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Tim left the flat, shrugging his shoulders.
    Returning presently with two lots of fish and chips he found Peter and Angie Eddison, tenants of the flat immediately below Julia Piper’s, unpacking luggage from their car. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Back from your hols? Had a good time?’
    Peter Eddison said, ‘Super. We drove right across Eastern Europe; fascinating.’
    Tim said, ‘What was the food like?’ He picked some chips from his package and put them in his mouth. ‘I’m on my way home with our supper,’ he said. ‘Janet’s not—like a chip?’ He offered the package. ‘Janet’s not feeling very grand.’
    Peter Eddison said, ‘Oh, thanks,’ and, pushing the greaseproof paper open, extracted a lump of cod. ‘It’s great to be home,’ he said. ‘We got sick of dumplings and sauerkraut and God-knows-who’s in the sausages.’
    Her arms full of bulging packages, Angie Eddison came up the steps. ‘How mouth-watering,’ she said. She opened her mouth and her husband popped in some chips from Tim’s parcel. ‘Sure you can spare them?’ she asked, munching. ‘Oh! Could I just taste the fish?’
    Tim obligingly opened out the packet and Peter chose her a piece of cod which, since her hands were full, he fed her. ‘Has anything happened while we’ve been on our travels?’ Angie Eddison asked. ‘Prague was simply—’
    ‘I’ll say it has!’ Tim interrupted her. ‘There’s been a drama. The girl on the top floor, the one with the ex-husband and the noisy little boy, oh, I’d better not shout, she’s up there.’ He opened his package wider to expose the golden chips and battered cod. ‘Come closer,’ he said. ‘Help yourselves.’
    Angie put her burdens on the ground and reached for a chip. ‘What happened? What sort of drama? Did you send for the police? We’ve had to before now,’ she said.
    Lowering his voice, Tim said, ‘The ex-husband had a smash, wrote himself off and the child.’
    Huddling round the fish and chips, fingers ready to help themselves to more, the Eddisons said, ‘No!’ and ‘Oh my God!’ and ‘But he’d lost his licence!’ and ‘Where did it happen?’ and ‘How is she, does anybody know?’ as they reached for the comforting chips.
    Tim said, ‘It was in the papers. She’s been up there for days; the paper-shop people went up. She let them in, we saw them. Then, this afternoon, Janet finally nerved herself, went up with the girl’s letters. She’d not collected them so Janet thought—Well, she went up to see if she could help. Well, I suppose she wanted to find out what was going on; it’s been so quiet.’
    ‘It’s never quiet,’ said the Eddisons.
    ‘It is now,’ said Tim. ‘Janet found her sitting with a bottle of vodka and bottles of pills and naturally thought suicide, but apparently not.’
    ‘We are eating all your chips,’ said Angie.
    ‘Go ahead,’ said Tim, ‘before they get cold.’
    ‘What did she tell Janet?’ asked Angie. ‘If it wasn’t suicide? If she didn’t mean—’
    ‘Bugger all. Oh, she told her about the ex-husband and the child being dead, she told her that; Janet is terribly upset.’
    ‘But the Piper woman—what about her?’
    ‘She seems to have questioned Janet’s belief in God.’
    ‘Is Janet religious?’
    ‘No, of course not. Well, apparently, when Janet said, “Oh my God”, the Piper girl flew off the handle.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I don’t know, but she did; and then she made Janet drunk—she’s paralytic, she’s in bed. That’s why I was buying fish and chips.’
    ‘Which we’ve eaten,’ said Peter.
    ‘What d’you suppose we ought to do?’ asked Angie.
    ‘I think we should mind our own business and get the car unpacked,’ said her husband. ‘I have to work tomorrow and my experience of the Piper woman is that she keeps herself to herself. The one time I tried to interfere between her and that husband, I got my head bitten off.’
    ‘So leave well alone,’ said Angie. ‘Thanks for