The Couple at No. 9(11)

She touches the ends of her wet hair. All afternoon, while sitting behind her desk watching the hotel residents come into the lobby, drenched and disappointed, she’d been looking forward to getting her hair done, and now it’s ruined.

After another five minutes’ walk through a maze of crowded streets and tall stone-coloured buildings with their black wrought-iron balconies rearing up at either side of her, she’s reached her apartment. She lets herself through the enormous front door into the lobby. She continues down the long, thin hallway, passing the glass lift that goes up to the second floor, and enters through another door at the end of the corridor. It leads across an open-air courtyard to two maisonettes perpendicular to each other: hers and Mari’s. You’d never know from looking at the front of her building that all this was hidden behind.

Mari, a petite woman in her late fifties with waist-length dark hair, is standing at her threshold banging dust from a rug. ‘Buenas noches,’ she calls, as Lorna walks carefully across the courtyard so as not to slip on the rain-slicked terracotta tiles. Lorna smiles and waves back, aware that she must look like a drowned rat. She lets herself into her own front door. It leads straight into the dining-living area, with wooden stairs that go up to a mezzanine level where the en-suite bedroom is. The kitchen and cloakroom are at the rear of the apartment, looking out onto the backs of buildings where there is also a concrete basketball court covered with graffiti. Sometimes she can hear the local kids playing out there, or listening to music late at night. It’s comforting, makes her feel she’s not alone while Alberto is working.

She peels off her wet blazer and kicks off her shoes, bending over to examine her heel where a blister has formed. She pads into the galley kitchen to put the kettle on. She’s tempted by the bottle of white wine she has in the fridge but decides against it. Later she can let her hair down in a way she hasn’t for ages. She leans against the counter while she waits for the kettle to boil and checks her watch. It’s nearly six. She should have enough time to straighten her hair before Alberto gets home. He promised to be back by seven.

She notices two wine glasses in the sink. She was sure she washed up before she went to work this morning. She never leaves a mess – the kitchen’s too small for that. It would make her feel stressed to see it cluttered. She’d left Alberto in bed, one tanned arm flung across his face this morning. He wasn’t due at the bar until 4 p.m., he’d said. So what had he been doing all day and, more importantly, with whom? She picks up the wine glasses and examines them for lipstick marks. There is nothing and she replaces them in the sink. She’s being ridiculous, she decides. This is where madness lies. She’s not normally like this. She’s usually trusting. Too trusting as it turns out – her last boyfriend, Sven, had left her for someone else after eighteen months together. She’d been living in Amsterdam then, had left England when Saffy met Tom. After she broke up with Sven she didn’t want to stay, and had decided to find a place in Spain instead. Within months she’d met and fallen in love with Alberto. Tall, ripped, tanned Alberto, six years her junior. She’d thought she’d feel younger but it has the opposite effect.

Her mobile vibrates on the worktop and she leans across to get it. Saffy’s name flashes up on screen and Lorna feels a lurch of happiness, followed by a quick stab of guilt. She hasn’t seen her daughter since Christmas and she misses her.

‘Hi, honey,’ she says into the phone.

‘Mum.’ Saffy sounds hesitant and straight away Lorna’s antennae twitch. She stands up, picturing her daughter’s beautiful and slightly anxious face.

‘Is everything okay?’

‘Yes … well, no. Something odd has happened.’

No small-talk. She loves that about her daughter. She always gets straight to the point.

‘O-kaay.’ Lorna braces herself for the many catastrophes she tries not to worry about befalling her only child while she’s living so far away. Her stomach tenses.

The line crackles and Lorna moves into the living room as Saffy speaks. Did she just say something about dead bodies?

‘… ten days ago, in the garden, while the builders were digging …’ She sounds young.

Lorna sinks into her lime-green armchair, her mobile still pinned to her ear, her stomach dropping. ‘What?’ Her mouth falls open as her daughter fills her in. And why is she only hearing about this now? Saffy said this happened ten days ago.

‘The police are going to want to speak to Gran, although I haven’t heard anything about it yet,’ says Saffy. ‘Do you know the exact date she bought the cottage? I know Gran told us it was sometime in the 1970s, but she might have got it wrong.’

Lorna tucks her legs underneath her. The rain has soaked through to her blouse and she feels cold and damp. ‘I have no idea. I didn’t even know about Skelton Place until she told us about it last year. As far as I know she never lived there herself.’

‘You’ve got the deeds, haven’t you? It should say on there when Gran bought it.’

Lorna frowns. ‘I have them somewhere, yes. I’ll dig them out. But the police might already have this information.’

‘Even so, I’d like to know,’ says Saffy. ‘And the list of tenants.’

‘You might be better off speaking to her solicitor … I’ll see if I have their details.’