around the same age? I’m sure Jonathan would balk at the idea. He wears slim-fit maroon trousers and goes sockless in slip-on shoes, believing he’s not so different from the kids around us. At least I’m not suffering under that delusion.
Since that first day, Miranda’s barely spoken to me. And whenever I ask what she and other members of the team are laughing about in the corner, she says, nothing, and slopes off, like a kid caught cutting class.
She chats to Jonathan, despite his age, but then he is her boss. Today she’s telling him about her cousin’s upcoming trip to Vietnam.
‘My son was there in his gap year – loved it,’ Jonathan says. ‘But Cambodia’s more interesting. Took a trip out there a few years ago – Angkor Wat – amazing.’
Bless Jonathan. If you’ve been to the moon, he’s been there twice.
‘My cousin’s going to be working, not just travelling,’ Miranda says.
‘I suppose your son’s at that age now, Julia,’ Jonathan says.
He catches me off guard. I’m unused to being included in conversations.
‘Sam’s only seventeen, still doing A levels – not sure what he wants to do afterwards,’ I say.
‘Uni, gap year?’
‘Still undecided.’
‘You need to look into it now,’ Jonathan says. ‘At least a year in advance. Have a chat with him. Are you close?’
You’re a whore. I hate you.
‘He’s growing up. Doesn’t need his mum so much these days.’
‘You always need your mum,’ Miranda says. ‘I’m twenty-five and I still talk to mine every day.’
I wish you were dead.
‘I think you need some independence, before you become close again,’ I say.
‘That’s difficult these days,’ Miranda says. ‘Because no one can afford to leave home. I only managed it because I found this property guardian job.’
Jonathan turns the conversation back to his son and the flat he’s helping him to buy. I make a coffee and slip out of the door. No one notices.
Outside, it’s a bright day, with only a hint of rain in the air. A man in a padded jacket enters the Sensuous Bean next door, my co-workers’ preferred coffee shop. Sometimes they take their laptops and work in there. My café is the green in the square of Georgian houses behind the main road. A small patch of grass with benches provides fresh air and somewhere to sit and drink. The tall poplars surrounding it are turning to rust in the early October chill. Their leaves swirl around the square, hugging its corners and clogging its drains. A toddler jumps into a great pile of them, kicking whorls into the air and giggling with glee. He reminds me of Sam at that age, in his red jacket with the hood falling back from his head.
Loitering by the bin is a man dressed entirely in khaki. He’s constantly hanging about the square, a roll-up wedged between his forefingers. I’ve always suspected he’s a drug dealer. People come and stand and talk to him for half a minute or so, money changes hands, and the people wander off. It all seems very friendly, not how I imagined the trade to be carried out, with knives and Rottweilers. I’ve spent so many coffee breaks here, khaki man and I are now on nodding terms.
Today, a few workmen, in thick boots and high-vis jackets, are sitting around chatting and drinking tea from polystyrene cups. One of them, who hasn’t bothered to take off his hard hat, is chatting to a man in mustard-coloured jeans. I do a double take and realise it’s Paulo from the office. He turns and sees me, gives me a nervous smile and looks a little embarrassed. Is the man in the hard hat Paulo’s bit of rough? Not everything’s about sex, my mother, Audrey, always tells me. She’s right, not everything, but it’s what most things boil down to. That and greed.
A bleep from my phone distracts me. I check straight away, in case it’s Sam.
Jules, we’re back! Come over tomorrow and we’ll talk. XXX
My oldest friend, Pearl, is the only person I can forgive for not being Sam, but I wish he’d contact me. Missing him has become a physical ache. I’ll text her back later.
I’m walking to the next free bench when my phone beeps again. An unknown number this time, probably informing me I’ve been mis-sold PPI – whatever that is.
I open the message. I must have misread it. I stare at the phone and force my eyes to focus. I read it again.
It’s a photo link to a news website, a picture of lush, rolling hills, dotted with clumps of beech trees. Clouds cross a bright sky, casting shadows over the dells and copses. Above the photo is a headline: Surrey University Students Discover Body Buried on North Downs.
My throat constricts. Black spots start to float in front of my eyes. The square, its leaves, its inhabitants disappear. I drop the coffee.
Julia stood outside Guildford train station, twisting a flimsy A–Z in her hands and trying to orientate herself towards the six locations, ringed in red biro, where she’d arranged viewings. Her two criteria were that the room must be clean and close to the train station. Guildford was to be a place of work only, the room she sought somewhere to rest her head. Her life would be in London. At weekends, she’d stay over at Pearl’s, and catch the late train back on weeknights.
After a couple of wrong turns, Julia found the first place. What the advert had described as a charming cottage was, in fact, a tiny terrace house. The landlord was waiting outside. Rotund, and in his late fifties or early sixties, he was more of a yokel than the Surrey stockbroker type she’d expected.
‘Jeff,’ the man said and stuck his hand into hers.
‘Julia,’ she replied.
‘You’re the first to see it. If you like, you can help choose the other tenants.’
So far, so good.
Jeff wrenched open the rusted gate into a small front garden, overrun with weeds. Inside, the house was empty, except for a thick-pile beige carpet on the floor.
‘I’ve ordered new furniture,’ the landlord said once inside.
A sofa and coffee table may have helped to hide some of the stains or distracted from the thick dust on the skirting boards.
‘Did the last tenants wreck it?’ Julia asked.
‘Who?’
‘The previous tenants, it doesn’t look like they took care of the place.’
The man scowled. ‘My wife’s always been a stickler for housework,’ he said. ‘If it’s a little dusty, it’s because we moved out a couple of weeks ago and there’s been no chance to run a cloth over it.’
Julia eyed the sticky mug ring on the mantelpiece and caught a whiff of dog hair rising from the carpet.
‘What do you think?’ Jeff asked, after giving her a tour.
‘The bedroom’s a bit small,’ she said.
The second room on her list was in a similar Victorian terrace to the first. Two male PhD students, from Surrey University, were already living there. It annoyed Julia that she hoped at least one of them was good-looking and single. The first hope was wiped out as she entered the house, and she never got around to asking about the second.
Ewan, twenty-six and reading physics, showed her the room, which was large and had its own sink. Promising. And while