I turned and looked over my shoulder as I approached the apartment door. Adverts and leaflets spewed out of the letterbox. One about the upcoming Norfolk & Norwich festival caught my eye. It was the same leaflet I’d passed under Teigan’s door. The same one left untouched on her bedroom floor. I shook the thought and knocked sharply. Nothing. Not even a shuffle of movement inside. With my hands framing my face, I tried to peer through the frosted glass, but all I could see was the blur of the crème walls and something black in the corner — a bag, perhaps? Or a pile of coats?
I walked round to the back of the house and looked in through the bay window. The layout was exactly the same as my old place — the room at the front was the bedroom. The curtains were open, so I could see the unmade bed and the pile of clothes strewn around the room. It was just bland and empty, with a few old pizza boxes propped up in the corner. Definitely a young man’s place. Hope sprung up within me — it could well be Rhys’ place, which could mean Carly wasn’t far away. I walked back to the front and knocked again, harder this time, and called through the letterbox.
“Hello? Carly? It’s me, Suzanne.”
Again, nothing.
“Carly?” I called again, the hope fizzling away. “If you’re there, please answer me.”
She wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been. Where else could she be? Where would she go if she were feeling worried about her brother? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to work through the fog of my jumbled memories. Then, a small part of the fog parted, and the answer emerged, as if it had been there all along.
There was one more place Carly could be. If not there, then I had no idea. But I’d been to this place before, when I was in a very bad way indeed.