It amazed me that she hadn’t put up more of a fight. She’d vanished with barely a whimper. Was that note her attempt to mock me, or make me feel insecure or guilty? It was a failure. I crumpled it up and threw it out.
It was true that living with Harris wasn’t going to be any picnic. While I was in the apartment, I still didn’t have any money, and Harris wouldn’t give me any.
“If you need something, tell me and I’ll buy it for you,” he said.
I’d already made a list of things I wanted to get. The top of my list was an appointment with a Park Avenue dermatologist known for her amazing ability to suspend her patients’ aging process.
“Are you kidding me?” Harris asked. “Meredith wasted so much of my money on crap like that. No way.”
The only thing he seemed to think of as a reasonable purchase was lingerie. He ordered a selection of it for me. On the same day that my French maid’s costume arrived, so did a box for Meredith. It was from a department store, and it was filled with her monthly supply of beauty products. It seemed heaven-sent. There was a collection of small bottles from Sisley-Paris, filled with their famous elixir, and RéVive’s precious serum — $600 an ounce! — that promised to turn over dead skin cells at a rate eight times faster than normal skin. My heart skipped a beat. I ran with it to the bathroom, washed my face, and put on some serum. It immediately stung my skin, which seemed a sure sign that it was working. I gently tapped on some eye cream, and it made my fingers sizzle as well as my face. That’s some powerful stuff, I thought. But it was only when I misted my face with what was supposed to be a skin-softening balm that I felt scorching pain. It was as if someone had seared off the top layer of my skin. I screamed and splashed water on my face, but when I looked in the mirror, my skin was completely red, and my eyes were puffed up like a bullfrog’s.
“Acid bums don’t heal normally,” the doctor told me in the hospital. That was much later, after they’d sedated and restrained me because of the pain. They put me on an IV that gave me the means to push the pain away, but it lurked by me, trying to get closer. What I wanted was a mirror, but they wouldn’t let me near one.
“Plastic surgery will help,” the doctor added. “But it will take several operations. Insurance won’t cover most of it. Do you have anyone who can help you financially?”
“My boyfriend,” I said. The words came out garbled, because the thin skin of my lips had been burned away.
“All right. We’ll talk with him when he comes in,” the doctor said.
Harris came in once, while I was sleeping, I was told by a nurse. I waited for him to come back, then asked a nurse to call him, then tried calling him myself. The bandages on my hands made it hard to do. Or maybe that was the pain medication. Either way, I couldn’t reach him.
Then the note arrived.
Dear Lacey, I’m so sorry that things didn’t work out between us. I wish you all the best.
It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. I recognized Meredith’s handwriting.
Work Experience
by Simon Brett
In addition to authoring three popular series of mystery novels — those starring Charles Paris, Mrs. Pargeter, and the residents of Fethering — Simon Brett has written many plays and several series for TV and radio. His TV sitcom After Henry is now available on DVD, and his character Charles Paris can be found on Britain’s Radio 4 in plays adapted from some of the Brett novels. Readers won’t want to miss the latest Brett novel in print in the U.S., Bones Under the Beach Hut.
It should have been a straightforward job. Louis had cased the joint. Milton was set up as the getaway driver. The actual burglary was to be done by Hopper, who’s the best lock-man in West London, and me, Chico. And everything would have been fine if Hopper hadn’t insisted on bringing his young nephew Terence along.
Seems it’s something they’re very keen on at schools these days. “Work Experience,” they call it. Usually the kids go along with their parents to get a taste of the workaday world, but with Terence’s dad in Parkhurst for the foreseeable, that was never going to work out, was it?
Apparently the boy done some Work Experience with his mum, who does location catering for television programmes. Terence had helped — or more likely hindered — her for a week when she was cooking for the crew on one of them reality shows — you know, hidden cameras, members of the public looking stupid. Called Danger: Men at Work. Title doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m not into telly. Anyway, that Work Experience must’ve been a waste of time. Location catering isn’t going to be much use to the boy. Never going to be a career for a grown man, is it?
So Hopper, who’s always had a strong sense of family, said Terence should come along with him on this job.
Terence is at that kind of awkward age, all elbows and Adam’s apple. He wears T-shirts with meaningless slogans on them, hoodies, and, dangling off his thin backside, garments which have never quite decided whether they are shorts or trousers. And he has, like permanently grafted on his head, a baseball cap, which he’ll wear at any angle other than the natural one with the peak in front.
Hopper didn’t mention the idea of bringing Terence along until right at the end of the planning meeting. He must have known none of us would have liked the idea, and hoped to shuffle it in unnoticed when we was all getting ready to leave.
Up until that point everything had gone very smoothly. Although I say it myself, that was mostly down to me. I’d picked up the information about the place, and I’d given Louis some very good suggestions before he checked it out. I was flattered that during the planning meeting more than one of the others referred to it as “Chico’s job.” I hadn’t been with the gang as long as the rest, and it gave me the feeling they were beginning to accept — even respect — me.
I’d heard about the place from a mate of mine down the Red Cow. Blob, he’s called. And I must say, when he told me, my first reaction — like anyone’s would have been — is that the job was a total nonstarter. I mean, one thing you learn pretty early in this line of work is to keep clear of the Filth. I’ve nothing against coppers individually — I’m sure a lot of them are kind to animals and good to their mums — but as a general rule I have made it my business to avoid them. So when Blob says that the flat he’s recommending is right over a police station... well, I thought he was about ready for the old Care in the Community.
Next he come up with some proverb about the best place to hide being nearest the light, which still sounded well dodgy to me, but I kept listening. And I’m glad I did, because the more detail he gave me, the more I knew the job was a real peach. Soft, juicy, ripe for plucking.
Fact is, this police station was a redbrick Victorian block, built for times when the old cash flow wasn’t so strapped. Offices downstairs, second storey all police courts and meeting rooms. That floor hadn’t been used for some time, and during another cost-cutting round in the 1970s, some bright spark had had the idea of turning it into a residence (known waggishly round the station as “Evening Hall”) and flogging it off.
This was duly done and the flat was bought by some geezer who was an expert in antiques. Specialised in gold and silver coins, and, according to Blob, the place was full of them. Owner spent a lot of time abroad, buying from other dealers. And this was the sweet bit... place had no burglar alarms, no grilles on the windows, nothing. Geezer reckoned being sat on top of a cop shop was security enough. Apparently felt so confident the stuff’d never get nicked that he hadn’t even insured it. (Which, incidentally, is not something I’d recommend. Reason I can sleep easy at night doing the work I do is that I know in most cases anything I purloin will be covered on the old insurance. So really what I commit is victimless crimes... though, strangely, some of the people whose stuff I take don’t see it that way. Nor, for some reason, do the insurance companies. Or the police. Odd, that.)