False Step Read Online Free PDF Page A

she’d finished this morning. You can tell her she won’t be needed at the other places after this.’
    â€˜What other places? You mean, you’ve subcontracted other jobs to her as well? How many?’
    Florrie wriggled. ‘Four. I pay her at the end of each week, never miss. But I’ll have to stop doing it now you know. Won’t I?’
    â€˜Yes, of course you will,’ said Bea, mentally trying to work out how much money Florrie had been creaming off the Polish girl’s wages each week. ‘I take it she’s a good cleaner, worth her money?’
    Florrie shrugged. ‘Better than most. She turns up on time, leaves a room tidy, doesn’t mind cleaning the oven, empties the waste-paper bins and doesn’t leave early. Yes, she’s all right. I was even thinking of letting her join the Green Girls, when we need an extra hand and to cover holidays and that. But … well … you see how it is.’ She stood up. ‘No hard feelings?’
    Bea shook her head. She didn’t like what Florrie had been doing, but she understood it. If she had a husband who was virtually unemployable due to clinical depression maybe she, too, would be looking for ways to rake in extra money.
    â€˜And you’ll still think of the Green Girls when cleaning contracts come up?’
    â€˜Probably,’ said Bea. ‘But only if you let me have a list of the jobs you’ve subcontracted out to this girl so that I can get them covered by another cleaner.’
    Florrie pulled a face. ‘All right. I’ll give the names and addresses to that young man of yours on the way out. You won’t let on to the police about what I’ve been doing, will you?’
    â€˜Not unless they ask, no. But if they do ask, I shall have to tell them you’ve had a sudden desire to leave town and they won’t like that.’
    â€˜But you won’t tell them, will you?’ Florrie regained her usual bounce. ‘All’s well, then. And, er, I suppose, thanks.’
    Only after the front door had banged to, did Bea realize that Florrie had ‘forgotten’ to give Oliver the names and addresses of the other subcontracted jobs. Shaking her head at herself, Bea dialled the mobile phone number she’d been given for the Polish girl. The phone was switched off. Bea left a message for the girl to call.
    Time to eat. Over supper in the kitchen, Bea brought her two assistants up to date with what had been happening. ‘… and I’m sorry if I was a bit short with you two when I came back, but it was worrying. It’s still worrying me. I keep seeing …’ She passed her hand over her eyes. ‘Hope I don’t get nightmares.’ She tried to laugh. Almost made it. The sight of that painted face sticking out from under the grotesque red and gold dress was something she wasn’t going to be able to forget easily. And those red shoes!
    The Polish girl failed to ring back that evening. Oliver went out to the gym as usual, and Maggie went to meet a new boyfriend in the pub. Maggie was the victim of a managing mother, who’d pushed her into a marriage doomed to failure, so nowadays she fell in love at regular intervals with men her mother would never have liked.
    Bea descended to the agency rooms to see what had been done that day, and to wonder if they’d ever be straight again. Carpets had been taken up and stacked against walls, her big settee and visitors’ chairs ditto. The replumbing had left their tiny kitchen and loo looking like a bomb site. There was dust and rubble everywhere, seeping up the stairs into the rooms on the ground floor as well. A dust sheet had been hung over the stairwell to contain the problem, but wasn’t really up to the job.
    Bea fell over a stack of files in her sitting room; she moved them to one side of the fireplace, and then moved them back again. She could settle to nothing, and eventually went to bed