The Woman in Apartment 49 by Ross Armstrong

Author:Ross Armstrong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2020-01-07T13:39:33+00:00

6 days till it comes. Afternoon.

He’s there. We nod. Old pros. Chris is wearing dark colors, too, so I don’t feel my choice of outfit is such a dick move. I give him some cash, which he pockets immediately. He doesn’t seem to have anything with him. Tools. Anything like that.

When we get to the Waterway entrance, we settle on a plan. You’re not supposed to hold the doors open for anyone, emails go around to that effect. Saying that, there hasn’t been a robbery in these flats since they’ve been built and they’d like to keep it that way. Problem is, this translates to the mind as No robberies? Oh, good, I can relax. Which means people do tend to hold doors open for each other. They let their guard down. I’ve done it. It’s natural. It’s one thing to say “of course, I wouldn’t just let a stranger into my building” but, in actuality, it’s pretty hard to pointedly slam a door in the face of a woman holding heavy shopping bags. A woman who looks like you.

The sad fact is that there is no chance anyone would hold the door open for my friend here, but every chance they will for me. That’s how things generally work. In life.

You trust faces that look like yours. So say psychologists. So he stays out of sight. And I hover a bit closer, holding a bag of organic fruit and veg from the local shop. It acts as my ID card. I’m just like you. See? I go to the shops, it says. We wait.

I notice the strange woman I gave the athlete’s-foot cream to. She passes by on the other side of the road. I turn my face away and luckily she doesn’t see me. I don’t want to stop and chat. Not now.

After fifteen minutes of nothing, I start to worry I’m going to get spotted, hanging around. Loitering. They don’t like that around here. Everyone sane has somewhere to be.

The one problem of choosing a time of day when everyone is at work is that everyone is at work. We just need some work-from-home techy type. Some student perhaps. I’m not picky. But nothing doing so far. I wander away, trying to seem casual.

Then, as if on cue, out comes Alfred, our graduate in his first flat. I switched off just at the wrong time. Murphy’s law. I have to hurry, I might have missed my chance, dammit.

He’s almost through the door and ready to let it fall shut. I power forward at pace, rummaging in my pocket as if I definitely have my key fob somewhere, trying to seem flustered and credible. I think I’m too far away to catch his attention.

But Alfred is well trained. A good public schoolboy, I should imagine. He sees me coming with my bags. Half smiles, nothing too personable, but holds the door open and lets me through. It’s a good job no one knows their neighbors anymore. Not in buildings like these anyway.

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