The Wooden Case

In the passage, Els unplugged the lamp. The extension lead followed until it caught behind a leg. She bent to free it, then carried the lamp into eight. The landing went dark behind them. Liv left seven's door open; its bedside lamp threw a narrow strip of light across the floor.

Eight's door scraped the threshold again. Els had to free a hand to lift it. She muttered about the door, ordinarily irritated, and put the lamp on the ironing board before realising how unsteady it was.

‘Here,’ said Liv.

She took the lamp. Els moved the ironing board away from the wooden case, making sure its legs didn't catch under a chair, and folded it flat against the wall. The metal catch snapped, briefly and much louder than either had expected. Liv felt it in her chest. Els plugged the lamp into the socket beside the door and took it back.

‘That was us,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

The window was shut. Liv looked towards it to place it in the room, not because she expected anything outside. Wet paving shone in the courtyard below. Her bike stood in darkness. In the glass, her face appeared above the lamp, Els behind her.

She put her phone on the windowsill and studied the wooden case. The lever was at the front, the metal spindle further inside. In the box beneath it, the loose flap lay where she'd photographed it that morning. Liv opened the photograph to check, then picked up the metal.

Dry dust clung to her fingertips. She didn't wipe it on her trousers. An opening in the flap seemed to fit the spindle. One edge had a patch of white paint; inside the case was a mark of the same colour. She held them close without fitting anything together.

‘Could you hold the lamp higher?’

Els did. Light travelled over the wood. Beneath the edge was a scratched arrow. Liv tilted her head to see where it pointed. She put the flap back in the box for a moment and traced the opening behind the lever.

‘This hasn't been completely dismantled. Something was fitted between the parts, and that's been taken out.’

‘That thing, then.’

‘Probably.’

When Liv squinted, Els moved the lamp further away. They were standing too close for both of them to see properly. Liv asked whether there was any scrap paper downstairs. Els took a folded bill from her cardigan pocket, smoothed it against her leg and handed it over blank side up.

Liv drew a line for seven, then the bend. She didn't need a tape measure to tell the two routes apart, though she couldn't see along the whole tube. Here, the old plan matched the case. One branch to the kitchen, one to eight. The loose flap selected which opening stayed clear.

‘Without the flap, both are open. But the kitchen branch just ends against that plaster.’

‘So you get all sorts of sounds coming back.’

‘A hollow sound. And perhaps the street, or a door sounding as though it's somewhere else.’

Els studied the sketch. Liv watched her weighing the words and didn't want her to take more from them than they offered.

‘Just to be clear, this doesn't explain the recording.’

Els nodded. ‘I didn't think you were saying it did.’

Liv held the flap against the spindle again. In the right position, the white paint marks lined up. The lever didn't move freely, but it would turn with care. She felt resistance, waited and didn't force it.

‘Does it need oiling?’ Els asked.

‘Not now. I don't know where the oil would go.’

She wasn't trying to rebuild it. She wanted to see how it had fitted. Els held the lamp with both hands while Liv put the flap into place. Then Liv turned the lever to the position for room eight.

Something rustled inside the tube. Not metal scraping against the spindle: that had stopped when she let go. More like a sleeve brushing a wall.

The three taps came from their side now.

Els straightened. The light slid off the case and stayed on the ceiling.

‘Who's there?’

Liv listened towards the landing. They'd left the door open. She could see its dark rectangle, nothing beyond it.

A door slammed downstairs.

There was nobody down there. The travelling salesman had left and no other guests had arrived. Liv thought of the wind. She tried to work out which door an open window might allow to slam, concentrating so hard that for a moment she forgot to breathe.

Then the woman in the tube asked, ‘Is anyone there?’

She didn't sound quite uncertain enough for someone who didn't know whether anybody was listening. The words were a question. Liv couldn't tell what made her hear the difference, and didn't want to give it an intention straight away.

Els rested her free hand on the wood.

‘Yes. We're here.’

Liv looked at her hand. The same paint as this morning, beside the mark that hadn't turned out to be a cut. She'd wanted to look at Els before she answered. Now she'd already done it.

A long silence followed.

Liv heard Els swallow. The lamp trembled slightly in her other hand. Something rustled in the tube again, then cold air breathed across Liv's wrist. The lamp didn't flicker. The door didn't move. She still hadn't reached for the lever again.

They waited until the fridge started downstairs.

Els set the lamp on the windowsill and stood beside it as though recovering from its weight. Liv looked at the flap now fitted to the spindle. She didn't want to turn it again. It wasn't a dial she had to turn for another answer.

‘Are you staying tonight?’ Els asked.

Liv thought of seven. Her bag lay open on the bed; her phone was here on the windowsill, its screen dark now.

‘Not here.’

Els unplugged the lamp beside the door, picked it up and went onto the landing without answering. Liv followed. They left the lever where it was. Light returned to the landing when Els plugged the lamp back in. Liv felt almost embarrassed by her relief at seeing the stairs properly again.

In seven she put the drive in the padded compartment of her laptop bag. She didn't leave the work set-up open on the desk. She took the recorder and phone too, picked up a jumper from the bed and went downstairs with her arms full.

Els had opened her sitting-room door. It was behind the breakfast room, a wide sofa beneath a shelf of books. She moved a cardigan from one chair to another, then pushed aside the coffee table to clear the sofa.

‘You can sleep on there. I'll get a sheet.’

‘I could go home.’

Els looked up. ‘Now?’

Liv glanced at the wall clock. She'd have to cycle to the station and find out which trains were still running. There might still be tools on her landing at home. She didn't want to explain to her neighbour in the middle of the night why she'd come back.

‘No. Not very practical.’

‘You're free to go. I'll make the sofa up anyway. You can still choose.’

Els was already on her way to the cupboard. Liv put her things beside the sofa and took off the shoes she'd just put on. One sole had picked up a dry flake of paint. She held her foot over her palm, but it had already fallen onto the carpet.

When Els came back she bent to pick it up. Liv said she'd do it.

‘You've got your hands full.’

Els laid the sheet on the sofa and took the flake to the kitchen. The duvet wasn't in its cover. She returned carrying both, apparently already aware that trying to put one inside the other by herself in the middle of the room wouldn't work. Liv took the top two corners. Together they shook the cover over it.

‘Wait, I'll take this side,’ Liv said as Els reached for the wrong end.

‘You get the buttons, then.’

They made up the sofa. Els put a glass of water beside the lamp and sat in the armchair. She hadn't changed. Her nightdress showed beneath the open cardigan, her feet side by side on her slippers. Liv could see now that one sock was only pulled a little higher than the other. They were the same colour.

‘You don't have to stay up,’ Liv said.

‘I won't be sleeping just yet.’

Liv got under the duvet but stayed sitting upright. Els pointed at a cushion that wasn't intended for sleeping and asked whether she should fetch another. Liv said no. She hadn't tried lying on it yet.

For a while they talked about the building work. The kitchen had been done nine years ago, Els said, and she couldn't find most of the workmen's names now. One plumber had never sent bills. Not at first, anyway; they'd all arrived together just as she'd begun to think his work might be included in the overall price.

‘That sounds worse than just a late bill,’ Liv said.

‘Yes. I'd spent it on a fridge.’

Liv told her about the hours on the roofing bill. Els asked whether she'd rung. Not yet: she wanted to see the job finished first. She didn't want the men climbing onto her roof just after she'd argued with them about the price.

‘They're not going to leave a hole on purpose.’

‘I know.’

‘I wasn't asking whether you knew.’

Liv pulled the duvet higher. Outside had been quiet for a while. Now something drove past, heavy enough to make glasses rattle in a cupboard. Els didn't look up. She found the remote, put it down again and asked whether Liv wanted the television on.

‘I'd rather not.’

‘Me neither.’

They talked about the interviews, briefly. Els asked whether people had been paid to tell their stories. Liv didn't know about all the original recordings. She was being paid to make them usable again, she said. Els didn't ask whether she could make a usable story out of the voice upstairs too.

Towards five, Liv couldn't recall Els's last sentence. She'd begun talking about her own roof and heard herself stop halfway through. Els turned the lamp away from her face. Liv finally lay down. The cushion was too flat, but once she'd put her hand beneath it, she no longer needed to think of what to say.