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I don’t offer him any more satisfaction than I’ve already given him so I exit, licking my wounds. I return to the garden, where Oscar is lying on his back, paws in the air, while she is stroking the white fur of his belly. ‘Why is Paul redecorating?’ I ask.
‘It’s exciting, isn’t it?’ she beams.
‘Did he talk you into it? Did he persuade you to say yes?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Has he taken any money from you?’
‘No.’
‘Why didn’t you discuss it with me first?’
‘I was telling him how Bill and I didn’t have time to make this place our own before he died and how I’m living in a house surrounded by someone else’s taste. Paul offered to freshen it up.’
I bet he did, I think. I bet he practically bit your hand off for the work. She may not have given him any money yet, but it’ll happen and he will charge her an arm and a leg for it. This is how predators like him operate. He lures people in with his smile and twinkly eyes, and because he’s done such a good job with the voluntary work, you trust him to do other things. And that’s when he stings you with the big-ticket work. He’s a conman, I just know it. But how far will he go? What’s his ultimate goal?
‘At least reassure me he’s only redoing the hallway?’ I ask.
‘Oh no, he said he might as well do all of downstairs too while he’s here. He has tradesman discounts all over town.’
‘That’ll still cost us a fortune!’
‘Me, notus,’ she huffs. ‘I’mpaying for it.’
I want to remind her that it’s not going to be her money forever, that one day it will make up a part of my inheritance, and howunfair it is that I have to scrimp and save and live off bargain own-brand foods, state handouts, and a few quid here and there that I withdraw from her account when I’m absolutely broke. And all so that I can afford to take care of her. ‘It’s your rainy-day money,’ I say instead.
She reaches out and takes my hand in hers. ‘Look at me, Connie. Almost every day there’s a rainstorm in my head. I don’t know how many more dry days I have left. So let me enjoy them.’
Reluctantly, I nod. How can I argue with that? Sometimes she says so much about how she feels in even the briefest of sentences.
CHAPTER 11
CONNIE
My laptop is taking forever to fire up. It’s so old that it’s a decade’s worth of operating systems behind the latest version. I refill my vaping pen while I wait for a screen to appear, then pour myself a glass of red wine.
I’m staying at hers this evening and have done so for the last three nights. I hate that Paul has a key to this house, even if only to the garage door, because that leads to another door in the utility room. It means he can get into her house whenever he likes. He hasn’t done it yet to the best of my knowledge, but it still makes me very uncomfortable.
When I’m finally able to access next door’s unsecured wi-fi, I begin by googling the name ‘Paul Michael’. But with two generic names like this, it’s no surprise when 5,620,000,000 results appear. I add ‘& Buckinghamshire’ which whittles it down to 11,500,000, but that’s still a drop in the ocean. I throw in words like ‘gardening’, ‘decorating’ and ‘handyman’ but the results aren’t narrowed down by much more.
The list of men who share his name on Facebook and LinkedIn is also immense. But I have to start somewhere so I begin trawling through page after page of thumbnail photos. It takes me an hour and I still haven’t found a profile that I believe, with certainty, belongs to him. I also can’t find a trace of him on Twitter, Instagram or – although it’s a long shot – TikTok or Snapchat. I might get a concussion with the number of brick walls I’m hitting. Paul Michael is either buried deep somewhere among all these others, or he is as absent online as I am. And that does nothing to alleviate my suspicions. Why and what is he hiding?
It’s approaching midnight and, mid-involuntary yawn, an idea hits me, an alternative way to search for him. I return quickly to Facebook, and it turns out Help for Homes has its own page. There’s not much to it and it’s rarely updated but I stumble across what I’m looking for after scrolling back four years.
It’s a photograph of a group of people, and according to the caption, they’re working on the completion of a room in a daycentre in Buckingham for carers and their families. Some volunteers are perched on scaffolding and ladders and others hold paintbrushes or power tools. Paul’s head is only a few millimetres in size but I recognise him immediately. His hair is a little longer and he’s clean-shaven, but the tattoo around his bicep gives him away. A dozen comments have been left beneath the photo, praising the team’s effort and Paul in particular.
Great work guys, reads one.Paul, you’re a star!
Thanks to all of the team, reads another.You did a fantastic job. Thank you Paul for going that extra mile.
Huge thank-you to Paul and the team for all they’ve done. I didn’t believe in angels until I met you.
I deflate like a leaking balloon with each line of praise. Either he has brainwashed all of them or I’m the one who has got it hopelessly wrong. Maybe I’m projecting. Not everyone is a liar, noteveryone has a hidden agenda, not everyone is going to stab me in the back like Caz did.
Wait, what’s this? I sit up straight when I reach the penultimate post.
Don’t let Paul pull the wool over your eyes. He’s fooled you all. Beauty and the devil are the same thing.
