The Other Tenant, page 16
‘Yes, but then we’ll have to admit to breaking into Hayley’s room, although of course we didn’t actually break in, did we? We used the key.’
‘Yeah, but how did we get the key?’ Lou says. ‘And it’s not just her room, it’s the pool too. We’ve broken the rules in our licence agreement already. We could end up homeless. Mags’ll never forgive me. She loves it here.’
‘And even if we persuade Harry that Hayley might be in trouble, are the police really going to pursue a property guardian and former addict who’s invented contact details on her application form and told Harry she’s had a family emergency? They’re just going to assume she’s pissed off for her own reasons.’
Lou nods. ‘And if we go to the police, I’ll have to give a statement, and Mags might find out I was up here all those times with Hayley. And now with you.’ She looks at her phone. ‘Shit. She’ll be finishing her shift in half an hour. I need to get back.’
I think of what Bryony said, about Mags letting slip that Lou sometimes has crushes on straight girls.
‘Do you think it’s possible she already knows?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’d know if she did. She’d have been quizzing me about it. Why? What makes you say that?’
I pick up one of the earrings and roll it between my fingers.
‘I just wondered, that’s all.’
Lou stares at me. ‘You think she might have said something to Hayley? Warned her off? Is that what you mean?’
‘No, not at all. Although I guess if she did, that might explain why Hayley left without saying goodbye. But it wouldn’t explain why her earring was in the pump room.’
Lou looks at her phone again. ‘I’ve really got to go,’ she says. She stands up and moves towards the door. ‘So what are we going to do?’
‘I think the first thing to do is speak to Harry, ask him a bit more about what Hayley actually said to him. I’ll drop in tomorrow during my lunch hour. And now I come to think of it, we need to know whether she emailed him or went to the agency in person. Because if she went in person and he saw her, then all this worry is for nothing. Whereas if she emailed him …’
Lou’s eyes widen as she catches my drift. ‘If she emailed him, then it could have been someone else, using her phone.’
‘Exactly. Right, you’d better go then. Give me your number, and I’ll fill you in after I’ve spoken to Harry.’
Lou gives me a sheepish look. ‘I’d rather you didn’t call me, if you don’t mind. Just in case Mags finds out.’
‘Does she look at your phone then?’
‘I think so. Sometimes.’
‘You know, you really shouldn’t—’
I don’t finish the sentence because who am I to tell her what she should or shouldn’t do? I’m hardly an expert in romantic relationships, and even though I find it astonishing that Lou would tolerate that kind of behaviour, I don’t really know anything about the two of them. Perhaps Mags has good reason to be suspicious. Or maybe Lou is a victim of her girlfriend’s controlling behaviour. In which case, my heart goes out to her.
‘Do you and Mags use the old toilets off the hall or the staff loo?’
Lou gives me a puzzled frown. ‘The staff loo, of course. The others are rank. Why are you going on about toilets?’
I mime the act of writing on a door.
Lou cottons on at last and sticks her thumb in the air.
‘The cubicle nearest the window,’ I say, thanking my lucky stars I’m not in the kind of relationship where I’m on tenterhooks in case someone looks at my phone and gives me a hard time just for talking to a friend.
38
Rob
It is nine o’clock in the evening and Rob has been back at the school for three hours, sitting in the gloom of the office, going over and over the CCTV footage. Harry Kiernan sent him another email before he left work, informing him that an intruder was seen by the pool this morning and that James Brampton is on the warpath because of it. But so far, Rob has found no evidence of an intruder, although it is possible that someone was there in the brief period when the camera switched angles.
Rob looks beyond the computer screen into space, and blinks. Another urge is making itself known and pulling him away from his laborious task. Reluctantly, but with a familiar sense of resignation, he takes the small key out of his shirt pocket and unlocks the top drawer of his desk. His hand closes round the set of classroom keys and he lifts them out, selecting the right one and grasps it between his thumb and first two fingers.
He will do it now, before he changes his mind.
It takes him all of five seconds to walk to Hayley’s room. He must stop calling it that because it isn’t her room any more. It isn’t anyone’s room now. He slips the key into the lock and lets himself in. His heart begins to judder like a tiny animal trapped in his chest. The room still smells of her, but it’s fainter than before, and he wonders how long a scent can last in an enclosed space with no fresh air.
He wonders how … No. Nothing good will come of letting those thoughts in. It’s too late for that.
Rob strokes Hayley’s mattress and wishes things could have been different. Wishes he were a better man. A stronger man. He wants to go back in time and be braver. Stand up for what’s right.
Things are spiralling out of control. All those clothes stuffed into bags, all those books and pens and cups and plates and make-up bags. All the myriad possessions and paraphernalia she kept in drawers and cupboards and arranged on shelves and tables, and which he, like the fool he was – like the fool he is – stuffed into black bin bags.
Where are they now, those bags? What has become of them? And what was it all for?
Rob stumbles out of the room, forgetting to listen at the door first to check that the coast is clear. A dreadful error, and one that he berates himself for making. Fortunately, no one is around, and he can lock the door and return to his room unseen. He is shaking now. Whole body shakes of guilt and remorse and terror.
This is what happens when rules are broken, he thinks. Order breaks down. But somewhere, at the very back of his mind, that vital piece of insight he’s been trying so hard to grasp finally makes itself known.
Some rules have to be broken because they are the wrong rules. And that is where he has gone astray. That is where he has made a catastrophic mistake from which there is no coming back. Not now. Because he has failed to differentiate between the two types of rules: the good rules and the bad rules.
I’m at the cinema, about to watch a horror movie. Or ‘black comedy slasher movie’, as it’s described. It’d better be good. I’ve got an extra-large box of popcorn wedged between my thighs, and I’m stuffing handful after handful into my mouth so fast bits keep coming out and falling on to my lap. I love popcorn. I can’t get enough of it, especially the half-salted, half-sweet kind. I should have got two boxes.
The couple in the row in front of me keep turning round and giving me a ‘look’. First her, then him. If they do it once more, I’m going to tell them to fuck off and mind their own business. The film hasn’t even started yet, and there are other seats they could move to. Not as good as the ones they’re in, but that’s their problem, not mine. The people either side of me have already moved, which suits me down to the ground, because now I can put my coat on the chair next to me and make full use of both armrests.
While I’m waiting for the adverts to finish and the trailers to come on, I replay the events of the last few days in my mind. It’s like my own internal movie. Marilyn DeVere-Cairns is definitely Boho Birdie. If anyone could make an empty old school look like a posh house, it’s her. After all, this is the girl who messed around with boring photographs and turned them into so-called pieces of art.
Pieces of shit, more like.
She might be able to pull the wool over her dozy Instagram followers’ eyes, but she can’t fool me.
A lone man clutching a hot drink in a cardboard beaker has just come into the auditorium and spotted the empty seats either side of me. He’s heading my way. As he gets closer, I pull a weird face at him, and he swerves off in a different direction at the last minute. Result.
I saw the look that passed over Marilyn’s face when she first clapped eyes on me. It’s the same look that man just gave me. A look of disgust. I’m glad she lost all her stupid artwork. I’m glad they all did. I’m not glad Lottie Lansdowne died though. That should never have happened. I’m not a complete monster.
I tip the box up and pour the last bits of popcorn into my open mouth. The woman in front turns round again and I belch loudly. She’s only making it worse for herself by tutting like that.
I use the nail on my index finger to pick the popcorn husks out of my teeth.
Marilyn is making it worse for herself, too. I don’t like liars.
39
Marlow
The following day, it’s one thirty before I get a chance to leave the studio. I tell Lenny, my boss, that I’ve got a GP appointment and that I might be late back. He doesn’t mind at all, even though I’ve been off for the last two days. In fact, he’s surprised I even came in today. It probably helps that I haven’t taken any sick leave the whole time I’ve been working here. I usually drag myself in even when I’m feeling like shit.
Guardian Angels Inc. is just off Borough High Street. I could walk it in less than half an hour, but I take the tube so I’ve got time to stop for coffee and a sandwich. When I turn up unannounced, the receptionist seems reluctant to tell Harry I’m here.
‘Mr Kiernan is in a meeting at the moment,’ she says. ‘Can I give him a message?’
Her long hair has been carefully teased into immaculate waves, and her make-up is flawless. Big smoky eyes and vivid red lipstick to match her vivid red top. Her smile is fixed and fake.
I sit down on one of the chairs. ‘I’d rather wait, if you don’t mind.’
She looks irritated by this and starts to explain that in that case, I’m going to have a very long wait indeed as the meeting has only just started, but I cut her off mid-sentence with a breezy smile and an assurance that I really don’t mind waiting.
A small muscle twitches in her left cheek and her smile begins to fade. Reluctantly, she picks up her phone and taps something into a small switchboard.
‘A Marlow Cairns is in reception. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she insists on seeing you.’ I watch her face as she listens to his response. ‘Yes, yes, I’ve already offered to do that, but she wants to wait for you.’ She listens again. ‘OK, I’ll let her know.’
She replaces the receiver and looks me in the eye. The smile has disappeared. ‘He said to go in, but you’ll have to be quick.’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘The meeting.’
She doesn’t even have the grace to blush.
Harry’s office is as cluttered as I remember it being the last time I was here, which was when I first registered with the agency.
He gestures to a chair. ‘S’cuse the mess,’ he says. I’m pretty sure he said the same thing to me back then, too.
His phone rings and he picks it up, mouths ‘sorry’ to me as he does. ‘Seb, I literally had my finger on speed dial. I’ll be with you in ten. Yah, yah, no worries, bro.’
Harry is tall and slim, with dark-blond hair that keeps flopping over his eyes. There’s an ease about him – a languor – that many people would find attractive, but not me. I met too many boys like Harry when I was growing up. And that’s the trouble: even when they’re fully grown men, they still act like boys.
He finishes the call and gives me a disarming smile, the sort that probably has some girls eating out of his hand. ‘So, what brings you all the way here? I hope you’re not going to do a Hayley on me and tell me you want to leave already.’
‘No, I’m not. But Hayley is why I’m here.’
He raises his eyebrows in surprise.
‘When you first offered me a room at the school, you said it would be one of the older ones in the Victorian building, where Hayley used to live. But apparently, according to Rob, that room has a leak and can’t be inhabited until it’s been fixed, so I’m in a room in one of the more modern blocks across the playground.’
Harry looks bored already, and I get the strong impression that he secretly despises people like me; people who agree to live in abandoned buildings, people so obviously less well off than he is, with his preppy clothes and air of entitlement. Even though, without us, his agency wouldn’t make any money. I can’t help wondering how he’d react if I told him I was a former pupil at McKinleys, and whether it would change his attitude towards me.
He stifles a yawn. ‘And you’ve got a problem with that because …?’
I launch into the little speech I’ve been rehearsing in my head all the way here. ‘It’s not so much that I’ve got a problem with it – although I am disappointed – it’s that when I was passing the room the other day, I couldn’t resist unsticking a corner of the notice covering the window in the door, and I had a quick peek inside. It was raining heavily and yet the floor was completely dry.’
I fold my arms on the desk and lean forward, lowering my voice.
‘I don’t want to accuse Rob of making up the leak, but it is a bit weird, isn’t it?’ Harry screws up his nose and scratches his head. ‘And another thing,’ I say. ‘It looks like Hayley’s left some really good furniture behind.’
Harry sighs as if this whole thing is a complete waste of his time. ‘So let me get this straight. What you’re saying is that you want to move into that room and take advantage of all the things Hayley didn’t have time to take with her?’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.’
He glances at his watch. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that I’m worried about Hayley. And so are quite a few of the others. She didn’t actually tell anyone she was going, and she was quite friendly with them all. She’s not responding to any of Bryony’s text messages. And Rob acted really strangely when I asked him about the room.’
Harry clears his throat. ‘Marlow, I appreciate your concern for Hayley, but as I told you when the vacancy first became available, she left because of a family emergency. At least, that was the excuse she gave. Who knows if it’s true or not? She didn’t give me any notice at all, which means, in effect, that she broke the terms of her licence. She did mention the furniture and how she’d try to arrange to have it collected, but I’m afraid I told her that if she couldn’t give me the required notice period and she couldn’t clear the room when she left, she would not be allowed back on the premises and would have to forfeit her right to anything she left behind.’
He sighs. ‘I know you probably think that’s a bit heartless of me, but I do have a business to run. I’m not a fucking storage company. And people come and go all the time. That’s why they like living in these sorts of places. They don’t like to be too tied down. As for Rob acting strangely, all I can say is, he’s, well … you’ve met him. But he’s a reliable person to have keeping an eye on things. He follows procedure and he gets things done. I wish I could say the same for all my guardians.’
He sighs again. ‘If you must know, I told Rob that he could either have the furniture himself if he could find a use for it, or pass it on to someone else. I don’t know anything about a leak, whether he’s made that up because he hasn’t had time to get it moved or collected yet, and frankly, Marlow, I don’t care. I’ve got enough on my plate at McKinleys right now, what with chalked messages appearing overnight and you seeing an intruder on the CCTV. You’ve met James Brampton. He’s not the easiest of fellows to deal with.’
Harry frowns. I can see how he might find someone as intimidating and brusque as Brampton rather a challenge.
He leans forward and rests his arms on the desk. ‘While there are plenty of good, honest people like yourself on our books, we also have our fair share of nightmares, let me tell you. People who trash perfectly good accommodation units, people who don’t pay their rent and have to be evicted at our time and expense, and people who piss off at a moment’s notice, like Hayley.’
He presses his lips together, as though he’s deliberating over how much to tell me.
‘I probably shouldn’t say this, but this isn’t the first time Hayley’s let this agency down. She’s on the flaky side, and she’s a total fantasist. Reckoned she’d soon have enough money to put down a deposit on a flat, and all this property guardian “malarkey”, as she called it, was just a stepping stone.’ He laughs in one short, incredulous exhalation. ‘Against my better judgement, I gave her another chance – my own stupid fault – and once again, I’ve got my fingers burnt. So when I come across someone like Rob Hornby, I do everything I can to hold on to them.’
He pushes his hair back from his face and it immediately flops down again.
‘Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?’
‘Yes,’ I say. Harry’s shoulders sag. ‘I found one of her earrings by the swimming pool.’
Harry spreads his hands palms up, and lets his jaw drop open as if to say, So what?
‘I think she might have been following someone in there, someone she saw from my window.’
Harry frowns. ‘From your window? But how on earth do you know that?’
‘Because I found some binoculars on the windowsill, and someone on site thinks they were hers. In fact, she told this person that she’d noticed some unusual activity near the pool and was going to investigate. The night before she left.’
Harry is sitting forward now, rapt. ‘And you saw someone there yesterday, didn’t you? On the CCTV?’
‘Yes.’ It might have been a lie to excuse my presence in Rob’s office, but it’s worked to my advantage yet again.
‘So let me get this straight. You think Hayley might have been monitoring something going on in the vicinity of the swimming pool, and that she went over there to investigate.’ He drums his fingers on the desk. ‘I bet it’s one of those fucking memorial-garden campaigners.’
