Wartime Wife Read Free Page A

sat on the table. He reached out and touched the teapot. It was still warm and there were dregs of tea at the bottoms of the cups, a trace of lipstick around the rim of one. Someone was in the house. He listened intently, heard a small noise and looked up at the ceiling.
    If Thomas Routledge was up there, why hadn’t he heard him? What was he doing that distracted his attention?
    The stairs were so narrow that his shoulders grazed the walls. The landing at the top was surprisingly wide and there was an arched window at one end. He paused as the heavy lace curtain billowed inwards in the breeze. The window, attractive as it was, looked out on a backyard and a tree vivid with red leaves.
    A floorboard squeaked beneath his foot and brought an exclamation from behind a bedroom door followed by frenzied muttering.
    Without preamble, Michael opened the door. The room smelled of sweaty bodies and recent sex. The man was naked. The girl was young, possibly no more than fourteen, though she had a worldly face.
    The man pulled the bedclothes over his lean shanks. ‘We’re closed!’ he barked, but looked nervous.
    The girl giggled, her small breasts jiggling in sympathy.
    ‘No. It is open,’ said Michael. ‘You were supposed to be running the business not lying in bed.’
    Realising who he was talking to, the man adopted a nervous grin. ‘I can explain—’
    Michael stayed his tongue but made his feelings very obvious. The curtains tore as he pulled them back, the window jamming then squealing as he pushed it open. Fresh air funnelled in.
    ‘’Ere, just a minute …’
    Michael pointed at him. ‘Get out of my shop, and take the girl with you.’
    The girl opened and closed her legs, giving him an unobstructed view of what was on offer. ‘I only charge ten shillings, mister,’ she said, her rouged lips smiling invitingly as though she were the most glamorous woman he’d ever set eyes on.
    She aroused no desire, but only memories of beds once slept in and events he’d prefer to forget.
    ‘Out,’ he said, his words as controlled as in the solicitor’s office. ‘Out,’ he said again, his fingers tightly gripping the door handle.
    Routledge shuffled his trousers before putting one hairy leg inside the brown, cheap material, closely followed by the other. ‘I’m still owed five pounds,’ he grumbled.
    Michael regarded Routledge with contempt. He’d met plenty of his sort, the coarse exterior hiding a matching though cowardly inner soul. His inclination was to take hold of the man by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his pants and throw him out through the window, glass, shutters and all, but he couldn’t. He mustn’t. He had to tread carefully in a country where foreigners were viewed with more suspicion than they’d ever been.
    Although it grieved him, he peeled off a fiver from the pile in the envelope.
    ‘And then there’s expenses …’
    Michael hardened his look.
    Routledge was wily enough to know when he was pushing his luck. He rubbed at the three-day growth of stubble sprouting from his cheeks and chin. ‘I can see you think I’ve had more than a fair share.’ He glanced at the girl. ‘Maybe you’re right, sir, maybe you’re right.’
    The girl squealed as he took her elbow and pushed her out of the door in front of him, even though she was only half dressed.
    ‘You owes me,’ she whined.
    ‘Let’s go down the pub. I’ll pay you there.’
    Michael followed them out to the door, where he wrenched the spare set of keys from Routledge’s hand, then locked and bolted the door behind them.
    Once it was closed, he sighed with relief, glad to be inside the shuttered building even though the smell of neglect was strong and the sound of water dripping from a faulty tap echoed like halting footsteps.
    Out in the meagre kitchen, he found a larder containing tins of food, some cheese, ham and bread. He also found a bottle of Camp Coffee, made himself a thick, black cupful, and winced as the bite of