Letting out the Worms: Guilty or not? If not then the alternative is terrifying (Kitty Thomas Book 1 Sue Nicholls (best short books to read TXT) 📖

At the sound of her name, Anwen halted and turned round, her heart pumping - partly from the effort of running and partly in fear. A young and gorgeous man in a hard hat and dusty jeans and a work shirt stood on the pavement a few yards away. His arms dropped to his sides and he walked towards her. ‘It is Anwen, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘I thought so. You probably don’t recognise me with my hat on.’ He pulled the helmet from his blond head, leaving a red line on his forehead. ‘It’s me, Josh, we met at Paul’s engagement party.’

Anwen’s face flamed. ‘Oh, yes.’ She was dumbstruck by this grown man, muscular and vital, talking to her as an equal.

‘I’m sorry about them.’ Josh jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, and Anwen dared to look at the flats. She snatched her eyes away at the sight of half a dozen exuberant builders leaning on the rails, shouting, ’Go for it, Josh,’ and ‘All right darlin’?’

Josh spun round and yelled, ‘Oy. Get back to work. We’ve got to get this topped off by May, remember.’ He turned back, and the men, still grinning, dispersed to their tasks.

‘They don’t mean anything,’ he said, and when he saw her agitation, asked, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’ She felt like a kid of three, unable to form sentences.

‘That’s good then.’ Josh nodded. ‘What are you doing down here? It’s not on your way home from school, is it?’

‘It’s not far out of my way. I came to see Maurice about doing cleaning for him.’

‘Dad?’

She had forgotten, or had not taken in, that Maurice was Josh’s father. ‘Yeah, sorry, your dad.’

Josh punched the air. ‘Yes! About time. He lives in a pigsty, doesn’t he?’

Anwen played with her hair, tucking it behind one ear, and kept her opinion to herself.

Josh took a step back towards the building site. ‘I should…’ he jerked his head at the construction site.

‘Yes. OK.’

‘I expect I’ll see you again if you’re working for Dad.’ Josh turned away, clamping on his helmet amid more whoops and shouts from above.

Anwen scuttled home, with her thoughts occupied by Josh’s muscular arms and broad shoulders.

37 ANWEN

In Maurice’s house, the windows were wide open to the spring sunshine, and the jubilant calls of nesting birds filtered inside to Anwen as she scrubbed mildew from the discoloured frames. As she worked, she calculated her earnings. By Monday, she would have toiled on this dusty place for fifteen hours. That worked out at one hundred and fifty pounds, and her imagined ownership of a smart phone would soon be a reality.

In the back garden, Maurice was stooping over a flower border, dragging festoons of foliage into a tattered, blue Ikea bag. During the morning, Anwen had kept him supplied with whatever he needed. A drink of tea at eleven a.m. with a small plate of biscuits, which he gobbled down; a glass of water an hour later followed by a visit to the sweet-smelling loo. Now that he was back on task among the weeds, she estimated she had at least a half hour before he appeared to disturb her.

With a grubby cloth in her hand, she crept to the kitchen and took a moment to admire her work and give herself top marks for the room’s pristine state and significantly fresher aroma. She had scrubbed the crusted work tops and taken a stiff brush to the vinyl flooring so that now, the only marks on it were the ochre coloured rectangles and triangles of its faded pattern. One peep in the oven had been enough to tell that it would be half a day’s work on its own, so she had wiped the outside and the top and decided that was enough for the moment.

Now, Anwen the cleaner rotated her duster over the work surface again, while Anwen the investigative journalist pulled open cupboards and poked in drawers. When she pulled at the handle of a drawer under the side window, something inside snagged on the top, preventing it from opening. She pressed down the jumble of papers inside. Bingo! With a furtive look at Maurice’s stooped figure she collected up a handful of notebooks and calendars. Her heart was in overdrive, and in her clumsy haste to tame the unwieldy pile she let it slip from her grip and onto the floor with a flap and a flutter. Pads and scraps of paper glided across the vinyl and some disappeared under the cooker. In horror, she clawed everything together and stood up, panting, to check on Maurice. He was not at his post. In panic, she scanned the garden and craned her neck to check in the corners, but he had vanished. With fumbling fingers, she dropped the bundle back and slammed the drawer shut, just as his beaming face loomed in the glass of the back door and it opened.

‘How are you getting on?’

His fingers left their grimy imprint on the door and Anwen hid her frustration, saying, ‘Fine. Do you have any polish?’

‘Polish, no. I didn’t think of that.’ His face brightened, and he pointed to the drawer against which, Anwen was now pressed. ‘Find a notebook in there and list everything you need. I’ll pick it up from Watco before you come next time.’

‘OK.’ She did not move. ‘Can I get you another tea?’

Maurice shook his head. ‘Best get on. I’m making excellent progress.’

Still stuck to the drawer, she stretched her neck to view the flowerbed. ‘It’s so much better. Josh won’t recognise the place next time he comes.’

‘Josh?’ Maurice’s face crumpled. ‘I haven’t seen him for a while.’

‘I expect he’s busy.’ Anwen wished she had not mentioned her handsome builder, but by way of explanation told Maurice, ‘He’s working on a block