LITMIR.BIZ

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assured her. ‘And it won’t be for much longer. I shall go to university—and I won’t come back.’

      Perhaps a trace of his words had still been lingering in Taye’s head when she journeyed home from work one Friday a year later. She had anticipated that Hadleigh would be grinning from ear to ear at the brand-new bicycle she had saved hard for and had arranged to be delivered on his fifteenth birthday. But she had arrived home to discover her mother had somehow managed to exchange the bicycle she had chosen for a much inferior second-hand one—and had pocketed the difference.

      ‘How could you?’ Taye had gasped, totally appalled.

      ‘How could I not?’ her mother had replied airily. ‘The bicycle I got him is perfectly adequate.’

      ‘I wanted him to have something new, something special!’ Taye had protested. ‘You had no right…’

      ‘No right! Don’t you talk to me about rights! What about my rights?’

      ‘It wasn’t your money, it was mine. It was dishonest of you to—’

      ‘Dishonest!’ Her mother’s voice had risen an octave—which was always a signal for Taye to back down. Only this time she would not back down. She was incensed at what her money-grubbing mother had done.

      So, ‘Yes, dishonest,’ she had challenged, and it had gone on and on from there, with Taye for once in her life refusing to buckle under the tirade of venom her mother hurled at her.

      And, seeing that for the first time she was not going to get the better of her daughter, Greta Trafford had resorted to telling her to follow in her father’s footsteps and to pack her bags and leave.

      And Taye, like her father, had suddenly had enough. ‘I will,’ she had retorted, and did. Though it was true she did almost weaken when she went in to say goodbye to Hadleigh. ‘Will you be all right?’ she asked him.

      ‘You bet,’ he said, and gave her a brave grin, and, having witnessed most of the row before he’d disappeared, ‘You can’t stay. Not now,’ he had told her.

      Taye had gone to London and had been fortunate to find a room to rent, and more fortunate to soon find a job. A job in finance that she became particularly good at. When her salary improved, she found a better, if still poky, bed-sit.

      She had by then written to both Hadleigh and her mother, telling them where she was now living. She also wrote to her father, playing down the row that had seen her leave home. Her mother was the first to reply—the electricity bill was more than she had expected. Since Taye had used some of the electricity—even though she had been at home contributing when she had used it—her mother would be obliged to receive her cheque at her earliest convenience.

      Her mother’s ‘requests’ for money continued over the next three years. Which was why—having many times shared a lunch table with Paula Neale in the firm’s canteen, and having commented that she would not mind moving from ‘bed-sit land’—when Paula one day said she had half a flat to let if she was interested, and mentioned the rent required, instead of leaping at the chance, Taye had to consider it very carefully.

      Could she really afford it? Could she not? She was twenty-three, for goodness’ sake, Hadleigh coming up to eighteen. And their mother had this time promised he should go to university. Was she to wait until he was at university, Taye wondered, or dared she take the plunge now? It had been late February then, and Hadleigh would go to university in October. Taye—while keeping her fingers crossed that nothing calamitous in the way of unforeseen expenditure was heading her way—plunged.

      And here she was now and it was calamitous—though this time that calamity did not stem from her mother but was because, unless she could find someone to share, Taye could see she was in a whole heap of financial trouble. But, so far, no one except for one Magnus Ashthorpe had shown an interest. And, as an interested party, he was the one party she did not want.

      All that week Taye hurried home ready to greet the influx of potential flat-share candidates. Julian Coombs, the son of the owner of Julian Coombs Comestibles, where she worked, asked her out, but she declined. She had been out with Julian a few times. He was nice, pleasant and uncomplicated. But she did not want to be absent should anyone see her card in the newsagent’s window and call.

      But she might just as well have gone out with Julian because each evening she retired to her bed having seen not one single solitary applicant.

      She toyed with the idea of inviting Hadleigh to come and stay at the weekend. But he worked most weekends waiting at tables in a smart restaurant about five miles from Pemberton. It was, he said, within easy cycling distance of Pemberton, the village on the outskirts of Hertfordshire where he and their mother lived. And, besides Hadleigh not wishing to miss a chance to earn a little money for himself, Pemberton was not the easiest place to get back to by public transport on a Sunday.

      So Taye stayed home and almost took root by the dining room window. Much good did it do. Plenty of people passed by but, apart from other residents in the building, no one came near the door.

      And early on Monday evening Taye knew that it was decision time. By now the newsagent would have taken her card out of his window, and she could see no point in advertising again. Clearly the rent required was more than most people wanted to pay. In the nine days since she had placed that card in the newsagent’s she had received only one reply. So far as she could see, with the rent due on quarter day in a few weeks’ time she had to either give up the apartment—and heaven alone knew what she was going to do if they demanded a quarter’s rent in lieu of notice—or she had to consider sharing the flat with a male of the species; a male who, for that matter, she was not even sure she could like.

      Oh, she didn’t want to leave, she didn’t! How could she give up the apartment? It was tranquil here, peaceful here. And with the advantage of the small enclosed garden—a wonderful place to sit out in on warm summer evenings, perhaps with a glass of wine, perhaps chatting to one of her fellow flat dwellers. Perhaps, at weekends, to sit under the old apple tree halfway down the garden. There was a glitzy tinsel Christmassy kind of star lodged in that tree—it had been there, Paula had told her, since January, when a gust of wind had blown it there from who knew where. And Taye loved that too. She was in London, but it felt just like being in the country.

      On impulse she went into the kitchen and found the piece of paper with Magnus Ashthorpe’s phone number on it. She should have thrown it away, but with no other applicant in sight she rather supposed it must be meant that she had not scrapped it. Not that she intended to ring him. She would see what sort of a reference this Mrs Sturgess gave him.

      ‘Hello?’ answered what sounded like a mature and genteel voice when she had dialled.

      ‘Is that Mrs Sturgess?’ Taye enquired.

      ‘Claudia Sturgess speaking,’ that lady confirmed.

      ‘Oh, good evening. I’m sorry to bother you,’ Taye said in a rush, ‘but a man named Magnus Ashthorpe said I might contact you with regard to a reference.’

      ‘Oh, yes, Magnus—er—Ashthorpe,’ Claudia Sturgess answered, and suddenly seemed in the best of humours. ‘What would you like to know about him?’

      ‘Well, he has applied to rent some accommodation,’ Taye replied, it somehow sticking in her throat to confess it was shared accommodation—which she freely admitted was ridiculous. How was she to find out whether or not he was some potential mass murderer if she didn’t give the right information and ask the right questions? Giving herself a mental shake, Taye decided she had been reading too many thrillers just lately, and jumped in, ‘I wonder how long you have known him and if you consider him trustworthy?’

      ‘Oh, my dear, I’ve known him for years! Went to school with his mother,’ Mrs Sturgess informed her with what sounded like a cross between a giggle and a chuckle. ‘May I know your name?’ she in turn enquired.

      ‘Taye Trafford.’ Taye saw no reason to not tell her. But, hurrying on, ‘Do you think he would make a—um—good tenant?’

      ‘First

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