Death in a Far Country by Patricia Hall

when he were a director here,’ Hardcastle said. ‘It were a right shame he had to retire like that. We could do with him here now. He knew a thing or two, did your dad.’
    ‘Still does,’ Laura said with a grin. ‘But he’s enjoying his life in the sun. I’ll tell him I saw you next time I speak to him. He’ll be keen to know how this match goes.’
    ‘He will that,’ Hardcastle said. ‘Give him my best, will you, Laura, love. It’s nice to meet you. I remember him talking about you years ago when you were away at school. You were the apple of his eye.’
    Hardcastle disappeared as abruptly as he had appeared into the now enthusiastically chomping mêlée, everyone with piled plates and drinks balanced precariously in hand. For self-protection,Jenna and Laura retired to a corner by the window again, where they rested their plates on the windowsill and picked at refreshments lighter than most people’s, Laura thought, by several thousand calories.
    ‘You don’t realise quite how macho this set-up is until you see them all assembled like this,’ Laura said quietly. ‘You can almost smell the testosterone.’
    ‘Some of this lot are from Chelsea,’ Jenna said. ‘I should be chatting them up really, but they’re so bloody smug that I can’t bear it. They could buy this club and not even notice a blip on their balance-sheet. I just hope our boy Okigbo can get one past their goalie and take the condescending smiles off their faces. I’d really enjoy that.’ She gave her guest a wicked smile and Laura realised that United was just as close to Jenna’s heart as it had apparently been to her father’s, which explained a lot.
    Laura glanced at her watch. ‘Nearly time to go and cheer them on, isn’t it? What a baptism for a football novice.’
    ‘You’ll enjoy it,’ Jenna said. ‘It’s a tribal thing, and you’re obviously one of the Bradfield tribe.’

    The girl woke with a start and sat up. She had been dozing again on the damp, lumpy mattress, as she did most of the time now. She was bitterly cold – her thin cardigan little or no protection from the wind that whistled through the broken windows of the flats and the damp that permeated everything – and she had begun to cough, and knew that she was becoming sick. But she did not think that was what had disturbed her shallow sleep. She had been conscious of a noise, and noise meant a threat, though whether human ormerely animal she could not be sure. She struggled upright and crept silently across the littered floor of the small room that had become her refuge to the window, standing away from the cracked glass and looking obliquely down to the ground below. The builders were not working today and she guessed it must be a weekend or a holiday. She had only the vaguest idea what day, or even what month it was. She seemed to have spent so long in darkness, most of it in pain and disgust or utter despair, that time seemed to have lost its meaning. She had no watch, but she knew from the failing light outside that this was dusk and it would soon be night.
    Below she could see the main entrance to the flats, which led to the disused lifts and the foot of the stinking staircase. She could just glimpse three or four boys or young men standing close to the doors, wearing jackets with hoods that were pulled up to conceal their heads. They seemed to be talking and making animated gestures and then, to her horror, they glanced around cautiously before pushing the doors open and disappearing from sight into the hallway below her.
    She caught her breath and thought that her heart would stop. She had thought before that other people were using the building but had never had definite proof. Now she knew she was not alone, and that she would have to move. But she could barely control the shivering that had overtaken her and her mind, once agile, had become so sluggish that she could barely think at all. She stood close to the window, hugging herself for a long