‘Hmm. How’s the computer?’

Brian laughed. ‘Dead.’

‘Oh.’

‘Hey, don’t worry about it. I was thinking of getting rid of the bloody thing anyway.’

‘What about your book? Wasn’t it all lost?’

‘No, I had it all printed out so it’s just a matter of retyping it. In fact, doing that has allowed me to make a lot of improvements, so really you did me a favour.’

‘Oh. Good. Perhaps you should invest in an external hard drive, so you’ll have everything backed up in future.’ Jamie was relieved. He had been worried that not only would the downstairs neighbours hate him, but the ones upstairs would begin to as well.

‘How’s Kirsty?’ Linda asked. ‘You both must be very excited. The patter of tiny feet and all that. If you ever want a babysitter, just give me a shout.’

Jamie wanted to ask Linda why she didn’t have any children of her own. She was obviously keen on babies, from the way her eyes lit up when she talked about them. And Brian was a kids’ author. It was another fact that didn’t fit. The most obvious answer was that they were unable to have children – for biological reasons – and he didn’t want to bring up such a sensitive subject.

‘Has Kirsty got the week off too?’ Brian asked.

‘No. She’s at work. I get more leave than her.’

‘Lucky you.’

Jamie was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘The reason I came up – apart from to see if your computer was alright – was to ask if you have a forwarding address or telephone number for the couple that used to live in our flat.’

Linda shook her head. ‘Letitia and David? No, we don’t.’

‘I seem to recall they moved out in a real hurry. We didn’t know about it until after they’d gone.’ Brian removed his reading glasses. ‘Mary was closer to them than us. She might have an address for them.’

‘She’s not in.’

‘I just heard her front door close,’ said Brian.

‘Really?’

Jamie thanked them and went back down the stairs. This time, Mary answered her door straight away.

‘Jamie! Hi!’

Despite her enthusiastic greeting, she looked like she had a cold. Ginger obviously hadn’t worked for her. He knew he ought to enquire after her health, but he wanted to get straight to the point and ask her his all-important question.

‘Come in,’ she said, before he could open his mouth. ‘I was just making a tea. Do you drink herbal tea?’

He was going to be asking a favour. It would only be polite to say yes, even though he thought herbal tea was revolting. ‘Yes, that would be lovely.’

He followed her into the flat, looking around for Lennon. ‘Is Lennon here?’ he asked.

‘No. He’s out and about somewhere.’ She took two floral-patterned mugs down from the cupboard.