“How do you know he’s free?”

“It’s the twenty-fifth,” said Neku. “His term ended on Friday…he texted me,” she added, when Kit looked blank.

“Where’s Charlie now?” asked Kit.

Neku rolled her eyes. “Outside,” she said, as if that was obvious.

“I’ve got a question,” said Neku, putting a can of Coke in front of Charlie and placing a bowl of seaweed crackers beside the can. When he put his hands together, in quick thanks for the food, Neku smiled.

“A question?”

“Well, more of a logic puzzle really.”

“Oh, right.” Neku could practically see Charlie relax. “What is it…?”

They sat on Mary’s bed, surrounded by clothes pulled from one of the built-in cupboards. At least a third of these were male. A blue suit with a thick chalk stripe, a blazer with five gold buttons on each sleeve, something that might be a rugby shirt if not made from raw silk. Now that Neku came to think of it, she’d thought the suit Kit had been wearing looked a little flashy for his taste.

“Suppose the police found a gun,” said Neku.

“This has to do with that woman’s suicide?”

“No,” said Neku. “This has to do with something else. Suppose they found a gun and it had been loaded with…” She looked at him. “You might want to write this down,” she said, offering him a note pad. “Five blanks, two live rounds, and one blank…”

Charlie looked up from his pad. “Which order?” he asked. “Five blanks first, or one blank first?”

“Five,” said Neku. “Definitely five.”

“Okay,” he said. “What’s your question?”

“Why?” said Neku.

After watching Neku for a couple of minutes, while she sorted through the clothes and carefully rehung them by colour, beginning at one end of the visible spectrum and ending at the other, Charlie took his can of Coke, bowl of crackers, and logic question out to the roof garden, leaving Neku to draw up her list of Mary’s possessions in peace. By then, of course, Neku had moved on to Mary’s bedside bureau.

Top drawer.

Seven pairs of panties, size 10, all Marks & Spencer, three nylon slips, five bras (34D, but Europeans were large), an old diary, written in something that wasn’t English, Japanese, or any other script Neku recognised, a key ring vibrator, and a pink plastic egg.

Easy reach, thought Neku, looking from the open drawer to the bed.

Middle drawer.

A dozen black tee-shirts from Topshop. Armani jeans, black, size 10, and well worn. A black jersey, frayed at the cuffs. And, beneath this a torn copy of Sandra Horley’s The Charm Syndrome. Someone had taped it back together.

Bottom drawer.

A collection of art magazines. A catalogue from Christie’s New York, dated 2007. Three copies of Time Out, all the same issue and containing a glowing review for a Tessa Markham exhibition at the Canterville Gallery. Removing the bottom drawer only revealed smooth wood beneath, so Neku tipped the whole unit forward to see if the base was hollow. It was, but it was also empty.

Although a Victorian metal fireplace had been removed and the damage plastered over, the gap between the built-in wardrobe’s middle door and underlying chimney breast was only deep enough to take shallow shelves.

On the shelves were three black, two pink, and one green tee-shirt that looked as if it had never been worn, more panties, a bundle of socks, and rolled jeans. Nothing else, and certainly nothing interesting. The jeans were size 8. So either Mary used these and kept the Armani jeans in her bedside dresser because she couldn’t bear to throw them away, or it was the other way round.

A collection of black jackets hung from wooden hangers in the next wardrobe along. All of the jackets where short and most were nipped at the waist. Some had pockets with flaps, others didn’t. One of them had a tiny pocket in the lining, low down on the left-hand side. It was here Neku found the key.

It was the thirty-eighth pocket she’d searched since Charlie took his logic problem outside and the fifth key she’d found. Although the others had been found in drawers or hanging from nails on the wall. Neku tried to open the obvious items first. A battered suitcase under the bed, which was already unlocked…a metal box file, contents missing…both pointless, since the key was evidently meant for a different kind of lock.

So Neku took the key downstairs and knocked at Sophie’s door. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about Sophie and suspected the woman felt the same about her, but Neku needed to talk to someone who understood English things.

“What things?” Sophie asked.

Neku held up the key.

Taking it, Sophie stepped back and waved Neku into her studio, which was in chaos. “Sorry about the mess,” she said.

“I’ve seen worse,” said Neku, then wondered if she should have been more impressed.

“Right,” said Sophie, “grab a stool while I make coffee.” And with that the woman disappeared inside, leaving her guest alone in the glassed-over yard that, quite obviously, made up Sophie’s life. Would it be rude to say she’d already had enough coffee to last one lifetime? Would it be rude to open a louvre window? Neku wondered. Or would this ruin the portraits now drying in a row along one wall…

“How do you stand the smell?”

Sophie looked surprised.

“I’m sorry,” said Neku. “I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just…”

Once an overhead window had been opened and Sophie had checked twice that Neku really did like her coffee black and unsweetened, Sophie turned her attention to the little brass key.

“School trunk,” said Sophie finally. “Maybe a tuck box.”

After she’d explained that one was for the uniform and the other for personal possessions, and both were required by children going to boarding school, Sophie remembered to ask where Neku found the key.

“Upstairs.”

And after a few questions, mostly about how she liked London, Neku realised she was meant to go now. So she thanked Sophie for the coffee, trying not to mind the woman’s obvious relief when she showed Neku to the door. By the time Neku had climbed the stairs and was letting herself into the flat, she’d reached a conclusion. The first completely firm conclusion she’d reached since leaving home…pretty much everybody on this planet was weird.

CHAPTER 37 — Nawa-no-ukiyo

“Lady Neku…”

So many people, almost all of them strangers. Yellow cloaks, red tunics, faded blue hats, and belts in a dozen other colours her mother would undoubtedly regard as vulgar. The d’Alambert retainers might look like clowns but they kept their gaze steady and held their ground.

She was being called.

Petro pushed her forward and Lady Neku stumbled to a halt in front of Luc d’Alambert, who bowed. “My father would like to meet you.”

Lady Neku glanced at her mother.

“Apparently Lord d’Alambert wishes you to board his yacht.” The contempt with which Lady Katchatka said that final word revealed what she really thought of the gaudily painted vessel.

Luc blushed. “It’s protocol,” he insisted.

Well, Lady Neku thought, that’s an end to that. From introduction to intractable argument inside a single minute. That was quick, even for the Katchatka family.

“Please,” said Luc, the first time Lady Neku could remember anyone saying this. Well, certainly in her lifetime.

“He insists?” she asked.

Luc d’Alambert nodded.

“Well,” said Lady Neku. “We’d better go.” She watched Luc try to work out if she was mocking him and wondered if she was—maybe a little. Neku mocked everyone while pretending to do the opposite. It made for a shell most people found hard to crack.

“After you,” he said.

If he could descend that ramp to meet the Katchatka family then she could climb it to meet Lord d’Alambert. I mean, Lady Neku asked herself, how hard could it be?