Hollow Mountain by Thomas Mogford Page B

in flats pimped out with marble bathrooms, jacuzzis, plasma TVs.
    He paused on the sixth floor, slightly alarmed to find himself out of breath. The landing window appeared to be composed of jam-jar bases, a few panes missing, presumably to temper the heat. The view looked out onto the eastern face of the Rock, fourteen hundred feet of limestone cliff, O’Hara’s Battery at the peak, a folly built by a former general to monitor the Spanish ships leaving Cádiz. Grainger must have stared at that view every day, Spike thought grimly, perhaps wondering how it might feel to jump.
    A baby buggy lay folded outside the door to Flat 7B, its seat dotted with crumbs and stains. How anyone could drag it up here defied belief. Cheap rent or not, this was a cruel allocation for a young family. The welcome tile showed a country cottage with smoke furling from the chimney, ‘God Bless Our Home’ glazed above. Moved by the irony, Spike pushed in the stiff metal button of the doorbell, and waited.

Chapter Twenty
    Footsteps, then a sliver of Mrs Grainger’s pale face appeared in the doorway. A security chain jangled, and Spike was inside.
    No cigarette smuggler’s Aladdin’s den for the Graingers, just two sagging brown sofas, so large that they must have been assembled in the flat, so old that the assemblers must be dead. The walls were laid with flock wallpaper, the TV of a similar vintage to Galliano’s antique computer monitor. Spike had been wrong about the view: the kitchenette gave west, towards the Straits. Cranes jutted skywards from reclaimed land – luxury apartments for Category-II buyers, high-net-worth individuals whose only requirement to qualify for Gibraltar’s tax rates was to own a property on the Rock ‘appropriate to sustaining a wealthy lifestyle’. Whether they ever crossed the threshold was irrelevant.
    ‘Sorry about the mess,’ Amy Grainger said, pointing Spike towards the nearest sofa, ‘I’ve been a little tired lately.’ The sofa back was so high Spike failed to see the occupant until he’d almost crushed him: the little boy Charlie, lying on his stomach in a Spiderman vest and shorts, slotting shapes into a wooden cage. He peered up at Spike with eyes as solemn and dark as his mother’s, then slid off the sofa onto a battered plastic pushcart, which he propelled over the wood-effect floor using just the tips of his bare feet.
    ‘Your post,’ Spike said, laying the envelopes on the coffee table.
    The kettle was whistling. ‘ Tenkiù ,’ Amy called back in yanito . ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
    ‘Just some agua de beber , please.’
    The kettle quietened down, and Amy reappeared with two china mugs of tap water. Charlie was sitting cross-legged by the kitchen table now. Spike realised he was shaking the shapes out of the box, an act of some dexterity.
    Amy muted the cartoons on the television, then turned to Spike. ‘How did you get my husband’s number?’
    He waited until she had sat down. She wore cut-off jogging pants and a stripy matelot top. A plastic hair clip held her black fringe to one side; she looked sad, and very young.
    ‘It seems that Simon contacted my partner shortly before he died. His number was jotted down in a case file. Do you know why?’
    ‘I told you, I found his business card in Simon’s papers. I don’t know why Simon met or even spoke to him.’ From the kitchenette came the steady tick of wood against wood. Amy gave an embarrassed smile. ‘I don’t seem to know very much at all.’
    Spike paused; he hated this part. ‘Were you and your husband happy, Mrs Grainger?’
    ‘What does that have to do with it?’
    ‘Peter handles our divorce practice. I’m sorry, but I have to ask.’
    She lowered her eyes. ‘We were OK. Surviving. Like most people.’
    ‘Why didn’t you mention the toxicology report?’
    Her voice fell. ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘The military pathologist concluded that your husband was taking prescription drugs.’
    She didn’t