“How much do you think I’ll have to pay per month?”
She shrugged. “Most of the one-beds go for around six or seven hundred a month. Before bills, of course.”
Frantically I made calculations in my head. “I can put six months’ rent down now, but I want a monthly contract. I don’t want to pay rent if I’ve got somewhere else to live.”
“There’s no point in you trying to write your own rules. The courts have no power to make a tenant leave until six months are up, so you won’t find a landlord who’ll give you a contract for less than that.” Gill must have seen the wave of panic that flooded me then, because she softened and spoke more kindly. “Look, if you sell your house and want to move out of the flat early, I’ll put in a good word for you. You’d lose your deposit, but they’d probably let you go.”
* * *
? ? ?
By the time we reached the fifth flat I was ready to take anything. Gill parked her car just off the main road. I got out and looked around. There was a row of a dozen or so shops and the area was tidy and well kept.
“The flat’s up above the florist’s shop on the corner,” said Gill. “I’ve placed people there before and everything’s been fine.”
“Is it safe around here?”
“As safe as anywhere,” she said. “In the daytime all these shops are open, of course, but it’s a quiet enough place at night. It’s not the sort of place where you’ll have trouble with people hanging around.”
“Are there other flats in the building?”
“No, these shops have just one flat above each of them.” The front door was on the side road, around the corner from the shop entrance, and Gill pulled out a key ring and opened the door. Inside there was a small hallway and a set of stairs leading up to the flat. An unadorned lightbulb hung from the ceiling and she flicked the switch before we both went upstairs. In the dim light the stairs looked gloomy and the thick carpet was covered in a fine layer of dust.
Once we were upstairs, though, things looked a bit better. The stairs went up to a small landing with doors going off it. The living room was large and light, with a bird’s-eye view of the street. It was furnished with a mishmash of furniture, as though everyone who’d lived there over the years had left one item behind; nothing matched in style, era, or color. There was a large wooden table and a couple of chairs in the window overlooking the street. Outside, at the end of the street, schoolchildren waited at the bus stop and a couple of old ladies stood chatting outside the greengrocer’s shop, their shopping bags by their sides. Below the window was the awning covering the florist’s shop below. I pulled up the sash window. The air was warm and a light breeze floated in from the river, carrying with it the scent of flowers from the display below.
I turned to Gill. “This is better than the others, isn’t it?”
She said, “Yeah, it is,” but her eyes were fixed on her phone and I could tell her mind was on something else. My gaze flitted over the sofa that had seen better days and the marks on the paintwork. I could sort that out. I went through to the bedroom; it overlooked the narrower side road and was big enough for all the bags and boxes I had. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the bed was new and still in its plastic cover.
“Is it free to move into immediately?”
“You can move in on Thursday, if you like. I’ll get back to the office now and contact the landlady. I’ll draw up a contract and e-mail it to you later today. If your payment clears tomorrow, then you can move in the next day.”
“I’ll take it,” I said.
CHAPTER 13
Ruby
Early on Thursday morning I went down to the hotel reception with my bags to settle the bill. I wanted