The Killer Next Door(35)

‘Um,’ she says, ‘yes, that would be nice, thank you.’

‘Got better manners than you have, anyway,’ says Vesta to Cher.

‘Probably wasn’t drug up in care,’ says Cher, and stuffs a sausage roll whole into her mouth. She’s as skinny as a string bean, though she has a pair of surprisingly large breasts for such a small frame. Probably doesn’t eat much when it’s not given to her. Those kids never do. Cheese doodles and diet Coke, most likely, and the lack of calories made up with Baileys.

‘Milk and…?’ asks Vesta, and picks up a teacup.

‘Just milk, thanks. That’s a pretty service.’

‘It was my mother’s. Booth’s silicon china. It was a wedding present to my gran, before the Great War.’

‘Oh, how lovely,’ says Collette. She has nothing of family, now. Not that there ever was much. The one thing her mother achieved with her own life, as far as she knows, was to get out of Limerick and cut off her ties. After that, once she got to London, once she was pregnant and alone and the council gave her a flat, it was as if all the fight went out of her. She just sat there waiting for a man to save her and weeping as, one by one, they never did. There will be nothing but pound-shop china and second-hand pans for the council to clear out of her flat when they get round to it. She didn’t even have many friends to swap Christmas presents with. That’s how a lot of people amass decorative stuff: gifts and inheriting.

‘I would have died if the burglar had broken these,’ says Vesta. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to stop seeing my mother’s face.’

‘I’m sorry about your breakin. That must’ve been horrible. Did they get much?’

‘Scary, more than anything,’ says Vesta. ‘I’ve lived here all my life, and nothing like this has ever happened before. I just hope… you know. Now they’ve been in, they could come back. They do say they do that.’

‘It’s okay,’ says Hossein. ‘I’ll fix a chain lock on that door. They won’t get in again. Bastards.’

Vesta laughs. ‘My knight in shining armour. He’s an absolute godsend, this one,’ she says pointedly to Collette; lets her know she hasn’t missed her attempts not to look at him. ‘He’ll do anything for you, if you ask him.’

‘Well, not anything,’ says Hossein. He turns his golden smile on Collette, and Vesta sees her glow in the reflected light. ‘So, how are you settling in, Collette? Are you enjoying your luxury accommodation?’

‘All mod cons,’ says Collette, and waves away a sandwich from the plate Cher holds out. She remembers her gift, blushes and digs in her bag. Finds her pack of chocolate HobNobs and offers them to Vesta. ‘I brought these. A… a contribution. I’m sorry. They look really poor, against all this…’

‘Nonsense,’ says Hossein, as Vesta takes the biscuits and hands them on to him. ‘HobNobs are one of your country’s finest foodstuffs.’

‘Thanks, love,’ says Vesta. ‘What a treat.’

‘Don’t let him get started on food,’ says Cher. ‘He’ll go on for hours about his mum’s lamb with rhubarb if you let him.’

‘Lamb with rhubarb?’ says Vesta, ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘Oh, God, it’s beautiful,’ says Hossein, and his eyes glow with liquid nostalgia. ‘The lamb is cooked for hours, so it falls off the bone, and she used to throw in fried mint and parsley at the last minute, so it’s still crunchy when you eat it…’

‘Told you,’ says Cher. ‘What are these? Arab cakes?’

‘Iranian,’ says Hossein, and pronounces the ‘a’ long, like an aaah. ‘Not Arab. Iranian.’

‘Whatever,’ says Cher, and pops a little baklava in to chase down her sausage roll. ‘Nnnnfff,’ she says, and sprays pastry flakes over the blanket, ‘that’s sooo good.’

‘I know,’ says Hossein. ‘Really, it’s hard to believe that such beauty could come from an evil empire, isn’t it?’

‘Can we start the cake?’ interrupts Cher.

‘Not till Thomas gets here.’ Vesta waves a finger in the air. ‘It’s easy to make young people happy with food, isn’t it?’ she says to Collette, confidingly. Oh, Lord, thinks Collette. Does she see me as closer to her generation than to theirs? She must be the same age as my mum.

Cher’s face drops. ‘Oh, Christ on a bike, is he coming?’ she asks.

‘I told you I was asking everybody. I asked him up there, too,’ she gestures towards the upper ground floor. ‘Although I somehow doubt we’re going to be graced with his presence. I saw him go off with his overnight bag this morning. I think he’s gone off to see his kids again.’