Fake Alibi by Leigh Russell

Author:Leigh Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oldcastle Books
Published: 2022-04-26T16:17:19+00:00

27

It was Monday, and Eddy was fed up. Kylie usually went to work on Mondays, but he had waited until late morning and she hadn’t gone out. When she went to work, he had worked out that she did shifts, and he knew what times she left home, but he never really knew where she was on her days off. She might go out at any time, usually to the shops, or sometimes she just stayed at home and he didn’t see her at all. But that wasn’t all that was upsetting him. Alec had turned up a couple of days ago, and he showed no signs of leaving. On the contrary, he appeared to be making himself comfortable, and taking over the house. Wherever Eddy went, Alec was there, if not in person then in his belongings. His shoes lay discarded in the middle of the hall for Eddy to trip over; in the living room the cloying aroma of hops from empty beer bottles vied with the sour smell of cigarette butts stubbed out in soiled cups and saucers. It was unbearable. Yet all Eddy’s attempts to push Alec out had failed miserably.

‘This is my house,’ Eddy had announced several times.

On each occasion, Alec had merely winked and congratulated Eddy on his luck in inheriting the house, apparently oblivious to his cousin’s attempt to seize control of the situation.

Eddy had to make a plan to get rid of Alec, because two was company, and three wasn’t. He couldn’t remember the exact words, but he knew that meant he could never be happy with Kylie as long as Alec was living in the house. It was Eddy’s house now, and he should be allowed to choose who was allowed to live there. But Alec wouldn’t go away. ‘You’re a bad smell,’ Eddy muttered to himself. That was what Alec used to say to him when they were children: ‘You hang around like a bad smell.’ And then Alec would laugh and knock him over. Well, now it was Eddy’s turn to send Alec away. He knew exactly what he wanted to achieve, he just didn’t know how to set about it. It had been the same at school. He had always understood his goals, but somehow the steps between having a goal and actually achieving it were missing. Other pupils seemed to manage, but he was like someone stranded at the top of a burning building without a ladder.

That Monday, he was at home in the afternoon, and he decided it was time to tackle Alec. His teachers used to urge him to ‘have a go’. He remembered one teacher in particular. ‘You can do it, Eddy,’ she would say, with an encouraging smile. ‘What’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t matter if you come up with the wrong answer. What matters is that you have a go.’ He had asked her how he could have a go when he didn’t know what to do, but even she hadn’t been able to give him an answer, even though she was trying to help him.

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