The urge to roll her eyes is almost overwhelming. ‘You’re not allowed to do that any more. It’s against the law.’
The old woman purses her lips like a cat’s arse. Not a sweet little old lady at all. Not her nanna. She’s always wondered how people manage to believe that old age automatically bestows some sort of saintliness when they are so convinced – if the platitudes she’s heard mouthed at funerals are anything to go by – that only the good die young. ‘And more’s the pity,’ she says.
Cher considers tipping her wheelie bag over, but settles for saying. ‘Never mind, you’re welcome,’ pointedly, and walks on shaking her head. You can’t win if you’re young these days. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. She helps herself to an apple from the display outside the Knossos minimart, turns the corner on to Beechcroft Road and takes off her jacket. It really is hot today. Too hot. She’d like to ditch the wig as well, but she’s too careful for that. Nowhere in England is built for this sort of heat. It’s stupid, having to walk all this way to get back to pretty much where she started. If she could get over that chain link at the station, she’d be home in less than a minute. There’s even a gap in the garden fence that leads straight on to the embankment.
Beechcroft Road is full of skips. There are four along its hundred-yard length, their bricks and laminate-kitchen-cabinet contents bearing witness to the arrival of the home improvers. Cher scans them as she passes for usable gear, but it’s all builders’ rubble and some hideous patterned carpet. She once saw a beautiful Persian rug in a skip off Kensington High Street, but she had no way of getting it home.
A telly, she thinks. That’s what I could really do with. If I had a telly, I wouldn’t need to go out so much. It’s going out that costs the most. You can’t do anything for free in this town, unless you’re ready to pay in other ways.
She crosses over on to the opposite pavement to turn into Beulah Grove. This side of the street basks in full sun, and it’s like stepping into an oven. She hurries round the corner, crosses over into the shade, suddenly aware that her mouth is parched. One of the Poshes’ kids – Celia, Delia, Amelia, whatever – has dumped a pink bicycle at the foot of the steps up to number twenty-one. I could have that, thinks Cher. Probably get twenty quid for it in the Royal Oak. Some people don’t know they’re born. Some people deserve to get ripped off.
She passes by, pauses at the bottom of her steps to find her keys, and glances down to see if the net curtains covering the basement window move. If Vesta is back from her holidays, she’ll be looking out: she’s always looking out, constantly on the watch for life passing by her window. But nothing moves. Cher shrugs. She’ll be back soon, she’s sure. She runs up the steps to the front door.
She smells the Landlord before she hears him. Knows for a fact that he’s been in today, from the aroma he’s left behind: Old Spice and Febreze and, below all that, something cheesy, old and rotten. It’s got worse, lately. The smell of him seems to hang around in the communal parts of the house even when she’s seen no sign of him all day. Bugger, she thinks, and closes the door as quietly as she can. Her rent’s not due till the end of the week, but that’s never stopped him from popping in to ‘check up’ on her, breathing and snuffling and trying to see her nipples.
She hears his voice, and the boards on the upstairs landing creak beneath his weight. He’s talking to Hossein, walking towards the stairs. He’ll corner her by the front door, subject her to his leery flirting, his innuendo, his knowing smirk. Cher looks back towards the front door. She’s almost at the bottom of the stairs, and it’ll take too long to get there and get it open from here. She can see the toes of his trainers on the top step. He’ll see her from halfway down and she won’t be able to get away.
She glances down at her hand and sees that Nikki’s key is still on her keyring. The door to her bedsit is three steps away. Cher tiptoes to it, scrabbles the key into the lock and slips inside the room.
Chapter Five
Collette snaps from her sleep at the sound of a key turning in the door lock. She had only meant to lie down for a few minutes, but those minutes plunged her into the deep, black unconsciousness of exhaustion. And now she’s awake again, head fogged and nerves jangling, kicking her way up this strange bed, coming to rest against the headboard with the bag clutched to her chest as though it will shield her against a bullet. Oh God, oh God, oh God, she thinks, as she’s thought every time she has been surprised in the past three years, they’ve found me! They’ve found me and I’m dead.