Free A Wayward Game by Pandora Witzmann Page B

shrink a bit as you get older:
friends and workmates get thinner on the ground, your kids are away
getting on with their own lives, and only your wife is there, and
when she goes – well, I don’t know what to do with myself,
sometimes. Are you married, love?”
    “No.” I
smile.
    “Pity. Funny
how women tend to stay single for so long these days. Times change,
of course. Would you like a cup of tea? Some biscuits?”
    “No thank you,
Mr Walsh. I can’t stay long; I’ve a very full day ahead.”
    “I suppose you
have. People always seem to be in a hurry these days. There are
times when I’m bloody glad I don’t have to run around anymore.” He
smiles as he sits down in the armchair opposite. “Getting older
does have some advantages – not that you’ll need to worry
about that for a good few years, of course. Well, what did you want
to know?”
    “How long did
you work at Lexwood House, Mr Walsh?”
    “Not very long.
I never really had what you might call a career, you see. In my
day, you didn’t; you just took whatever work was going. So I did
this and that over the years, and then found myself just three
years short of retirement age, and thought that a job as a
concierge might not be too bad. I’d be sitting down a lot, with
plenty of people to chat to, and pretty easy work. I started there
in,” – he thinks for a moment, frowning up at the ceiling – “2003,
it must have been. Got on pretty well with it, too.”
    “You enjoyed
it?”
    “It wasn’t too
bad. A bit slow at times. And the people who lived there weren’t as
chatty as I’d hoped. But why would they have been? They were young,
they were busy; they didn’t have time for a daft old codger like
me.”
    “Was Mr Sallow
already living there when you started work at Lexwood House?”
    “Yes. He must
have been one of the first residents, because when I started the
building had only been finished a few months.”
    “And did you
see him very often?”
    “Sometimes;
he’d come down to the lobby every so often to collect his mail or
ask about something. For the most part, though, he didn’t have much
to do with the staff. Took the lift straight down to the
underground garage in the morning, and went straight back up to his
apartment in the evening.”
    “What did you
make of him?”
    Mr Walsh
frowns. “I didn’t know what to make of him. I mean, he was never
impolite or anything. And some people found him quite charming. He
was a dashing figure, I suppose. Always dressed in the best
clothes, driving that expensive car of his.” He waves his hand
around, a little vaguely, signifying either dislike of, or a lack
of interest in, such conspicuous consumption. “Flashed his cash
around, you could say. Of course, I heard that his father was an
OBE or some such thing, and had millions in the bank. But I heard
something else, too: that Sallow’s grandfather had just been a
market trader in the East End. And in a way, you know, it showed.
Sallow never really seemed comfortable, like he was expecting
someone to come along and take it all away. Like he was terrified
of losing it all.”
    “What about
Miss Meath-Jones? When did she arrive?”
    “Let me think –
must have been early in 2006. She was expecting, though it was
still too early to see. Didn’t make a fuss or anything; just
appeared one day, and stayed.”
    “And what was
your impression of her?”
    “Well, she was
different. A nice girl. Would always stop and have a chat, ask you
how you were, that kind of thing. Always seemed a bit lonely to me.
A bit confused by the world, like she couldn’t really understand
what she was doing here, or what the meaning of it all was. Not at
all like Sallow.”
    “They seemed
like a mismatched couple, then?”
    “Well, yes; but
I’m only going on what I saw, so it’s not fair to make assumptions.
Besides, the nature of the job was that you turned a blind eye.
Residents’ affairs were none of your business, at least not unless
they