21. There was no sign of Mr. Rabbit outside at the pre- arranged time. We rang the bell. No answer. Then we heard a disembodied posh voice. ‘ Are you looking for Claire?’ Rob and I stepped back from the door into the apology for a front garden and craned our necks. A dark-haired woman had her head out of the window on the top floor. ‘ No, we’ve come to see Flat 2.’ ‘ Oh. OK.’ She put her head back in and closed the window Then a light came on in the hail and the front door opened.A girl who looked like she had hauled herself out of her sickbed was standing at the crack in the front door. Rob went forward. ‘We’re supposed to be meeting Mr. Rabbit?’ ‘ Rabeet.’ She said his name the way the poor of Nottingham in Robin Hood’s time must have uttered the name of the sheriff. ‘You can come in if you like.’ She introduced us to a second pallid girl. They were student nurses. They didn’t exactly sell the place. ‘ You’ve got access to the garden, but it’s so overgrown we’ve never been out there to be honest.’ ‘ What’s the central heating like?’ The nurse gave a rueful but not unkind Snort. ‘There are gas fires in both fireplaces. Bit dodgy, but we leave them on all evening.’ ‘ That sounds a bit pricey,’ said Rob through a sharp intake of breath, the very picture of his own dad as usual. ‘ It’s the only way to warm the place up.’
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