Running Scared Page 15

  ‘Hi, Fran,’ she said. She held out her hands towards me, backs outward, so I could admire her purplish-red nails. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Very nice,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a new range. This shade’s called Smouldering. Chip-proof. You ought to try it. I could do your nails for you. I’m a trained manicurist, you know.’

  ‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘given my lifestyle, I wouldn’t need chip-proof varnish, I’d need bomb-proof.’ I put my purchases on the counter.

  ‘Two ninety-five,’ said Joleen, stabbing at the till with her vampire talons. I paid. She put the items in a plastic bag and propped herself on the counter again for a chat.

  ‘Mike, he does the developing out back –’ she indicated the rear of the premises – ‘he hoped those holiday snaps he did for you the other day were all right. He had a lot of trouble with them. It was some kind of foreign film, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said cautiously. ‘They weren’t mine. I got them done for a friend.’

  ‘He had a coupla goes at them, as you’ll have seen. The first lot came out really rubbish colours. The second lot were better, but he wasn’t really satisfied. He said to tell you he couldn’t do better – only it wasn’t me gave them back to you, was it?’

  ‘No, it was the other woman . . .’ I said slowly, my brain grinding into gear. ‘Joleen, what do you mean, as I’d have seen?’

  She stared at me. ‘He put both lots in the envelope, so you could see he really tried.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said carefully. ‘Are you telling me he took two sets of prints from that film?’

  ‘Sure. He put them both in the envelope, like I said.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘he didn’t.’

  ‘Oh.’ Joleen thought about it and shrugged. ‘He meant to. Must’ve changed his mind. Well, like I said, the first lot were no good anyway, so you wouldn’t have wanted them.’

  ‘But I would!’ I said hastily. ‘The friend – the person who asked me to get the film developed – he’s lost the original negs now and can’t get any more pics printed off. He’d like some copies to send to the other guys in the pictures. So, if the first prints are still out back somewhere, yes, I’d, I mean he’d, like them – even if the colour is duff.’

  Joleen looked doubtful. ‘They’ve probably been chucked out by now. I’ll go and ask.’

  She sashayed into the back room on her platform soles, her beaded braids swinging, and giving the impression she wasn’t wearing an awful lot under that crisp white overall.

  She came back a few minutes later carrying a metal waste-paper bin. ‘Mike says, sorry, he meant to give them to you with the others. If they’re still anywhere, they might be in this bin.’

  The bell rang signalling a new customer. ‘Here,’ Joleen thrust the bin at me, ‘take a look for yourself.’

  She moved off to dispense corn plasters and E45 cream to an elderly woman.

  I set down the bin and riffled through its contents eagerly (which distracted the elderly customer who gave me a funny look). Please, please . . . I was whispering to myself. Bingo! Right at the bottom, only one of the snaps – the other three must be lost for good. But one was better than none. I fished it out. The colours were bad, all right; no wonder Mike hadn’t wanted to send these out. I’d have asked for my money back. The fair-haired man at the centre of the scene appeared to have had an orange rinse. But the images were clear enough.

  ‘OK? Got them, then?’ Joleen was back.

  ‘Got one. Thanks, Joleen. I—My friend will be really chuffed.’

  ‘’Sall right,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Do you want a lipstick, free? I’ve got a box full of tester samples here, discontinued lines. Most of them have got quite a bit left.’

  ‘Keep on smouldering, Joleen!’ I called as I left the shop, and she let out a great shriek of a giggle. In the plastic bag I now carried the soap, the showergel, a half-used burnt sienna lipstick, which Joleen reckoned was my colour – and best of all, a luridly hued picture of Mr Big. It might prove dangerous property – but on the other hand, it might come in useful.

  I got back to the flat mid-afternoon and sat on my sofa looking round the place, thinking my newly won privacy and independence were about to be invaded by Tig. I’d lived in squats and was used to sharing space and been grateful, often enough, when I’d first found myself on my own, to be offered shelter by anyone. I knew I couldn’t have done anything else but invite Tig to stay, but it was harder to accept the reality than I’d imagined it would be. I’d got used to being on my own. This was my place. I lived here. I told myself not to be selfish but I’d got selfish. We all do the more we have. Anyone can be generous with nothing. Having Tig here to share would be good for me.

  I did wonder if I ought to mention Tig to Daphne, because if she saw her going in and out, she might wonder. But I was perfectly entitled to have a friend to stay and anyway, I didn’t think Daphne would mind. Charlie and Bertie, if they found out, would object strongly and it’d give them a weapon against me. I’d be accused of filling the flat with undesirables. But Tig wasn’t going to stay long, or not if I had anything to do with it. It was, after all, up to me. I now had a perfect reason for fixing things up with the Quayles.

  Tig didn’t come until almost ten that evening. I was beginning to wonder if she’d managed to get away from Jo Jo or if he’d discovered her plan. When the bell rang, I called through the door, ‘Who is it?’ Because I now had a list of people I didn’t want to see, including the Knowles twins, Inspector Harford, Wayne Parry and the killer of Gray Coverdale.

  ‘Tig!’ called back her voice and this was followed by a scrabbling sound and I heard her urge, ‘Stop it.’

  Had she brought someone with her? I opened the door cautiously.

  ‘I’m here, then,’ said Tig. She glanced down. ‘I had to bring Bonnie. I hope you don’t mind.’

  I looked down. At Tig’s feet sat a small brown and white rough-haired terrier, head on one side, ears pricked, gazing up at me expectantly.

  ‘This is what you had to go back for,’ I said. ‘Bonnie.’

  ‘That’s right. OK if we come in?’

  I let them both pass. Tig lugged in a bulging haversack which she dropped in the middle of the carpet. She looked round critically. ‘Nice place, but why is the bathroom cabinet stuck up there where a window ought to be?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about that later,’ I said.

  Bonnie had started on her own tour of inspection, trotting round the furniture, sniffing out everything.

  ‘She won’t pee on the carpet, will she?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘Course she won’t. She’s really good. She belonged to the girl who died, the one I told you about. You remember I told you I got talking to that girl about her dog? Well, this is the dog and someone had to take her on. I had to bring her with me here. I couldn’t leave her behind with Jo Jo, because he’d only sell her on to someone and I feel, you know, I’ve got to see she’s all right.’

  She felt about Bonnie the way I felt about Tig herself, so I understood. Bonnie came towards me and stood right in front of my boots, still looking up at me expectantly. She was mostly white, with a brown patch over the right eye and the ear above it. On that same right flank she had another large brown patch and a brown tip to her tail. On the left-hand side she was white all over – except for the tail tip. Looking at her from the right side or the left was like looking at two different dogs – on the one side a brown and white one and on the other, a white one.

  ‘What about her food?’ I asked.

  ‘’Sall right, I brought some.’ Tig delved in the haversack and produced a tin of some dog food or other. ‘She’s no trouble, really.’

  My attention had moved to the haversack. ‘I see you’ve brought all your gear. Jo Jo will know straight away when he gets back that you’ve taken off.’

  ‘Don’t care. I’ve done it now. Can’t go back.’ She looked round. ‘Where do I sleep?’

  ‘On the sofa
.’ I indicated it. She was right. She couldn’t go back and I couldn’t tell her to leave. Like it or not, I was stuck with her.

  There was something else I had to draw her attention to right away. ‘That’s the bathroom,’ I said, pointing. ‘You can have a shower. Why don’t you take one now and I’ll make us some sort of supper?’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘It’ll be nice to have the use of a proper bathroom again.’

  Bonnie gave a short excited bark.

  ‘Yes,’ I told her, ‘we can bath you, too.’

  While Tig showered, I put bathing Bonnie into practice. I ran warm water into the kitchen sink, scooped her up in my arms and stood her in the pool. She didn’t mind being picked up, but she was doubtful about being stood in the water. She sniffed at it, had a go at drinking it, and then looked at me reproachfully.

  ‘Sorry, but it’s for all our benefit,’ I told her. I wet her all over and, careful to avoid her eyes, lathered her up with some washing-up liquid. She cringed miserably, her ears flattened and her tail drooped. By the time I’d finished rinsing her off, she looked like a drowned rat.

  I’d found an old towel which I wrapped round her and lifted her to the floor. My intention was to dry her off, but she had other ideas about that, wriggled out of my grip and scuttled off. She then shook herself vigorously, waterdrops flying everywhere, showering the carpet and furniture.

  ‘Oy,’ I ordered. ‘Stop that and come here—’

  I set off in pursuit with the towel, but Bonnie was quicker than me, adept at squeezing through small spaces and, just when I thought I could grab her, putting on an extra spurt of speed and slithering through my grasp.

  After five minutes of this, I was breathless. Bonnie – who’d regarded the chase as a great game – was wagging her tail and barking at me to keep going.

  ‘Game’s over,’ I told her, collapsing on the sofa. Bonnie now came over to me and allowed me to pat her. The chase had pretty well dried her coat which was now quite silky, with a tendency in the longer hair to wave. Instead of smelling of grubby dog, she now smelled of lemon fragrance from the washing-up liquid.

  ‘Hey,’ said Tig, emerging from the bathroom, ‘she looks pretty good.’ Tig was looking an awful lot better, too, with her hair washed and a fresh look to her skin.

  I hauled myself off to the kitchen to clean out the sink. I splashed a bit of bleach round to kill any germs or bugs which might have dropped off Bonnie. Then I turned my attention to supper. Having houseguests looked like turning out to be a lot of work.

  I’m not a cook and when I opened my store cupboard, I realised I wasn’t much of a housekeeper either. It held half-a-dozen eggs, the rest of the packet of pasta from last week, two tins of beans, a half-squeezed tube of tomato paste and some bread. I made us scrambled eggs and toast.

  Tig ate it up appreciatively and while we dined in style, Bonnie gobbled up her dinner from a dented tin dogbowl Tig had brought with her. They were easy to please, I’ll say that.

  ‘How will your parents take to Bonnie?’ I asked.

  Tig looked over the rim of her coffee mug. ‘Well, there might be a bit of a problem with that.’

  My heart sank. ‘Problem?’

  ‘Yes, my mum’s so houseproud, I told you. She doesn’t like animals about the place. She says they shed hairs. So, um, I don’t think I can take Bonnie to Dorridge. I thought, well, you might like her – or you could find a nice home for her. She deserves a nice home,’ added Tig pathetically.

  The pathos worked on old gents, not on me. ‘Forget it,’ I said robustly. ‘I am not taking in Bonnie.’

  There was a clatter from the kitchen and Bonnie appeared, dragging along her empty tin dish. She dropped it in front of us and barked.

  ‘There,’ said Tig. ‘She’s telling you she wants a drink of water. She’s ever so clever.’

  I went to fill the dish. ‘This is temporary,’ I said to Bonnie as I set it down. ‘You are just passing through, right?’

  Bonnie gave an excited little yelp and fixed me with that expectant look. I was beginning to recognise it. It was the canine equivalent of Tig’s Little Nell act. Resist me and have me on your conscience for ever, it said.

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ I told her.

  We all three settled down cosily for the night, quite soon after supper. It had been a long day for all of us.

  As I’ve mentioned before, my bedroom was the adaptation of a former Victorian coal-cellar under the pavement, and reached by a short passage from my basement living room, through the basement itself. The bedroom was, of course, windowless, although some light managed to get in through an opaque toughened glass panel in the ceiling, i.e., the pavement above, which replaced the former metal cover of the coal chute. I retired for the night in this tomblike little room, leaving Tig and Bonnie curled up together on my blue rep sofa in the living room.

  Exhausted, I went out like a light. I was woken at some ungodly hour by a hand shaking my shoulder.

  ‘Fran?’ Tig’s voice came as little more than a breath in the darkness. ‘Wake up and don’t make a noise.’

  I was awake in an instant, every instinct straining. I couldn’t see Tig but knew she was there by the bed. I also heard the sound of something struggling and realised she must be holding Bonnie in her arms.

  ‘What is it?’ I sat up and swung my legs to the ground. My foot bumped against her leg and she moved back. The struggling sound was renewed together with a muffled whine.

  Tig shushed the little dog and I guessed she had one hand clamped over Bonnie’s muzzle to stop her barking.

  ‘Someone’s trying to get into the flat,’ she whispered.

  Chapter Eleven

  Together we edged back into the living room where enough light seeped through the basement window from the streetlamps outside to reveal Tig’s silhouette. In her arms Bonnie wriggled like a creature berserk, desperate to be allowed to do her job and see off any intruder.

  He, the visitor, was at the basement window. The curtain was drawn and all we could see was his fuzzy outline and upraised arms as he worked his way round the frame. These were old houses and didn’t, alas, have double-glazing, just old-fashioned single-paned windows in a wooden frame. He must have recced beforehand and had probably thought entry would be a doddle. Now he was probably realising that safety catches must be in place on the inside.

  I felt slightly sick and was glad I’d wedged the medicine cabinet in the garden window. He’d have squeezed his way through there in a few seconds. The thing was, who was he?

  ‘Do you think it’s Jo Jo?’ I whispered, not that I thought it really was. But there was an outside chance.

  Tig dismissed it. ‘No . . . he doesn’t know I’m here. That guy at the window’s not big enough for Jo Jo, anyway. Is it that bloke you were so scared of the other day?’

  Tig hadn’t been so wrapped up in her own problems that she’d forgotten the fright she’d given me when she’d stopped me in the street.

  ‘Sorry,’ I murmured. ‘Should have warned you this might—’

  Tig hadn’t got a free hand but used her elbow to jab me painfully in the ribs as a sign to keep quiet. We waited.

  He’d moved away a little from the window but had now returned and began to do something down in the right-hand corner of the window pane. There was a faint squeaky scratchy noise.

  Bonnie, frustrated to the point of madness, tried to tear her muzzle free of the restraining hand and renewed her efforts in Tig’s arms, both of which were now tightly wrapped round the terrier’s frantic body.

  Whoever he was, he was a pro and had come prepared. He was cutting a hole in the glass. Tig leaned towards me and put her mouth to my ear.

  ‘When he gets his hand through, you pull back the curtain and I let Bonnie go, right?’

  I nodded, though she probably couldn’t see it. There was a pause in activity at the window pane and then a soft tap. The small circle of glass fell inward but was prevented from falling to the ground and shatt
ering noisily by the sticky tape he’d fixed to it to prevent this. He knew his stuff. We watched, horrified yet fascinated, even Bonnie stopped wriggling. Through the thin curtain, we saw a hand emerge through the hole into our space, and fingers feel about for the safety catch. It was like one of those old horror movies, you know, The Mummy’s Hand, but I was beyond being merely scared, I was almost paralysed with fear.

  He’s not in yet, I reassured myself. And there are two of us, three with Bonnie.

  ‘Now!’ breathed Tig.

  I leaped forward and yanked back the curtain. Bonnie, released, exploded out of Tig’s embrace, flew at the hole in the window pane and sank her teeth into the searching hand. There was a scream of surprise and pain from outside. I dashed to the wall and switched on the light.