This was the first, and is the only story of its kind I’ve written so far. It was published in Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine, July 1965, as “Quietly, by Night.” I had been sleeping badly ever since my husband died. My first night in the new apartment was not likely to be a good one. I put off going to bed as long as I could, but at last it became pointless to sit up any longer. It is a disagreeable business, taking off your warm clothes long after the heat has gone out of the pipes in a house that is not your own. Your nightgown is cold, the bathroom is cold, the sheets are coldest of all when there is no long-familiar though perhaps not greatly loved body sharing them with you. I had a hot water bottle, but it seemed a ridiculously small thing in the midst of so much emptiness. So I lay and shivered. At least the place was quiet. Below me lived two deaf old sisters. Above was only the dressmaker’s flat, empty now that the woman had died. I’d happened to notice the obituary notice in the paper because it was near my husband’s.
