16

All three of them practically tumbled down the stairs and piled into the kitchen to find the strange neighbour, Rob, standing far too close to Mum. She was asking him if he’d managed to find a lodger yet, but the answer was obviously no. Not many people were keen to move into the spare room of a weirdly little creep like Rob. Her mother had to know this—she was just being nice, as usual.

Rob wasn’t horrible exactly. He was a small and strange man, not ugly exactly, just... odd. He had this strained, humourless smile and a tendency to trail off into jumbled words before falling silent whenever he spoke for more than a few minutes. Mum said he had social anxiety, so we should be patient with him, even though he clearly mistook her kindness for sexual interest.

"Have you seen anyone in Rob's garden?" Mum asked. "His Rhododendron was pulled up."

"Oh, that's a shame," Adrian said with such false sympathy Scarlett almost burst out laughing.

"Is that your Hyundai i10 parked out there?" Riley