LITMIR.BIZ

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to duck my head and sprint straight out the door.

      But to where?

      I gingerly opened the blind, shielding my eyes with my spare hand and squinting through my fingers at the view. There wasn’t much of one; just a row of boxy houses on the other side of the street, driveways lined with German and Swedish cars in various shades of black and grey, including the one directly below the window. Mine is bright red, so it was immediately apparent that it wasn’t there. God, where the hell was it? And, more to the point, where the hell was I?

      Edith was easier to locate. She was at the breakfast table, and she greeted me with a ‘Hey’ and a smile. Nothing between the lines; just your usual good-morning pleasantry. She’d clearly been listening out for me; she’d poured me a fresh cup of coffee and a bowl of Rice Krispies and the latter were still popping and cracking, or whatever it is they do. ‘Made you breakfast.’

      I sat across from her, silently giving thanks for my complexion; the Middle-Eastern half of me is all on the outside, so I don’t burn in the sun and, more importantly, I blush very, very quietly. ‘Morning,’ I said, my deliberate effort to keep a steady voice naturally achieving the opposite. ‘Thanks.’

      ‘Sleep well?’

      My insides recoiled in horror. Was it a trick question? Could she tell that I had no recollection of the night before? ‘Like a baby,’ I said. ‘You?’

      Another neutral smile. ‘As well as can be expected. Did you find your towel?’

      Oh. ‘Yes,’ I lied, giving it away by shaking my head at the same time. ‘Thank you.’

      I watched her read the Independent as I crunched a mouthful of cereal, wishing there was a radio or television to muffle the sound of my munching. Her own efforts seemed so much more refined than mine.

      She’d finished dressing; a black tailored five-button jacket with matching skirt to just below the knee. Her legs stretched beneath the table, her ankles – slender, lightly tanned – crossed comfortably beside my own. Chestnut hair lowlighted in black, thrown up into a loose ponytail. Sunlight, splayed and rainbowed by the flowers and antique bottles on the windowsill, playing on the triangles of her neck, settling in the hollow of her collarbone where it peeked from behind her shirt. The swell of her breas—

      ‘You okay?’ See anything you like?

      I looked up, startled. Felt my face flush. ‘Hmm?’

      She folded the paper and tossed it aside, slid her coffee close to her and spooned in sugar from the bowl in the centre of the table. ‘You don’t look very well,’ she said, circling the spoon handle at me as though casting a spell. ‘You’re not going to throw that back up, are you?’

      I realised I had a mouthful of lukewarm milk and soggy Rice Krispies which, somewhere along my train of distraction, I’d somehow forgotten to swallow. I did so now. ‘I’m fine,’ I said, flatly.

      She gave a cynical snort. ‘Oh, really?’ Stirred her coffee. ‘I’ve seen you looking fine, and it didn’t look like that.’ Raised it to her lips, blew primly across the surface before taking a sip. ‘You’re not upset with me, are you?’

      I dropped my spoon into the half-empty cereal bowl and pushed it away, my appetite lost. ‘Of course not.’ Mortified, yes. Confused, bemused and deeply, shamefully embarrassed, but not upset.

      ‘Good, because . . . you know . . .’

      Doesn’t mean I want to talk about it. ‘I know.’

      ‘I mean, it’s not like . . .’

      ‘No, I know.’

      ‘I mean, I had a great time last night, but—’

      I choked on my coffee. ‘But now I have to go to work,’ I smiled.

      She smiled back, and thought for a moment and then looked at the table and nodded firmly and said, ‘Yeah. Me too.’

      ‘Only I don’t know where my car is.’

      ‘Ah,’ she chuckled. ‘You left it at the pub, remember?’

      No.

      ‘I’ll drop you off,’ she said. ‘Ready in five?’

      I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say, really, so I just blurted out, ‘I borrowed some knickers. Hope you don’t mind.’

      She gave a snort and a sideways look. ‘No, that’s fine,’ she laughed. ‘Just . . . have a good day, okay? Be careful, and don’t work too hard.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t intend to,’ I laughed. Riding out on a shudder of relief at the rapid change of subject, it was a laugh I would have found disproportionate and vaguely chilling were it directed at me. Fortunately, Edith either didn’t notice or at least had the good grace not to raise an eyebrow. ‘I’m . . .’ trying to think of something to say . . . ‘planning on shouting at my boss for dragging me out, and being home in time for Cash in the Attic.’

      ‘Sounds like a plan,’ she agreed, and then giggled to herself. ‘Hey, you know what’d be even better?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Tango & Cash in the Attic.’

      Ha ha.

      I knew I’d be fixed by lunchtime. The cold light of day would see my head straight and my priorities in order in no time. Or at least that was what I thought.

      As it turned out, the light of day was already as hot as the belly of Hell when I stepped from my car onto flame-scorched sand, hung my badge from its lanyard around my neck, and entered a world of violence and horror for the likes of which even the most depraved of my many nightmares had left me woefully underprepared.

      It was 6.59 a.m. My name is Alisha Green, and this, to the best of my understanding, is the truth about Erica Shaw.

Chapter 2

      A squirrel darted a stuttering dash along the bough above my head, twitching its velvety grey nose at the edges of the shadows among the leaves and sniffing suspiciously at the encroaching sunlight. In the dense cover high above, a lone woodpigeon flexed its wings and fluttered the sleep from its rumpled feathers. He looked like he’d had a rough night.

      I looked worse, if my reflection in the car window was anything to go by. I’d had them both open all the way here, and my undried hair had frizzed up into a bouffant bird’s nest. I slipped the hairband from my wrist and bundled the mess into a rough, damp knot at the base of my neck. If it didn’t improve me, it might at least give the pigeon second thoughts about moving in.

      I propped my foot on the sun-bleached picnic trestle beside the car and bent to tighten my shoelace. A pair of wasps buzzed hungrily around the rubbish bin beside me, keeping a respectful distance from one another as they took turns to dive inside for a bite. A third investigated the sticky rim of a Coke can, idly dropped in the grass not three feet away, the silvered peaks of its crushed carcass shimmering thousands of tiny jewels of light across the fixed-penalty warning notice plastered to the receptacle. No Littering. Maximum fine £2,500. The futility of mandatory environmental correctness, summed up in a shiny red aluminium nutshell. I picked up the can and disposed of it properly. The wasp didn’t flinch.

      This, right here, is the kind of peace I crave: the earlymorning sun prickling my upturned face; the idle lapping of the river against the pebbles on the bank; the soft quirrup of ducklings perpetually distracted from the arduous task of keeping up with mum; the merest whisper of distant traffic, just there enough to temper the isolation without intruding on the blissful, cossetting quiet of—

      ‘Oi! Pocahontas! Over here!’

      Oh. Right. Kevin.

      I took in a lingering lungful of cowshit and pollen.

      Geoff Green – no relation –

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