‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean it like that.’ She shook her head, ashamed. ‘It’s just… you know, messy.’
He smiled. ‘You mean there’s washing-up in the sink?’
‘It’s worse than that.’ Ellie felt her cheeks flush. ‘The whole place is, oh God, it’s all just a bit… yuck. I’d really rather you didn’t come in.’
But Tony Weston hadn’t got where he was today by giving up easily. He patted her hand and said, ‘I’m not going to judge you, sweetheart. What am I, some kind of monster? I just want to have a look at this troublesome wallpaper of yours.’
‘Please don’t. I messed it up, that’s all.’
‘When I first left drama school and couldn’t get any acting work, I used to help out a friend who was a painter and decorator,’ said Tony.
‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’
He smiled. ‘I’m full of surprises.’
‘Hmm.’ Ellie sank back against the seat. So was her flat.
Chapter 4
‘Jesus,’ said Tony. ‘So this is why you didn’t want me here.’
‘Yes, well. Now you know.’ There was nothing like a fresh pair of eyes—and ears—to remind you of what a dump you were living in. Mortified and ashamed of herself for having put up with it for so long, and most of the time not even realizing how bad things had got, Ellie watched him pace around the living room. A year ago, her lovely, gentle landlady, Moira, had died of a heart attack, leaving her son to take over the property portfolio. Less than lovely Ron had wasted no time at all filling the flats with dubious characters. It had been a while before Ellie had discovered that the council were paying him over the odds to take on families who were well known to them, chiefly because they’d caused so much havoc they’d been evicted from their previous homes. This, now, was their last resort but rather than calm down they seemed to want to vie for the honor of becoming the noisiest and most disruptive tenants in Hammersmith, if not the whole of London.
As if to prove it, what sounded like a rugby scrum was currently taking place in the flat upstairs. On bare floorboards, because their putrid carpet was currently occupying the table-sized front garden. Josh Groban was belting out something heartfelt at maximum volume. The two dogs were going mad. The matriarch of the family, a fifty-something woman with a face like a bulldog and a voice like a cement mixer, was roaring, ‘If you two fookers don’t fookin’ stop that, I’ll chuck youse through the fookin’ window.’
‘Is she talking to the dogs?’ said Tony.
‘Maybe. Or her sons. There are four of them.’
‘And get out the way of the TV, ya fookin’ junkies!’
‘That’ll be the two youngest boys,’ Ellie explained.
‘This is diabolical.’ Tony was outraged.
‘You get used to it.’ Most of the time she managed to tune the worst of the noise out.
‘And what happened there?’ He pointed to the badly stained ceiling.
‘Someone left the bath running.’
‘As if the place isn’t damp enough already.’ Breathing in the musty odor that Febreze hadn’t managed to dispel, Tony surveyed the bare wall she’d been working on last night. ‘If you managed to put wallpaper over that mold it’d fall down again in no time. For crying out loud, this place is a health hazard. Haven’t you asked the landlord to get it sorted out?’
Only about a million times. But why would he bother? Ellie knew Ron wanted her out; packing another family in here would allow him to crank the rent right up. She shrugged and said, ‘I have asked, but—’
‘Fook off yourself, ya fat cow!’ bellowed a male voice, followed by a door slamming and the sound of footsteps thudding down the stairs. Then the front door slammed too. Tony watched from the living-room window as the boy, scrawny and blue-white in color, stood hunched on the pavement and made a phone call. Within seconds a gleaming BMW with blacked-out windows screeched to a halt. A window slid down, money was exchanged for a small package, and the car sped away.
‘Don’t let him see you,’ Ellie said hurriedly.
Too late of course. The boy had already swung round. Spotting Tony at the window he grinned nastily, stuck his middle finger in the air, and spat on the ground before letting himself back in the house. As he passed her door on the first floor, he yelled, ‘Nosy fookers around ’ere, i’nt there?’