Dying to Write Read Free Page A

here,’ she said, the irony barely audible. But she grinned at me again before she turned to the next victim. ‘Garth?’
    So Toad had a name. I peered more closely at his label. Garth Kerwin. The gin and I were trying to work out whether his name suited him when something scuffed at the door.
    â€˜Is the house haunted?’ I asked no one in particular.
    The ghost jingled.
    The door was pushed open, very slowly. Its creak was especially convincing.
    â€˜Sidney! You bad animal!’ shouted Kate.
    The rat poured himself around the door. He was wearing a tiny leather harness with a bell on the shoulders.
    Gimson’s face contorted. ‘How dare you!’
    â€˜I’m dreadfully sorry. I really am!’ said Kate.
    Toad leapt to his feet, white showing around the pale irises. Nyree pressed close to Gimson. One of the older ladies gasped; her lips turned alarmingly blue.
    All around, voices were raised. I was on my knees cajoling Sidney with a gin-flavoured finger, which he rightly ignored. The first old lady was fumbling for tablets, another for an asthma spray. Gimson was booming away about social irresponsibility, but was also keen to tell us the difference between
Rattus rattus
and
Rattus norvegicus
. And surely that was Toad’s voice: ‘You should be shot! Keeping an animal like that!’

Chapter Two
    I suppose it was at about this point that I realised that this course and the people on it were not there simply for my amusement. There were real feelings engaged. I must sober up. Rapidly.
    Water. If I drank a lot of water it would help. And there’d be plenty of water in the tap in the kitchen.
    The corridor to the kitchen was occupied by Matt and Kate, both grim-faced. Kate might have been enduring a bollocking, but Matt seemed more apologetic than anything. Quite clearly they did not want me to join them.
    I might as well go back and collect a few glasses from the lounge while I was at it; most of us had left them where we’d been sitting. The lounge wasn’t empty, though. Courtney had found a tray and a dishcloth and was systematically gathering and mopping.
    He smiled at me as I started to help. ‘Funny old evening it’s been,’ he said.
    â€˜Some funny old people to make it that way. Jesus, Courtney, can anyone really find Nyree attractive?’
    â€˜You’re asking the wrong man here, sweetie,’ he said, camp again. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought so. Poor Matt looked scared –’
    â€˜â€“ if not rigid,’ I concluded.
    Courtney’s tray and my hands full, we headed back to the kitchen. The corridor was by now quiet.
    I ran water and sloshed in washing-up liquid. Courtney found a cleanish tea towel, but he didn’t start using it. Quite a backlog had accumulated before he spoke. Then it was merely to ask what I did for a living. I told him about my job at a big inner-city college. He listened in silence. I didn’t want to upset him by asking about his job in case he hadn’t got one.
    He put down the saucer he’d been polishing. I felt him looking at me.
    â€˜I think I can trust you, Soph,’ he began. ‘I think I can. You see … Dear me, there’s no easy way to say this.’
    I waited.
    â€˜I’ve been there, you see. In the nick, Soph. Nice boy like me in prison.’
    There was nothing I could say.
    â€˜And now this. This harassment. That’s what it is, you know: harassment.’ He pronounced it the American way.
    â€˜Hm?’
    â€˜Her being here like this. That woman.’
    â€˜Which woman?’
    â€˜There was this joke we used to have in the nick. There’s someone in your house. Midnight, see. Not a burglar. Not the filth – whoops, pardon my French! And he’s turning over your stuff and there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Who is it?’
    I shook my head. I don’t like being called ‘Soph’ but didn’t want to stop his