‘Can I ask …’ I clear my throat, my palms sweating, hating myself for stooping to her level, but I need the money. I have to think of the future. ‘… why you dislike Lewis so much?’
She doesn’t answer straight away and the silence that ensues makes my scalp prickle.
Eventually: ‘He’s got no prospects. He’s a roamer, a loser. And I could smell …’ she wrinkles her nose as though the memory troubles her ‘… marijuana on him.’
I want to laugh, but I don’t. So that’s why she sacked him. She thinks he’s a pot head.
‘I don’t want a boyfriend,’ I say truthfully. ‘I’ve had it with men.’
I must have said the right thing, for once, because she looks at me, properly, for the first time today, her eyes lighting. ‘Good for you,’ she says. ‘Now be a dear and go and fetch some wine from the cellar. I think this is cause for a celebration.’
I despise myself for matching her manipulation but I know I have to suck up to Elspeth if I want to survive this job for the next seven months. I diligently oblige her, even though I don’t want a glass of wine, and go to the cellar, if you can call it that. It’s a small room built underneath the house below the garden. You get to it by going out of the French windows and descending a few stone steps. It has a latched wooden door, with a padlock that, according to Elspeth, doesn’t have a key but is more of a deterrent.
I push open the door and the smell of damp and rot hits me straight away. The ceilings are low, and even though I’m small, I still have to crouch as I enter. It’s dark and a bit creepy with the cobwebs and rat droppings, and I have to hold my phone in front of me to light the way. I’ve never been in here before, and this is the first time Elspeth has suggested wine. Her moods swing faster than the pendulum of my gran’s old grandfather clock. In the corner I notice a huge wine rack, the bottles covered with dust. They must have been down here for years. I wouldn’t know an expensive vintage from a cheap bottle at Asda. I select one that looks like a white, although it’s hard to tell in this light, but the label is pretty and it has Chateau Something-or-other on the front. I hope it isn’t too prestigious – it will be wasted on me. I don’t even really like wine. I prefer shots that taste of peaches or strawberries.
I grip the bottle and make my way to the entrance when my leg knocks against something. I turn sharply, my heart pounding, worried I’ve brushed against a rat or some other animal, my phone casting an arc of light where I’ve swung my arm, eventually landing on the shape at my feet. I bend down. It’s not an animal but a bag. On closer inspection I see that it’s a canvas holdall, the handles fraying. Courtney’s suspicions come back to haunt me and, for a mad moment, I wonder if the holdall contains money. I said it in jest, but maybe I’m right. Maybe they are involved in something dodgy. I’ve obviously watched too many heist movies with Vince because, when I open the bag, there are only women’s clothes shoved inside, as if someone has packed in a hurry. I’m about to dismiss it as old things ready to take to the charity shop but I notice a pair of jeans from a shop called Chelsea Girl. I can’t imagine Elspeth or Kathryn ever owning such an item. Curiosity gets the better of me and before I know what I’m doing I’m rummaging through the bag, the bottle of wine forgotten at my feet. There’s more clothes, a crop top, a floaty summer dress, a tatty pair of white tennis shoes, a few cardigans, two pairs of pyjamas with Snoopy on the front, as well as some Body Shop toiletries and a comb. There’s no phone, or purse, and I’m just about to stuff everything back into the bag when I notice a passport tucked into one of the inside pockets. I take it out and open it, shining the light from my phone onto the photo. A girl of around my age with blonde hair and a familiar face stares back at me. It’s Jemima.
I hear a movement in the garden and I quickly return everything to the bag, zip it up, my heart pounding while my mind is still trying to process why Jemima’s clothes are in Elspeth’s cellar.
The door banging against the wall makes me jump. I turn. Someone is standing there.
22
Kathryn
She’s found the bag. Of course she bloody well has. What did Kathryn expect? She should have hidden it better, buried it even. But she hadn’t expected someone to be snooping in the cellar. It’s usually only her that goes in there.
Una’s trying to look nonchalant, which is hard when she’s stooped, with a pained expression on her face. She witters on about Elspeth sending her here for some wine but Kathryn can tell by her panicked air and the way her eyes dart, almost unconsciously, towards the holdall, that she knows.