Secrets of the Dead

‘Oh my God, Abby.’ She threw her arms around Abby and kissed her on both cheeks. She looked genuinely pleased to see her, so much so that Abby had to check her memories. In her mind, Annukka was the sort of neighbour who watered your plants and smiled in the hallway. But perhaps it had been more than that. For all the hard work, aspects of being on mission were like summer camp. You made friends, shared intimacies, and then summer ended and most of it got forgotten in a welter of promises to write and keep in touch. That was what had made it so easy with Michael.

Except now he’s gone and I’m still chasing after him.

‘We’ve all been so worried about you,’ Annukka was saying. ‘We heard some crazy stuff about you and Michael. On the news, even. Some journalists came by, but I didn’t say anything. Well, I didn’t know. Seriously, though, are you OK?’ She looked at the gash on Abby’s chin where the pistol had cut it, the swelling around her mouth. ‘What happened to your face?’

Abby put her hand on Annukka’s shoulder. ‘Can we talk about this later? I just got here and I really need to sort myself out.’

‘Sure. I mean, of course, any time. Anything I can do to help, let me know, OK?’

She was so sincere, so briskly kind, Abby almost wanted to cry.

‘I was hoping you still had my spare key.’

‘Right.’ A shadow flickered on Annukka’s face. ‘I’m really sorry, Abby, but I have to tell you I gave it to the police. Two guys from EULEX and some Kosovo Police. They wanted to search your apartment. I thought perhaps they were getting some stuff for you. I don’t think they gave the key back.’

Abby stared at the wooden door, the Cyclops-eye of the peephole poking out of it.

‘You’re welcome to stay with me,’ Annukka chattered on. She frowned. ‘Except, I’m supposed to be going out with Felix tonight and I’ll probably stay over. We lost the water here again and they say it won’t come back until tomorrow. I can give you a key for my place, if you want?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Abby assured her. ‘I’ll go down to the police station and get it back.’

She walked slowly down the stairs until she heard Annukka’s door latch shut. Then she sat down and buried her head in her hands.

I can’t even get into my own home. Of all the things that had happened since Michael drove her to the villa, that seemed the most unjust. The world had turned its back on her; she was being nudged towards the exit. The cold step was her only home, strictly temporary. Even when Annukka hugged her, she’d felt like a drowning woman slipping out of her grasp.

We lost the water here again. That was the thing with Pristina. Ten years of international government, billions of dollars in reconstruction money, and when you flipped a switch or turned a tap you still couldn’t be sure what would happen. It’s lucky England got its plumbing from the Victorians, Michael used to joke. If we had to rely on the UN or the EU we’d still be running around with buckets picking lice off each other.

Buckets.

She stood and went downstairs. Outside, around the back of the building, there was a courtyard where the landlord kept the bins. Half a dozen satellite dishes stared down at her; the cables of illegal electrical hook-ups snaked down from a concrete pole.

The block was built in the shape of an H, but the ground-floor flat had filled in the intermediate space with a kitchen extension. Abby peered through the kitchen window and saw it was empty.

She dragged one of the bins over against the wall and clambered up on it, then hauled herself on to the kitchen roof. The wound in her chest throbbed in protest; for a second, jack-knifed over the edge of the roof, she thought she might pull the scar apart. She gritted her teeth against the pain.

I just want to get into my own home.

Anger took her over the edge and on to the gravel-covered roof, clutching her side as if she’d run a marathon. In the corner outside her bathroom window, a bucket of stagnant water sat under a sawn-off drainpipe. She’d kept it there for flushing the toilet when the water was off. It used to live inside, but somehow she always forgot to refill it. After being caught out for the third time, Michael had jury-rigged it for her so she’d never have to remember.

She’d used the bucket so often, in the end she just left the bathroom window unlocked permanently. Michael teased her it wasn’t secure, but Pristina – despite Kosovo’s reputation – was one of the safest cities in Europe. She worked her fingers under the lip of the window and tugged. For a moment it wouldn’t give – she wondered if some dutiful policeman had seen the latch and locked it. But it was only stiff from disuse. The window swung out. A few seconds later, she was standing in her own home.

Going back to the London flat had been disorienting for the changes: her past, rearranged. Here, it was what hadn’t changed that threw her. Everything was exactly as she’d left it when she went to work that Friday morning, before the trip to Kotor Bay. The washing-up sitting in the drying rack. The cold laundry balled in the tumble drier. A jaundiced, weeks-old newspaper on the sofa. The air smelled damp and sour; dust dulled every surface. She felt like an explorer opening an Egyptian tomb.

She shivered. The flat might not have changed, but she had: she didn’t belong here any more. And not everything was the same. The longer she looked, the more she noticed things. The drawer in the bedroom that hadn’t been closed properly. The photograph on her bookcase one shelf down from where it should have been. The door to the spare room, which she always wedged open for the light, that had been allowed to close.

What were they looking for?

Suddenly, she felt very afraid. The place had dispossessed her: she didn’t want to be there. She went into the bedroom and stuffed some clothes into a bag. She rummaged through the wardrobe, looking for a warm coat. Even that was painful. Interleaved on the hangers with her skirts and blouses, she found some of Michael’s clothes, shirts and trousers that had crept in and accumulated from all the times he’d stayed over. She found herself touching them, rubbing the cloth between finger and thumb, as if it might be possible to squeeze some small residue of Michael out of it. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it. She was crying again, but she didn’t try to stop herself. It felt natural, as if something deep within her had finally managed to reach the outside.