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find out something about him, because there’s nothing in the flat, and we don’t know who his next of kin was.’
    ‘Well, it’s no use looking at us,’ Nicky cried gaily. ‘We did try to make friends when he first arrived – we always do, don’t we, Gray? – but he wasn’t having any. Very grim and
ne me touchez pas
. I thought he was just a bit of a
phobe
, you know? But Gray thought he was nursing a tragedy, didn’t you, Gray? Takes one to know one, all that sort of thing.’
    ‘Tragedy?’ Swilley queried.
    ‘Why else would he be here?
We
wouldn’t, if we could afford anything better,’ Nicky said. ‘But the things you can’t get on the NHS are expensive, and—’
    ‘No need to tell everyone our private biz,’ Graham interrupted him firmly. He looked at Swilley. ‘I thought he had that look about him – you get to recognize it. As if he’d been bereaved. A kind of tightness round the eyes, and a blankness underneath – like the lights are on, but nobody’s home.’
    ‘We’d gone up there with a bottle of wine to welcome him to the house,’ Nicky took up the story. ‘He was perfectly polite, but he made it plain he didn’t want anything to do with us. Said thanks, but he had a lot of work to do, maybe another time, blah blah blah. Classic brush-off.’
    ‘Obviously there wasn’t going to be another time, so we shrugged and left it,’ Graham finished.
    ‘Have you ever seen anyone calling on him, any visitors?’ Swilley asked.
    ‘No, and I’ll tell you something else,’ Nicky said, ‘he never has any mail. It comes through the letterbox downstairs and whoever gets there first puts it on the shelf just inside. Which is usually me, because we have the most so I pop down early and sort through it. And nothing for Mr Top Floor – that’s why I didn’t even know his name. No mail, no friends, no visitors – poor boy! I wish we could have befriended him.’
    Graham was looking thoughtful. ‘Last night,’ he said.
    Nicky stopped and stared at him. ‘What? What about last night?’
    ‘You were asleep, you wouldn’t have heard. I don’t sleep very well,’ he added to Swilley. ‘I often lie awake most of the night. Anyway, someone came up the stairs. Couldn’t have been Lauren, because she was at work, and Ronnie was already home by then – it must have been after midnight. And it couldn’t have been Malik or Rafi because the footsteps went on upwards. Besides, they don’t bother to walk quietly or talk in whispers. Clatter and bang with them, no matter what hour they come in! So it must have been this – what was his name? – Robin Williams, with someone.’
    ‘You heard him talking to someone?’ Swilley asked.
    ‘I heard the footsteps coming upstairs, and then a man’s voice – I don’t know what he said – and then someone said “Shh!” and the footsteps went on up the next flight and there was some whispering.’
    ‘You never told me all this!’ Nicky cried like one bereaved.
    ‘Didn’t know it mattered, did I?’ Graham said. ‘I don’t bother to report every time I hear someone in the house move.’
    Nicky clapped his hand to his cheek and said, ‘That must have been the murderer with him! You heard a murderer!’
    ‘Going “Shh!”? How exciting,’ said Graham with deep irony.
    ‘Well, but was it?’ Nicky appealed to Swilley. ‘Did the murderer walk right past our door?’
    ‘They’d have had to, to get up there, wouldn’t they?’ Graham said with exasperated patience.
    Swilley caught a hint of appeal in his eyes and said, ‘We don’t know it was murder. It looks like suicide. All we want is to find out something about the man so we can find his next of kin.’
    ‘Well, I’m afraid we’ve failed you,’ Graham said sadly. ‘We knew nothing about him. And that means we’ve failed him, too.’
    ‘But we
tried
, Gray,’ Nicky said urgently, taking hold of his hand and pressing it. ‘You can’t say we didn’t
try
.’
    ‘Maybe not hard