She stood behind the closed door, trying to hear any movement downstairs over the rat-ta-tat-tat of her heart.
She stared into the gloss-white door. Time meant nothing. All she knew was now and this staring, snow-blind terror.
The machine-gun heartbeat slowed, but only as aches set in, the bruises on her thighs and scalp and lower back complaining that she had been conscious for a good many minutes; only when the most perfect silence had been observed for what had almost certainly been a quarter of an hour, did she unlock the door, opened it a crack.
When she was sure that she saw nothing, heard nothing, she padded onto the landing.
On a hunch she crept to the top of the steep stairs. There: a scattering of envelopes on the doormat.
That bloody, cheap, banging, tin-can letter box.
Before she could change her mind, she walked downstairs, just to feel OK for a few seconds. She scooped up the post, turned and went straight back up the stairs. She locked herself back in her bedroom, sifted through the envelopes.
Letter for her, mobile bill, garish pizza menu and one last white missive:
Dr Ola Abayomi
Etta emailed in sick from her bed, knowing but not caring that Robert and his spy Jean – who only looked more haggard and tense since sending her mum off in a taxi – would doubt her excuses. She scrolled for news of a stabbing in High Desford and, seeing nothing, closed her eyes again.
The horror of the night before clung to her like cooling sweat. She writhed in the T-shirt of Ola’s that she had pulled from the wash basket to sleep in; she struggled to raise her head from the smell of him on the pillow. To comfort herself for whatever damage she had done to her throbbing ankle she wrapped herself in the duvet she hadn’t washed since he left; it was gross not to wash it, or the T-shirt, or her body, but it seemed unthinkable to get naked with action-replays of the night before still spooling non-stop through her mind; it seemed unthinkable not to be wrapped in Ola; unthinkable to blast away what was left of her life with water and detergent.
The curtains stayed drawn. She kept her eyes closed long after waking. She was trying to black-out stress; it could only be bad for the baby. In that willed darkness, batting away a barrage of thoughts about Nadia, or whoever she really was, and that brutal man, attacking her, falling to the ground in that horror of a room, and her terrifying jump and the lies and the cheating that had led to this mess, she breathed Ola in, drew down draughts of scent from where his skin had been, not in gulps, but gently, as if he simply was.
He was, but he was not there.
Despite the pain and bruises and fear, she was alive. She was also confused, not least about the dead bouquet and smashed specs. Had Nadia really not done that? She was a professional liar, after all. When had it all started? If not her, who? And why? Etta rubbed her forehead.
After a few more minutes, she sat up on her elbows and looked at the letter. Tempted though she was to open it, this could be a chance for something more. She thought about the wording for a full minute before simply texting:
Ola, an important letter has come. Will you come and collect it?
The response came back in seconds:
Just send it.
Where to?
A longer pause this time. Then:
87 Peartree Avenue, Rilton, Bucks, RL2 3HG
Etta stood on the front doorstep for over a minute before she could bring herself to knock.
A woman answered. Etta knew her at once. Same dark hair, although now damp as if she had just stepped out of the shower, that sharp look and matching cheekbones.
‘You!’
The nosebleed woman. The cut-finger client from the Waysford Place nail bar.
‘Can I help you?’ the woman replied, tilting her chin up.
Etta went blank and asked: ‘Is Ola here?’
‘No,’ said the woman. ‘Wrong house.’
Etta glanced again at the house number. It was the right one. She shook her head, to get the confusion out; she knew this was the place.
Unable to turn away, she peered instead past the woman’s shoulder and saw Ola’s jacket on a hook, alongside two other men’s coats she did not recognise.
A fire started up in her.
‘Here. He’s here and I know you, right?’
‘No, please,’ said the woman, moving to close the door.
Etta stepped up, arm out to keep the door open.
‘Where’ve you popped up from? You’re not his landlady.’
‘That’s not any of your business.’ The woman glanced at the top of the stairs.
‘You’ve made it my business. You asked me for help at the First Welcome Project.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Your nose bled all over my desk. Where is he?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Where is he?’
Etta kept her voice soft, her movements slow.
‘I don’t know. You make mistake, I’m Bosn— I came over from Croatia. It’s not me you want,’ the woman shot another look upstairs. ‘Now go away.’
Etta stepped up onto the front step, from where she could see, past the woman’s shoulder to one, two, three pictures of this person and Ola together. Framed pictures, hung on the wall: a beach selfie, a black-tie pose, a smiling embrace.
‘What the …?’ Etta could not take it in.
‘Who is it, Medina?’ This was Ola, calling from upstairs.
The woman tried to push the door closed. On pure instinct Etta pushed back.
‘Go away!’ Medina hissed in her face with such vitriol, Etta took a step backwards on her bad ankle, and lost her balance. The door was shut in her face.
She stared at the closed door for a moment, mouth still open. Croatia. She had finally met Zagreb, and she was a beauty. Ola was already living there, had to be. In one hallway photo, the woman – Medina he had called her – had shorter curly black hair, now it was past her shoulders; Ola had been captured wearing clothes she had never seen. So that house, maybe only twenty minutes away from where they lived in Sycamore Road, had been Leeds, and had been working late, and the endless networking events to stave off the unemployment; it had been the pub with the boys, and the stag dos, no doubt, and the friend’s birthday party. This house was where he played house with another woman altogether. She had thought him to be preoccupied and he was just that – already occupied by this other woman’s needs and affections. Ola had lied and lied and lied.
Rage surged up her spine and she was banging on the door again before she could think.
‘Ola! Ola, I need to talk to you, really important. Ola!’
Medina tugged the door open and leaned out at her: ‘Go away. You took our bloody money!’
‘Medina …’ Ola said behind her and was silenced with a look.
‘Your money?’ said Etta. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You’re a thief.’
‘So are you! We were getting married!’
‘Never. We marry.’
Etta took a step back.
‘You’re getting married?’
She then saw the diamond on her finger. Not small. Behind it, the platinum band.
‘We already marry,’ said Medina. ‘Weeks ago.’
Etta swallowed the words as the woman, this other fraudulent woman, this wife, dripped them. Some, when you were down and flat out, would drip honey into your mouth. Others would drip poison.
‘All this time,’ Etta said.
‘Hm!’ said Medina with a sharp toss of her head.
‘I helped you, Medina, at the First Welcome Project. Can’t believe I bloody helped you stay!’
‘You want medal?’ said Medina. ‘Thief.’
‘Ola?’ asked Etta.
He looked past her shoulder, eyes bright; shook his head. Was he angry?
A firework went off inside her.
‘Nothing to say, Ola? Silence now? Always silent when you should open your mouth. Yes! That’s why you were so damn quiet in bed – didn’
t want to cry out the wrong name! Am I right?’
‘Come, Ola,’ said Medina, turning to bring him closer. ‘Let’s talk to the police.’
‘Police, Ola?’ asked Etta. ‘Really, are you kidding me?’
He looked at the ground, his jaw working.
‘Yes, Ola!’ said Medina. ‘We must call the police like I say, now!’
‘No,’ said Ola. ‘I’ve said, we can’t just—’
‘Yes, we must!’ Medina was shrieking now. ‘We must tell the police she stole our money!’
‘Well,’ said Etta. ‘OK, let’s all go! I can tell them how you sent me dead flowers. Stalking!’
Medina glanced at Ola. ‘Who told you?’
Etta smiled. Drip drip: her own noxious nectar. ‘No one. You just did. Who else could want to scare me off that much?’
Ola looked at Medina, the flare on her cheeks.
‘Didn’t she tell you, Ola?’ Etta went on. ‘She left me that stinking bouquet to freak me out. Then your glasses, broken, on our – my – doorstep. QED she’s a piece of work, Ola, your perfect match, QED you’re both total—’
‘I knew you would be stealing from him!’ Medina’s face was flaming, scrunched in rage. ‘Women like you—’
‘What do you mean “women like me”? What about you? How could you be with him, knowing he was with me? We were already together!’
‘You were nothing! We were just trying to get our money together so he could leave you for good. I waited, took a risk. So many risks. But now you’ve stolen from us!’
‘Us?’ said Etta. ‘My God, you dare say “us” to me. Go on, say it one more time—’
‘Stop now,’ said Ola. He stepped forward and pulled at Medina’s arm, something like pleading in his eyes, meant for his new wife, or perhaps Etta.
‘Stop?’ said Medina. ‘What do you mean stop? She should stop, she’s taken everything.’
Etta could feel Ola, unable to look at her.
He spoke, the dam burst: ‘Yes! She is a thief and a liar and she’s screwed us right over!’ He lowered his voice. ‘But let’s leave it for now, yes?’
‘What?’ cried Medina, outrage contorting those memorable features. ‘Ola. We have to go to the police, Ola, we have to—’
‘Medina no. I said leave it.’ Ola turned back towards the house, waiting for his wife, his souvenir from Croatia, to follow.
Etta had a window of seconds. She should tell him. Destroy him. Tell him how, as his now-wife had held a tissue to her bloodied nose, she had told the helpful stranger at the First Welcome Project how she had been operated on, her womb removed, how she needed this new start with her British boyfriend more than anything.
They rarely asked even your first name, the First Welcome Project clients. Just sat down, drank the free tea and told you their life stories. Shared the secrets; showed the worst scars.
She should tell him: that Medina had said she would do anything to stay; that she had done just that, trying to pull him out of his living situation, scare off the unseen rival with devious tricks then race back to their hidden nest to coo and woo and flutter at him like an innocent; that this woman was desperate and had nothing to lose; that she would have been unlikely to register the vibrations of true love in the midst of the earthquake that had been her life; that Medina would rather destroy his life than forfeit his support, or England. And as for his four-plus kids …
No. Etta did not have to give him the answers. Let him live them out for himself. She did not have to give him anything any more.
As Medina moved to go into the house with Ola, Etta called to his back: ‘I’m pregnant, Ola.’
Ola turned and stared at her, lips parted. Medina looked at her too, her eyes dark.
‘You’re not, you can’t be. Etta?’
‘I am, Ola. A baby, like we wanted.’
Ola took a step towards her. ‘I can’t believe it. We weren’t—’
‘Our child, Ola.’ Etta fixed him with a clear stare.
Again, he stepped closer to her.
‘Don’t,’ said Medina, ‘she’s obviously lying.’
He gave the smallest dip of his head, almost a nod.
‘Let’s go in, Ola,’ said Medina. ‘Now!’
Medina reached out, rubbing at his forearm; the urgent pressure made him turn.
‘Ola?’ said Etta.
His face remained turned away from her as he walked towards the door and said:
‘It is nothing to do with me.’
Etta sat up. She was in bed. Alone.
Still no news of a stabbing. No knock on the door. She would have to keep lying low.
Her head felt … No! She no longer cared. Her ideas did not matter any more. Her mind had failed her; any higher thoughts had sodded off when Ola had left, packed in with his know-it-all chatter; carted away with his clothes, his toothbrush and his endless research notes.
He was married to his Zagreb woman. His betrayal could not be more obscene.
Their life together was not just over. It had been murdered.
Her head was numb and dead.
But her heart …
Time to get busy. She needed to spin, to win, or she would go mad wondering if Nadia’s crew would be coming after her. They had to know her exact house by now; did they watch? It was all falling apart: she needed a clear shot at something, anything but this present. But to make choices, she needed money; always money.
Etta powered up.
She waded through the crap in her inbox. Since her first payday loan, it had become infested by a swarm of missives with short, sharp stings. Untold phishing and spam, not to mention the nuisance calls. Desperation was big business.
She should know.
Etta hunted out a stinking brace of loans, shot down from the cloudless skies of No Credit Checks! They would have to do.
Now to find the right opportunity to win.
She was in luck. Spin City was starting a leaderboard promotion, with a top prize of £10,000. The beauty of leaderboard promos was that it was all about how much you wagered, or spun through, not deposited. About how much you wagered not won. It was fundamentally important for you to know that you could win as you won and win as you lost. This was the purest possible translation of the spinners’ creed.
For Etta, it had been lucky that she had secured the funds to gamble. She now had to swing back the blade of her critical faculties and chop down the mad labyrinth in which she was lost. One last shot at making it good. All of it.
Which is why, to maximise her leaderboard chances, Etta spent the next hour taking out as many No Credit Checks! loans as would have her, planning to feed the sum total of £1,495 into the grinning maw of Gregor: The Jackpot Giant.
Gregor was new to this virtual metropolis of speculation. Etta slipped him a few tenners and he turned up, roaring and gargantuan, brandishing a club and a sackful of sovereigns, on reels 1, 3 and 5. Bonus round.
The giant proved as generous as his height, his girth. Sovereigns rained from the skies with every thwack of his club. He turned the very ground to gold; £1,017 more was added to the funds. Reason to hope.
Lunchtime: Etta did not eat, she played on. At 5 p.m., guilty, she forced herself to go to the fridge and swallow three slices of supermarket ham. She had more than just herself to think of.
Gregor, though, turned nasty. Him too: fickle. Spiteful, in the end. He took from her too fast, gave too little.
A £10 spin. Then £20 spins. She raised the stakes, again and again, feeling nothing as she hit the button, feeling nothing as she spun.
£100 … £100 … £100 … £100 …
She rolled £100 spins, the stake of madmen and millionaires, feeling nothing, not one thing … Until she crashed.
Game Over
Now, the numbness wore off and feelings rose back to her surface like bruises: the waste and the pain and the gigantic loss.
She looked to the wardrobe, where there was an empty gin bottle, to the bottle in the wastepaper bin, which m
ight contain one last sip of red. Not now, she was on her own.
A hand fluttered to her stomach. They were on their own.
She fanned a palm out on the desk, stroked her fingers across the wood, thought of Ola’s skin. A Post-it had been forgotten, left on the side of the printer. She unstuck it, read his writing:
Science It! 1,500 words
Rewrite paras 1–5: molecular lock and key
Opiates v dopamine – in layperson’s terms
She scrunched the note, binned it. Her thoughts did not need feeding; no call for layperson’s terms. She already knew.
Gambling was not a financial plan.
This was not a hobby.
This was not an itch.
This sure as hell was not salvation.
Addiction.
This was addiction.
She was an addict, pure and simple. Squirming, abject, hooked and caught. Player, member, VIP, high-roller, spinner, punter? She was bleeding prey and the leaderboard losses spelled out, in a neat microcosm, the true nature of the trap. Amass spins as she might, another VIP would be spinning faster, climbing higher up the board. Spin to win more spins and you would still lose. Win on the rolls, chase, and you would lose: win £100 against the pre-programmed odds, against the entirely legal 95 per cent RTP, that risible Return to Player, and it would never patch up the £1,000 that had gushed from your funds the week before. Bet £2,000 and you could never staunch the £8,000 wound of last month. Spin your way – in insane £100-a-spin bets – to win £10,000, £15,000 even, it would be no gauze pad to heal the livid chasm of £22,000, plus change.
She was an addict.
Midnight. She checked the leaderboard. Chumbly71 had won the £10,000 with 4,257 points. She, Nemesis, had earned a mere 2,783 points. She had spun through £13,915 and was tenth, last. Tens of thousands may not even have made the leaderboard, but there were no prizes for coming last.
And this really was it: the last.
The phone went.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello! This is Neel.’
‘Neil?’
‘Yes, Neel. From Windows Technical Department.’
Lucky Page 21