Three
Mrs. Oliver drove into the inner court of Borodene Mansions¹. There were six cars filling theparking space. As Mrs. Oliver hesitated, one of the cars reversed out and drove away. Mrs. Oliverhurried neatly² into the vacant space.
She descended³, banged the door and stood looking up to the sky. It was a recent block,occupying a space left by the havoc⁵ of a land mine in the last war. It might, Mrs. Oliver thought,have been lifted en bloc⁴ from the Great West Road and, first deprived of some such legend asSKYLARK’S FEATHER RAZOR BLADES, have been deposited as a block of flats in situ. Itlooked extremely functional⁶ and whoever had built it had obviously scorned any ornamentaladditions.
It was a busy time. Cars and people were going in and out of the courtyard as the day’s workcame to a close.
Mrs. Oliver glanced down at her wrist. Ten minutes to seven. About the right time, as far as shecould judge. The kind of time when girls in jobs might be presumed to have returned, either torenew their makeup⁷, change their clothes to tight exotic pants or whatever their particularaddiction was, and go out again, or else to settle down to home life and wash their smalls and theirstockings. Anyway, quite a sensible time to try. The block was exactly the same on the east andthe west, with big swing doors set in the centre. Mrs. Oliver chose the left- hand side butimmediately found that she was wrong. All this side was numbers from 100 to 200. She crossedover to the other side.
No. 67 was on the sixth floor. Mrs. Oliver pressed the button of the lift. The doors opened like ayawning mouth with a menacing clash. Mrs. Oliver hurried into the yawning cavern⁸. She wasalways afraid of modern lifts.
Crash. The doors came to again. The lift went up. It stopped almost immediately (that wasfrightening too!). Mrs. Oliver

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