dressed in my baggy trousers and black hooded fleece and put on two pairs of socks. I made myself a cup of coffee, heating the milk for it. I boiled an egg, toasted a slice of the stale bread and buttered it liberally. I was going to look after myself. I made myself eat the breakfast at the table, dipping the toast into the yolk and chewing it slowly between gulps of milky coffee. Then I went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. I still got a mild shock when I saw myself, my naked white face. I wet my hair and combed it, so that it wasn't so tufty and brushed my teeth vigorously, watching myself as I did so. No makeup. No jewellery. Ready for action.
It was still only just past seven; most people would probably be still in bed. It was certainly too early to get a pregnancy-testing kit.
I'd do that later. I settled down with my pieces of paper, going through the lists I had made last night, adding notes to myself. I rummaged through drawers, looking for Blu-Tack. I didn't find any, but there was some Sellotape in a drawer full of screwdrivers, string, fuses and batteries. I stuck the pieces of paper along the wall, leaving gaps that I hoped to fill in later. It was oddly satisfying, a bit like tidying a desk and sharpening pencils before starting real work.
I wrote down the names and addresses of the men I planned to visit today. They were all names I knew well, and I assumed they were the men I'd gone to visit after I'd left Jay and Joiner's. I had phoned them, or their staff, daily during the last weeks at work and I knew we had mistreated them. Some of them I'd met, but that frantic period was a blur, a time of abstract urgency, as if I'd been moving too fast to see, or as if the amnesia had somehow oozed backwards. Perhaps, I thought, my memory loss is like ink spilt on to blotting paper. It has a central point of greatest darkness, and it gets gradually lighter as it spreads outwards, until finally the stain is imperceptible.
I looked up each address in the road map, planning my route and which person to go to first. I lifted the phone and started to dial the first number then put it down again. I should arrive unannounced. I had no advantage except unpredictability. I put on my woollen hat and drew it down low over my brow, I wrapped my stripy scarf round the lower half of my face and then I turned off all the lights, and drew the curtains in my bedroom, as they'd been before I arrived.
The long day yesterday, and the unsatisfactorily short night, had made me extra jumpy this morning. There was no back way out, so I had to use the front door. Just before opening it, I put on my dark glasses; now there was scarcely a strip of my face showing. I took a deep breath and marched out, into the blasting wind. It was the coldest day yet, a cold to scour the skin and ache in the bones. The parking ticket was still under iced wipers on my car but that didn't matter. Today I'd be using public transport.
Ken Lofting's shop wasn't open yet, but when I pressed my face to the glass doors I could see that the lights were on at the back. There didn't seem to be any kind of bell, so I pounded with my fist and waited. At last I saw a shape appear. The lights in the shop went on and when I say they went on, I mean they lit up in a dazzling display and suddenly it was like Christmas all over again and the bulky figure of Ken came walking ponderously towards me, frowning at my impatience. He didn't immediately open the door. He looked at me through the glass then recognition dawned slowly on his heavy, florid face. He unlocked one set of bolts, then the next, and pulled open a door. My mouth went dry with apprehension but I kept on smiling steadily at him.
'Abbie?'
'I just had my hair cut, that's all. Can I have a word with you?'
He stood back, still staring at me until I felt self-conscious. 'I was hoping to see you,' he said. I listened to his voice. Was the accent right? 'You've been on my mind.'
'I thought you'd be open by now,' I said, glancing around nervously. The lamps and chandeliers and spotlights shone, but there seemed to be no one else here.
'In five or ten minutes' time.'
'Can we talk?'
He stood aside and I stepped into the shop. He locked and bolted the door behind us. The sound made me shiver. I couldn't stop myself.
Ken isn't just any old electrician who puts wires behind skirting boards; he's a maestro. He's competent with wires but he's obsessed with lights the way light falls, the depth of its field, the quality of contrast. In his shop in Stockwell you can buy weird discontinued Norwegian bulbs, and he can spend hours discussing up-lighting and down-lighting and over-head lighting; sharp beams and soft diffusions. He often did. The lights we put into Avalanche's office were works of art. Each desk was brightly lit, and each individual office, but there were areas between that were more shaded. 'Contrast,' he'd said, over and over again. 'You've got to have contrast, give shape and depth to a room, bring it to life. The golden rule is never make lighting flat and glaring. Who can live with that?' The Avalanche directors loved that kind of talk.
'Why were you hoping to see me, Ken?'
'First things first. Tea?'
'Lovely.'
He made tea in his back office, which was full of cardboard boxes. I sat in the chair and he sat on a box. It was very cold in there, and I kept on my coat although he was in shirt-sleeves.
'Why did you want to see me?'
'Biscuit? Ginger nut?'
'No, I'm fine. Thanks.'
'To thank you.'
'Thank you for what?'
'For saving me from losing three grand, that's what.'
'I did that?'
'Yep.'
'How?'
'What?'
'Sorry, Ken. Bear with me. There's just some things at work that need clearing up.'
He seemed satisfied with that. 'You told me I'd been underpaid and I should make a fuss.'
'And you did?'
'Oh, yes.'
'When did I tell you, Ken?'
'It must have been the Monday morning. Early like this.'
'Which Monday?'
'Well, the one three weeks back or so.'
'Monday the fourteenth?'
He thought, then nodded. 'That would be the one.'
'And I haven't seen you since?'
'Seen me? No. Should you have done?' A little glimmer of comprehension appeared on his heavy face. 'Do you want to have seen me for your company records, to make up the hours, is that it? Because I owe you, so you just tell me when you saw me and for how long.'
'It's not that. I just want to clear up a muddle. Have I really not seen you since?'
He seemed disappointed. 'No. Though I've been wanting to say thank you.' He leant forward and put one hand on my shoulder. 'You put your neck on the block for me, didn't you?'
I shuddered at that, then said, 'So you're sure? Monday the fourteenth? You remember it clearly?'
'I remember you could hardly stay still for a single second, you were that angry.' He laughed a bit chestily.
'You need to be opening up soon,' I said. 'I should go. You've been very helpful, Ken.'
'Yes,' he said. He didn't move from his box, but perhaps that was simply because he was a big, slow man. And he looked at me in a way that might have been entirely friendly. But I didn't know. Doubt crawled through my entrails.
'So maybe you could unlock the doors for me, please?'
He lifted himself up and we walked very slowly through the dazzling shop. He opened the doors and I was out into the cold day. There were beads of sweat on my forehead and my hands were trembling.
'Oh, no! What now? Something not working? Something gone wrong, something crashed? Some idiot who doesn't know how to use the system? I tell you this.' He practically jabbed me in the chest with his forefinger. 'I
