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But she was silenced by a wave of Connie’s hand. ‘Cut to the chase. Some of us have less time left to waste than others.’
‘I’ve run away,’ Maisie declared, trying to stop the wobble in her voice. ‘I did something bad and I can’t go back so I need to find somewhere else to live.’
‘Did you think you might move in with me?’ Connie’s cackle of laughter echoed around the room. ‘I can imagine what people might say about that.’
‘No, of course I don’t want to move in. I—’ Maisie stopped.
‘Just say it, girl.’
‘I just need somewhere to keep my head down while I figure out my next move.’
‘Your next move? How old are you?’
‘Fifteen,’ said Maisie, squaring her shoulders in a useless attempt to feel braver.
Connie sat down heavily in an old armchair near the stone fireplace. ‘Fifteen! I’d left school by then.’
‘Lucky you,’ murmured Maisie, surveying the room. There was a faded splendour to this space. Stained covers in ruby-red silk on the sofa and two armchairs, a fringed standard lamp standing in one corner, and a large Persian rug, now faded, that covered most of the flagstones.
Connie saw her looking round the room and grinned. ‘Bit posher than you were expecting, is it? We did have a bit of money once upon a time, not that you’d like to know how we got it. My dad and brothers were light-fingered and kept us afloat.’
Connie sniffed and stared at her bare feet. Maisie stared at them too, in horrified fascination. Her toenails were yellow and so thick, you’d need garden shears to cut them.
‘Anyway, what’s the bad thing that you’ve done? Did you kill someone?’
‘What? No, of course not.’ Maisie glanced at Connie’s expression, trying to work out if she was joking. ‘I threw a letter on the fire.’
Connie leaned forward and, when she realised that was all Maisie had to say, sat back again with a frown. ‘Is that it, you threw a letter on the fire? Why did you do that?’
‘I don’t know. I was just so angry about…all kinds of stuff and the letter was there and Caitlin and Isla were going on about it again and it was doing my head in so I grabbed it and threw it away and it fell into the fire and now everyone hates me and I mean everyone in my whole life.’
Maisie stopped burbling, out of breath and close to tears. Connie was watching her thoughtfully.
‘I’m guessing this is the letter your aunt was talking to me about when she came round, at a far more sensible hour, I’d like to add.’
Maisie nodded. ‘They think there’s some mystery attached to it, when all it is is an old letter from some random bloke to a woman who didn’t want to marry him, and I don’t blame her.’
‘You don’t fancy getting married then?’ said Connie, pushing herself to her feet.
‘Eeuw! No way.’ Maisie grimaced in distaste. ‘Not everyone does. You didn’t.’ A shadow of something raw, some distant pain, crossed Connie’s face and was gone. ‘Marriages never last, especially when…’ She stopped. ‘My dad gambles,’ she blurted out, before she had the chance to stop the thought reaching her lips.
Connie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Does he now? How do you know that?’
‘He’s gambled away our house. Caitlin told me. So we’re technically homeless. Good, huh?’
Connie whistled through her sparse teeth and sat back down. A puff of dust circled around her when her backside hit the cushion.
‘So where’s your dad now?’
Maisie shrugged, feeling an ache in her heart. ‘I dunno. At some work conference abroad and I bet he’s taken Chiara with him.’
‘Who the hell’s Chiara?’
‘She works in his office. They’re…well, you know…they’re…’
She couldn’t say it. It was too humiliating, but Connie didn’t need the situation spelled out.
‘Like that, is it?’
