‘Do you want to go in?’ Dawn says.
There are two blocks, seven storeys high, with a courtyard in between. One building is tiled in cornflower blue, with white bands every other storey and a splurge of foliage on the roof – green shrubs and some climber frothy with purple blossoms. The other block is tiled jade green, almost turquoise. The buildings are remnants from older times, gaudy and shabby now, the grout stained. Rust marks streak down from all the metal balconies. The blocks provide splashes of colour in contrast to the skyscrapers towering round, which are dun and black, grey and brown and silver, a monochrome palette for the new century.
Around the outside at ground level there are shops. Halfway along the roadside, where we are standing, there is a gateway with an automatic barrier for cars and a small security booth.
We file after Dawn through the entryway, past the security box where the guard is eating his lunch, to the blue building. He watches us pass, expressionless.
The lift is an old-fashioned design with an outer door and an inner one like a cage that concertinas. Apprehension makes my jaw and hands tense. I flex my fingers. Every day Lori would be here, in this exact space, travelling out to work, to see her friends, coming back to rest, to sleep.
‘Was it a shock, Lori breaking up with you?’ I say.
Tom raises his eyebrows at me. Maybe I am being personal but I want to know. It may have something to do with Lori’s disappearance a few days later.
‘At the time.’ Dawn plucks at her lip. ‘But things had been up and down. Maybe I should’ve seen it coming.’ She has that rising inflection on everything she says, so it all sounds like she’s questioning, like there’s some room for doubt.
‘Was there any particular reason?’ I say.
‘Lori, she likes to party, a social life. It’s hard for me, out by the third ring road. I wanted to spend more time together, just the two of us. She didn’t like coming out there. It got a bit one-sided.’
I’ve no idea how deeply Dawn felt about Lori. I don’t know whether she is heartbroken. They’d been together just a few months.
I watch the numbers change until we reach the fifth floor and Dawn says, ‘Here we go.’
Tom pulls back the lift doors in turn and we enter the hallway. It’s dim, lit by a weak light recessed in the ceiling. I can smell cigarette smoke and spicy food.
‘This way.’ Dawn takes us to a door halfway along the hallway.
