Fallen Angel. Andrew Taylor

something to do with it?’

      ‘Don’t be silly, Eddie.’ Angel rested her hands on the table and stared down at him, her face calm and beautiful. ‘Put that right out of your mind.’

      ‘If I’d stayed with her, talked with her –’

      ‘It wouldn’t have done any good. Probably she would have made herself even more upset.’

      ‘But –’

      ‘Her death could have happened at any time. And don’t forget, it’s psychologically typical for survivors to blame themselves for the death of a loved one.’

      ‘Shouldn’t we mention it to the doctor? The fact she was … upset, I mean.’

      ‘Why should we? What on earth would be the point? It’s a complete irrelevance.’ Angel turned away to pour the coffee. ‘In fact, it’s probably better not to mention it. It would just confuse the issue.’

      The dreams came later, after Thelma’s funeral, and continued until the following summer. (Oddly enough, Eddie had the last one just before the episode with Chantal.) They bore a family resemblance to one another: different versions of different parts of the same story.

      In the simplest form, Thelma was lying in the single bed, her small body almost invisible under the eiderdown and the blankets. Eddie was a disembodied presence near the ceiling just inside the doorway. He could not see his mother’s face. The skull was heavy and the two pillows were soft and accommodating. The ends of the pillows rose like thick white horns on either side of the invisible face.

      Sometimes it was dark, sometimes misty; sometimes Eddie had forgotten his glasses. Was another pillow taken from Stanley’s bed and clamped on top of the others? Then what? The body twitching almost imperceptibly, hampered by the weight of the bedclothes and by its own weakness?

      More questions followed, because the whole point of this series of dreams was that nothing could ever be known for certain. What chance would Thelma have had against the suffocating weight pressing down on her? Had she cried out? Almost certainly the words would have been smothered by the pillow. And if any sound seeped into the silent bedroom, who was there to hear it? Who, except Eddie?

      There had not been an inquest. Thelma’s doctor had no hesitation in signing the medical certificate of cause of death. His patient was an elderly widow with a history of heart problems. He had seen her less than a week before. According to her son and her lodger she had complained of chest pains during the day before her death. That night her heart had given up the unequal struggle. When he saw the body, she was still holding her glyceryl trinitrate spray, which suggested that she might have been awake when the attack began.

      ‘Just popped off,’ the doctor told Eddie. ‘Could have happened any time. I doubt if she felt much and it was over very quickly. Not a bad way to go, all things considered – I wouldn’t mind it myself.’

      After Thelma had gone, 29 Rosington Road became a different house. On the morning after the funeral Angel and Eddie wandered through the rooms, taking stock and marvelling at the possibilities that had suddenly opened up. For Eddie, Thelma’s departure had a magical effect: the rooms were larger; much of the furniture in the big front bedroom, robbed of the presence which had lent it significance, had become shabby and unnecessary; and his and Angel’s footsteps on the stairs were brisk and resonant.

      ‘I think I could do something with this,’ Angel said as she examined the basement.

      ‘Why?’ Eddie glanced at the ceiling, at the rest of the house. ‘We’ve got all that room upstairs.’

      ‘It would be somewhere for me.’ She laid her hand briefly on his arm. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, but I do like to be by myself sometimes. I’m a very solitary person.’

      ‘You could have the back bedroom.’

      ‘It’s too small.’ Angel stretched out her arms. ‘I need space. It wouldn’t be a problem, would it?’

      ‘Oh no. Not at all. I just – I just wasn’t quite clear what you wanted.’

      There was a burst of muffled shouting. Eddie guessed that it emanated from the basement flat next door, which was occupied by a young married couple who conducted their relationship as if on the assumption that they were standing on either side of a large windy field, a situation for which each held the other to blame.

      ‘Wouldn’t this be too noisy for you?’ he asked.

      ‘Insulation: that’s the answer. It would be a good idea to dry-line the walls in any case. Look at the damp over there.’

      As they were speaking, she moved slowly around the basement, poking her head into the empty coal hole and the disused scullery, peering into cardboard boxes, rubbing a clear spot in the grime in the rear window, trying the handle of the sealed door to the garden. She paused by the old armchair and wiped away some of the dust with a tissue.

      ‘That’s nice. Late nineteenth century? It’s been terribly mistreated, though. But look at the carving on the arms and legs. Beautiful, isn’t it? I think it’s rosewood.’

      Eddie remembered the smell of the material and the feeling of a warm body pressed against his. ‘I was thinking we should throw it out.’

      ‘Definitely not. We’ll have it reupholstered. Something plain – claret-coloured, perhaps.’

      ‘Won’t all this cost too much?’

      ‘We’ll manage.’ Angel smiled at him. ‘I’ve got a little money put by. It will be my way of contributing. We’ll need to find a builder, of course. Do you know of anyone local?’

      ‘There’s Mr Reynolds.’ Eddie thought of Jenny Wren. ‘He lives in the council flats behind. The one with the geraniums.’

      Angel wrinkled her nose. ‘So his wife’s the bird-watcher?’

      ‘He’s nicer than she is. But he may be retired by now.’

      ‘I’d prefer an older man. Someone who would take a pride in the job.’

      Angel decided that they should leave a decent interval – in this case a fortnight – between Thelma’s death and contacting Mr Reynolds. She spent the time making detailed plans of what she wanted done. Eddie was surprised both by the depth of her knowledge and the extent of her plans.

      ‘We’ll put a freezer in the scullery. One of those big chest ones. It will pay for itself within a year or so. We can take advantage of all the bargains.’

      She examined the little coal cellar next to the scullery with particular care, taking measurements and examining the floor, walls and ceiling. There was a hatch to the little forecourt in front of the house, but Stanley had sealed this by screwing two batons across the opening.

      ‘This would make a lovely shower room. If we tile the floor and walls we needn’t have a shower stall. We can have the shower fixed to the wall. I wonder if there’s room for a lavatory, too.’

      ‘Do we really need it?’

      ‘It would be so much more convenient.’

      At length Eddie phoned Mr Reynolds and asked if he would be interested in renovating the basement.

      ‘I don’t do much now,’ Mr Reynolds said.

      ‘Never mind. Is there anyone you’d recommend?’

      ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I like to keep my hand in, particularly when it’s a question of obliging neighbours. Why don’t I come round and have a shufti?’

      Ten minutes later Mr Reynolds was on the doorstep. He seemed to have changed very little in all the years Eddie had known him. He found it hard to keep his eyes off Angel, whom he had not previously met. They took him down to the basement.

      ‘We were thinking that we might let it as a self-contained flat,’ Angel told him.

      ‘Oh