While Mum sat in the back garden with Evie, I swept up the soft, stripy bodies from the windowsill. The room was thick with insect spray so I wedged open the windows.
I stood there for a moment, taking a few breaths of fresh air and surveying the street. Directly opposite stood a neat row of houses, identical to our own.
It occurred to me that from any one of those windows, someone could be watching me right now. Enjoying the sight of me sweeping up the dead insects with satisfaction, congratulating themselves on a job well done.
Coming up with a reason why that might be the case was a little trickier. As far as I was aware, nobody here knew us. Perhaps someone nearby just didn’t like newcomers – but if that was true, they’d gone to pretty extreme and pricey lengths to show it.
A slight breeze tweaked the crisp, gossamer wings of a couple of the wasps piled on the plastic dustpan and I jumped back, terrified for a second that they weren’t quite dead.
Mr Etheridge had bagged up the flowers and tied the top of the bin bag in a knot. I shuddered as I took it outside and dumped it directly into the wheelie bin in the back yard.
‘All done,’ I said to Evie, loosening the damp strands of hair that tears had pasted to the side of her face. ‘You can come back inside now, poppet.’
‘No!’ She clung tightly onto Mum, burying her head into the top of her shoulder.
‘Now listen to me, sweetheart. Mr Etheridge is one of the top exterminators in the country,’ Mum tried to reassure Evie. ‘All insects and pests are terrified of him. They will never come back in this house now they know he is around.’
Doddery old Mr Etheridge the country’s top exterminator? It would be laughable if Evie wasn’t so distressed. But remarkably, Mum’s claims seemed to actually perk Evie up a little.
‘What’s an exterbinator?’ Evie asked, wide-eyed. ‘Is Mr Ethriz like a ghostbuster for wasps?’
‘That’s exactly what he is,’ Mum nodded. ‘Mark my words, there’ll not be so much as a harmless fly that dares to show its mucky face in this house again.’
Evie would remember such wild promises, but I was grateful to Mum for saying exactly the right things to reassure her for now.
‘Let’s go and sit in the kitchen and have some juice and biscuits,’ Mum soothed. She slid Evie gently from her knee and stood up, clutching her hand.
‘Biscuits before teatime, Nanny?’ Evie threw me a sly look.
‘Absolutely.’ I winked at her. ‘No biscuit rules today, poppet.’
We all walked inside together and I looked up to the sky; the clouds hung low and heavy above us, threatening rain despite the warmth.
I felt grateful the wasp episode was behind us but troubled as to exactly how and why the insects had found their way into our home.
It was a malicious act, it had to be. Wasps don’t make fully formed nests in freshly arranged bouquets. Simple as.
A quick, sharp movement registered at the edge of my vision and my head snapped round towards it.
The upstairs curtains of Sal’s house next door were slightly open and I could just about make out the silhouette of a person stepping back from the window.
Someone was up there, watching us.
9
Three Years Earlier
Toni
The next day, I sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by unpaid bills and Andrew’s benefit statements.
I’d been tapping away at the calculator for the last thirty minutes, multiplying, dividing and everything else in between, trying in vain to get the income and outgoings figures even remotely similar.
I hadn’t told Mum the amount of debt I was in. Partly because I was ashamed, partly because I would never hear the last of it. Andrew and I had relied heavily on credit cards for most of our married life. We’d tried to stop charging things to credit, but you could guarantee, each time we resolved to stop, there was always some emergency that sprang up: a new washing machine needed, a lawnmower repaired, birthday gifts for friends and family . . . the list went on.
Both the MasterCard and the Visa had been maxed out for as far back as I could remember and we could only ever afford to pay the minimum amount each month. We knew we were paying a fortune in interest but that became less important than just surviving until pay day.
When Andrew died, the credit companies wrote to me and said their records showed I was the main cardholder, so despite the fact I’d just lost my husband and our family’s main wage earner, they regretfully had to inform me that I was personally responsible for the entire debt.
Eventually, I pushed the calculator away in frustration and reached instead for the Nottingham Post, turning to the jobs section.
Working again would bring its own problems, I knew that. Sorting out care for Evie was just for starters, but I had to get us out of this mess somehow.
Back in Hemel, and over a period of about ten years, I’d worked my way up to managing a medium-sized independent estate agency in the centre of town.
It didn’t matter where you lived in the UK, you could always be confident of finding property sales and letting agencies. And if you were lucky, one or more might be hiring.
I couldn’t help thinking that the logistical problems of getting a job would surely be outweighed if it allowed me to keep financial ruin at bay. And it would be such a relief to have just a little spare to treat Evie now and again and buy one or two nice bits for the house, to make it more of a cosy home.
A familiar, unpleasant fluttering sensation rose up into my chest, my heart seeming to perform an unpleasant little backflip every few beats.
I looked over at my handbag longingly. It still felt a bit early in the day, but I felt sure it wouldn’t hurt this once. But just as I started to move towards relief, the doorbell rang.
I sat down again, rooted to the spot. Nobody knew we lived here yet. It was likely to be an opportunist seller, so I decided to ignore it.
The doorbell rang again.
‘Mummy, SOMEONE IS AT THE DOOR,’ Evie roared above the television in the other room.
The front door opened directly out onto the pavement. Evie had shouted so loudly, the caller would have almost certainly have heard her. Reluctantly, I ditched my plan to pretend there was no one home.
I opened the door to a plump, middle-aged woman. She had a thatch of short, curly brown hair that was shot through with wiry grey, and pale bespectacled eyes that darted around but didn’t seem to settle on anything.
‘Hello?’ I said, relieved she didn’t look in the least bit official.
‘Mrs Cotter? I’m Harriet Watson from St Saviour’s Primary School.’ She peered at me over a bulging canvas shopping bag that she held in both arms. ‘Evie is starting in my class next week.’
The awful state of the Lego-strewn living room next door flashed into my mind but I pasted a smile on my face and stepped back from the door.
‘What a nice surprise. Please, come in, Mrs Watson.’
‘Actually, it’s just Miss.’ She stepped inside the tiny hallway and set down the bag. ‘I thought I’d drop some work off for Evie, seeing as I won’t be around when you visit the school this afternoon.’ She glanced at my tatty leggings and T-shirt. ‘I do hope you don’t mind me just turning up like this.’
‘Not at all,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘I’m Toni, by the way. Evie’s mum.’
Harriet Watson had a deep scar, about four centimetres long, that divided her pasty forehead into two. Her hair was so tightly curled, it looked as if she’d modelled each coil individually with styling wax.
‘I’ve brought mainly worksheets and reading material.’ Harriet shook my hand and her fingers, loose and clammy, pressed against my palm. ‘If she can get through some of this, it’ll stand her in good stead for the new term’s work. Introduce her to the sort of things we’ve been doing in class.’
Evie came running full pelt out of the lounge and crashed into my side.
‘Careful,’ I chided, putting an arm around her and hugging her to me, instantly shamed by the fact she was still dressed in her pyjamas. ‘This is Evie.’
‘Hello, Evie,’ Harriet said.