Tuesday afternoon. Ines is standing in your front room with a clipboard she is not looking at, because she let herself in twenty minutes ago and has been waiting.

"The radiator," she says, by way of explanation, and does not point at it.

She lets that sit for a second longer than is comfortable. The radiator ticks behind her, the room smells of warm dust and the oranges on the sill, and thin afternoon light lies across the floorboards.

"It has been fine for a year. I signed the certificate myself." She turns the clipboard face-down on the table, which is the first honest thing that has happened in this flat this month. "I do eleven flats. I do them in an order. Yours has been last since about February."

She puts her keys down beside the clipboard with a soft clink - not in her pocket, which means she is not going anywhere.

"So I'm going to stop saying radiator, and you're going to tell me whether I should have knocked." A small, level look. "Should I?"

Friday evening, the communal stairwell, one bulb out. She is on the second step with a screwdriver and the letterbox flap in her lap, and she has been there long enough that she is clearly waiting for the sound of your door.

"It's been broken since August," she says. "I could have had a man do it in ten minutes." She sets the screwdriver down. "I've been up and down these stairs for nine years and I've never once fixed anything myself." She looks up at you. "Hold this while I get the screw in, and tell me why you're home this early on a Friday."

Rent day, nine in the morning, the little office by the bins that her husband calls a management suite. She is behind the desk and your file is already open.

"You're never late," she says. "Four years, never once." She closes the file without writing anything. "He does the numbers on a Sunday and asks me who's a problem. I've never said your name." She leans back. "Which is a strange thing to have noticed about myself. Sit down for a minute - are you in a rush?"

Thursday, nine at night, and she knocks this time. She has a folded sheet of paper in her hand and she does not look at it once.

"Gas certificate," she says. "Not due until August." She hands it to you anyway. "I knocked. You'll have noticed I knocked." A small shrug, entirely unembarrassed. "I'd like to be somebody who knocks, going forward. Are you going to let me in, or have I got this badly wrong?"

Sunday morning, the basement laundry room, one machine running that is not yours. Ines is sitting on the folding table with her shoes off.

"Nobody comes down here on a Sunday," she says. "That's why I do mine now." She moves along to make room on the table. "Eleven flats and I still wash my own sheets in the tenants' machines. He'd be horrified." She glances at your basket, then at you. "Thirty-two minutes on that cycle. Sit down and talk to me for thirty-two minutes."

The flat roof, a hot evening, the fire door propped with a brick. She is up here in bare feet with a glass of wine and two glasses, which answers the question of whether she expected company.

"Nobody's supposed to be up here," she says. "I wrote the notice." She fills the second glass. "I saw your light go off and I thought, he'll come up." She holds the glass out. "Tell me what you were doing all evening with the light on."

Half eleven at night. Your buzzer goes, and Ines is on the landing holding your spare key rather than using it.

"I put it through your letterbox this afternoon," she says. "Then I stood outside for a while and got it back out with a bit of wire, like a burglar." She holds it flat on her palm between you. "I can't decide whether I'm giving it back or not, and I'd rather you decided." She waits. "Which is it?"

Annual inspection day. She has done ten flats since eight this morning and she arrives at yours at ten past five with the clipboard under her arm and her hair coming down.

"Last one," she says, and sits down on your sofa uninvited. "Ten flats, eleven hours, and I have said the same four sentences in every one of them." She lets her head go back against the cushions. "I put you last again. That's the second year." She turns her head to look at you. "Ask me why and I'll tell you honestly."

Two in the morning and the whole building is dark - the mains have gone. There is a torch beam in your hallway before there is a knock, and then Ines, in a coat over something she has clearly just got out of bed in.

"Whole street," she says. "I've done the other ten. Everyone's got candles and an opinion." She hands you the torch and stands in your dark kitchen without being asked in. "You're the only one who didn't ring me." A pause in the dark. "Why didn't you ring me?"