‘Theresa?’

‘Hm?’

Theresa was trying to coax a last drop of wine out of the empty bottle.

‘What do you associate with pipe smoke?’

Theresa looked confused.

‘Pipe smoke?’ she said, with a thick tongue.

Norah nodded.

‘Grandads,’ said Theresa. ‘And cosiness.’

She lit a cigarette and passed it to Norah.

‘How about you?’

Norah took a drag and slowly pushed out the smoke, searching for the right words.

‘Something evil,’ she said.

21

It took a certain amount of concentration to get the key in the lock. Norah had drunk more wine than was good for her.

The flat lay dark before her, with its creaking floorboards and humming television. Somewhere in there, too, loneliness was lurking—probably rolled up in a corner like a sleeping snake just now, but sure to re-emerge soon enough. Norah put on the lights and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. She wondered what time it was. She hadn’t looked at her phone all evening—a clear sign of how comfortable she had felt with Theresa.

She had, though, found herself thinking repeatedly of Valerie. At a second glance, the resemblance was less striking, but seeing Theresa had been enough to wash up all the old questions. Would Norah’s life have been different without Valerie? Would she have been less full of anger, more cheerful? Would she find it easier to let others get close to her? There had been a time when she could, but that was years ago.

Valerie had been so vulnerable and yet so forceful—lightness and weight and sweetness and destruction. Yes, Norah thought, my life would have been different without Valerie because I would have been somebody else. If a butterfly beating its wings in Brazil could trigger a tornado in Texas, then a single event could throw a person’s life off course.

But it was no good thinking about it. It was what it was.

Fitful sleep, dreams of Theresa and Valerie—and of a dark figure with disturbingly pale eyes who stood by her bed, looking down at her, unmoving.

When Norah woke, her mouth and throat were so dry they felt sore, and the sheets so rumpled and damp with sweat that she sat up in disgust, despite her throbbing headache. Her second hangover in a fortnight. She got up and staggered to the bathroom, let the water run and drank a few gulps straight from the tap. The face that stared out at her from the mirror—a relic from the previous tenant—looked bleak and grim, like the wanted posters of the Baader-Meinhof gang that had hung in the post office when she was little and spooked the hell out of her. Norah pushed the hair out of her face and reached for her toothbrush—but her fingers closed over thin air. Confused, she stared at the empty tooth mug. She looked on the shelf. Toothpaste, dental floss, heaps of perfumes and cosmetics—but no toothbrush.

Norah ran her hand over her face. She was still tired, that was all. She closed her eyes and looked again. Nothing.