The Stranger in Her House by John Marrs

Author:John Marrs [Marrs, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2024-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 39

HARRISON DOUGLAS, NEIGHBOUR

She passes the window, the second time I’ve seen her around here in a few minutes. Earlier, I was upstairs waking up the baby from his mid-morning nap when I clocked her standing on her tiptoes in the alleyway behind our house, trying to peer over the wall into next door’s garden. Paul hasn’t made it easy by attaching a wooden fence to the brick wall to keep it private.

Now she’s out front, pacing up and down our row of terraced houses. If she was up to no good, she probably wouldn’t be wearing trousers, a blouse and a jacket. Not exactly breaking-and-entering clobber, is it? I eye her up and down. She’s not my usual type, a bit older and bit plainer than I like and not enough curves. But since we had the baby, Chantelle’s got about as much interest in shagging as I have in breast pumps. So beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

I shouldn’t even be here today. I should be shit-faced on Carl’s stag weekend with the rest of the footy team in Fuerteventura. But when half of Chantelle’s colleagues went down with another new Covid variant, they called her back to work and that was my trip shafted. Now I’m on daddy duty. I pick up Ruben from his cot and put him over my shoulder along with a tea towel, as he’s prone to sick burps and projectile vomiting when you least expect it. I learned that the hard way with two stained Superdry sweatshirts.

‘Everything alright, luv?’ I ask as I step out into the street.

She’s lost in her own world and almost shits a brick in shock. I try not to laugh.

‘Yes, it’s fine,’ she says.

‘It’s just that I saw you in the alley and now you’re out here.’

‘Oh right, well, I spotted the house on Rightmove so I thought I’d check it out before I made an appointment to view it. I don’t know this side of town very well.’

‘Paul is selling up?’ I reply. We’re not best mates or anything like that, we’ll just talk about the footy or rugby if we see one another. But I told him I’d keep an eye on the house while he was working away. I thought he might’ve mentioned getting shot of the place though. ‘I suppose it makes sense,’ I add. ‘He isn’t around much.’

‘Why, where is he?’

‘He works on the rigs in the North Sea, so he’s gone most of the year.’

‘Are you friends?’

‘I got to know him a little when he came to look after Sue.’

‘Sue?’

‘His mum. She used to live here.’

‘And she doesn’t anymore?’

‘No, she died a couple of months after Paul moved in with her.’

‘Oh, how sad. What happened?’

‘She had Alzheimer’s or something like that and was living on her own when he came back. To be honest, we didn’t even know he existed until he came round to say hello. He didn’t say as much, but reading between the lines, I reckon they must’ve had a barney back in the day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.