She’s the one. Not the only one, but the only one I can still do something about. The one I can never forgive.

Chapter 24

PRUE

The handful of people who turned up at Prue’s meeting were a varied bunch. She had picked a time when the other tenants should be back home from work, although guessing what their usual evening activities might involve had been a bit of a hit-and-miss affair. Too early and they could still be cooking or eating, too late and they could be getting ready for bed. Ideally, she would have liked to hold the meeting out in the garden itself, but it was dark and cold and they wouldn’t be able to see much, so there didn’t seem a lot of point. Inviting them into Madi’s flat had felt like a bit of a cheek, but Madi had insisted when they’d first made their swapping arrangement that she must treat it as her own, and so she had. She just hoped they weren’t the sort to spill their drink on the carpet or start nicking the silver.

The leaflets were easy enough to produce on her laptop, with the help of Aaron and his printer, and pushing them through the remaining doors in the block had only taken minutes. Now all she had to do was wait and see who turned up.

‘We did say eight o’clock, didn’t we?’ Prue circled the flat again, too nervous to sit down.

Aaron was busy with his phone and didn’t look up. ‘You know we did.’

‘But it’s already five to, and nobody’s here.’

‘Exactly. It’s only five to. It’s not as if any of them have far to come, or buses to catch. They won’t have to come out of their doors until eight, will they? Or maybe a minute to, if they want to be on time.’

‘I suppose.’

She went through to the kitchen and re-boiled the kettle, fiddled with the cups, lining all the handles up the same way round, and rearranged the biscuits she had already put out on plates. When the bell rang it made her jump.

By quarter past eight, six strangers were dotted about the living room, among them Aaron’s mum Suzy, who was nothing like the woman she had imagined. She was quite chubby but attractive in an almost girlish way and could easily pass for ten years younger than her mid-forties, despite the thin scar that ran across her forehead and poked out beneath the fringe of her short blonde hair, which was obviously dyed and, although she probably didn’t know it, was noticeably darker at the roots. She walked carefully across the crowded space, holding her son’s arm, and sat down next to him, one hand resting on his knee. Whether it was to lay claim to him or merely to anchor herself in an unfamiliar room Prue could not be sure. The others all seemed to know her but in a vague sort of way, which wasn’t surprising if she had lived here for a few years but had spent most of them stuck indoors. Prue made a mental note to pay Suzy a visit soon, now that the ice had been broken, and try to get to know her better, especially as she apparently spent so much time alone.