Welcome To Wherever You Are (18 page)

‘It’s my lucky number. Or unlucky, depending on your way of thinking.’ Tommy frowned. ‘Google it,’ added Jake.

Suddenly a blonde-haired girl in a one-piece red swimsuit caught Tommy’s eye; her resemblance from afar to Pamela Anderson made him do a double take. He recalled fondly the first porn film his brothers had shown him when he was in his early teens – a sex tape involving Pamela Anderson and an intimidatingly well-endowed ex-husband.

‘I met Pam backstage once,’ began Jake without thinking, and then immediately shut his eyes and cursed his careless tongue.

‘You did what? No way! Did you speak to her?’

‘For a bit.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘And what was she like?’

‘Yeah, she was . . . nice.’

‘Backstage where?’

‘Something an old friend was working on.’

Tommy waited for Jake to expand on his answer, or at least offer an anecdote, but neither was forthcoming.

‘Don’t give much away, do you?’ Tommy continued, growing ever more curious and fascinated by his new friend. ‘I thought us travellers were supposed to share our life stories?’

Jake smiled. ‘Always leave them wanting more, Tommy.’

DAY SIX

Eric prayed their pick-up truck hadn’t been towed away or ticketed by a meter maid as he and Nicole returned to the street where they’d parked.

Earlier that morning, they’d decided to delay planning the next stage of their mission which had so far resulted in frustrated dead end after dead end. Instead, they took their minds off their failed journey with a competition to see if Ruth had been telling the truth about her friendship with Zak Stanley. They’d followed a bus from Santa Monica for over an hour and watched from a safe distance as it dropped Ruth off in Melrose, where she then waited for another ride. They followed that bus for a further thirty minutes before she alighted at the foot of the Hollywood Hills. Nicole jumped out of the truck and made a beeline towards the convenience store Ruth entered, crouching out of sight behind a postal van while Eric parked and ran to join her. They couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of their actions.

When the convenience store door buzzed, Ruth appeared with a bulging plastic bag and began her familiar traipse up the Hollywood Hills. Eric and Nicole waited at a safe distance before they followed. However, twenty minutes into what felt like a vertical walk, they were breathless and their target was nowhere to be seen.

‘Bollocks, we’ve lost her,’ said Eric, craning his neck to look around the intersection for signs of Ruth.

‘Shhh,’ whispered Nicole, ‘she can’t be that far ahead, and I don’t want her to hear us.’

‘She’ll be too busy listening to the voices in her head to know we’re here.’

‘Let’s just keep going upwards – I read somewhere the higher you go in the hills, the bigger the houses are. And she seemed to know where she was heading so she’s clearly been here before.’

Eric felt the sweat beginning to trickle from his neck, down his back and under the waistband of his boxer shorts. What had seemed like a fun wager was fast becoming a chore, and he was prepared to hand over his $20 bet to Nicole even though he knew Ruth stood more of a chance of joining the royal family than becoming Zak Stanley’s BFF.

They turned their heads when they heard a vehicle behind them and saw a minibus crammed with tourists driving at a snail’s pace up the hill. Through the windows, they could hear a tour guide over a Tannoy.

‘And further up this avenue is where we find the three Zee’s,’ came a chirpy female voice. ‘We call it that because this is where Zac Efron, Zach Galifianakis and Zak Stanley live.’

‘Bingo,’ smiled Nicole, and beginning to jog to keep up with the bus. ‘We’re making a habit of turning up at strangers’ houses, aren’t we?’

ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER – HOLLY COTTAGE, GREAT HOUGHTON, NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND

The ancient white painted walls and thatched roof resembled someone’s idea of what a cottage should look like and not something that actually existed, thought Nicole as she and Eric opened the wooden gate, and made their way up a crazy-paving pathway towards the front door.

As their taxi pulled away, Nicole recalled it had been a long time since she had taken a day trip out of London. She’d forgotten not everywhere smelled of exhaust fumes and ambition.

Mrs Baker’s garden was colourful, pretty and very neatly kept. The flowers and shrubs in borders were spaced symmetrically, the expansive lawns were the greenest things Nicole had ever seen, and the only thing to look remotely twenty-first century was a set of cubed wooden furniture sheltered under a large cream parasol.

Nicole examined the key in her hand and the address attached to the fob – it hadn’t been what either of them had expected to find when they’d lifted the lid of the safety deposit box.

‘Do you think your fairy godmother has left you the keys to the castle?’ asked Eric.

Nicole shook her head. ‘I doubt it, but someone’s been here recently because the lawn’s been cut.’

Nicole looked at Eric pensively and then knocked on the door.

‘What are you going to say if someone answers?’ he asked. ‘“A dead woman left me a key and your address – do you mind if we have a nose around?”’

When there was no answer, Nicole inserted the key into the door’s lock, but before she could turn it, a surly woman with short, curly hair and a masculine air about her swung open the door and looked them up and down.

‘Oh, sorry, we didn’t think anyone was in,’ Nicole began. The woman didn’t reply. ‘My name is Nicole Grainger and this is my friend—’

‘I know why you’re here,’ the woman interrupted, and stepped back into the house leaving the door open.

Nicole and Eric glanced at each other, unsure of how to respond. Nicole pulled the key out of the lock and followed her into an immaculately furnished lounge.

‘Wait here,’ the woman ordered, and left the room.

‘I think that’s Maria, her housekeeper,’ whispered Nicole. ‘I saw her visiting Mrs Baker a couple of times.’

They scoured the room. Photographs in ornate frames covered a piano and two occasional tables, and above a large open fire was a shelf tightly packed with books. Nicole noted most were either travel guides or collections of images from around the world. She moved on to the photographs, some black and white, some colour, of Mrs Baker and her husband, and her son and daughter as young children. Recent images included Mrs Baker and three small children.

‘Where do think the housekeeper’s gone?’ Nicole asked.

‘Probably to put the family skeletons back in their closets,’ added Eric, before a cough interrupted them.

‘You’ll find what you’re looking for in there,’ Maria instructed, pointing to an open door leading off the kitchen.

Nicole and Eric tentatively walked towards it. The room was pitch black and colder than the rest of the house, and Nicole groped around the wall for a light switch. She felt a string and pulled it, and as the fluorescent strip light flickered on, Nicole smiled at what she saw before her.

TODAY

Savannah . . . could I, like, bum, a few bucks off you?’ Joe asked when their paths crossed in the hostel corridor.

Savannah knew exactly what Joe planned to spend the cash on, but it didn’t dissuade her, so she reached into her purse and removed a $20 bill. ‘Promise me you’ll use at least some of it for food?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Joe replied and smiled gratefully. But the years spent watching her father at work in front of a congregation meant Savannah could spot a lie in the dark.

She reached her room, then paused when she found the door unlocked. Ron had been quick to replace the broken handle when she’d asked him, and her safety obsession meant each time she left for work, she’d take a photo of the key in the lock. So later, when she’d question whether she’d locked the door, she had photographic proof it was secure.

‘Hello, I’m Jane,’ came a loud, cheery English accent from behind her.

Savannah jumped as a chunky woman with cropped grey hair barged past. She stood in the centre of the room with her hands on her hips and a broad smile emblazoned across a make-up free face. The woman’s body shape reminded Savannah of an egg. She put her in her mid to late fifties, and judging by her cargo pants, her checked shirt and walking shoes, she wasn’t in Venice for the beach life.

‘Is it just us girls?’ Jane beamed.

‘It
was
just me,’ came Savannah’s unwelcoming response.

Savannah frowned at Jane’s open suitcase lying on the spare bed, with rolled-up clothes scattered across the floor. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit messy,’ continued Jane, ‘but don’t worry, I’ll have this place spic and span in a few minutes. What’s your name?’

‘I prefer to keep the door locked when there’s nobody here.’

‘Well we’re both here now, aren’t we?’ grinned Jane, as she continued to unpack.

Savannah sulkily threw her work clothes and make-up box into her handbag, checked the combination padlock was still attached to her locker and went to leave.

‘See you later then, roomie!’ continued Jane, undeterred by Savannah’s hostility.

‘Yeah, bye,’ muttered Savannah, deliberately slamming the door behind her.

Nicole sighed when she spotted Ruth’s lonely figure squatting on the kerb outside what she presumed must be Zak Stanley’s home.

Ruth’s handbag lay by her side, and she seemed engrossed in her scrapbook of stories about Zak. Nicole was now 100 per cent certain that Ruth hadn’t spent the previous day with the film star, and wasn’t completely convinced she’d even met him for lunch. She preferred to find the good in people, and had hoped that by some strange fluke, Ruth had been telling the truth. But the sight of her, so hopeful and yet so doomed to fail, broke Nicole’s heart.

‘Should I go over and say something?’ Nicole asked Eric. ‘I don’t want to embarrass her, but this isn’t right. She’s going to get arrested for loitering or stalking or something.’

‘She’s not doing any harm,’ replied Eric, momentarily sympathetic towards Ruth’s pathetic figure. ‘I think we should leave her be. It’s none of our business what she’s doing or why she’s doing it.’

‘If this is some sort of delusional disorder or if she’s having a breakdown, don’t we owe it to her to help?’

‘She’s not Kathy Bates in
Misery
and you’re not a nurse any more, Nic. You need to let this go. You can’t save everybody.’

The friends remained in silence for another couple of minutes, neither knowing what they were expecting to happen.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Nicole eventually, and reluctantly began the journey back down the hill.

‘You owe me twenty bucks, by the way,’ added Eric.

‘Technically, I don’t. I bet you she’d be
at
his house. You didn’t specify she had to be
in
it.’

‘Cowbag.’

‘Whatever.’

*

Unaware she’d been followed, Ruth carefully placed her scrapbook back inside her handbag and turned around to look at Zak Stanley’s home again.

She smiled when she imagined what it was going to be like when Zak left his house and saw her for the first time; how she’d walk up to him and explain how much he meant to her and how grateful Zak would be and how she might even receive a hug and a peck on the cheek. And if she made a really good impression, he might even invite her inside for refreshments.

So until that happened, Ruth vowed to remain where she was, and removed a club sandwich and a bottle of Sprite she’d bought in the convenience store. After many failed attempts to diet, she no longer cared about what she ate. Zak would love her no matter what size she was.

Ruth had piled on a stone in weight for every year her father had been absent from his family, and there had been seven to date. Many of their family friends thought of Phil as a cliché for leaving his wife for a secretary less than half his age. Denise was humiliated and hadn’t seen it coming, and dutifully, their friends promised to shun him. With her reputation meaning more to her than anything else, Denise would’ve been mortified if they’d ever discovered Phil’s secretary was a nineteen-year-old called Robert. She only discovered her husband’s double life when, by chance, she stumbled on Robert’s Twitter feed. He and Phil were supposed to be on a business trip to Italy, not lying on a beach and holding hands in Thailand.

Once Phil moved into an apartment in the city with his boy toy, Denise banned him from ever entering the family home again. Even years later, Kevin still remembered being coached by Denise into telling the police that his father had placed his hand in places no adult should ever touch a child. Kevin tried to go along with the lie but his mind became muddled, and after gentle interrogation from a sensitive officer, the investigation didn’t lead to a charge.

Meanwhile Ruth tried to maintain contact with her dad, but as the years went on, he made it increasingly difficult. She missed his hugs and him calling her sunbeam, and sometimes she only remembered how his voice sounded from the recorded voicemail messages she’d hear when she called him. She wouldn’t have recognised his handwriting now even if he had remembered to send her a birthday card.