To Catch a Creeper, page 23
‘So you’ve no qualifications – at all?’ I can’t help the inward smile that has cheered up my body like a toasty warm electric blanket on a freezing winter’s night.
‘None worth speaking of. A clutch of Ds at GCSE, NVQ in ICT and a City & Guilds certificate in Using Email and Internet, Level 1. So…’she tries to sound breezy and gung ho,‘what are you doing with yourself? Have you found another job?’
‘No…I guess I’ve got to though. Thing is I haven’t told my husband about my suspension yet.’
‘But why not?’
‘That’s my long story.’
‘At least you’ve got a husband to fall back on,’ she sniffs. ‘That’s priceless.’
‘Priceless, yes,’ I mutter cynically five minutes later as I follow Josh and Sophie down the road, having stuffed her business card in my handbag. ‘That’s another way of putting it.’
Chapter 27
I’m back indoors going through the children’s book bags, skim-reading their newsletters, noting down future school trips, signing their homework diaries, which are all a sodding scribble anyway, so I don’t really know what the hell I’m agreeing to. I trudged home from Claire’s Éclairs in a really quite despondent mood. Seeing Honour brought to mind memories of work and how exciting it could be. The meetings, the brainstorming, working with Rosa. While part of me itches to phone Turks up, beg for forgiveness and a second chance, another part of me questions if I really want to work with colleagues such as Alice, if indeed what Honour says is true. Only thing that makes me feel slightly better about it all is that Honour was suspended too, so I’m not on my own in the failure department – and at least I haven’t a criminal record to drag me down.
I put the book bags aside, plonk myself on my bay window seat and begin gazing glassy-eyed out at the traffic rolling slowly past; feeling a bit like Oliver Twist might after being sold to Mr Sowerberry, the undertaker. All right I may not be surrounded by coffins and belting out in a plaintive voice, ‘Whe-e-e-re is love’ but I’m sure I’m suffering similarly strong emotions – wanting answers but not knowing where to look to find them.
Being in the playground again, seeing Sheryl, not that I care about the stupid maths challenge, well not a lot… But it all just goes to show how much I’ve changed. Her world, which used to be my world, is miles removed from where I am now and one that I definitely don’t want to re-enter. It’s like I’ve dipped my toe in the swimming pool of a new life and I can’t return to sunbathing on the lounger and yet neither do I want to dive in either. I contemplate my fate with a heavy heart. The bills are piling higher, our credit card limit’s rising, along with the interest, the electricity board’s been sending stern letters and the bank loan, which I managed to defer payments for, will kick in any day now.
***
‘Cathy,’ Declan calls up the stairs. Eight p.m. and the children are in bed. ‘Your Supernanny programme’s starting, you know. What are you doing up there?’
‘Accounts on the computer,’ I call down. ‘I’ll be here a while. Just record it for me, will you?’
I’m not fibbing. At least I am on the computer. Looking at Hardwick and Wiles all-singing all-dancing website. Eager Eyes wasn’t far wrong. Music, graphics, video, arrows that take you in every direction, the lot.
I click onto one of Hardwick’s properties, a small flat above Topsfield Parade and there’s Eager Eyes giving a little speech and then he fades out and you hear his voice in the background as you drift around the flat moving from room to room. We see the view from each window in turn, bathroom, kitchen, diner, bedrooms.
I click again onto another property, three bed semi in Rokesly Avenue. Gee whiz! I’d whistle through my teeth if I knew how. All the information the Creeper could wish for is on there. Which rooms might contain the jewels, or expensive electrical gadgets, which doors you can come in or go out by, how overlooked the garden is. If there’s a back or side entrance. Pure burglar porn. You even get a little map of the property you can print out and stick in your swag bag in case you forget.
I feel like Faye Dunaway in Eyes of Laura Mars where she witnesses murders through the eyes of a killer. I shudder as I realise that the Creeper could at this very moment be looking where I’m looking, surveying the very same property I’m surveying.
As one with me.
***
‘Estate agent details?’ Peter the Postie holds a large white envelope up to the sky and peers through first thing next morning – day two of my fraternity leave. ‘Thinking of moving then?’
‘Maybe.’ Damn, I left postmen off my list. Excellent people for spreading gossip. Especially chatty Peter. If he was a venereal disease, he’d have infected the whole of North London by now. ‘Just considering it.’
‘But you’ve got a great house. Right near the shops and park.’
‘Well, we’re just testing the market so to speak.’
‘Not certain I’d use Hardwick and Wiles.’ He points to the franking mark.
‘Why? Have you heard anything about them then?’ I say ultracasually.
‘Only that people round here reckon they’re into a few dodgy deals.’
‘What kind of dodgy deals?’ My ears prick up.
‘The norm. Undervaluing properties then selling to mates, overvaluing properties so they win the business. Taking bribes from solicitors, backhanders from buyers, working in cahoots with brokers so they can squeeze people dry, that sort of thing.’
‘They do all that?’
‘And more. Right load of crooks.’ He puts down his satchel and leans the palm of his left hand against the wall next to my head as if he’s in for the long haul.
‘Rachel, my girlfriend, was moving down from Derby and found a flat in the next street from mine but when she made an offer, Hardwick’s told her there’d been wet rot found in a previous survey, problem neighbours, legal disputes, etc. But my girlfriend’s a stubborn one, wasn’t put off easily. Finally that slimy manager, the one with the shoestring tie agreed to arrange an auction. You know, where all buyers battle it out with secret bids.’
‘Like Scotland?’
‘I suppose, yeah. Anyways, so my girlfriend puts in the highest bid but still wasn’t awarded the flat. The agent said another couple were closer to completion.’
‘And were they?’
‘Put it this way, she was ready to exchange and these others hadn’t even started their searches. Shoestring was hoping for the double commission – which he got, the bastard. Not working today? You’re looking nice.’
‘Oh,’ I flash him a smile. Young good-looking guy showering me with compliments. ‘I’m on fraternity leave. My best friend’s had a baby and my husband hasn’t seen her yet, so we’re going round her flat this morning.’
‘Aw, what size?’
‘Six pounds three ounces. So darling, big blue eyes, cute little cheeks, fine golden hair. She’s named after me, you know, well her–’
‘Oh, hi, there,’ Declan appears behind me. ‘Thought I heard someone out here. Cathy jabbering on again? Keeping you from your work?’
‘Just passing the time of day,’ Peter lifts his hat. ‘I was just telling her about my girlfriend, Rachel, who was moving–’
‘Sorry,’ I cut in smartly, ‘but we really have to run along.’ I quickly shut the door and turn my back to it.
‘Wasn’t that rather rude?’ Declan raises an eyebrow.
‘Sex pest. Shouldn’t encourage him. Oh golly,’ I check my watch. ‘You’d better go. Can’t let the kids be late for lessons.’
***
‘You’re positive you know what you’re doing?’ Mrs Baker watches as Norman lugs his old computer into her hallway and I hold the trailing cables up in the air to stop him tripping over them.
Nine-thirty a.m. and we’re taking advantage of Declan on the school run to put our plan into action. We have to be quick as a) Mrs Baker’s leaving this afternoon and b) although Declan’s meant to be visiting his favourite bookshop again, he could return any minute.
‘Of course,’ I reply trying my best to ooze confidence and efficiency.
‘You Neighbourhood Watch people have been so very helpful,’ says Mrs Baker.
‘All part of the service, marm.’ I doff my pretend cap.
‘The Nominated Neighbour service?’
‘That’s right.’ I plug the lead into the USB port. ‘We all have to fit these when our customers leave on short breaks.’
‘Customer?’ Mrs Baker looks surprised. ‘Am I a customer then? Do I have to pay?’
‘Go out, Cathy,’ Norman says masterfully before I get a chance to answer and for a moment I think I’ve done something wrong and am ready to place my metaphorical tail between my legs and apologise profusely, until I realise he’s pointing the spycam directly at me. ‘I need to see if it’s running correctly.’
I step out the front door and wait for him to call me back in.
The spycam was Isobel’s idea. She rang yesterday night, just after I’d spooked myself by imagining I was looking through the eyes of Laura Mars like Faye Dunaway and she came up with a brainwave. Her dad had mentioned about this thief who was caught red-handed by one.
‘Once it detects motion, it starts up and begins recording.’
‘And you keep it on all the time?’ I’d asked. ‘Isn’t that a waste of electricity?’
‘Small price to pay in the fight against crime,’ she’d replied in a voice uncannily like Michael Keaton in Batman Returns. ‘And no need to pay for it out of Neighbourhood Watch funds. Liam can lend you his. He bought this software program a few months back and converted his webcam, because he thought I was sneaking round his room while he was at school, looking for drugs and alcohol.’ ‘And were you?’
‘Abso-bloody-lutely!’ she snorted. ‘I’m no way neglecting my son just because he’s fifteen. They need you more than ever at that age. You know the other day I was lying in my bath when I heard this clink of a bottle coming from the room above…’ And there she was off with another Liam story, bulgy eyes and everything, well I had to assume bulgy eyes, because it was over the phone, but knowing Isobel it would be.
And not only are we setting up the spycam but Norman’s attaching it somehow to this new internet site that he’s made, CrouchEndCreeper.com. Means once Mrs Baker goes and I’m left ‘house-sitting’, I’ll have back-up cover on a rota basis night and day. Although having said that, night times should be fine as the Creeper’s never burgled past six p.m.
***
Yesterday evening was a whirlwind of telephone calls and texts. Little did Declan know that while he was downstairs reading his latest self-help book by the light of his IKEA lamp, I was upstairs on the blower to my army of helpers, working out each person’s nominated area where we could pass on info re Mrs Baker’s ‘empty jewel-ridden’ house:
Claire’s Éclairs – Pimple
Milkmen – Everyone who has milk delivered
Paperboys – Everyone who has papers delivered
Shopkeepers – Various
Hindu Temple – Shilpa – She didn’t actually agree because she was away for a few days with her sister, but we guessed she’d take it on
Bingo Hall – Robert
Tea Dance – Trevor
Salsa classes – Norman – Yes I was surprised too
Isobel’s also asking her dad to let it be known round his police drinking cronies, just in case it’s an inside job, and Henrietta said she’d chat about it in front of her doddery old boss, not that it would probably do much good with Islington being out of our manor. Larry’s going to slide it into conversation with his counselling clients, Pimple to her cleaning clients and Janet to the lesbian community.
‘Oh yeah, sure, Cathy.’ She was the last call I made. ‘I’ll make an announcement at the Astoria GAY night.’
‘No, no, you can’t. We’ll have every burglar in London heading up here.’
‘I was joking, Cathy,’ she said grimly.
‘Oh.’ I’d sighed. Well how was I to know? She hadn’t been giggling or anything.
‘OK, ready now!’ Norman shouts out.
I step awkwardly back into the room. I’ve never liked being videoed. My nose always looks wonky and for some reason I keep shutting my eyes for long periods and nodding a bit as if I’m listening to some great concerto in my head. I walk towards the lens with a cross-legged sort of walk and self-conscious smile plastered on my face, and the light on the spycam turns green.
‘I think we might have to fix a small Band-Aid over that, otherwise any intruder will see it,’ I say when I finally relax.
‘And we certainly don’t want that,’ adds Norman.
Chapter 28
Eleven a.m. finds me staring through a window at a pile of men in ultratight Lycra shorts cycling exercise bikes. I’ve never taken to gyms, too much like hard work. Treadmills that you can never work properly, boring old weight stations, rowing machines designed to put your back out, etc. And then you have to endure the posers looking down their noses at your rubbish tracksuit and baggy stomach or worse, drippy-tongued men watching you sweat, thinking you’re only going there because you’re desperate for a date and is it worth the bother for them. I mean where’s the fun in that?
I scan the foyer. Can’t see her. Move over to the gallery where there’s a few people playing badminton. Now that’s more like it. I played a bit when I was younger, not so vigorous as tennis.
Still not there.
I wander down to a glass-walled mini-workout room and then I spot her. She’s on one of those contraptions which are supposed to strengthen your inner thighs or something. Very much like a gynaecological chair. They even have the stirrups.
There’s a dark-haired guy talking to her and she’s smiling flirtatiously while at the same time she’s looking over his shoulder at another blond Adonis. Maybe gyms aren’t so bad, I muse. Probably just have to find the right one.
I knock at the window, wave a bit and she spots me. She holds up four fingers, indicating four minutes. At least I hope four minutes, I’m not waiting four hours, not for a clasp, even if it is Neil’s. Not that it will be – wash my brain out with carbolic soap for even thinking that – but I need to check because if she hands the police something even vaguely similar to the stuff that Neil wears in his transvestite capacity, then, well, you never know.
I’m sitting at the juice bar, enjoying the yummiest banana-based smoothie and scanning through a leaflet, vaguely wondering about membership costs, when she comes over.
‘Hey, Cathy, how’s your cat?’ She wipes the sweat from her forehead with a monogrammed towel. Not her initials but the Club’s.
‘Actually a bit better,’ I say, noting her good figure. ‘Relief not to see vomit everywhere.’
‘So the pills helped?’ She puts the towel over her neck then swigs from her water bottle.
‘Must have.’
‘Come on, this way.’
I follow her obediently to the changing rooms, where she begins stripping off. I got it wrong, she hasn’t a good figure; she has a great figure. Magnificent boobs, washboard stomach, model legs, tiny waist. No wonder she didn’t want just one man to sample her goodies.
‘You’ve been to see Hank, haven’t you?’ She wraps a towel around her body and under her arms.
My instant blush gives me away. ‘How do you know?’
‘He rang. Said some woman came in, hackles rising. Early forties.’
‘I’m thirty-nine! And my hackles weren’t rising.’ Although now they are. Early forties – bloody cheek. ‘I just happened to be in there and I saw the dog and you know…we got talking.’
‘So what did he say about me?’
‘Oh, you know, nothing.’ I sit myself on the bench while she rifles through her bag for toiletries.
‘Yeah, right,’ she sighs. ‘I bet he bombarded you with stuff about how I slept with hundreds of guys, all ages, all types. God, he was jealous.’
‘Well, to be honest,’ I say gingerly, not wishing to cause offence but feeling I have to defend him, after all he gave me a gift which is more than she ever did, ‘not many men would put up with that. They don’t behave like that in Belchertown, Massachusetts, apparently. Maybe it’s a cultural thing.’
‘Belchertown, Massachusetts?’ She laughs loudly in a false way. ‘He comes from no further west than Harpenden, Hertfordshire. And he’s not Hank, he’s Henry. Don’t say you fell for his fake American accent as well. I tell you, when I met him, I thought he was a lovely, sweet, nice, generous guy. Always giving me gifts, paying me attention, then we got married, and it was like, well the minute the ring was on my finger he became this neurotic possessive…despot. I so much as eyed a waiter, he’d be on my case. Lasted the whole of the two week honeymoon. On the final evening, I ended up talking to the coach driver about it… just needed a friendly face.’
‘Yeah, right.’ My turn.
‘Not like that,’ she rolls her eyes. ‘He was sixty-eight for God’s sake, a grandfather, married fifty years. Most he did was pat my shoulder and offer me a handkerchief. Next day he was in hospital – little “accident”.’
I can’t quite take it in. She starts by telling me all about how Hank (or Henry) never wanted her to leave the house without him, apart from work of course. And he hated her wearing anything but long dark trousers and baggy jumpers. It was as if he was from some backward society, she said sadly, and when she found out he was English born and bred, well that was the final straw.
‘But I thought the one night stand was the final straw.’
