Chapter 6

by Luciana Akerlund


She stood at the gate, hesitating for a moment, and drew a deep breath before taking the five steps to her front door. She lived on the upper floor of a terraced house along a quiet, residential street in southwest London. The house had two front doors, 27A and 27B, the latter being hers and leading directly to a set of a stairs that took her to the landingof her flat. This set-up had been the dealmaker when she had seen the property. She had liked the isolated nature of the apartment, where she didn’t run the risk of having to socialize with other residents, but still had neighbours close enough for her to feel some sense of security. The middle-aged professional couple that lived below her in 27A, appeared to spend most of their time at work and also liked to keep to themselves. The occasional instances when they had bumped into each other outside the house, had simply resulted in a quick ‘Alright?’ with the respective parties rushing to get into their individual flats. It suited Kaira perfectly.

She pushed open the slightly ajar door and peered up the carpeted stairs to the upper level of the house. She stood there for a moment, barely breathing, to see if she could hear any movement upstairs. It appeared as if she was alone so she stepped in through the doorway and closed the door behind her. She sat on the bottom step and unzipped her boots, placing them on the shoe-rack by the front door, before climbing the stairs. It did occur to her that most people who found their front door open would probably have run up the stairs with their shoes on and not cared about dirtying their carpets. But then again she wasn’t like most people because she had already made up her mind that she was not going to involve the police even if something was missing. She had always been this way, isolating herself from others, resolving her own problems, and not liking to draw attention to herself.

When she reached the landing she turned left and went into the living room, scanning the room and registering that everything was there. Her flatscreen TV still hung on the wall and her mac book was on the table where she had left it last night. Although, if she was really anal, perhaps the laptop had moved a couple of centimetres to the left, but then she couldn’t be completely sure. She popped her head into the bathroom, just incase, but the coast was clear. The kitchen too was as it had been this morning, work surfaces bare and chairs tucked into the table. Although, hold on, there was a strange coffee ring on the wooden surface of the table, surely she hadn’t done that? She always used a coaster with all drinks, it was one of her many OCD habits, but perhaps she had been in too much of a rush this morning and hadn’t realized what she was doing?

Feeling slightly unsettled she walked the short distance to her bedroom located at the back of the flat. Again, everything appeared to be in order and as she had left it in her hurried state this morning. She walked over to her chair where she remembered throwing the letter this morning when suddenly her blood ran cold. She thought perhaps she had imagined it from the corner of her eye so she turned her full gaze in the direction of her bed. The letter was back on her bedside table. She was militant about bed making, even to the point of making her own hotel bed in the mornings and always ensured she left her duvet tightly tucked in and her pillows fluffed. And yet there it was as clear as day… The impression left from somebody lying on her bed. The hairs rose on the back of her neck, and before she could register what she was doing, she had walked to the edge of her bed and placed her hand in the crevice in her pillow. It was still warm.

*

She was sat at her kitchen table, cradling a cup of tea, and trying to come up with a logical explanation for what she had found. No one had a key to her flat and she always made sure to use both locks on the door when she was leaving for work. It was unlikely the wind could have blown the door open, and even more unlikely that her flat had been broken into by burglars as all her valuables had been left untouched. She felt confused, scared and very alone. Putting her mug back on the coaster, she reached for her mobile phone. Scrolling through her contacts, she took a deep breath and dialed the number.

Three rings and still no answer. Maybe this was a silly idea. Just as she was pulling the phone away from her ear, she hears the click of the call getting answered followed by a voice she has truly missed uttering her name in disbelief.

‘Kaira?!’

‘Oui, Henri. C’est moi.’

Chapter 2

by Luciana Akerlund

London at rush hour. Most people’s nightmare and yet this was the time of day that she looked forward to the most. When she had first moved to the city, she had made a point of only travelling on buses. Not only was this form of transport cheaper, but it gave her the chance of seeing the capital and learning the relationship between the different locations she was travelling between. Her very first trip on the London underground had come two months after her arrival in the ‘Big Smoke’. She had been running late for work, as usual, and had decided to brave the crowds and her claustrophobic fears in order to venture down into the rat-infested belly of the city. The escalators had felt as if they were never-ending and she had been quickly swallowed into the rushing crowd, soon finding herself packed in like a sardine into one of the overfilled carriages.

Her nostrils had been overcome with the smell of coffee, toothpaste and cologne that was emanating from her fellow travellers. Unlike the outside views she was used to from her bus trips, the windows in the underground carriage only gave way to dark tunnels and she had been forced to acknowledge the unfamiliar faces, pressing bodies, and unsolicited contact that made up her surroundings. Her American colleagues had often remarked on the unfriendliness of Londoners on the tube, where the norm was to ignore your fellow passengers and avoid eye contact like the plague. This behaviour exacerbated the surrealness of the moment and intensified the feeling that one was merely like an ant in a city of bustling workers.

Loneliness, the most terrible of human emotions, suddenly overwhelmed her. All the walls she had built over the last few months swiftly crumbled, and she silently began to cry. Being surrounded by countless strangers who routinely ignored one another made her realise how isolated she really was, and not only in the faceless mass of people in her carriage, but in this city as a whole.

Abruptly, in the midst of her sadness, she had become acutely aware of her physical body and as quickly as they had appeared, her tears had suddenly stopped. For there was something unexpectedly comforting about the tactile contact she was sharing with the people around her. She had welcomed the warmth and softness of a woman’s arm to her left and felt safe in the crook of a businessman’s back to her right. She had closed her eyes and savoured what she now referred to as ‘armless hugs’, and when she finally reached her stop she had found it hard to leave behind the coziness of the crowded carriage.

Flash forward 11 months and she is now probably the most content rush hour passenger to ever grace the London underground. There was nothing sexual about her craving for contact with strangers, but rather a naïve need for a familial replacement. The last traces of her hangover disappear as she arrives the entrance of the tube station. She straightens her skirt, takes out her Oyster and scans in through the barriers, the faint hint of a smile playing on her lips as she is engulfed by the rushing crowd.