Page 44 of A Face in the Crowd
‘Probably some stalker boyfriend,’ Karen adds. ‘Something like that.’
It occurs to me that, if this is remotely true, the man outside could have been a reporter. Perhaps he’d heard similar rumours and had come to ask residents what they’d heard? And I ended up chasing him away.
We sit for a while and I try to remember the last time I saw Jade. The way she looked and those times she stopped to say hello to Billy. She didn’t deserve whatever happened to her.
‘Do you think we should be in here?’ I ask, suddenly aware of our surroundings.
The answer is largely self-evident, but Karen doesn’t seem fazed by it all. She pushes herself up from the sofa and takes another look around before we step into the corridor.
‘Should we close the door?’ she asks. ‘It probably stuck when whoever was leaving, like yours does.’
I make the decision instinctively, clicking the door closed, though continuing to clutch Melanie’s jacket under my arm. There’s no returning it now.
Karen steps away towards her own flat. ‘Gotta get ready for work,’ she says. ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything else about Jade. There might be more when I get back to the school gates later.’
She’s about to go when I stop her. The secrets are building up and mashing together in my mind. Melanie’s coat is almost the final thing. I’m not sure how much more I can remain on top of.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I say.
‘Sure.’
‘When I was at yours the other day, I found an envelope in one of the kitchen drawers—’
Karen’s features shift in an instant. It’s not surprise, more embarrassment. She covers her mouth and nose with both hands and half turns away. I end up interrupting myself.
‘I wasn’t snooping,’ I say. ‘I was looking for teabags.’
‘I know…’ She huffs out a long breath and stares past me towards the end of the corridor.
I check over my shoulder, but there’s nobody there.
‘Come on,’ she says, beckoning me towards her place.
‘It’s none of my business,’ I add hastily, but she’s already unlocking the door and ushering me inside. She rattles it closed behind us and then rushes to the kitchen drawer and pulls out the envelope I found the other day. Without another word, she upends it, sending the sprawl of notes cascading onto the counter. More bounce onto the floor and she chases them around the kitchen until everything is in hand. There are a mix of twenties and tens, but they’re not neatly packed in the way mine were.
Karen shuffles them all together into raggedy piles of mixed amounts; something that hurts my eyes simply to look at.
‘There’s almost nine-hundred quid here,’ she says.
‘Wow.’
She unties her hair and runs her fingers through it, pulling out a knot and then stopping to stare at the money. I’m doing the same. It’s what I’ve spent large part of my time doing since Friday.
‘Where did it come from?’ I ask.
Karen breathes in deeply and stuffs the money back into the envelope. There’s no neatness or finesse. It’s all rammed in together. She returns the envelope to the drawer and then starts going through her cupboards until she’s found a bottle of vodka. She unscrews the cap and then offers it to me.
‘No, thanks,’ I say.
She eyes the liquid and there’s a moment in which I think she’s going to wrap her lips around the bottle and neck it. She doesn’t. She slowly re-screws the cap and returns it to the cupboard.
‘I should’ve told you before,’ she says.
I say nothing, waiting for her to continue.
‘When you’ve been babysitting on the Sundays, it’s because I’ve been earning this.’ She nods to the drawer and there’s silence as I wait. ‘The agency sent a few of us out for a cleaning job a couple of months ago,’ she says. ‘It was at this big old house in the country. I think they get us in three or four times a year to go bottom to top. There are ten or twelve bedrooms, plus two dining rooms, this other one that’s full of art – properDownton Abbeystuff. It takes us a whole week.’
She’s out of breath and fills a glass with water from the tap, before swigging it.
