Doing the Right Thing (3 page)

* * * * *

Will had booked the rental house in Alwoodley over the internet, so when the pair of them pulled up in their cars, it was a relief to find it in a good neighborhood, a leafy suburb about seven miles from Leeds city center. Ed raced round the house like an excited puppy, whooping over the 42-inch plasma HDTV and Sky, the presence of which had swung his agreement about the house. Will went through each room, logging what was there and what else they needed to get, like bed linen, pillows, towels, a couple of work lamps and the right-sized coffee table for pain-in-the-neck Ed to rest his feet on, since the delicate glass thing that came with the house would have to be moved.

Will drove them to a retail park in Birstall where they crawled through a heaving Ikea along with every family in West Yorkshire that had three small, badly behaved children, an enormous buggy and a super-slow grandma. Will’s only pleasure came from spotting the item with the most ridiculous name. Ed found everything fascinating, particularly a pretty sales assistant with long blonde hair and big breasts. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she lived in Huddersfield and Ed was tired, Will guessed his brother would have had a date for the night—again.

As it was, by the time they’d driven back to Leeds, called at the grocery store, picked up pizzas, then constructed the suitably named Nasti coffee table—all without arguing because they worked well together—neither of them wanted to move. Ed emerged from the kitchen with a twin pack of Predator movies and six bottles of Corona. He planted himself on the couch, put his feet up and gave a contented sigh.

Will accepted a beer and glanced at Ed. It took so little to make his younger brother happy. Easygoing Ed waltzed through life looking bemused and women loved him.

Really loved him. Ed used some terrible pick-up lines. If Will had whispered “I’m great in bed,” in a woman’s ear, he’d have had his face slapped. When Ed said it, they wanted him to prove it. Will had no idea what women found so desirable about him, but if it could have been bottled, they’d have made a fortune.

It was lucky they didn’t go for the same type. Will liked chic and sophisticated, while Ed preferred flashy tarts in tight dresses. Will wanted his women to have a brain but Ed was only interested in getting them naked. Will wasn’t sure if Addie had a brain, but he wouldn’t mind seeing her naked even if she wasn’t his type. For once, Will had managed to pull without even trying.

* * * * *

Addie could hardly wait for her housemate Lisa to go shopping with her boyfriend David, Addie’s brother. The moment the door closed, Addie transformed into Domestic Terminator and went berserk with a duster and a spray gun. Lisa was the untidiest person Addie had ever known. They met when they found themselves sharing a room in a hall of residence in their first year at Bristol University. Addie arrived with one suitcase and a rucksack to find Lisa surrounded by a mountain of clothes and shoes, a TV, DVD player, mini fridge, laptop computer, several strings of fairy lights, a million cushions, a pair of loving parents and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, a large potted plant.

Because Addie was on her own, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson-Smith took her and Lisa for a farewell meal. Their tears when they kissed their daughter goodbye made Addie feel like crying too. That morning, her mother had gone to have her hair done as usual without saying a word. Her father had dropped Addie off at Leeds station and kept the engine running while she took her case from the trunk. Addie’s three brothers had all gone to Leeds University and though they hadn’t lived at home after the first year, they’d stayed near enough to keep their mother happy. Addie knew the further she was from her mother, the happier they’d both be. Since there was no university at Lands End or in the Outer Hebrides, Addie settled for Bristol.

Considering how little Addie and Lisa had in common, it surprised them both they’d ended up sharing a house. After they parted company in Bristol, Addie embarked on a series of not-very-impressive jobs until she’d been persuaded to return to Yorkshire to help look after her sick father and take up the offer of a part-time sales and admin job with Booth’s Travel. Booths did work for Easyspeak Language School in Leeds, where Lisa worked. Recommended by Lisa, Addie had been offered work two days a week teaching English conversation. When Lisa asked Addie if she’d like to share her house, Addie couldn’t leave her mother’s fast enough.

The price she paid was life with the messiest person in the world. Addie cleaned without stopping for lunch, which was her excuse for eating the three rock-hard chocolate mints she found down the side of the couch. An action she regretted when the next item the couch regurgitated was an empty condom wrapper, though she kept it to toss in the bathroom bin, for a touch of authenticity.

By the time Lisa and David returned, Addie had only freaked out twice about spiders and the house was well-aired, sparkling and tidy. Lisa’s possessions, including a pile of origami sculptures of animals and insects that bore no resemblance to any insect or animal Addie had ever seen, together with thirty-seven bottles of nail polish and ten pairs of shoes, were piled up outside Lisa’s bedroom.

“Wow,” Lisa muttered as she walked round the lounge. “The cleaning fairy’s paid us a visit.”

“Bloody hell,” said David. “Are we in the right house?”

Lisa tossed her handbag on the couch along with a pile of plastic carrier bags. Her coat flew onto a chair and her shoes in front of the fire. Addie winced.

“Is Noah anally retentive or something? Is that why he hasn’t come to stay? I could have tidied,” Lisa said.

Since she never had, Addie thought that unlikely.

“I told you he needed to be near his mum while she was ill. By the way, don’t mention her. He’ll get upset.”
Or forget she’s dead.
“What did you buy?” Addie knew the way to deflect Lisa.

Lisa pulled out her purchases for inspection. Five more bottles of nail polish, two pairs of trousers and three jumpers. Addie oohed and aahed in the right places. Lisa was always protesting about bills and moaning about the mortgage, but it was clear the Jefferson-Smiths subsidized their daughter.

Out of the corner of her eye, Addie saw David heading for the kitchen.

“David, if you even look at those I’ll kill you,” she shouted.

She’d left a selection of cheese pastry snacks cooling on a wire tray. The chances of David leaving them untouched were about as high as expecting an alligator to ignore a chicken dangled over its nose.

“So where are you going tonight?” Addie asked.

“Thought we’d stay in,” Lisa said.

There was a distinct smell of burning rubber as Addie’s heart screeched to a halt. “I thought Noah and I could have the place to ourselves.”

Lisa shrieked with laughter. “It’s Saturday, course we’re going out, but we’ll wait and have a drink with Noah.”

“Great.” Addie pushed a smile on to her face.

David came in chewing. “Here.” He handed Addie her pay-as-you-go mobile. “I picked up another today. Yours doesn’t seem to be working.”

“David!”

“Don’t moan after what you did to mine.”

“You shouldn’t have left it in your trousers and put them in our laundry basket.”

“You should have checked the pockets.”

“You should have washed them yourself.”

He glared at her. She glared at him.

“Stop fighting,” Lisa mumbled as she came out of the kitchen, her mouth full and a cheese straw in her fingers.

Addie hoped there were some left.

* * * * *

“Is Noah going to be here soon?” Lisa asked for the third time.

“Yes.”

“Has he rung?”

“No.” No use lying about that.

She knew Lisa wouldn’t wait much longer. David, on the other hand, lay on the couch, drinking beer and watching football, quite happy to stay in. There was no way Lisa would let him.

David had appeared one night, not long after Addie had moved in, carrying a box of her belongings. When Addie had gone through them, she realized her mother had eradicated all traces of her ever having lived at home. The box held swimming certificates, Brownie badges and the contents of Christmas crackers she’d saved over the years, plus fluff from her drawers. David had taken one look at Lisa and fallen hard.

They’d been dating for five months. Lisa, who was thin as a whippet with blonde hair straight out of a bottle, had been seduced by policeman David’s uniform and later by his handcuffs. Lisa had once told Addie, if she didn’t think a guy was husband material, she didn’t go out with him for more than five months. Addie couldn’t believe anyone in their right mind would want to marry David, so she was almost certain his number was up.

Lisa looked at the prone figure of her boyfriend, a large packet of salt and vinegar crisps balanced on his chest, and frowned.

“I’m hoping when David meets Noah, a bit of his charm will sense the vacuum in David’s heart and be sucked across.” She glanced at Addie. “The trouble is I’ve gone on so much about the fabulous Noah, David hates him.”

“Guys who send flowers, champagne and big boxes of chocolates ruin women,”

David said.

“You think you’ve been generous if you bring me a six pack and a Mars bar, and you eat the bloody Mars bar,” Lisa said.

David offered Lisa a crisp. “My last one. Don’t say I don’t treat you well.”

Addie laughed. “He must have some good points. You’re still going out with him.”

“One very good point.” Lisa grinned. “At least when I can tear him away from the football. To be honest that’s all that occupies David’s limited mind—football and sex.

He’s insatiable. For both.”

“I’m here, you know, listening to this,” David said.

“They’re moans of displeasure I hear coming from your room?” Addie asked.

Lisa laughed. “Yeah, when he doesn’t get it right.”

Addie put her hands over her ears. “God, this is my brother you’re talking about.”

“Maybe he could ask Noah for a few pointers.” Lisa raised her eyebrows.

“Don’t you dare,” Addie said and a thousand butterflies began to flap in her stomach.

“I hope you’re joking.” David sat up and belched.

Noah had seemed like a logical extension of Addie’s imaginary childhood friend Leo, only now she engaged in imaginary sex as well. When Lisa had pressed for details of Addie’s exhausting weekends in Manchester, Addie made it up
.
She had a thousand ways to describe seduction, gleaned from erotic paperbacks and Lisa’s magazines.

“Maybe we could all go out together,” Lisa said. “I want to see him dance.”

Addie had forgotten she’d made Noah a fantastic dancer. She hadn’t liked lying to Lisa and wouldn’t have, had she not been going out with David. Addie had reasoned that if she could convince her housemate that Noah existed, David would be convinced as well, and then so would the rest of her family. And it had worked. Until last Sunday.

Now pride stopped Addie from telling her friend everything, because Lisa could have any guy she smiled at, including the one Addie had wanted at university. If Noah had existed, Addie was fairly sure Lisa would have had him too.

Addie kicked off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her on the couch. Once Lisa and David had gone, she’d kept the TV off in case she didn’t hear the bell, but she couldn’t concentrate on her book. As the evening progressed, hope drained out of her, rather like blood from the wrists she intended to slit. Noah said he’d come, and he hadn’t. Why would he? He didn’t need the money. What if he’d been a policeman?

Addie shuddered. What if he was a male escort? She shivered. It was a criminal offense to procure a prostitute. She imagined herself in front of an incredulous judge.
You
offered him money to spend the night with you? In your room? And you didn’t expect anything
to happen? What were you paying him for then? To read you a bedtime story?

A lucky escape, only she didn’t feel lucky. It had been risky anyway, inviting a stranger to sleep in her room. He could have been a murderer. What if he arrived now with an axe in his bag or a set of knives or a long silk scarf? Addie tried to think what other instruments of torture might fit in an overnight bag. Thumb screws? Electric probes? Hamsters? She didn’t like hamsters. Their teeth were too sharp.

She’d even made an effort to look nice for her killer, somewhat along the same lines as her mother telling her to put on clean underwear in case she got knocked down by a bus. She’d applied a dash of lipstick, tamed her hair, and put on her green top and best trousers. Now, with the idea running through her head that Will might be a psychotic killer, Addie armed herself with a kitchen knife, wondering if she should have made herself as unattractive as possible.

Only she couldn’t. Even though she’d said this was a business arrangement, she didn’t want Will to find her repulsive because a tiny, pathetic part of her hoped he might want to see her again. Entertained by her sparkling wit and intelligence, he’d see past all the things her mother didn’t like and ask her on a proper date. Only for that to happen, he needed to turn up.

Maybe it was for the better. This way she wouldn’t be disappointed when he fell asleep, ate her breakfast and walked out with her money. It was easier not to hope.

The later it grew, the more Addie realized it was relief that crept through her. She wasn’t trying to fool her family, but herself.

Consequently, when the bell rang, she turned to stone. The third prolonged ring un-froze her. She grabbed the knife, raced to the door and flung it open. She’d have been less shocked by an alien.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Will said. “You asked me to come, remember?”

“Sorry. Come in.” Addie moved out of the way, keeping the hand holding the knife behind her back. He was dressed in black jeans, black sweater, and carried a black bag.

He looked like the Grim Reaper, only less cheerful.

“On your own?” he asked.

“Yes, my housemate’s out.”
Oh God. Mistake.
Addie tightened her grip on the knife and closed the door.
Please don’t let him be a murderer.