Dusk was falling as Amy left work. Even if she took the Central Line, it would be ten before she was home. She mentally rehearsed the speech she would make at work when she won the lottery. She was nearly word perfect now. ‘Gather round everyone, and join me for a glass of champagne. I’ve brought in a caseful to glug. What’s that you say, we’re not allowed to take drink into work? It’s a sackable offence? That’s a shame, because I so wanted to tell Parveen she could stick her job. Where can she stick it, you ask? Up her saggy bottom. And then she can move that fat arse and do some work for a change. You can swallow a live frog, can’t you, Parveen?’
It was in danger of becoming a rant. Perhaps she would omit the champagne for her colleagues. Corporate clones to a man, they hardly deserved any. She would just explain all of Parveen’s faults to her. The short Tube journey passed pleasantly enough as she planned what to say.
Parveen had ordered pizzas to be brought to the office, which fortunately saved the cost of a microwaved ready meal and meant Amy could go straight to bed on arriving home. Changing into a thin T-shirt nightie, she brushed her hair and applied soap and water to the day’s smudged make-up. She cleaned her teeth and drank a glass of water. Only when she lay under her duvet, enjoying the blissful coolness it offered for the first few minutes, did she hear Kat.
At least, she assumed it was Kat. Occasional footsteps and thuds could be heard through the thin partition wall. Kat would usually be at work all evening. If she weren’t, it would be fun to gossip for a few minutes. Amy was curious, too, to know what was absorbing Kat so much that she hadn’t heard her flatmate return. She rose from the narrow bed, tiptoed into the corridor and knocked on the door of Kat’s bedroom. “Kat?” she called.
There was no reply. Suppose the noise was being made by an intruder? Amy hastily returned to her room and threw on some clothes, picking up her phone and keys in case she needed to run for help. Gingerly, she opened Kat’s door a crack.
The stranger in the bedroom spun round immediately. “Who are you?” he said.
He made no move towards her, perhaps because he was holding two potted plants in his hands. She opened the door fully to take a look at him. He was young, perhaps in his late twenties, tall, thin and pale with short spiky black hair. His clothes were unremarkable: a black bomber jacket and jeans. She might have passed him at a Tube station without a second glance. That nondescript appearance, of course, would serve a burglar well, but his words and voice were not those of a burglar. He spoke like many of Amy’s colleagues, particularly Ross; a tone redolent with privilege, penthouse flats and a public school education.
“I’m Amy,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. Her comprehensive schooling had produced a different sound, of a sort that he and his friends might consider second-rate. That was how Ross perceived it, she was sure. “I’m Kat’s flatmate. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
He ignored her questions. “Where’s Kat?” he asked impatiently, his green eyes staring intently into hers.
“I don’t know.” Kat was almost certainly at work, but Amy resolved to tell him nothing.
“I’ll wait until she returns, then.”
“You will not.” Amy was outraged. “You have no right to be here in my flat, whoever you are.”
“I have every right. Look.” He put the plants down and fished in his pocket for a set of keys.
She recognised them as the front door keys for the flat. “Where did you get those?”
“From Kat, of course. I have every right to them. I’ve been storing my property here.”
“Like those plants?” They had been sitting on Kat’s windowsill, two rather unexceptional small shrubs.
He nodded, bringing the pots closer to his chest. “Yes, my magic trees. She has looked after them well, but they need more sunshine.”
If she needed proof he was a little odd, here it was. Amy scrutinised the plants. They were hardly trees, really no more than a mass of twigs covered in small glossy leaves. She’d never paid much attention to them before. They weren’t cannabis; she was sure of that. She’d simply assumed they’d burst into flower one day, like the showy white orchid on Kat’s bookshelf.
He might have sensed her scepticism. “I’m looking for more besides. I can’t find everything. She must have it.”
“You’ll have to come back when she’s here,” Amy said.
“Yes, yes.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I will leave. Don’t panic.”
One of the young man’s jeans pockets suddenly resounded with Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights, a piece Amy recognised as one of her mother’s favourites. He grabbed the phone from his pocket. “Da?”
He was clearly delighted to hear from the caller. His face broke into a smile. Suddenly, instead of looking average, he was handsome. He nodded enthusiastically and spoke a few words in a foreign language.
The call over, he turned his attention back to Amy. “Okay, I’m leaving now. With these.” He gestured to the pots.
She bit her lip, unsure whether to stop him, then shrugged her shoulders. What could she do? He was taller and stronger. Kat’s little shrubs were really dull, anyway. The florist nearby, a cool green haven on a hot street corner, had much prettier ones. “All right,” she said, praying Kat would understand.