Free Christmas for One: No Greater Love by Amanda Prowse

can prove my ID…’ She smiled. She had no idea how she was going to stay inside once she got there, but was hoping that somehow, with enough smoke and bluster, she might just pull it off. She knew that if she thought too far ahead she would actually throw up.
    ‘You like soccer?’ Victor hovered as he asked the random question. It looked like it might be the deal breaker.
    ‘Yes, very much. Do you?’
    Victor nodded. ‘I support Chelsea, big fan of Mourinho.’
    Meg crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘Me too! Go the Blues!’ She heard the creak of her actual granddad as he spun in the cemetery in Dalston. He, like his ancestors as well as his descendants, was a lifelong Hammers supporter.
    ‘You ever met any of Motörhead?’ Victor asked, his eyes bright.
    Meg exhaled through bloated cheeks, wondering where the line of questioning would go next. She decided to come clean on this one. ‘No, sadly not. But I did once mosh to “Ace of Spades” at a school disco. If I remember correctly, I’d been swigging neat Malibu behind the bike sheds with some of the bigger girls.’
    ‘Malibu?’ Victor’s lip curled in revulsion.
    ‘Yes, it was all that could be stolen from some unsuspecting mum’s booze cupboard apparently.’
    Victor smiled. ‘I got everything Motörhead ever wrote, including a rare EP with a picture sleeve.’
    Meg stared at Victor, not sure of where to go next.
    ‘Your granddad expecting you, you say?’
    ‘Hmm?’ Meg looked confused; she hadn’t actually ever met her granddad. Edd coughed. It was enough of an alert to bring her back to earth.
    ‘My granddad! Yes! Yes, he is. That’s right.’
    ‘Well, I guess I can let you in and you tell Mr Redlitch to come see me when he gets back. I got a stack of mail for him and it’ll be good to know he’s back on the block.’
    ‘I sure will.’ Meg accompanied this with a salute, she wasn’t sure why.
    Victor trod the stairs with Meg trailing behind. She felt a tremor of unease; was she actually about to break into an elderly man’s apartment? Might it be better to wait until he got back from… wherever that place was?
    Victor took a left turn at the top of the dark wood staircase, his rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the tiled hall floor that bore the dull veneer of a hundred years of grime. The ceramic squares, once bright blue, green and yellow, had paled with age. He pulled sharply at the keys on his belt loop, loosening the bunch. Meg smiled as she saw that they remained fastened to his body by means of a spring-loaded key fob on a length of cord. You never could be too careful.
    Victor raised the key towards the lock, then hesitated. His eyes blinked rapidly and he breathed out.
    ‘Are you okay, Victor?’ He looked a little unsteady on his feet.
    ‘All good, ma’am.’ He turned to her and smiled. ‘Say, would you mind fetching the young man from the store up here?’
    ‘Edd? Yes, sure.’ Meg trotted down to the bakery and returned minutes later with Edd in tow, as requested.
    As soon as they turned the corner at the top of the stairs, the stench from the opened front door hit their nostrils.
    ‘Oh shit!’ Edd gasped as he inhaled. The smell was sickly sweet, offensive, sour. ‘Stay here, Megan.’ He gripped the top of her arm, his face stern, his voice steady and commanding.
    Meg cupped her palm over her mouth and spoke through her fingers. ‘God in heaven! What is that smell?’ She felt her gut twist as her breakfast muffin readied itself for expulsion. She leant heavily on the wooden banister and was strangely rooted to the spot, even though her instinct told her to run. It was as if time slowed a little and Meg had the distinct feeling that she knew what was happening in advance, a kind of hazy déjà vu. She remembered feeling similar when her mum had walked into the lounge one day and told her to put on her school uniform and wait on her bed. Megan knew something was afoot because it was Saturday and there was no