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into the cloud base. The smudge of color hung for a moment at the limit of vision, then surrendered to gray. Zoe felt a panic that she couldn’t pin down.
    She slipped away before any passersby spotted her, and entered the lobby of the tower head-down. She hurried across the marble and took the lift to her apartment on the forty-sixth floor.
    Inside, with the roar of the city five hundred feet below, she dropped her single Yale key into a wide pewter dish that served only that purpose. The chime the key made in striking the dish was the only sound. Beside the dish, a very old dented aluminium water bottle was the only other item on the black high-gloss hall stand. She removed her trainers, balled newspaper into the toes, racked them, and put on the gray felt slippers that were exactly where she had left them.
    She tried to remember the name of the man she’d left sleeping in her bed. He’d been sweet. Tall, Italian-looking, a few years younger than her. Carlo, she was pretty sure, or Marco. A something-o with a grin that said this was in no way serious. Still, sometimes you hoped.
    She called, “Hello?”
    No answer.
    There was no note on the fridge, no message on the kitchen counter. She checked the living area—nothing.
    In her bedroom the bed was trashed—she remembered them doing that—and his boxer shorts were in the corner where she’d thrown them. The rest of his clothes were gone. Her four gold medals weren’t on the shelf where she’d put them, and for a second her heart stopped. Thenshe saw them glinting under the edge of a pillow and picked them up. She held the cold metal to her chest, and sighed. He was an arsehole for not leaving his number, but he wasn’t a thief. She supposed she’d been lucky again, if you could call it luck.
    There was a stillness in the apartment, and maybe the ghost of the smell of him.
    She made an espresso with the built-in coffee machine and went to sit on an armless, low-backed charcoal-gray sofa in the living area. Clouds obscured the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
    She’d only been living here a week. On the two days of clear weather she’d been able to see the National Cycling Centre, where she trained and competed, three miles away to the east. It had looked like the domed gray back of a beetle; as if it might crawl away from her through the understory of industrial estates and logistics hubs that fringed the city. Looking to the horizon through the binoculars the estate agent had left, she’d also seen the mountains of Snowdonia, the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool, and Blackpool Tower and beach. Her third night she’d watched lightning storms and seen the wind boiling over the Cheshire plains.
    Now there was nothing to see, only gray. It was hard not to feel like a ghost. Zoe held up her hand in front of her face and was amazed she couldn’t see through it. She stood, moved to the kitchen area, and ate a dry slice of multigrain bread. The texture of it was reassuring. She drank a glass of water and went back to sit in the living area.
    She wondered if this was supposed to be her life now, moving alone between these designated spaces, inhabiting them according to patterns of usage envisioned by the architect.
    Paolo —that had been his name. She flipped open her laptop and found him on Facebook. He was even better-looking than she’d remembered. It had been a nice night. The sex had been good, but it was more than that. There had been a tenderness—something that had moved her. She was slightly surprised he hadn’t left a note.
    She closed her eyes and let herself believe that he was on his way up in the lift, right now, with flowers. She smiled. It was silly, but you had to believe these things were possible. Just beyond your sight, life might be moving in ways that were moments away from being revealed to you. It was a mistake to take disappointments at face value. You were only ever a tap at the door and a dozen fresh-cut blooms away from