From the shelter of a shop awning Helen Coe waited until it eased, thinking of this as London weather as opposed to any other kind, which made her wonder if she’d been here too long. It was still steadily raining, though less torrentially, when she moved on. Her flat was three bus stops from the Chronicle house and boasted a canal view, though you’d have needed a periscope. At the corner shop she picked up milk, bread, teabags and washing-up liquid, wishing she’d sent Jonno out for them earlier. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Jonno; more that she regarded it a duty to make his apprenticeship unpleasant. To do otherwise would be to waste her experience. These thoughts carried her the last hundred yards; where, flimsy white plastic bag in one hand, she pawed free her keys with the other, and let herself into the building. She lived on the first floor, and had small excuse for using the lift. A small excuse, though, was all she needed. Somebody she didn’t recognize stepped out as she stepped in, and for the time it took the machinery to deliver her to her landing, she endured the masculine smell he’d left behind: aftershave and hair gel, on its way to being swamped by pubs and smoke.
