I can’t do this. It’s breaking the law. It’s like squatting. Maybe it even is squatting. Whatever it is, I just know I’m going to get caught and go to jail. I’m not clever enough to get away with it. Oh my God! What was I thinking!
It was all right during the working day. It was so easy to bravely plan my victimless crime that it didn’t even feel like a crime. And it would be victimless. I wouldn’t be eating any of their food or running up their utility bills. I would literally be having the odd cup of tea, sleeping, and showering. All right, the showers would use some water and electricity, but I’d keep them as short as possible. And I could do something nice for each of the clients whose homes I borrowed, something they wouldn’t notice, like top up their pet food supplies or clean the kitchens of those who didn’t have cleaners or something.
There was a key cutting place at one of the entrances to Wintertown shopping centre. During my lunch break, when I would normally be popping home for a couple of slices of cheese on toast or eating a sandwich in the nearest coffee shop to wherever my last client had been, I drove there. The closer I got to getting a copy of Henry Halliday’s key cut, the more I felt how I imagined shoplifters or fraudsters might feel. At any moment, I was expecting the long arm of the law to tap me on my shoulder and to be asked to prove my legal and rightful ownership of this key; then be carted off to prison because I couldn’t. My mouth was getting drier and I could feel my heart racing as I dithered about. The young man behind the counter had to have realised I was acting suspiciously – I could all but see my face on Crimewatch. It was just as he opened his mouth to speak to me that my nerve left me completely and I turned and fled. My feet took me to Dominic’s Café where the prices are reasonable and they do a great all day breakfast, not that I could have faced one right then. I had a large decaf latte to calm my nerves and ordered a bowl of fusilli with pesto sauce, their pasta dish of the day, to settle my churning stomach. I’d have to have my main meal at lunchtimes for now. If I was still going to do this.
As I sat there, moving my food around its bowl and forcing down a few mouthfuls, I gave the key situation a rethink. Getting one cut was definitely illegal. And premeditated. If I could just keep Henry Halliday’s with me at the end of the day, it felt a bit less like something that would see me spending Christmas in HMP Parkhurst. But how would I manage it?
The afternoon flew by. Firstly just feeding and playing with the cats. Then, later on when it was getting towards tea time, the return visits to the dogs for their dinners and second walks of the day. I’d given Bubbles a stern talking to, when I went for his morning visit, but by the evening he’d completely forgotten our agreement that he was going to behave himself. The neighbourhood cats were all thoroughly terrorised by the time we got back to the Parkers’ house.
After going back to Sitting Pretty to give back the keys, with my key for my mum’s place swapped for Henry Halliday’s, I was at a bit of a loose end. I didn’t want to go straight to the cottage for a long, silent evening of reading or playing on my laptop. I’d recharged the laptop in the office so it wouldn’t need plugging in. There had been too many people about, otherwise I might have taken a deep breath and forced myself to have a look at Alex’s Facebook page. So the supermarket seemed the sensible place to go, to pick up a few bits and pieces, maybe a salad and some fruit for my dinner. I could torture myself later.
It wasn’t until I was walking out of Asda with my half price chicken Caesar salad, a Greek yoghurt, a couple of bananas, some instant hot chocolate sachets, and a bag of crisps, that the nerves kicked in again. Yesterday I’d gone to feed Talisker legitimately. It was only after I’d got there that the decision to stay had come about. This afternoon I’d been to feed him just like yesterday, only making sure to take the key back to Eleanor, apologising for forgetting to return it the day before. But today I would be going there out of my usual work time. And with the express intention of spending the night there, uninvited.
Wandering round the shops had killed a bit of time, but it felt a bit pointless, not wanting to buy anything because firstly, I couldn’t afford it, and secondly, there was currently nowhere to put it. I went back to Dominic’s for another latte, wondering how long I could make it last. There was a man at another table who looked, from sideways on, a lot like Alex. He had the same, brown-so-dark-it-was-almost-black, thick, wavy hair resting on his collar, and the same aquiline nose. He was even wearing a cornflower blue shirt – Alex’s preferred colour of work shirt, although to him it was just a light blue chambray. I nearly choked on my coffee. I had to stop myself marching over and asking him what the hell he thought he was playing at, while tipping whatever was in his mug over his head. Thoughts of my husband, which I’d managed to keep out of my head all day – well, since this morning anyway – came crashing in. What was he doing right now? Not that I cared. Of course he hadn’t phoned me – but had he even thought about what he’d done to me? Was he alone? Had he left me behind because there was someone else and she was going to be there in my place? Had Tula, that Greek goddess his parents adored, somehow finally got her claws into him? Well she was welcome to him.
There was no one about on Netley Parva’s perfectly manicured village green when I got there, even though it was quite a fine evening. It looked like a film set of a village ready for the extras in a Miss Marple mystery to come walking along and as I parked further down the street, I wondered if anyone had noticed that my car had been parked not far from Henry Halliday’s cottage for the whole of the previous night. Could there be a sweet, little, old lady or two knitting away behind any of those lace curtains with one eye on what was going on outside? Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my bag and walked as nonchalantly and as quietly as I could, slipping up the side of the cottage and letting myself in through the back door, locking it behind me again. Yes, I thought. I’ve done it!
I hadn’t realised how much my heart was racing until I got through that door. I was gripping my bag so tightly my nails were digging in to my palm. My mouth was dry again too. With a flashback to the key cutting place, I put my bag down and went to the kitchen sink to run a glass of water. I was drinking it down gratefully when the near silence was snatched away by the shrill ring of the telephone in the hallway. And the sound of my choking as the water went down the wrong way. Who on earth could that be? Had my imagination conjured up a real little old lady who’d seen me coming in and had put down her knitting to phone and check up on me? Would it look suspicious if I didn’t answer it? But it would give the whole game away if I did.
Great! Day one of my plan and I was already falling at the first hurdle.