer come and sit with you for a while if you’re feeling shaken.”

“No, thank you. Don’t feel sorry for me. I like my own company. I’ll be completely fine.”

Harper was almost out the door when Mrs. Stefanidis called her back.

“Leonie,” said Mrs. Stefanidis. “I just remembered. That’s what the person said, the mumbling person, to the child upstairs. I couldn’t make out anything else but I heard them say the name Leonie. “Leonie, come back here”.”

“Does that name mean anything to you?”

“No. None of the children on this floor are called that, from what I hear them yelling. This wasn’t a yell, more of a loud whisper. Strange.”

Harper wrote the name Leonie on her notes.

“I’ll be in touch,” she said, and closed the door.

CHAPTER

13

THEN

Ruby

September

HER PHONE WASN’T in any of the usual places. Ruby went through her pockets, then her bag, even looked in her workbag, which she hadn’t opened since being signed off. It wasn’t under the bed or on it or in the kitchen. She tried to retrace her steps—she’d definitely had it on the bench, because she remembered Gregor asking her what she was listening to.

There was no sign of it on or around the bench. The model she had really wasn’t worth stealing, and for a moment she considered checking inside the bin to see if someone had thrown it away. Maybe, on his way back from the shop, Gregor had seen it. She walked up to the North Block and pressed the button for Apartment 7. There was a click, followed by the sound of static, a channel opening. She looked straight into the camera.

“Hello?” She thought she could hear breathing. “Gregor? Are you there?”

Another click, then silence.

She pressed the button again. No response to the buzzer, not even the click this time.

He probably didn’t have it. It was annoying to lose the phone, but not the end of the world. Sam had lectured her for so long about information safety that she never even accepted cookies. If the phone was gone, it was gone. No one would be able to empty her bank account or anything.

“Would you give me a hand, dear?”

An older woman was approaching the door to the building, struggling with two shopping bags. Ruby took them from her. They cut into her fingers painfully.

“Wow, these are really heavy. Are you going far?”