Page 13 of Joker in the Pack

Based on my newly revised budget, we found four places with the potential to be suitable. One flat, a tiny house, and two house shares. The house especially surprised me because I hadn’t thought we’d find anything that nice with my meagre finances.

As I went to sleep that night, I felt the faintest glimmer of optimism for the first time in weeks. Perhaps Maddie was right and every black cloud had a silver lining after all?

First thing in the morning, Maddie showed up with cappuccino and croissants, and we carried them with us on the bus as we travelled to viewing number one.

For the past few years, I’d lived in Clerkenwell, and before that, Notting Hill, prioritising a good area over size when it came to choosing my abode. Now I couldn’t afford either.

The closer the bus chugged to our designation, the more boarded-up properties I saw. Three in a row on one street alone.

“I’m not sure about this,” I said to Maddie.

“The listing said this area was up and coming.”

“On what? The crime-rate tables?”

Her grimace said it all.

“Be careful, ladies,” the bus driver said as we went to get out. “You don’t want to be out after dark around here.”

I clutched my handbag across the front of my body as we hurried along the road. Garden landscaping consisted of barbed wire and broken household appliances, with graffiti adding the odd splash of colour. Maddie stopped in front of me as I stepped over a pile of doggy poop, and I walked into her back.

“This is it,” she said. “Number forty-three.”

“It’s a chicken restaurant,” I hissed. Neon-yellow letters spelled out “Clive’s Chicken Coop,” and the red eye of an orange rooster blinked demonically as I tried to decide whether to laugh or cry.

Maddie’s gaze went higher. “I think the flat’s on the first floor.”

Sure enough, a flicker of light shone through one of the dingy windows above the garish facade.

“How do we get in?”

“Those stairs at the side?”

“Do you think they’re safe to stand on?”

The rusted metal creaked ominously as I put weight onto the first rung, and visions of the whole lot giving way and landing on top of me made me pause.

“Let’s go one at a time, shall we?”

At the top, Maddie knocked on the door and wrinkled her nose at the dirt on her knuckles. It swung open to reveal a man in a grease-stained “Chicken Coop” apron, and from the way his belly strained at the ties, he was a big fan of his own products.

“You ladies here to look at the flat?”

Why on earth would we be there otherwise? It wasn’t a neighbourhood one visited by choice.

Maddie answered for me. “Yes, that’s us.”

“Come in, come in.” He threw the door open. “It could do with a bit of a clean.”

No, it could have done with being napalmed. Black mould grew up the walls, and the grimy carpet was a jigsaw of dark footprints. A film of dust coated the mismatched furniture, and the couch only had one cushion, not that I’d have wanted to sit on it, anyway.

“Did you just see something move over there?” Maddie whispered.

“Where?”

“Under the pile of fast-food containers in the corner.”

Even if I scrubbed for a month, I doubted I’d make a dent in the filth, and that wasn’t the worst part. I’d held my breath in horror as we walked in, but when it came to the point where I had to inhale or faint, I almost choked. The stench of chicken fried in rancid fat permeated everything.

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