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flat.’
    ‘But … oh.’
    ‘I loved the new top floor so much I kept it.’ Maude pushed at the door of the flat on the middle landing, sandwiched between the shop and the minimalist garret. ‘I feel so Scandinavian up there, wafting through white rooms free of clutter. Whereas this flat …’ She stood back to let Orla in.
    The door opened directly onto the sitting room, which stretched across the front of the house. Trinkets. Gewgaws. Thingummybobs. Shelves of books, tables bearing lamps and glass ornaments and snuffboxes, paintings of doe-eyed ladies and dashing gentlemen. It was hard to imagine Sim in this corner of old lady-ville.
    Two sash windows ogled the top deck of a passing double-decker. Orla followed the room as it snaked around the corner, knocked through to create an L shape, with a kitchen, of sorts, in the shorter leg.
    ‘Sim kept the curtains closed all the time.’ Maude tugged at the moss green drapes with tiny hands, allowing a little February sunlight to elbow through the lace nets. ‘Bedroom’s at the back.’ She pointed to a door at the far end of the defiantly unfitted kitchen. ‘Shower room’s off the bedroom. The place needs a little TLC. I haven’t lingered here since … well, since he died.’ Maude forced it out. ‘Sorry, dear, I can’t say he’s passed away or gone before or, heaven help us, only sleeping. Poor old Simeon is dead and we must manage the best we can with that fact.’ Maude put her head to one side to survey Orla’s drooping face. ‘Have I offended you?’
    ‘Notat all. I’m no fan of those euphemisms either. It’s just,’ Orla breathed harder, as if a thumb pressed on her throat, ‘I need to be on my own, if that’s all right.’
    ‘If that’s all right!’ Maude seemed touched. She cupped Orla’s cheek briefly and left the flat, the door closing behind her with a camp squeak.
    Orla waited in vain for quiet to descend, so she could tune herself in to the last space Sim had inhabited. The traffic coughed on, the crossing signal beeped and the homeless man burst into song. Orla went to the back of the flat and sank to the bed, laid her face on the pillow. The longed-for sense of connection didn’t come. The pillow smelled of fabric conditioner. Orla let loose a single tear.
    The journal would bring him back. Through its pages, she would reacquaint herself with him. That journal would tell her all the secrets Sim would rather have kept to himself.
    When she had read that, she would feel free to read the valentine.
    Sim’s journal
    17 October 2011
    Landlady’s a rum old bird. Cut-glass accent. Weeny. Vague blue eyes, but they’ll burn bright in a flash.
    Street’s filthy. Authentic! Wouldn’t tolerate it in Dub, but London has its own rules.
    Meeting with Reece today. Great bloke. Great agent. From the moment he took me on last year I knew having a London agent instead of a Dublin one would make things happen. ‘Be prepared,’ he said, ‘you’re going to be a star.’
    YESSSSS!
    But also AAAARGH!
    There is NOBODY I can confess my UTTER FUCKING RAMPANT TERROR to except that Fairy of mine. I just tried her and she’s not picking up.
    Right. Enough navel gazing. What to wear? Reece is introducing me to my leading lady over dinner at his club tonight. So, you’re a famed man-eater, are you, Ms Anthea Blake? Like ’em young, do you?
    My Dolce and Gabbana suit, methinks.
    ‘What?’ Reece’s voice was surprised, wrong-footed. ‘You’re here already? But I would have met you at the airport. Or at least sent a car.’
    ‘Really?’ Orla pulled a face at herself in the baroque mirror over the antediluvian gas fire. ‘No need. I have two feet and half a brain.’ Bereavement had made a beanbag of the other half. ‘I’m staying at Sim’s flat. I thought I should let you know, as the BBC are paying the rent. I suppose you should tell them or something.’
    ‘That’s not a problem.’ Reece’s voice was assured, confident, measured. Carefully