A bit later, she walks outside. It’s broad daylight and there’s a fuss going on, with a small crowd staring at the activity surrounding the strange house she was looking at, through her window, the night before. There is an ambulance and some police vehicles parked across the street and emergency professionals are taking someone away on a stretcher. People are peering out from high-up windows and there are quite a few onlookers at street level.
“Excuse me,” Sophia says to a grey-haired man who is holding a rolled-up magazine to his chin while he looks across the street. “What’s going on?”
“They found a body in the house.” He waves his magazine about.
“Whose body?”
“A man’s. Everybody thought the house was empty. He was in an armchair, alone, dead for thirty years. Thirty years, unbelievable!”
Sophia heads off to work.
