E-Book, Englisch, 276 Seiten
FitzGerald Halfway House
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-914585-71-5
Verlag: Orenda Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
The nerve-shatteringly tense, searingly funny new thriller from the author of Netflix hit, THE CRY
E-Book, Englisch, 276 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-914585-71-5
Verlag: Orenda Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and is now a major drama for BBC1. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia. She now lives in Glasgow with her husband.
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Lou was going to remember people’s birthdays. She was going to fall in love enough to share a bed. There’d be no need to cry or to lie for the new Lou, skipping across the grass in The Meadows, taking in a show, posing at the castle, as she no doubt would do. She imagined herself each night before falling asleep: linking hands with two great friends at Hogmanay, part of a huge circle of beaming Scots – May auld acquaintance be forgot – moving in and out, the circle as one, voices as one, in and out, faster, faster, auld. lang. syne. One time – honestly, it happened twice – she had a tartan orgasm.
She was already transforming into her new self. The old Lou would never have gone for a job like the one she was about to interview for. With two minutes to go, Lou closed the blinds to shut out the every-city night-lights of Melbourne. She styled a slapdash ponytail, took a seat, and opened the link. She was the first on screen, so she froze, maintained her pose. She must not loosen the thong sawing away at her crack, she must not scratch the pubes that were growing back. In the last two weeks she’d applied for every lowly admin and retail job in and around Edinburgh. No luck so far – seventeen rejections, twenty-four ghostings. Catering and hospitality were out – she’d had enough of smiling at rich people. In despair, she had widened the search to include the care sector, and: bingo! An interview. It sounded exciting, it was in the centre of the most beautiful city in the world, and it was only three night shifts a week. Four days adventuring, every single week. Farewell unhappy idiot Lou and all the people she knew. She would get this job. And she would never – ow, god, she wriggled – ever, wear a thong again.
A skinny, spiky redhead – Polly, seventy-ish – appeared on screen, sipping her coffee. ‘Hello,’ she said, no smile. ‘Just waiting on David, won’t be long.’
It was morning on the other side of the world, in that fairy-tale land as far away as you could get. Imagine, she’d be jetlagged soon. ‘I’m so jetlagged,’ she would say as she sipped a pint of ale with an unforgettable friend in an ancient pub.
Polly coughed. She must be a smoker, nearer fifty than seventy.
Lou could hear a man’s voice in the background:
‘Morning!’ the man said.
Polly’s face got nicer as she turned her head. ‘Hey, pal, just doing interviews,’ she said.
‘Oops, so sorry,’ said the voice off screen. ‘I’ll pop the kettle on, and I’m closing the door behind me.’
‘Cheers, pal,’ said Polly, her face pinched once more. She was reading something that disgusted her then looking up at Lou without changing her face. There was an old calendar on the flaky wall behind her. 2019.
‘Hello.’ David had a Mallen streak, a lopsided head, cool jacket, no tie. There were bookshelves in his background – Social Work Practice in the Criminal Justice System, Scottish Criminal Law Essentials; Race, Gender and—
She had read enough.
‘You must be Lou. How are you doing?’
‘Good, thanks.’ She must find cleverer things to say.
‘Nice to meet you,’ he said. ‘I’m David Wallace, general manager and this is Polly Grange, project manager of SASOL.’
This stood for Supported Accommodation Services for Offenders, Lothian. Lou did not expect it to be pronounced ‘sarsehole’. She bit her lip.
‘As you’ll know from the job description, SASOL is a five-bed unit for very-high-risk offenders.’
She hadn’t noticed the word ‘very’ in the advertisement. By accident, she might be about to get an important job, a meaningful job, an exciting job – not with bad boys, but with ‘very’ bad boys. She had tingles.
‘It’s not like other services,’ David said. ‘There are only three in the country: us; our women’s unit nearby; and another non-profit up north. This job is at the men’s unit, doing three night shifts a week. The residents in the unit have served more than four years in prison and have been released on licence with a condition of residence for twelve months. Most are MAPPA level two or three.’
She would have to look that up.
‘And all have stringent licence conditions such as MFMC and DASS …’
And that and that.
‘…a 10pm to 7am curfew, as well as various additional restrictions regarding internet use, employment, leisure activities, contact with family members, etcetera. The role of the night-care worker is to ensure that SASOL is a safe place for all residents, to offer support and advice in relation to any risks and needs, to promote rehabilitation, to keep records, do handover meetings with day staff and to respond to any incidents. How this goes is I’m going to ask you three questions, then Polly is going to ask you three questions. It should take fifteen minutes. My first question relates to values.’
This all felt very giggly; took her back to parent-teacher meetings – Lou against all the adults, all the adults against Lou; every teacher wondering the same thing: How can Lou be so unhappy and disruptive when her mother is so dedicated and loving, and when her father is hilarious and a spunk?
‘Your reference from the café was very good,’ David said. ‘No problems there. But the second reference has raised some concerns.’
Oh dear.
‘“To whom it may concern.”’ David put on his glasses and cleared his throat. ‘“We are managing partners of Genova’s Limited, a property group that manages apartment complexes and budget hotels, all of which are located in the Melbourne metropolitan area. We are writing to confirm that Miss Louise O’Dowd worked for the company for two years. Her position was project worker at North Melbourne House, a hundred-bed homeless hostel. Her main duty was to deep-clean rooms that had been soiled by overdoses, violent incidents and suicide attempts. She also dealt with the challenging behaviour of very-high-risk criminals. Miss O’Dowd proved herself to be strong of stomach and we have no hesitation recommending her for demeaning care tasks in a dangerous setting.
‘“Frieda and Alan Bainbridge.”’
Alan Bainbridge was Lou’s boyfriend – till she found out he was married. Then he was her sugar daddy – till his wife found out. Lou had accepted that it was over and that there would be no contact. She was excellent at closure – a little too good some might say. She certainly wasn’t stalkerish. All she did was send one teensy text. She was moving to the UK. She wanted to do office work. She needed to fill in the two-year gap in her CV. He employed hundreds of people. Could he please give her a reference?
One hour later, the above appeared in Lou’s Gmail – not from Alan, but from his wife, the formidable Frieda.
David, SASOL’s general manager, took off his glasses and had a sip of water. ‘Is this for real, or does your old employer have difficulty with English?’
‘Polish is Frieda’s first language. She must have written it.’
‘Why did she describe working with the homeless as demeaning? How do you feel about this kind of work?’
Lou had an answer for this. ‘The Bainbridges are money-makers,’ she said, ‘that’s all they see. They’re rich because money matters to them more than compassion. My values are very different. Working with the homeless, as with ex-offenders, is a privilege.’
David and Polly clearly liked what she was saying. She could relax, let the rest of the interview flow.
Conflict resolution?
Easy. She thought about how she felt at the last meal she had with her parents, how she lowered her voice till her dad did too and how she breathed in and out for a while instead of stabbing her mother with a fork.
Building relationships?
A cinch. Lou was an army brat, made friends more quickly than cups of tea. (She didn’t add that she was even better at discarding them.)
How about ethical dilemmas?
Bring’em on. Lou’s only work experience, apart from the café, was as a sugar baby. She was one big walking, fucking ethical dilemma. Who was she to judge bad boys when she was a bad girl? She didn’t tell them any of this, of course, but she did say all the right things.
Or she thought she did. She might have said all the wrong things. She tossed and turned till 7am, when a message pinged in from Polly: Congratulations. We were very impressed by your work experience and your enthusiasm.
Lou pounced from the bed. She had a proper job. In a faraway land. ‘Alexa, play The Proclaimers’. She danced for an hour. She was...
