Afterward, Nicole blamed herself for not sensing something wrong that very first day, when she stepped across the Lowrys’ threshold into their shabby front hall.
But what, really, was there to notice, beyond the fact that the house was less than she’d expected? She was too exhausted from the long flight. If she was worried about anything, it was Brad’s silence, the impenetrable gloom that had enveloped him since they’d left L.A.
After a day or two, when she began to suspect she was in danger, it was impossible to get anyone to believe her. By the time the car blew up with that poor man inside, she understood this was no random act of terrorism. They were in serious trouble. Yet try as she might, it was impossible to convince Brad that the car bomb had anything to do with them, or the house swap, or the Lowrys, for that matter.
But that was later. After landing at Heathrow on that first morning, Nicole followed Brad through the airport, struggling to keep up. With Brad, activities as routine as finding their luggage and getting through customs were competitive sports.
Nicole had been unable to sleep during the long plane ride. She’d spent the time hatching schemes to fix their marriage and, at alternate moments, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Now, in the airport’s fluorescent glare, the rift between them was like a buzzing in her head—an insistent noise that blocked out everything else.
They were just leaving baggage claim when Nicole said, “Wait.” Brad kept walking, so she grabbed his arm. “My other bag,” she said. “Where is it?”
“Your other bag,” he repeated, setting the suitcases down and staring at them as if he’d never seen them before. He was tall and lanky with a broad face and dark brown hair that insisted on separating into curls despite stern measures taken with a blow dryer. The curls and his wide-set eyes usually gave him the look of an impish little boy. But this morning he was wearing a scowl and, after sleeping fitfully on the plane, seemed unusually cranky and distracted.
Looking back, she saw that the luggage carousel was empty and had stopped revolving. Nearby sat the only remaining pieces of unclaimed baggage, a carton tied with rope and a large aluminum trunk that looked as if it might contain a piece of movie equipment. The bag in question — black with tan leather trim, a slightly-larger version of the one slung over her shoulder — was nowhere in sight.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She could have sworn she’d pulled both of her suitcases from the moving belt. Now she wasn’t sure.
Locating the claims office and filing a lost baggage form consumed the better part of two hours. Before that, they’d spent forty-five minutes waiting in the long line in immigration. As they headed through customs toward the exit marked NOTHING TO DECLARE, Brad trailed along behind. His silence seemed to blame her for the lost suitcase and the delay. If she hadn’t come, she imagined him thinking, he’d already have checked into a hotel and be on his way to the office.
They took the express train from Heathrow to Paddington Station and, following Mrs. Lowry’s instructions, “queued up” for a cab. About twenty people were ahead of them. Brad stood at the edge of the sidewalk, as silent and remote as one of the lampposts that lined the street.
At any other time, Nicole would have been watching the other travelers, trying to pick up clues to the lives they led, their secrets and pretensions. She was insatiably curious about people, and the occasional chance to do some detective work was the one thing about her job she still found interesting. When the law firm wasn’t in chaos, she abandoned her role as office manager to help the resident private investigator. She had a gift for prying things out of people, figuring out connections, unearthing information no one else could find.
This morning, however, all of her curiosity had evaporated. Instead of staring at the people around her, she watched the red double-decker buses come and go, breathing in the reek of their exhaust. Jet lag, along with Brad’s abstraction, made her feel like a ghost in the final stages of dematerialization. Not for the first time, she was having doubts about the trip.
At last they climbed into a cab, and it carried them to Chiswick, about thirty-five minutes away.
The Lowrys’ next-door neighbor was pacing up and down in front of the house, waiting to let them in. He was enormously relieved to see them, a tall hunched man in his sixties who introduced himself as Mr. McGiever. Despite the brisk wind, he appeared to be sweating. “Brought the fine weather with you,” he said, mopping his brow with a crumpled handkerchief.
Nicole gave a puzzled smile and glanced at the sky. Between the gray clouds, thin scraps of blue peeked out. If this was a fine day, what could they expect of a normal summer day?
When they shook hands, McGiever’s was moist and sticky. It made Nicole’s skin creep, but she tried to be polite, waiting while he recited a welcoming speech that sounded as if he’d rehearsed it. Something about feeling free to call on him if they needed anything. “It’s no trouble,” he said. “No trouble at all.”
Nicole wasn’t paying much attention to the man; she was too distracted by the surroundings. Like its neighbors, the Lowrys’ house was a stunted-looking two-story brick with moldings of dingy white stucco outlining the windows and the eaves of the peaked roof. In front, a wrought-iron fence enclosed a yard just big enough to accommodate eight sick-looking rose bushes, four on either side of a cement path. Instead of lawn, the ground was covered with a layer of yellowing gray gravel.
The drapes were drawn, and the house looked deserted. Nicole prayed this meant the tenant was away. It wasn’t until her third email that Mrs. Lowry had even mentioned a tenant. “She’s quiet and respectable, a qualified nurse specializing in home care. She only uses the room between cases.”
Nicole, who had been ready to sign the agreement, balked at the idea of sharing the house with a stranger. She called Brad at the office to complain. For, while Brad had adamantly opposed the house swap, it was he who’d actually found the Lowrys’ house through a contact at work.
“Oh, yeah,” Brad said, when she asked him about the boarder. “That’s something they do over there. Only she’s not a boarder; she’s a tenant. You don’t have to cook meals for her. Wait, hang on,” he said. There was a click, then silence, while he put her on hold. Then he was back. “I’ve got to go. Look, if you don’t like this arrangement, find something else.”
“For God’s sake,” she said. “We’re leaving in three weeks…”
“Maybe you should consider staying home.”
“Brad…”
“Do what you want, okay? Gotta go . Love ya!”
After some soul searching, Nicole signed the agreement. But the tenant remained on her list of worries. What was the etiquette in dealing with such a person? Did the tenant share the kitchen with them, and how would that work? What if this “quiet young woman” had wild parties? Nicole pictured herself encountering strange men in the hallway at night.
“Now if you’ll allow me,” Mr. McGiever was saying, “I’ll show you how to unlock the front door. Mr. Lowry is a great believer in household security, and there’s a bit of a trick to it.” He produced a set of keys and eagerly escorted them to the door. The locks were rather complicated, requiring one key to release the doorknob, a second for the deadbolt, and yet a third for a lock near the bottom of the door.
There was a bad moment when Brad caught sight of the front hall—the peeling paint, the cracked tile floor, the worn tweed carpeting on the steps to the upper floor. It was all there on his face, his objection to her coming with him, to her being here at all. Never mind that he’d found this particular house. She was the one who’d insisted on this whole arrangement. It was on her.
There it was again—the rift between them, the hopelessness of ever fixing it. But she would, she told herself. That was why she’d come. She squared her shoulders and took a long gulp of air. Then, while Brad was getting rid of Mr. McGiever, she hurried through the first doorway on her left.
She found herself in a small dining room with dark wood paneling and a stone fireplace. It was crowded with furniture: a round oak table and chairs and two substantial china hutches. A narrow buffet table, shoved against one wall, held an array of condiments. She moved closer to read the labels: ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, some squat jars of mustard in several shades of nasty brown, chutney, jam, jelly, marmalade, lemon curd, honey, and small cruets of vinegar and oil. Despite the clutter, the room had a cozy charm.
The kitchen, through another doorway and a step down, was bright and airy. Looking around, she recognized it from Mrs. Lowry’s description, the new stove top, the stacked washer and dryer. Nicole was amazed at how small the appliances were, especially the oven, which looked like it dated back to the 1930s. A toaster, electric kettle, can opener, and coffee mill were lined up on the beige Formica counter. Each had a note—written in large, flowing script with a bright blue marker—taped in front explaining how it worked.
At the sight of the kitchen, Nicole’s spirits lifted. This was going to be okay. “Brad, come here!” she shouted.
After a moment or so, he appeared in the doorway, smiling. “They’ve got a 65-inch LED TV,” he said, “and killer speakers.” He seemed about to say something else, then hesitated, eyes dancing with amusement.
“What?” she said.
“You’ve got to see the painting in the dining room.”
She followed him back across the entry hall and through a nicely-furnished living room. It was a little bland for her taste, all beiges and browns. Beyond it, a good distance from the kitchen, was a formal dining room with a long mahogany table and twelve chairs. Hanging over an elaborately-carved sideboard was a mural populated by four repellent looking creatures, all nude. They were wrestling, or maybe embracing. She couldn’t tell. Nor could she determine what sex they were. Each had breasts, as well as a penis, five-o’clock shadow and long-painted fingernails. The artist possessed a certain amount of skill; the painting was interesting and provocative. But there was something weird about it that went beyond the androgynous nature of the figures.
She spent the next half-hour poking through the house. The sight of that painting had stirred her curiosity about the Lowrys. But the house offered no other clues to their proclivities. In fact, the place appeared disappointingly normal and—except for the front hall—decently maintained. There were quite a few antiques.
A piece that especially caught her eye was the large armoire that loomed at the top of the stairs. Up close, she noticed the carvings were of malevolent-looking creatures that might have been gargoyles, trolls, or dwarfs. Whatever they were, she didn’t like the expressions on their faces, the way they seemed to stare right at her. The armoire was finely crafted and odd in that there were no visible knobs or pulls for opening any interior compartments it might contain. She ran her hands over the carvings and tapped the heavy wood. Unable to figure out the trick, she gave up and moved on.
At the rear of the upstairs hall was a room she decided must belong to the tenant. She tapped on the door, waited a bit, then tapped again. No response. She waited a moment longer, then tried the knob, but the door was locked. With a sense of relief, she continued down the rear stairs, which led to a back door. From here, she walked down a short hallway and back into the kitchen.
It seemed strange there weren’t more clues about the Lowrys, about what kind of people they were. She’d gotten the impression Mr. Lowry had a job in banking or some sort of financial institution and that Muriel was a full-time housewife. Yet, other than the small appliances on the counter, the kitchen lacked cookbooks and equipment beyond the most basic pots and pans. From this, Nicole concluded that Muriel invested little time or effort in cooking. Nowhere had she seen clues to any other interests or hobbies.
There weren’t any books, not even magazines or newspapers lying about. The CD collection, a set of thirty-six recordings titled, “Great Masterpieces of World Music,” had been purchased as a set, complete with its own fitted rack. Only one of the disks had been removed from its cellophane wrap.
When she ran out of rooms to investigate, she found Brad upstairs in the master bedroom, unpacking his things. Then she spotted something she hadn’t noticed before. In one of the room’s two closets (the other left empty for Nicole and Brad) was a huge, old-fashioned metal safe, painted light green. The Lowrys’ clothes were jammed into the remaining space. She wondered how they’d gotten the safe through the bedroom door and into the closet. She reached out and gave the knob a tug. It was locked.
When she looked around, Brad was standing behind her.
“Well, what do you think?” she said.
“That is one big safe.”
“No, silly,” she said. “The house!”
“Not too bad,” he said. “Not too bad.”
“It’s great,” she said, beaming at him. “We’d never have found anything this good through an agency.”
He smiled, accepting this as praise. Then he stared at her a moment, tossed his suitcase onto the chaise lounge, and pulled her onto the bed.
Making love in this strange house, on a bed that actually squeaked, deepened her sense of unreality. At one point, she noticed that the bedroom door was open and remembered the tenant. She had an uneasy sense of someone else in the house, someone about to walk in on them. Then she was caught up in the warmth of him, the feel of his lips, the slow movement of hips and thighs. The strangeness of the house, England, the problems they’d been having—everything disappeared except the two of them.
Afterward, Brad dropped off to sleep while she drowsily took in the unfamiliar bedroom. Except for a few spots of dull turquoise, this room was done up in the same beiges and tans as the downstairs. Looking around, she wondered if the Lowrys’ marriage could possibly be as dull as their bedroom.
As she snuggled against Brad’s back, wrapping her arms around him, he pulled away and burrowed deeper into his pillow. She rolled onto her back, trying not to feel rejected. It was enough that he’d felt like making love again. A little at a time, she told herself. The chill was beginning to lift. She’d been right to insist on coming.
The leave of absence from her job—that seemed to be what infuriated him the most. The money, and the fact that she’d left without any guarantee her position would be there when she got back. He’d get over it. If they weren’t extravagant, they could manage on his salary for a while. She could always find another job.
She did feel bad about leaving Stephanie to cope with their father. Their mother had been dead over a year, and he still hadn’t recovered. Not that the marriage had been happy. On the contrary, his grief reminded Nicole of the old saying about it being easier to survive the loss of your best friend than the death of your worst enemy.
Despite her feelings of guilt, she’d felt compelled to accompany Brad to London. He would be gone the whole summer, his fourth trip in a year. Each time, he came back more distant. She worried that, after all this time apart, their problems might be irreversible.
After seven reasonably happy years of marriage, the chill between them puzzled her. Granted, they were two very different people. Nicole down to earth and practical, her energies focused on her small circle of friends and family. Aside from being an accomplished techy, Brad was something of a futuristic visionary with enough charisma to attract followers, people who believed in him. She’d always thought their differences were the reason they made such a great team. What had gone wrong?
She shivered, pushing the thought away, then kissed Brad on the side of the head and got up. She found a clean T-shirt among his things and pulled it on. The sleeves came almost to her elbows, the hem to mid thigh. She rolled up the sleeves, using her fingers to rearrange her hair. Only last Saturday, she’d had it trimmed and streaked with gold highlights to brighten up her natural color, a drab sparrow brown.
She moved closer to the mirror to study her face. At thirty-two, she still had no lines, no sign of crow’s feet. Today, in this unfamiliar setting, she looked different — faded somehow, like an overexposed photograph. Perhaps it was the light.
She rubbed her cheeks to bring back some color then turned from the mirror to trot downstairs and see what there was to eat. As agreed, the Lowrys had left enough food for the first day. Nicole had done the same at home. She pulled a loaf of bread and salad makings from the refrigerator, then she located a can of tuna in the cupboard. When lunch was ready, she covered it with paper towels. (No telling what sort of creatures might be running around in an old house like this.) Then she went back up to see if Brad was awake.
Finding him already up and dressed for the office, she felt a pang of disappointment. He was installed at a desk in a corner of the bedroom, talking on the phone while typing furiously on his laptop. This was something he prided himself on—the ability to do two, even three things at the same time. “He’d better get one thing straight,” he was saying. He paused a moment, absorbed in what he’d just written. Then, fingers flying over the keyboard again, he went on,“Britcomp isn’t in charge anymore. We are.”
She came up behind him and put her arms around his neck, her cheek against his. At her touch, he recoiled. This wasn’t a conscious gesture; he simply twitched and pulled away. It was enough to let her know he was talking to Brenda, his assistant. She’d arrived in London a week early to set things up.
The thought of Brenda made Nicole’s stomach knot. As she released Brad, she could almost hear Brenda’s little-girl voice at the other end of the line. Brenda was another reason Nicole had been so determined to come along.
She began to root through her remaining suitcase, trying to assess which of her carefully packed possessions had disappeared with the missing bag. Meanwhile, Brad said goodbye and hung up. He busied himself shutting down his laptop and putting it back in its case. This done, he reached into the closet for his blue sports coat.
“But I made lunch,” she protested. “You don’t have to leave this minute, do you?”
Instead of answering, he kissed her absentmindedly on the top of the head. Then he was clumping down the steps, two at a time. “I’ll be home early, around seven. Don’t bother about dinner,” he shouted up to her. “We’ll take Brenda to that Indian place Dennis told us about.” There was a brief silence before he added, “Take a nap or something.”
The front door slammed and she was alone.