The Smell of Paint

This was a trap. That was the only logical explanation. As a cleaner of seven years, Irina had of course encountered these before. It wasn’t always in the form of cold hard cash, like she was looking at now. It could take the shape of a flash bracelet or knock-off Omega but it was always, every single time, a trap. Or a test of her honesty rather, as her clients would no doubt put it. For it was taken as given, among homeowners in the London Borough of Richmond, that cleaners could not be trusted.

Irina drew in a slow purposeful breath. Along with it came the smell of paint that mysteriously seemed to linger in the room, despite its former occupant, the artist Jeffrey Prior, having died more than a year ago. She could see why he’d chosen this part of the Barnes townhouse to paint in: Even on a dull, English day, soft light cast through patio doors directed onto the Thames.

Everything about the studio, from its abundant brushes in old jam jars and soup tins lining stainless steel shelves to a huge timber workbench in the centre, took Irina back to her father’s workshop in Lviv. Patrov Koloshenco painted wood rather than canvas and had once sold his brightly coloured toys in the old town, until they fell out of fashion and everything had to be shiny and plastic. He still spent evenings turning spinning tops and carving miniature tractors and had taught a fresh-faced wide-eyed Irina how to do the same. Such traditional toys were being revived now, she’d noted when last managing to drag her boyfriend, Andrily around the Heron Square craft market and local boutique shops. Here they tended to be unpainted or plain in colour, not covered in folk designs like many in the Ukraine. She’d seen Russian folk art appear on everything else though, from notebooks to jumpers. If I combined the two here, I might be onto a winner, Irina thought and I could charge a lot more than in the Ukraine. She noticed she had just thought the word ‘I’ and before her head filled with dreams of miniature embellished horses, she wrenched her thoughts back down to earth. Earth was a place where a person needed money to start a business, most especially in London and spare cash was one thing Irina never seemed to have.

Irina had known she shouldn’t look in the little notebooks, she should just dust the hard black covers, but after running a fingertip along one of the book’s rounded corners, she hadn’t been able to resist. At least now, in pandemic times, clients no longer hovered about her as she cleaned. Pulling back the notebook’s elastic closure Irina found swatches of paint and hurried notes littering ivory pages. Portrait sketches flew by as she flicked through; an eye here, a profile there. She counted twenty-one of these books lined up along the paint-splattered surface. The next one Irina selected had bits of coloured paper collaged into it and scribbled over. She could feel the desperate excitement of the artist as he’d tried to get down his ideas as fast as he thought them. It was only when Irina got to the third book that she felt something inside the rear cover and noticed an expandable pocket there. The twenty fifty-pound bank notes she found inside it, adding up to more than two weeks of her wages, were not at all what she’d expected. It seemed a funny place to keep money. Did Olivia, Jeffrey’s daughter and now owner of this house, know it was here? While considering this, Irina reached for another sketchbook. There was another £1000 inside! As she peeked in the back of one notepad after another, she could see every one had the same wedge of cash. Irina did the maths. Twenty-one sketchbooks with a grand each, that was £21,000! How could Olivia not know about this?

Irina made sure to put everything back as she’d found it, or as close as she could remember and called a hurried goodbye to Olivia on the way out. The lady had been arched in a peculiar position, with a resistance band tied to the living room door handle while a Malibu Barbie lookalike shouted instructions to her over Zoom.

🖌️

When Irina arrived back at her and Andrily’s flat above Jay’s barbers in a none too salubrious part of Brentford, she found her boyfriend in the exact position she’d expected; slouched in front of the TV. Furlough seemed to agree with him and she wondered how he would fit in the many hours of Sky Sports viewing, when he eventually returned as sous chef in Flavours of Lombardy down the road.

As Irina approached, Andrily pulled her onto his tracksuited lap and kissed her neck.

‘Darling, I’ve been alone all day missing you.’ Irina wasn’t in the mood for this. She just wanted a shower and time to think.

‘I think one of my clients is trying to set me up again, like before you know.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Irina could see Andrily was now trying to peer around her towards the screen and had not taken in a word she’d said. She noted he’d increased the volume on the remote just as she’d begun talking.

‘I found nearly £21,000.’

‘You what?’

Well. That got his attention.

🖌️

After telling him all about her day, Andrily said he needed to drop something off at a mate’s house. Looking at the clock on his tablet, Irina realised it had been hours. She’d borrowed it to research the cost of studios in South London, knowing it was a waste of time but what was the harm in dreaming?

The question of Andrily’s whereabouts began to nag away at her. The only place open now would be the supermarket. She doubted very much he was there. What was he up to? That friend he was meeting better not be that waitress she’d caught him flirting with before. Irina eyed the WhatsApp icon and her fingers started to get itchy. She knew she shouldn’t be checking up on him like this but….

It asked for a password. She bet it was the same as he used for everything else now; 0619, the date Ukraine won the under-20 world cup. She’d been right. Irina was relieved to see the last message chain was with Andrily’s friend Petr. It was a relief short-lived once she started reading the most recent chat.

Yeah only one woman lives there bruv

Should be simples 😉

You bet

So we’re splitting our finds 50/50?

10 plus grand each then?

Course!

Will pick you up by the green dragon in 1 hour OK?

👍

🖌️

Olivia was perching her pert backside on a brass-legged breakfast stool while fanning herself with a Farrow and Ball brochure that had lain nearby. Irina watched warily as a crease attempted to form between Olivia’s botoxed brows. Suddenly Olivia leapt off the stall and hurried out of her kitchen.

‘I need to make a call.’

Since Andrily wasn’t answering his phone and Irina had no wish to be blamed for his crimes, Irina had thought it best to warn Olivia of her stupid boyfriend’s machinations in person, a decision she was beginning to regret. She supposed Olivia was calling the police but was it just to report Andrily’s plot to burgle the place or was she herself going to get into trouble?

🖌️

It turned out she’d been wrong on both counts. Olivia had not called the police.

‘Bouncers? Why did you call bouncers?’ Irina questioned Olivia while eyeing the two men crowding the kitchen.

‘Security specialists,’ the six-foot-three pillar of muscle that was apparently called Luke corrected her.

‘My apologies.’

Luke just raised an eyebrow at her while Ravi, another equally well-built man, smirked over his shoulder.

‘Well, what would the police do unless a crime has actually been committed?’ Irina watched as Olivia handed out shots from an espresso machine that probably cost more than her car. ‘These guys help me out at parties but it’s not like there’s many of them at the moment.’

‘So,’ Luke added in casually. ‘I’m guessing it’s your boyfriend who plans to rob the joint?’

‘Soon to be ex-boyfriend.’

‘Uh huh.’ Luke sipped his espresso, the petite cup looking ridiculous in his giant hand. The man was all short hair, stubble and hard edges, the opposite of Andrily. He and Ravi started going over preparations for Andrily showing up and that was the start of a very long evening. It wasn’t until two in the morning that Andrily and Petr attempted the break in. The idiots hadn’t even noticed the camera at the back, so even if Luke and Ravi hadn’t been on them in a flash, they would’ve surely been caught in no time.

🖌️

Three weeks later, the doorbell rang. After dragging herself from bed to answer, Irina internally groaned as she came face to chest with Luke. She really hoped there weren’t pillow marks on her face. Following Luke’s gaze as it lowered down her body, she watched it rest on her Percy Pig slippers.

‘Nice treads.’

Well, this was just perfect.

‘What do you want?’ Irina was never normally this rude, even to people who deserved it but she did not feel up for an extra dose of humiliation this morning: Pain was pulsing through the back of her head after overdoing some cheap Sauvignon the night before. Luke just stood and grinned as she silently cursed herself. And him.

‘Sorry, I’m not feeling the best.’

‘Hmm,’ was his only reply.

‘Thanks for sending over that locksmith, he was great.’ He had been great: Luke had organised for a contact to come round to change her front door lock the morning after the incident. That was one weight off her mind at least.’

‘My pleasure, glad he could help. Look, I’m here because Ms Prior, Olivia, asked me to deliver this personally to you.’

‘What is it?’ Irina felt a rectangular object in the yellow jiffy Luke had handed over.

‘No idea. She told me she’d love you to come back to work though. She said the new cleaner doesn’t look nearly so good in the uniform.’

‘She did not!’

Luke laughed and then stood staring at her, smiling. Was he actually waiting for her to open the package and find the sponge or whatever it was she’d left at Olivia’s? After an awkward pause, Luke said he would leave Irina to it and strolled off down the grimy corridor.

The first thing Irina did when she shut the door was go to the mirror to see how bad she looked. Great, she had a lovely smudge of yesterday’s mascara, below one eye. Her second action was to open the parcel and that’s when the world seemed to stop turning. Inside was cash, a brick-size wad of it, along with a handwritten note.

Irina,

Sweety, you reminded me how very precious my father’s notebooks are. Without them all his extraordinary thoughts and ideas would be lost. I didn’t know about the money but you see, my father never had much trust in banks. I want you to have it, as a token of my enormous gratitude. Please come and see me when you feel ready.

xx Olivia xx

In her shock, Irina took little notice of the clang of the letter box and so it was some time later before she noticed a business card on the floor. It was Luke’s. On the back, in a masculine hand, was one line:

I’d like to see you again too, call me.

Wondering if she’d woken up in some alternate universe, full of rainbows and unicorns, Irina lowered herself to the floor.