The Girl in the Ice

20

When Erika drove into Foxberry Road it was still and quiet. She passed Brockley Train Station, the platform dazzlingly lit-up and empty. A train streaked out from under a footbridge and clattered on towards central London. Erika drove on, past a long row of terraced houses, and found the flat down the far end, perched on a corner where the road led off sharply to the right. There was a vacant parking space outside, but her triumph was short-lived when she saw it was residents’ parking only. She would need a permit. Screw it, she thought, parking anyway.

The communal front door opened against a swish of junk mail that was piled up behind. The hall light was on a timer, and it whirred softly as she climbed the narrow staircase, her suitcase bumping along.

The flat was on the top floor, and when she reached the landing she saw that she had a neighbour – there was another front door opposite.

Inside the flat, it felt like the heating had been off for a long time. There seemed to be no electricity. A long, freezing search ensued, using the light on her phone as a torch. She finally found the electricity box, tucked away at the back of a cupboard in the hall, and the lights sprang on.

The first door leading off the hall was a bathroom. It was small, white and clean, with just a shower cubicle. Next to it was a small bedroom with a pine double bed and a wobbly IKEA wardrobe. Above the bed was another blotchy painting. Erika lit a cigarette and peered at the bottom of the canvas, where a small signature read MARCIE ST. CLAIR. Holding the cigarette between her lips, she grabbed the painting off the wall and stashed it behind some plastic buckets in the hall cupboard.

At the end of the hall was a combined living room and kitchen. It too was tiny, but modern, and furnished in an impersonal IKEA style. Impersonal was perfect for right now. Erika pulled open the cupboards, searching for an ashtray. There wasn’t one, so she grabbed a teacup.

There was a coffee table and a small blue sofa by a bay window. Erika slumped down in the sofa and looked across at a tiny television, the screen covered in dust. It was unplugged, the lead and aerial lying on the floor beside the TV stand.

Erika turned to the window, and stared out into the darkness, the sparse room and her reflection staring back at her. Once she had finished her cigarette, she stubbed it out in the teacup and lit another.