When she disappeared, the police came and looked around a bit and left shortly after. There were just too many cases like this for them to solve. They had other, more serious things to bother with like drug wars, stabbings, shootings and murder. Toby went around telling everyone that he had expected something like this all along. Gloria just looked more tight-lipped and more worn-out than ever under her make-up and in her heels. Sheíd told the cops that Marty had gone into her room that night and never come out. She had definitely come home. One of the men looked out of the window, saw the iron steps of the fire-escape and shrugged. Another runaway. Nevermind that she hadnít taken her clothes or books or anything. Maybe she had a boyfriend. Teenagers.

I had kind of gotten into the habit of looking out for Marty, I suppose. I caught myself raising my hand in greeting as I came to the shabby steps of the entrance. I passed bookstores and found myself reading the titles and thinking , "Sheíd like this." Once I walked out of a store with a packet of M&Mís before I realised that I didnít like them and that the only one I knew who ate them was Marty.

I came back tossing the pack and catching it again in my right hand, thinking that maybe this was going a little too far, but it didnít seem fair that those who fell must always be the tender, the ones with dreams and hopes. The ones who saw salvation on the horizon.

Old Lucy was leaning out of her window as I passed by and cackled down to me. "Looking for a bird, Laurence? A marten, maybe?"

I put my hand and the pack back in my pocket as I looked up at her on the second floor. "Maybe, Lucy, maybe."

She looked at me and shook her head, chuckling to herself. Her grey hair drooped down in greasy strings around her face from the shower cap she was wearing. "Sheís gone, Laurence, your little bird. The Man took her."

I stopped. "What man ?"

She slammed the window-sash down.

I walked up the staircase, and even then I knew that I wasnít going up to my flat, but the second floor and Number 4.

She was waiting to let me in. "Come in," she cooed, standing aside to let me enter the dim, musty smelling room.

Old Lucyís failing was madness. Not dangerous mad, or violent mad, but she lived in a surreal world of her own making. Sometimes she pushed a mop along the corridors, muttering. It seemed she did the same in her place. It was surprisingly clean, so neat it looked like a room whose owner had already died and gone. There was a threadbare mat here in the living room, a set of two armchairs and a sofa in faux maroon velvet, moth-eaten, a frilly-shaded lamp on a crochet mat on a side-table. A vase of drooping flowers on the window-sill under the tattered yellow lace curtains. The truly amazing thing was the books. Walls of books on creaking shelves, mismatched, mostly paperback, some leatherbound and looking as if they would fetch a pretty price in an antique store. Not like the lair of a madwoman at all.

"Sit down," she rasped at me in that husking, wheezing voice. "You walk a lot, Laurence. Of course you can, with those young strong legs of yours. Youíve been walking more lately, so Iíve seen."

"Sometimes I like to walk, to look at people and wonder about their lives." I sat gingerly on the end of the sofa and reached into my pocket. I dropped the M&Mís into her hand and she clicked her tongue lovingly over them before stowing them in her apron pocket like a treasure. Then her head snapped up and she sat very straight, folding her hands on her knees, looking expectant.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I looked around, curious. Always the curiosity. There was a picture on the side-table, heavy silver frame. I picked it up. It was black and white. The face of a laughing girl in a white dress looked up at me from behind the glass. She had flashing black eyes and light-coloured hair.