Page 47 of The Man Upstairs

“Quite a few of them, yeah.”

“I was correct, then. There have been a number.”

She sighed. “Mum thinks every guy who walks through the door is her soulmate. The knight in Crenham Drive armour who is going to give her all the love in the world. I used to believe her. I’ve always been a story book reader. I always hoped she’d find the hero of her own.”

“The honeymoon period doesn’t last all that long, I imagine.”

She smiled sadly. “No, it doesn’t. Cheats, assholes, druggies. There are a whole card deck full of idiots around here. Scottie has been the longest servingstepdaddy, actually and he’s the very worst. He played the knight in shining armour like a guy possessed early on, but it was obvious to me, right from the start. He’s shit, selfish, and doesn’t respect anyone. Not even his own son.”

I took my cigarette over to the window. I had nothing to pass judgement on regarding those statements. The loved ones I’d calledhomewould have all said the same about me. I had no place to condemn Scottie for being a selfish cunt, but I did have a place to condemn him for being an abusive, violent criminal. He’d burn in hell along with me, but on a much higher heat.

“I wish he’d just fuck off, once and for all,” Rosie said. “He tears Mum to pieces, and she’s still always desperate to take him back. It’s like the worse he makes her feel, the more she feels she needs him. Sad, isn’t it?”

I pushed the window open as wide as it would go and lit up my cigarette.

“Sad, but no doubt true. He’s a leech of confidence who leaves a trail of positive breadcrumbs as a reward. I’m sure he’s quite proficient at it.”

“He’s got her like a fish on a line.”

“Indeed.”

I saw the pain in her eyes.

“Any ideas how I get him the hell away from her, then? I don’t exactly have a stash of cash for a hitman.” She tried to lighten her words with a laugh. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a few thousand you could lend me to get the job done, have you? I’ll pay you back over the next eight hundred years.”

In theory, I had a lot more than a few thousand. Outside of my professor role, I was co-owner of my wife’s therapy business. We’d started it up together using a chunk of my inheritance, and it had flown high on a national scale, me plugging away at it like a fiend at every opportunity. If Katreya and I proceeded with a divorce and went through the proper channels, I’d be extremely wealthy. As it happens, I’d unloaded just one set of my savings into a new bank account when I left Oxford, taking out a decent chunk in cash that I’d been spending frugally.

It struck me then just how deeply I must have sunk into the dregs of Crenham Drive. Rosie didn’t seem to have the slightest clue as to the full extent of my wealth. These days I likely appeared as nothing more than a dropout with a posh accent.

“I hate every single cell in Scottie’s body,” she said, and the pain on her face was strong enough that it made my gut twist.

The guy really did deserve a hitman as far as I was concerned, purely from the hurt he’d put in her eyes, let alone her mother’s. Something struck me deep – a fire of rage that shot right from the core of me. I hadn’t known abusers like him before. Too sheltered, most likely. The thought of that cunt hurting the girl in front of me was ammunition enough for me to want to destroy him. To annihilate his vile excuse of a soul.

One thing was for certain. I wouldn’t let him hurt her again, no matter the cost involved.

“That situation will be resolved, I can assure you,” I told her, but she shrugged.

“Maybe one day. If Mum finally sees him for the asshole that he is. I’m not holding my breath, though.”

I didn’t elaborate on my intentions. Rosie didn’t need to be caught up in the darkness I was planning.

“Tell me more,” I said. “College, lifestyle, other secrets. What makes youyou?”

“That’s the thing,” she said. “None of it makes me who I am. I don’t know who I am anymore. College does nothing, neither did school. Even though most of the kids were from this same grotty estate, most of them still seemed to be kids. I hung around with some of them, sure. They played games, and laughed and joked, all hanging out together, playing cool, but I never felt like a part of them. There was only one girl I was close to. She was my everything. We were glued at the hip for years.”

That took me aback.

“Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah, really. Her name was Molly.”

“What happened to her?”

Rosie’s smile was beautiful.

“Her mum actually did meet a knight in shining armour. She crossed paths with a guy in a bar who was on a work trip from London. Jacob was his name. I think he was only in Club Triumph as a joke with his drunk friends. Shannon ended up moving to London with him, to a really nice place in Kensington. I visited them once, but I didn’t get on with Molly’s new friends. We stayed in touch for a bit, but it faded. I didn’t want to hold her back.”

“You must have been very jealous. What a lucky girl.”