‘Wake up!’
He’d stirred, still in the clutches of sleep, and she had pulled the holdall aside so that his head clonked to the floor.
‘What the…? Ow…’
Reluctantly he’d sat up, squinting and rubbing his temple, his nose wrinkling as he registered the stench.
‘It’s six thirty,’ Holly had whispered, still incredulous that she could have slept at all.
They’d both sat for a few seconds, looking around them in disbelief.
Holly had counted four other bodies in the room; she’d thought of them as that because, apart from the rise and fall of their chests, they looked exactly like identical corpses. People who were very overweight often shared the same bunched-up facial features, their eyes disappearing into dough-like cheeks like small currants. These souls had all resembled grey-skinned skeletons with sucked-in, angular cheeks and jutting bones.
A couple lay in the opposite corner, their emaciated limbs tangled together as if that was all that was tethering them to the physical world. Two young males lay separately, and comatose, alongside another wall.
‘You’re right,’ Markus had said grimly. ‘Let’s split before the waking dead arise.’
His apt analogy had got Holly to her feet in no time, and she’d found to her horror on standing that she was desperate for the loo.
‘I hope you are joking. I saw the state of the bathroom last night when we arrived,’ Markus had told her grimly. ‘Makes this room smell like a flower shop. If I were you, I would go in the garden. That’s what I intend to do.’
Easy for blokes; they could pee anywhere, Holly had thought at the time. But mortified though she’d been, that was exactly what she’d done.
Markus had stood with his back to her to offer a little privacy at least, as she’d crouched in the long grass hoping the neighbours weren’t watching.
Ironically, she’d thought, although she and Markus had just been classmates at school, never seeing each other outside of lessons, they were already getting to know each other very well indeed.
Ten minutes later, they were lugging their holdalls towards the busy main road.
Holly had never felt so glad to see the welcome sight of a dark-red-and-white Costa Coffee sign on the corner. She felt the prickle of tears of relief when she realised it was one of the early-opening branches.
Markus had bought her a croissant and a latte and sat her down in the corner of the nearly empty shop with their bags.
‘I’ll be back soon as I can,’ he’d said, checking his phone. ‘I need to make some calls and sort out where we’re going from here. Will you be OK?’
‘Fine.’ She was still enjoying the wonderful sense of relief she’d experienced the second she’d escaped the house of horrors around the corner.
She’d whipped out her book and had sat quite happily in the corner. Nobody bothered her or asked why she didn’t leave after she’d drunk her coffee. The staff didn’t seem enamoured to be there and stared glumly out of the window, barely glancing her way at all.
As she’d expected, the café grew steadily busier as time ticked on, mostly with commuters grabbing their takeout coffees en route to work.
After about an hour, she’d been contemplating buying another coffee herself – a serious decision when she had so little cash and no job as yet on the horizon – when the door opened and Markus appeared again.
‘We’re being picked up outside in about thirty minutes,’ he’d told her. ‘We can stay and have another coffee here and then you shouldn’t have to see this shitty part of Manchester again. How does that sound?’
‘Perfect,’ she’d replied, beaming at the thought of finally leaving the place.
He bought more coffees and sat back down.
‘We could freshen up in the bathroom here,’ he suggested, closing his eyes briefly as he savoured the creamy warmth of his drink. ‘You go first. This guy who’s picking us up, Brendan, he’s my boss, so I’d like to look half decent, and you never know… there may be an opportunity for you too.’
Holly had used the disabled loo because there was more space. She locked the door behind her and peeled off her top, washing under her arms and applying deodorant at the small sink. She brushed her hair and slicked it back with water, pulling it into a short ponytail and securing any sticky-out bits with hair grips.
‘That’s better,’ she told her reflection. Then, noticing the dark circles under her eyes and her slightly jaundiced complexion, she’d reached for her meagre make-up bag.
She’d applied a few dots of concealer to mask her lack of sleep, and then brushed on a little mascara and bronzer. A touch of dark pink lipstick and, she had to admit, she looked almost passable. Perhaps even like the kind of person Markus’s boss would want to employ.
‘Wow,’ said Markus when she returned to the table. ‘You look knockout.’
‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration.’ She’d rolled her eyes but felt secretly pleased at his compliment. ‘But at least I don’t look like I just spent a sleepless night in a local drugs den.’
Markus had grinned. ‘It will soon get better, I promise you.’
Again she wondered why he’d given her the impression before they left Nottingham that everything was organised and in hand. Again she quickly dismissed the thought, deciding not to challenge him now that things seemed to be improving at last.
Markus finished his coffee and paid a visit to the bathroom himself.
When he returned, she’d glanced at her watch.
‘We still have ten minutes,’ she’d ventured. ‘What line of work is this guy Brendan in?’
‘Hospitality, I suppose you’d call it,’ Markus had said, surprising her with his willingness to talk at last. ‘He owns several bars and restaurants dotted around Manchester and further afield. He needs people he can trust for all kinds of jobs. I’ve been helping him with his social media presence.’
Holly knew Markus was skilled-up when it came to IT. He’d been involved in all sorts of initiatives at school and had told her he didn’t need a part-time job as he made lots of cash in hand from designing websites for people and organising online advertising and communications for small companies.
She’d felt a frisson of excitement. ‘Sounds like there’s a good chance he might have some waitressing or bar work I can do, at least to get me earning something.’
‘Absolutely. In fact I’ve already mentioned this to him and he seemed quite keen.’
Her mood had instantly lifted. Suddenly a very bad start seemed to be turning into something altogether more positive.
Markus had been right after all, she reassured herself. It was all going to work out just fine.
Except, of course, it didn’t.
Chapter Thirty
Holly
It was late on Thursday afternoon that, out of the corner of her eye, Holly saw a suited young couple approaching.
‘Looks like we have some late customers.’ She sidled over to Emily, hoping to ignite a little camaraderie for once. But Emily merely glanced at the couple and grimaced.
‘Time-wasters,’ she hissed, turning her back. ‘This is the third time they’ve been in this week, supposedly looking for a suite. They’re both on teachers’ salaries, obviously well out of their league in here.’
‘Hi,’ the man said as he reached them. Holly smiled but Emily didn’t look around. When he saw Emily’s obvious lack of interest, the man’s cheeks began to colour up, matching the pale red of his hair. ‘We’d like to take another look at that corner suite in the window, if that’s all right.’
‘You mean the Brooklyn suite you looked at yesterday?’ Emily replied frostily. ‘The one that’s priced at nearly eight and a half thousand pounds?’
‘That’s the one,’ the young woman replied pleasantly. ‘It’s such a lot of money to spend in one go and we just need to be sure, you see.’