Katie Oliver - Love And Liability

Oh, well — I’ll be late getting back to my desk if I don’t hurry , Holly reminded herself as she scrolled through to her father’s private number and pressed “Call”.

“You’ve reached voicemail for Alastair James. Leave a message.” Holly sighed and dropped the phone back in her handbag. She’d call him later. As she rounded the corner to head back to work she heard a shout ring out behind her.

“Help! Somebody stop him, please!”

Startled, Holly looked up to see a man running across the street, straight towards her. He dodged a minicab and a Fiat, clutching something against his chest, and the homeless girl pelted after him in hot pursuit. Holly realized he’d grabbed the girl’s rucksack. Acting purely on instinct, she sprinted forward to give chase.

“Stop, you!” she shouted.

He saw her and veered to the left. Hampered by her wedge heels, she plunged after him, weaving through the throngs of people on the pavement, gradually closing the gap between them. She was just about to tackle him when a lady walking a dog blocked her way. Holly darted sideways, nearly tripping over the dog’s leash, and fell.

“Are you all right?” the dog-walker enquired.

“I’m fine,” Holly replied breathlessly, with barely a glance at her bloodied knee. “I was chasing a man. Did you see where he went?”

“No, sorry. I was too busy keeping hold of Pip.”

Pip, a bulldog, sat on his haunches and regarded Holly with panting canine indifference.

“Did he take your purse, then?” Pip’s owner asked in concern.

“No. He took a homeless girl’s rucksack, and I was trying to get it back.”

The woman tutted and shook her head. “Stealing from the homeless? Shocking. Whatever is this world coming to? At any rate, he’s gone now.”

By the time Holly made her way back to Shaftesbury Avenue, a crowd had gathered on the pavement in front of her building. Curious, she pushed through the knot of onlookers to see what was going on. Astonished, she came to an abrupt stop.

The homeless girl had chased and tackled the thief and clung to his back, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Get the hell offa me, you crazy bitch!” he snarled.

But the girl held fast, stuck to him like a determined limpet, until a policeman arrived on the scene.

“All right, miss,” the uniformed officer told her, “get down, now. I’ve got this.”

“Arrest him!” she demanded. “He stole my rucksack!”

“Step aside, please, and I’ll take him in for questioning.”

Scowling, she slid off him and pummelled him with her fists instead. “You thieving piece of shit! Proud, are you, stealing from a street person? How pathetic is that ?”

“You crazy cow.” He scowled at her as the policeman grabbed his arm and took him into custody.

“You’ll need to come to the station and file a report,” the policeman told the girl as he led the thief away.

“No problem, I’ll be there.” After retrieving her rucksack, she unzipped it to check that everything was inside, then slid the strap over her shoulder and turned to Holly.

“Thanks,” she said as the crowd began to disperse. “Everything I own in the world’s in there.”

“I didn’t do anything. You caught him,” Holly pointed out. “I’m just glad you got your stuff back.” She hesitated. She should offer to buy the girl a cup of coffee, at least.

She opened her handbag and dug around until she found her last five quid; it wasn’t much, but it was all she had at the moment, until she got a chance to talk to her father.

And five quid was enough to buy a cup of coffee.

“Here.” Holly withdrew the money and looked up, the note in her outstretched hand. She glanced around her, perplexed.

The homeless girl was gone.

Her mobile rang. Holly glanced down at the number and grabbed the phone. “Dad, how are you?”

“You’d know how I am, if you called occasionally.”

“Sorry, I’ve been really busy.”

“You phoned earlier. Why didn’t you leave a message?”

“I had to go. There was a robbery at lunch, right outside our building.” The minute she said it, Holly wished she hadn’t. She winced. Three, two, one…

“A robbery?” he exploded. “Good God! I don’t like you working so near the theatre district, Holly. It’s a very dodgy area, you know. Muggers, vagrants. Actors.”

“I’m fine. The thief’s been caught and he’s on his way to jail.” She bit her lower lip. “While I have you on the line, though, there’s something I want to ask you…”

He sighed. “How much do you need this time, Holly?”

“Well — the rent’s due at the end of the week, and if I don’t make the car payment tomorrow, they’ll tack on a late fee, which seems so unfair, but there you are—”

“How much?” he said again, wearily.

Holly did a quick calculation in her head. “Um…four hundred pounds should just about cover it.”

“Yes, until next month, when we go through this nonsense again,” Alastair bit off. “You’re irresponsible when it comes to money, Holly, just like—”

“—My sister,” she finished, stung by his criticism. “I know. You’ve told me often enough.”

“I don’t mean to be unreasonable, but this can’t go on. You’re working on that teen magazine, making very little money, when you could have a real job here at Dashwood and James, if you’d just stop being so bloody stubborn—”

“Working at BritTEEN is a ‘real’ job! And is it being difficult to want to stand on my own two feet?” Holly demanded.

“But you’re not,” he shot back. “That’s my point! I’m subsidizing you every month. I help with the rent, the car payment, the grocery bills, petrol—”

“And I’ll pay back every penny, I promise! Living in London is expensive, even with a flatmate to share the rent.”

“There’s a simple answer. Come back home. You’ll be near work, you can come and go as you please, and your mum will welcome the company now that Hannah’s off to university. We’ll be gone at the weekends, so you’ll have the place to yourself.”

Because he worked in the City during the week, her family lived in London, and on Friday evening he and her mum escaped to Oxfordshire to spend the weekend at their house in the country.

But during the week they’d be here, Holly knew, and how was she to smuggle Mick past Dad — and Mum, who had a finely tuned radar for such things — into her bedroom? If her father even suspected she was seeing Dominic’s blue-haired bass player, it would be Hannah-and-Jago, all over again.

No, thanks.

“You can save your money,” her father was saying, “and decide on a better course of action. It makes a great deal of sense, financially speaking.”

“I like living on my own,” she objected, “even if it means eating Pot Noodles every day, and buying my clothes at Oxfam—”

“And borrowing money from your well-heeled father’s bottomless pockets to pay your bills every month?”

Holly sighed, defeated. He was right.

“Come to my office tomorrow and I’ll write you a cheque for five hundred pounds,” he said.

“Oh, thanks, Dad, thanks so much—”

“This is the last time, Holly.” His words were steely. “I mean it. You’ll get no more financial aid from me after this. So you’d best find another way to make ends meet next month.”

Chapter 3

“Hey, Alex!”

“You owe us a pint, mate!”

“How was she, Alex? What was it like to shag that sexy new MP? You did shag her, didn’t you? Come on — give us details!”

As he strode past his coworkers’ desks, briefcase in hand, Alex had a smirk on his face. “Sorry, but a gentleman never tells. And the bet was a pint if I failed to seduce Ms Shawcross within two days. I did it in a day and a half. So it’s you lot who owes me a pint.”