Nora called her friend Leah.
“I need somewhere to stay.”
Leah heard something in her voice and stopped asking questions.
Twenty minutes later, Nora was at her kitchen table.
Together they photographed every page, saved copies, and sent them to Leah’s brother, a solicitor.
Then Nora played the rest of the cassette.
Her mother’s voice filled the kitchen.
“Ruth was going to stop the sale.”
A chair creaked on the recording.
“Mr Voss wanted everyone out. Ruth had collected proof he was entering flats when people were away. Damaging pipes. Cutting power. Anything to make them leave.”
Nora looked at the complaints in the folder.
Several carried Ruth Bell’s signature.
“The night of the fire, I was cleaning the upper stairs. Ruth left you with me while she went to speak to him downstairs. She said ten minutes.”
Her mother drew a long, difficult breath.
“I heard them arguing. His son was there too. Then a crash. I went down far enough to see through the office door.”
The tape hiss became painfully loud.
“Ruth was on the floor. Mr Voss was kneeling beside her. Adrian was holding the telephone, asking whether he should call someone. His father told him to put it down.”
Leah sat very still.
“I should have gone to the police immediately. Instead, I took you upstairs. I was frightened he’d seen me.”
Nora pressed a hand against her mouth.
“When I smelled smoke, the front stairs were already filling. I took you out the back. You were asleep against my shoulder.”
On the tape, her mother began to cry.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
“Adrian found us in the alley. He said his father knew about my husband. About the benefit claim. He said I could go to prison and you would be put into care. I believed him.”
Nora remembered an argument years ago, her mother refusing to explain why there were no photographs of Nora’s father.
“I had lost a daughter before you. Eleanor. She lived for eleven weeks.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt.
“He said there was a way. He arranged the papers through someone his father knew. Told me to keep my head down. They let me stay here without rent.”
Nora stared at the birth certificate.
For years, her mother had called the flat their good fortune.
“I told myself I was keeping you safe. Then you started calling me Mum, and I stopped looking for a way to tell you.”
A long silence.
Nora thought the tape had ended.
Then:
“Last autumn, they emptied the old office. I found the rent ledger in a box marked for disposal. There was an envelope inside it.”
Paper rustled.
“Ruth had sent copies of her evidence to a solicitor. The envelope was his reply. Mr Voss intercepted it.”
Nora searched the folder.
No envelope.
“Adrian knows I found something. He doesn’t know where it is. He offered me money. Then he started coming when the other tenants were out.”
Her mother coughed.
“I’ve hidden the original where your name used to be.”
The recorder clicked.
The tape had finished.
Nora sat with her hands flat on the table.
Leah spoke carefully.
“Where did your name used to be?”
“I don’t know.”
But an image had begun to surface.
The entrance hall.
Six brass name holders beside the doorbells.
When Nora was little, she liked sliding paper labels into them.
Her mother always stopped her touching the bottom one.
Flat 1.
The old owner’s office.
Leah reached for her phone.
“We’re calling the police.”
Nora nodded.
As Leah began explaining, Nora’s phone lit up.
A building notice had arrived from the clearance company.
WREN HOUSE: FINAL INTERNAL STRIP-OUT, 7:00 A.M.
It was already five forty.
Then came another message from Adrian.
I know which room you haven’t checked.