Nick answers not long after I knock. He’s barefooted and wearing shorts plus a sweatshirt with a Marvel character on the front. His hair is unusually askew and it doesn’t look like he’s left the sofa – or bed – all day. Judge pokes his head around the door and the creeps onto the landing, looking both ways as if to ask where Billy is.
‘Was I being noisy?’ he asks.
It’s only now that I notice that music is seeping out through his open door. I don’t recognise the song, but it’s some auto-tuned nonsense. That’s all there ever is nowadays.
‘No,’ I say, angling towards the darkened corner. ‘Karen found some chunks of meat left on the floor over there. I didn’t know if you’d noticed anything?’
He stares past me and narrows his eyes. ‘Meat?’
‘Beef or lamb – something like that. She picked it up. I had to take Billy to the vet because he wasn’t feeling well. The vet said he probably ate something that gave him a bad tummy. I didn’t know if that’s what happened to Judge…?’
Nick turns to look at Judge, who is ambling along the corridor in the vague direction of the corner. Nick calls him back and the dog turns and comes back to him with reluctance.
‘How is Judge?’ I ask.
‘He was ill for a day or so – but seemed to get over it. If he’d been down for any longer, I’d have gone to the vet.’
We both turn to look towards the darkened corner of the corridor.
‘That bloody Mark,’ Nick says out of nowhere.
‘Mark?’
‘From downstairs. I told you about him aiming a kick at Judge. He’s always had a thing about dogs.’
‘Oh…’
For whatever reason, Mark’s name hadn’t occurred to me. ‘He shouted at me, too,’ I say.
‘Did he?’
‘He was playing loud music last week and keeping up Vicky from downstairs. She’s got a young baby, so I went and knocked on his door to ask him to turn it down. He didn’t seem too happy about it.’
‘Give me a minute.’
At that, Nick disappears back into his apartment and pushes the door closed. I wait in the corridor, not sure what to do. A minute or so later, Nick reappears, wearing jeans, a shirt and shoes. There’s something about his focused, determined stare that makes me uneasy. He re-closes his door before Judge can leave and then he marches downstairs, with me tucked in a little behind.
When we get to the ground floor, Nick turns and strides towards Mark’s door before pounding on it with the palm of his hand. He waits three or four seconds before blasting the door a second time.
When the door opens, Mark is wearing loose basketball shorts and nothing else. His chest is like a Gruffalo’s plughole that’s not been cleared in a few years. The smell of tobacco and marijuana drifts into the hallway as a sloppy grin falls onto his face. When he spies Nick, Mark starts giggling to himself.
‘What did you do to our dogs?’ Nick demands. The sternness of his tone is somewhat offset by the way Mark is sniggering like an overexcited toddler who’s been snorting milkshake powder all morning.
‘You what, mate?’
The way he spits the word ‘mate’ makes it sound like a swear word.
‘Did you poison our dogs?’ Nick says.
‘What are you on about?’
Nick huffs out in annoyance and jabs his finger towards Mark, who slaps it away. Nick steps forward, chest puffed out, but Mark is a good six inches taller and it is clearly the wrong move. Mark shoves Nick hard in the shoulder and, possibly because Nick is off balance – but likely because of the difference in size – Nick stumbles backwards, clipping his heels together and faltering into the wall. I reach for his arm to help him up, but his pride’s been hurt more than his body and he shrugs me away.
Mark laughs. ‘Whatever you’ve got your thong in a twist for is nothing to do with me,’ he says.
Nick pulls himself up and straightens his top. His fists are balled.
‘Don’t,’ I say.
‘Yeah, don’t,’ Mark taunts.
I put myself in the middle of the two men and, though Nick only has eyes for Mark, he takes a small step backwards.
‘Listen to your little girlfriend,’ Mark adds, still laughing.
‘We don’t know it was him,’ I say quietly to Nick. He glances to me, but there’s something dangerous in his eyes. He’s always been the quiet bloke down the hall and I’ve never seen this side of him.
‘Run along,’ Mark says, shooing us away with his hand.
There’s a moment in which I think Nick is going to jump around me. His arms are tensed and there’s a vein in his neck that’s bulging.
‘Can we go?’ I say quietly.
It feels like an age, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, Nick’s shoulders drop. He steps backwards towards the stairs, which only makes Mark laugh more.
‘Is that it?’ he sneers.
Nick mercifully continues to move away, but it’s only when we’re a floor up that the sound of Mark’s door slamming echoes through the hall and I breathe a little more easily. When we get back to Nick’s apartment, the embarrassment has started to set in. He mumbles something about keeping an eye on Judge and then heads inside and closes the door.
I’m in the hallway by myself, not quite sure what to do. Perhaps it was Mark who left the meat down for the dogs? Perhaps the meat isn’t poisonous at all and there’s a misunderstanding? I don’t know any longer. Mark did tell me to ‘watch yourself’ after I asked him to turn the music down. He’s not a fan of dogs, plus, generally speaking, he’s a bit of an arsehole. There is a difference between being an arsehole and deliberately setting out to harm another creature, though.
I move back towards my own door, but as soon as I start to push it open, Elton John starts singing ‘Rocket Man’ from Jade’s old apartment. I stop and turn. It can’t be a coincidence. Not this time.
It’s only a step across the corridor and then I knock loudly on the door. I’m not certain, but it feels as if the music is turned up a little after I knock. I try to peer through the eyehole, but get no more luck than I did the last time. Pressing my ear to the door gives no clues as to who’s inside, so I knock again; harder this time.
Nothing.
‘Melanie?’
The volume nudges up a little more.
‘Harry?’
I wait, but there’s no reply. There’s nothing else to do, so I stomp into my apartment and slam the door. Poor Billy scuttles off to the corner and watches me sideways in case I start throwing things. I fumble with my phone, almost dropping it twice, before finding Lauren’s name. She answers on the second ring with a cheery, ‘Hi!’
I tell her who I am and then add: ‘I need you to tell me about our new neighbour.’
There’s a gap of a second or two and I wonder if the call has dropped. Lauren is one of those people who is constantly softly-spoken, even when telling a person to get stuffed.
‘Is there a problem?’ she asks.
‘It’s their music.’
‘They’re playing loud music?’
‘Yes. Well, no. Sort of…’
‘Hang on.’
The line goes muffled for a moment and there’s a distant sound of Lauren chatting to someone else. When she returns, it sounds as if she’s been laughing.
‘I’m not sure what you’re asking me to do,’ she says.
‘Can you tell me who lives there? Is it a man? A woman? Just a name.’
I’m sounding desperate and weird; something at which I’m apparently good.
There’s another silence and, when Lauren replies, there’s pity in her voice. ‘There are privacy issues, Lucy. I can’t go around telling tenants the details of other tenants. If there’s a problem, I can deal with that…’