He returned to the kitchen where Charlie was washing up the mugs. Grabbing a tea towel, he began to dry the crockery.
Charlie handed him a mug dripping with suds. ‘Do you like her?’
‘She seems all right,’ he replied non-committally.
‘She didn’t say where they locked her up.’
‘I’m not sure she was. Does it matter?’
Charlie shrugged and rinsed the last mug. ‘I can’t put my finger on it – and you can say what you like – but I smell trouble.’
Jason laughed. ‘Please don’t let that overactive imagination of yours run away with you. I think she’ll be quite nice to have around.’
‘You’re not getting it.’ Charlie wrung out the sponge and dried her hands. ‘I don’t mean us, or the house. It’s just that you have such a big heart, Jase. I meant trouble for you.’
Helen felt his gaze scorching the back of her neck. She nearly turned around but the thought of what she might see stopped her. He’d sensed that zing between them as much as she had, a feeling that had been there at the market too and which was a complication she could do without.
Why did he have to be so damn nice?
Everything screamed at her that moving in was a bad idea, but Jason’s house was cheap and convenient for her purposes, and she was only staying long enough to complete her task.
A quick trip back to her hotel in Earl’s Court to collect her bags, and she was installed in the magnolia-painted room in time to eat a Caribbean takeaway by herself.
Then she tried to make herself at home. She covered the bed with a blanket from India, hung a couple of posters and put her knick-knacks on the mantelpiece. Her statue of the Hindu god Shiva she placed on the desk, then she hung her clothes in the wardrobe. They barely took up half the space.
One day, she promised herself, when she’d got over the hurdle Fay represented, her life would be normal, and she’d have all those lovely useless things which cluttered up the lives of average people.
Slipping across the landing to the bathroom with her toothbrush, she noticed the light from underneath Fay’s door and tiptoed closer to put her ear to the door. She could hear music, faintly, but wasn’t sure whether Fay was in there or not. Tempted by the proximity to her mother’s murderer, and by curiosity, she put her hand on the door handle, but pulled back when she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye.
Lee the Mugger, as she now thought of him, had come up the stairs without a sound and was standing right behind her, eyeing her curiously.
‘Hi,’ she said, heart thudding wildly.
‘Hnh.’
He continued to the top floor without a backwards glance. She stared after him, thinking that there must be someone up there, among the gods, watching her and rolling on the floor with laughter. Even she had trouble explaining how she’d ended up sandwiched between a murderer, a stuttering street thug, and an infuriating do-gooder. Plus whatever it was Charlie had done.
You couldn’t make it up.
It surprised her how quickly she settled in. Charlie turned out to be easy to get along with, and Jason worked at his music stall and then did jobs around the house. Helen offered to help, and he set her the task of clearing out some of the kitchen cabinets which he was planning to replace with new ones.
‘Where do you want the stuff?’ she asked.
‘Just put it all in those boxes over there. We’ll sort it out later when the new cupboards are up.’ He indicated a stack of cardboard boxes by the back door and sent her another of those smiles which did peculiar things to her insides.
This could get complicated. Really complicated.
As for the others in the house, Lee would, to Charlie’s immense irritation, turn up only at dinner time to scoop some food on his plate and take it to his room.
Fay was okay, if a bit reserved. Helen wondered if whatever had caused her to kill a friend wasn’t still lurking beneath the surface, but there was no sign of it. Still, no one ever completely knew what went on inside other people, so she kept an eye on her.
When she wasn’t helping Jason, she hung out with Charlie, mainly watching TV, and when Charlie wasn’t around either, she’d stand outside Fay’s door listening for sounds from behind it. Joe had been right, the pull of revenge was just too strong to resist. She just didn’t know how to go about it.
At the same time she wanted to hear Fay’s version of events first. Except Fay kept herself to herself. Everything was definitely more complex than she’d expected. It didn’t help that she was beginning to like her.
She had to do something to take her mind off things.
Recalling what Aggie had said about getting a job at the auction house, Helen rang the offices of Ransome & Daughters expecting short shrift, but was instead given an appointment with her aunt Letitia two days later.