Chapters (50)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Ninteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Epilogue
- Letter From the Author
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
‘Yes. You saw her at my flat. But did you ever see her anywhere else? In the street.’ Again, Dita translated.
The wait for her response was agonising. She stared at the picture. I could hear her breathing, a wet, rasping sound that emerged from the slit in the bandages.
She spoke to Dita in Albanian, and I waited impatiently for the translation.
‘What did she say?’
Dita stared at me, her face pale and hostile. ‘She says that your girlfriend is crazy. That she offered her money to stop cleaning your flat.’
My blood ran cold. ‘When was this?’
The two women spoke and Dita shrugged with one shoulder. ‘She doesn’t know exactly. A day or two after she first met her? This girl, your girlfriend, was waiting outside the cleaning agency office when Kristi went to get wages. She asked Kristi to refuse to clean your flat, that she would give her £100 to stop.’
They spoke together for a moment.
‘Your girlfriend had translated her words into Albanian on the internet – she had words printed out.’
‘What did Kristi say?’
Another exchange.
‘She said nothing. She just laughed at her. Laughed in her face.’
Thirty-three
Thirty-three
I walked home from the bus stop, picturing myself surrounded by a bruise-coloured halo, invisible hooks and cords turning me into a living marionette, and when I went inside I was shivering and sniffing from the damp, clinging cold. Harold’s and Kristi’s words echoed in my head.
I could picture Charlie’s reaction when Kristi laughed at her. The anger that would have bubbled up. Anger that could lead to her attacking the woman who had rejected her offer. Would Charlie really go that far? All I knew was that Charlie had felt threatened enough by Kristi to try to stop her cleaning my flat. My cleaner, who was attractive, yes, but whom I had never shown any sexual interest in. If Charlie had done what Kristi said – and I couldn’t see any reason why Kristi would have lied about it – then some of the other things I suspected Charlie of seemed more in character, like setting up Victor to stop me working in his office and becoming ‘exposed’ to all those attractive women.
As if that wasn’t enough, when I got home I found an email from Sasha in my inbox.
Hey A
How’s it going? Just wanted to let you know all is quiet here at the moment. No more threatening texts or weird things going bump in the night (I have to joke about it because otherwise I’d spend every day hiding in bed, unable to go out!).