Have you noticed how things are louder when you sleep? How the clock that ticks benignly in the lounge suddenly sounds like the countdown of a bomb strapped to your chest? Perhaps that's why husbands and wives had separate bedrooms back when: all that snoring and grinding of teeth is bound to get on someone's nerves.
"So it's you," she said. "The Norah Singleton."
I swallowed.
"Do you two know each other?"
"Not exactly," I said.
"Oh, I know her all right. She's been flirting with my Henry for years."
The refuse truck shuddered the sash windows as it passed Will's front door. He waited for the last of the diesel fumes to dissipate before starting the timer on his watch. Mrs Phillips' Basset Hound regarded him with watery eyes as he pounded past the daffodils and around the mailbox. There was a bite in the air, not that he noticed. His head was full of yesterday's disaster.
