* * * Three Weeks Earlier * * *

Love – or lust, as she might put it – can flourish in the most unlikely environments. Like the green shoot which thrusts out between the dry, dusty scales of a sun-parched riverbed, so can lust bloom amid sterility. We met first, she and I, in East London. It was early November, with Autumn very much advanced. The sunshine and cold crispness had gone with October, and in its place were high winds and a chilly, pervading damp. 

Given what was to come, that first meeting was inauspicious, and we both later confessed – amidst raucous laughter and gulps of cheap wine – that we had disliked the other intensely. I was a junior planning inspector with the local council, tasked with on-site reviews, which is exactly as unglamorous as it sounds. Previously my job had been to process national infrastructure applications - the big boy stuff: motorways, bridges and the like - but owing to cutbacks I was offered redundancy or a move sideways (which is actually downwards if you lie headfirst in the direction you began, which funnily enough I actually did when the offer was made, on the floor next to my desk, sobbing loudly).

She was a businesswoman, six years my senior, with a string of buy-to-let properties in and around the City. I won’t go into detail on why I was there, knocking on the door of a basement conversion, rain dripping over the rim of my cagoule’s hood, into my blinking eyes; suffice to say, she had grand designs in mind for that property, and it was my job to cast a critical eye over them, to ensure they were fully compliant with this and that building regulation. As it happens, I cast my critical eye over a great deal more than just her residential assets, if you know what I mean.

I had been knocking for some minutes, to no avail. I checked my watch and cursed. We had spoken earlier on the phone and appointed a time for my visit. I was on schedule, as ever, but she, apparently, was not. I pulled out my mobile phone, brushed away the droplets of rain from the screen with a sodden palm, and dialled her number. It rang out, and with mounting frustration I listened to her voicemail recording.

“Hi, you’re through to Alex, leave a message.” I’m not a hopeless sentimentalist, and I wouldn’t pretend to be any great and loyal son of Yorkshire – I haven’t been back in many years, and to be honest I don’t miss it all that much – but folk from back home would never, even with something so innocuous as a voicemail recording, wish to come across so blunt and dismissive as Alex did. I had detected those same haughty notes in our earlier conversation, and that recording seemed to sum her up rather neatly.

I hung up, and was about to turn back to the steps leading up to street level when I caught the sound of running water. Now, of course, it was raining quite heavily, and water was running all around, but this was heavier, and close by. I looked about me for a gurgling drain, and realised that the sound was coming from a small window, slightly ajar, at eye-level less than half a dozen yards from where I stood. I walked over to get a better look. The pane was frosted and steamed up, and through the narrow opening I caught a glimpse of pink naked flesh behind a half-closed shower curtain. I recoiled instinctively.

As I told her much later, my initial reaction was one of professional indignation: nowhere, but nowhere, could I see a ventilation shaft. The house was part of a terrace, and unless the bathroom had happened to stretch the entire length of the building to the garden, and was electrically or passively ventilated to the house’s rear, this was a clear breach of building regulations. An opening window is the bare minimum required for a WC (or ‘toilet’ as they’re known in the real world), but a bath or shower room – no, ma’am.

That was my initial reaction. What followed was a more urgent cocktail of fear – the fear of being caught – and a stabbing sense of arousal. I was at that time a little starved of female company. One long-nurtured prospect, a girl from the office, had amounted to nothing just a week before: a meticulously planned first date, then a second date, followed two days later by a conversation in the office canteen, the essence of which was “it’s not you, it’s me”. I imagine she chose the canteen to avoid any kind of embarrassing fracas. (I had the last laugh on that count, since I burst into tears and caused quite a scene anyway.)

I had longed for that girl for many months, and had allowed myself to fantasise about her as we came closer and closer to having a thing. I had studied the line of her hips and waist beneath her clothes, and the glimpses of her bare thighs as she walked past my desk, skirt hem bouncing playfully. I had imagined her standing in front of me, pressing my face and lips against her taut stomach, my hands climbing up the back of her thighs…

But it would never happen now, and I was left frustrated and brimming with unspent sexual energy, the result of which was an intense, almost alien thrill at some otherwise fairly tame, innocuous voyeurism. What had I seen, after all, but a flash of an arm, a glimpse of her back? Of course, it was less the thought of what I had seen than what I hadn’t seen, and wasn’t supposed to see. For a moment I wondered if I should creep back to the window and peer through, but even as the thought crossed my mind the sound of hissing water – the shower – suddenly stopped. She had finished. Thinking she might now be able to hear the sound of my footsteps, I quickly hammered on the door.

“Just a moment!” she called, and I could hear the gentle rustling sound of a towel being pulled around her. She appeared a minute later in a large dressing gown. Was it a man’s? Certainly, there was something bulky and reassuring about its thickness. I wanted to run my hands through its dense, masculine fibres; I wanted to be held against it.

I introduced myself, expecting realisation to dawn. We had, after all, agreed to this time. Instead, she looked vaguely irritated, and stepped aside to let me in, all very grudgingly. Had she expected me to inspect the property from outside?

“Can I just leave you to it?” she asked, walking away down the corridor. I stuttered, and said it was fine if she was happy for me to look around. She didn’t answer, and had by that point disappeared into a side room. Of course, I didn’t require a tour guide, but you come to expect some common courtesies on such occasions, or at least a basic curiosity. I muttered an expletive under my breath and went about my work. I had the impression, from the lack of any personal effects – family photos, thumbed books, used mugs and so on – that this was not a property in which she normally resided. It was an attractive enough flat, spacious and with the appearance of comfort, and judging by the unworn furniture and fittings, it had been recently renovated.

I moved from the kitchen back into the hallway, and Alex emerged from the bedroom, towelling her wet hair. Her skin was glistening and rosy. She gave me a cold smile, and I stood aside to let her past.

“All in order?” she asked, although she didn’t seem particularly interested to hear my response. She was in kitchen now, and we had swapped rooms. I was standing in the bedroom, casting my eyes about. A pair of her knickers lay strewn on the pillows.

“Largely fine,” I shouted through to her. “Apart from the lack of ventilation in the bathroom, which can be remedied easily enough. I’m also concerned about the exterior drainage at the rear of the property.”

Alex said nothing, and I could hear rushing steam of the kettle.

Then, “Are you going to be here much longer? I’ve got someone coming around any minute.”

I had only been there for ten minutes. It was clear that my very presence there was an inconvenience. I then retraced my steps around the property and took some photographs of each room, including – I don’t know why – the bed, with the discarded underwear.

“I’ll let myself out,” I shouted from the hallway. There was no response, and so I opened the door and mounted the steps to street level. At the top I found my path momentarily blocked by a short man with an umbrella. I’m fairly tall, an inch or two over six foot, and one of the spokes of his umbrella almost caught me in the eye. I ducked and weaved awkwardly, and the man – clad meticulously in a fitted blazer and moleskin trousers – gave me a queer smile. As I walked away down the pavement, I heard his footsteps as he descended the stairway to the basement, and to Alex, flushed and naked under her dressing gown.