Alaric kept climbing.
He had two options if the man answered the door—firstly, he could pretend he was looking for someone else, that he’d made a mistake with the address, and use any resulting conversation to fathom Ryland out. Would he be glib? Shifty? Downright hostile? Or Alaric could push straight away and ask about Gemma. He’d have roughly five seconds to decide which path to take based on first impressions and a lifetime of honed instincts.
The trouble was, both Emmy and Beth had Alaric doubting those instincts today.
On the fifth floor, Ravi paused outside the door, listening while he checked out the lock—a simple mortise by the look of it. “All quiet inside. Wanna knock?”
“Yes, to start with.”
In the absence of a doorbell, Alaric rapped lightly on the wood with his knuckles.
Silence. Ravi was right. Either there was nobody home or Ryland was lying low. The question was, which? If they went in uninvited, they had no plausible excuse for being there whatsoever. Logic said to back away, but what if Gemma was incapacitated inside?
Ravi raised an eyebrow. He already had his picks in his hand, so his opinion was clear.
Ah, fuck it.
“Let’s go in.”
Twenty seconds later, the lock clicked open, and Ravi peered through the crack.
“What the…?” He pushed the door open wider. “Shit.”
Shit indeed. The apartment was empty. Devoid of life and furniture. Apart from a trail of rat droppings on the beige carpet, the place was bare. Except…
Ravi made a face. “What the hell is that smell?”
Had a rat died in there? Alaric glanced around the living room, then checked the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. No decomposing carcasses, but the odour reminded him of his first solo job as a CIA agent. He’d found the missing informant he’d been sent to locate, but unfortunately, it had taken a DNA test to identify the poor bastard.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know.” Alaric tapped the floor with a heel. Concrete, not wood. Nothing in the built-in bedroom closet either. “But it’s safe to say Ryland isn’t here and neither is Gemma.”
“Try the neighbours?”
Something buzzed past Alaric’s face, and he smacked a fly away.
“Might as well. The worst that can happen is they’ll tell us to fuck off, and this apartment gives me the creeps.”
At least, Alaric hoped that was the worst that could happen. Almost unconsciously, he checked the gun at his back was still within easy reach. He didn’t plan on using it, but…
“Left or right?”
“Left,” Alaric said out of habit. Back in the days of Emmy, she’d joked that she was always right so he must be left. It had stuck.
Again, he knocked and waited. And waited. Just as they were about to give up, he heard footsteps, and the door opened an inch, blocked by a chain. The girl could have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty, slight in build, and she barely looked strong enough to hold the baby on her hip.
“Hallo?”
“Good afternoon, Miss. I’m from Hounslow Borough Council, and I’m hoping to speak to your next-door neighbour—Ryland Willis—but he doesn’t seem to be in. Could you tell me when you last saw him?”
“The council?” She repeated the words haltingly. “I have papers. I am allowed to be here.”
“We’re just looking for your neighbour. Next door.” Alaric waved his hand to the right for emphasis, and as air wafted past, he sniffed. Smelled like soup. “We had a complaint that he’s keeping a cat in there.”
More puzzlement. “Next door? There is nobody next door.”
“A man? A tall man? Big?”
“Nobody. Empty.”
“Empty how long?”
“Since I came here. Three weeks. Nearly four.”
So Ryland had left a month ago at least? Dammit. Where the hell had he gone?
“I appreciate your help.” They stepped back to leave, but the door opened a fraction wider.
“Speak with Eunice. The other side. Five-zero-five. Eunice, she knows everything.”
This time, Alaric’s smile was genuine. “Thank you.”
Except Eunice wasn’t in. He knocked and waited, then knocked again. The tower was far from silent—footsteps echoed in the stairwells, and a couple was arguing on another floor—but nothing stirred in apartment 505. They had no choice but to cast the net wider.
By the time darkness fell, Alaric had been spat at by a kid on a skateboard, shouted at by a group of teenagers, and narrowly avoided a broken nose when the living incarnation of Homer Simpson slammed the door in his face. Ravi materialised at his elbow as he paused in front of yet another apartment. At least Beth was holding herself together. She’d sounded nervous each time Alaric checked in with her, but the car doors were locked, and he heard the engine running in the background so at least she could make a quick getaway if necessary. Still, he didn’t want to leave her on her own for much longer.
“Anything?” Ravi asked.
“Either the guy’s a ghost or people here just like keeping their mouths shut.”
“Or perhaps it’s a case of see no evil, hear no evil.”
“That too.”
Alaric pressed the doorbell, and a scratchy tune rang out, entirely too jolly for the surroundings. Please, let this one be a woman. Women had less of a tendency to threaten bodily harm in response to a simple question. Nobody answered, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a girl barely older than Rune pause at the other end of the hallway, her grip tightening on the hand of the toddler beside her. She wanted to run, but the kid prevented her from doing so.
Alaric tried a smile. “Is this your place?”
“Maybe. Who’s askin’? I don’t want no trouble.”
Her gaze flicked between Alaric and Ravi as she sized them up, and Alaric dropped his hands open at his sides, going for non-threatening.
“There’s no trouble, honest. I borrowed a weight belt off a guy in the gym a few weeks ago, and I need to return it, only he hasn’t been back for a while.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“He was one of your neighbours, but he seems to have moved out. Ryland Willis? In flat 504?”
“Don’t know him.”
Alaric held out a copy of the mugshot Beth had taken from the noticeboard at the gym. “Are you sure? He’s a big guy, and he was dating a pretty brunette.”
The girl glanced at the photo, dismissive at first, then leaned forward an inch to take a second look.
“Oh, yeah, Ry. I do know him. Want my advice? Keep the belt.”
“Why do you say that?”
“’Cause he’s a creep.”
“Really? He always seemed okay to me.”
“That’s ’cause you’re a bloke.”
So Ryland was creepy to women? That fit with Gemma’s “uncomfortable” description on Beth’s voicemail.
“He did something to you?”
“Not to me. My friend. He offered her a lift to Currys to pick up a new TV, then tried to drive her somewhere else.”
“But she got away?”
“Jumped out at some traffic lights.”
“Your friend—is she around?”