‘And who might you be?’ asked the man standing in the middle of the stairs, a rucksack slung over one shoulder and a very puzzled expression on his face, after I’d opened the bedroom door to investigate.
My heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t understand how it didn’t burst. I didn’t know whether to slam the bedroom door shut and start barricading it with furniture or scream and run at him, hoping he’d turn tail and make his escape back down the stairs and out of the front door. My feet, however, wouldn’t move and no sound came out of my mouth.
He seemed very calm and sure of himself for a potential burglar. And, for some inexplicable reason, vaguely amused.
We just stood there, staring at each other for what felt like hours, until he carried on, ‘You know, when I spoke to my brother about half an hour ago. He was in a hotel in Geneva, sacking Swiss chalet maids or something, and he’s probably going to be there over the weekend and into next week. He didn’t say anything about having a house guest. The crafty old beggar! So, how long’s he been keeping you a secret?’
‘Your brother?’ I squeaked, finding part of my voice and wishing the rest of it would hurry back too.
‘Yes, that’s right. I’m Marvin.’
‘Marvin?’
‘Is there a high-pitched echo in here?’ he grinned. ‘I’m Marvin Halliday. And you would be …’
‘You’re Mr Halliday’s brother?’
‘Mister Halliday? We’re a bit formal,’ he laughed, as something clanged in my head. I often picked up the post from the doormat when I came to feed Talisker. A postcard, picture side down, wafted into my mind –hadn’t that been from a Marvin? Something along the lines of ‘Don’t you wish you were here?’ Not that I’d read it of course, but there had only been those few words and the handwriting had been big. And now I’d had a chance to look at him, he did have a look of a younger, plumper, more tousled, less tie-wearing version of his brother. As if to rubber stamp his identity, Talisker padded past me, trotted down the top few stairs, meowed a greeting, and rubbed his head against the man’s shin.
‘Tally! Hello, old fella! How’s my favourite furry friend?’ He bent over and scratched the top of the cat’s head with his knuckles, while Talisker went into a frenzy of purring. ‘So.’ Henry Halliday’s brother looked back up at me expectantly, as well he might, given that I wasn’t even supposed to be here. ‘We’ve established who I am, now it’s your turn, lady I’ve never met before who’s wearing pyjamas in Henry’s house while Henry’s away.’
My mind had already started going into overdrive. This was the brother of the man who had no idea I was squatting in his house. Should I try and bluff my way out of this? Should I throw myself on his mercy? Should I …?
‘Tally!’ he turned back to the cat. ‘Have you got this young lady’s tongue? Where have you put it? ’Cos I think you should give it back to her so she can tell me what’s going on, don’t you?’ He looked up at me again but carried on talking to the cat. ‘Because if your dad had gone and found himself a new lady friend, I don’t think she’d be calling him Mister Halliday, do you?’
‘I’m the pet sitter, ’I blurted out before I’d managed to follow any chain of thought as to what I’d say next.
‘The pet sitter?’ He looked bemused. ‘At,’ he pulled back his sleeve and glanced at his watch, ‘twenty-five past one in the morning? That’s a bit over-conscientious, isn’t it?’
‘I … I thought Talisker seemed a bit … a bit …’
‘What? Lonely?’ He looked at me as if he thought I was mad. ‘He’s a cat! Have you got someone up there with you? Have you been using my brother’s house while he’s away to meet your boyfriend?’
‘I’m a married woman!’ I yelped, holding up my left hand which still bore my wedding and engagement rings.
‘So that’s your game? You’re using your clients’ houses to conduct an illicit affair! You’re …’
‘I am doing no such thing,’ I interrupted him, but with slightly less conviction. After all, take away the ‘conducting an illicit affair’ bit and he’d pretty much got me banged to rights. I just prayed that my face wasn’t giving me away.
‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you.’ He took a couple of steps further up the stairs. ‘Come on out of there!’ Marvin commanded in the direction of the open door behind me.
‘There’s nobody else here!’ I stood aside as he carried on up to the landing, marched into the room, and quickly looked round it. What was he going to do next, search the bathroom? Look in the wardrobe? Under the bed?
‘Hiding in the bathroom, is he? Come out of there, you coward! What sort of man leaves a woman to face the music on her own? You should be ashamed of yourself!’ The en-suite wasn’t that big and it only took him a second to swish back the shower curtain and see that there was no cowardly lover concealed behind it. Would he lift the toilet seat or peer down the sink’s plug hole, thinking my mystery man might be some kind of tiny contortionist who specialised in u-bends? No, he didn’t actually do that. Instead, he marched towards the wardrobe and pulled the door open. This was turning into something out of the Benny Hill Show. He seemed quite disappointed to be confronted with half a dozen empty wooden hangers, equally spaced from each other – as they would be in Henry Halliday’s house –hanging from the rail, along with one of those lavender scented, anti-moth pouches on a plastic hook. Underneath was an empty shoe rack and above them, on the top shelf, were a couple of spare hypoallergenic pillows in special hazmat-style laundry bags. But no hidden man. I was half expecting him to pull out the pillows, assuming it was a character from The Hobbit that I was conducting this affair with, when he ducked down and started peering under the bed. For heaven’s sake!
‘Right.’ He jumped upright, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and looked at me. ‘Shall I ring Henry now, or shall I start dialling 999, or are you going to tell me who you are and what you’re doing in my brother’s house in the middle of the night?’
This was insane. I had to tell this man the truth. It was no worse than anything he had already decided I was guilty of. I’d explain everything to him and just hope he took pity on me.