Just My Luck Read online

  ADELE PARKS was born in Teesside, North-East England. She is the author of nineteen international bestsellers, including her most recent Sunday Times Number One bestseller, Lies Lies Lies. She’s an ambassador for The National Literacy Trust and a judge for The Costa. Adele has lived in Botswana, Italy and London, and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey, with her husband, son and cat. Just My Luck is her twentieth novel in twenty years.

  Also by Adele Parks

  Playing Away

  Game Over

  Larger Than Life

  The Other Woman’s Shoes

  Still Thinking Of You

  Husbands

  Young Wives’ Tales

  Happy Families (Quick Read)

  Tell Me Something

  Love Lies

  Men I’ve Loved Before

  About Last Night

  Whatever It Takes

  The State We’re In

  Spare Brides

  If You Go Away

  The Stranger In My Home

  The Image Of You

  I Invited Her In

  Lies Lies Lies

  Short story collections

  Love Is A Journey

  Just My Luck

  Adele Parks

  ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

  Copyright © Adele Parks 2020

  Adele Parks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008407209

  Version 2020-04-07

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

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  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008386139

  For Jim and Conrad.

  I won the lottery.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  1. Lexi

  2. Lexi

  3. Lexi

  4. Emily

  5. Toma

  6. Lexi

  7. Lexi

  8. Lexi

  9. Emily

  10. Lexi

  11. Emily

  12. Lexi

  13. Lexi

  14

  15. Lexi

  16

  17. Emily

  18. Lexi

  19

  20. Lexi

  21. Lexi

  22. Emily

  23. Lexi

  24. Lexi

  25. Emily

  26. Lexi

  27. Lexi

  28

  29. Emily

  30. Lexi

  31. Emily

  32. Lexi

  33. Emily

  34. Lexi

  35. Lexi

  36. Emily

  37. Lexi

  38. Emily

  39. Lexi

  40. Emily

  41. Lexi

  41. Emily

  42. Lexi

  43. Emily

  44. Lexi

  45. Lexi

  46

  47. Emily

  48. Emily

  49. Lexi

  50. Emily

  51. Lexi

  52. Lexi

  53

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE GAZETTE

  9th November, 2015

  * * *

  Elaine Winterdale, 37, a property manager, has been handed a suspended prison sentence for failing to maintain a faulty gas boiler that caused the death of two tenants from carbon-monoxide poisoning.

  Reveka Albu, 29, was found dead with her son Benke, 2, by her husband Mr Toma Albu, 32, at a property they rented in Reading, on 23rd December 2014.

  Following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive, Ms Winterdale was today sentenced at Reading Crown Court for breaches of gas safety laws after she failed to arrange gas safety checks to be carried out at the property over a three-year period, despite assuring her employer, the owner of the property, that she had done so.

  In June 2011, an employee of National Grid Gas visited the property to replace the gas meter. The boiler was labelled as ‘immediately dangerous’ due to ‘fumes at open flue’ and was disconnected. A report was left with Mrs Albu and subsequently a letter was sent to Ms Winterdale, which she failed to respond to or pass to the owner of the property.

  The boiler was not repaired. For two and a half years the only heating in the home was from one borrowed electric fire.

  On 22nd October 2014, Mr Toma Albu was away from home overnight and returned to find the flat warm; his wife informed him that after repeated petitions Ms Winterdale had finally arranged for the boiler to be reconnected.

  On the evening of 23rd December 2014, Mr Albu returned home after a double shift to find his wife and son dead. Tests showed Mrs Albu’s blood contained 61 per cent carbon monoxide. A level of 50 per cent is enough to be fatal.

  Ms Winterdale pleaded guilty to seven breaches of the Gas Safety Regulations and was given a 16-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. She was also given 200 hours community service, was fined £4,000 and was ordered to pay costs of £17,500.

  1

  Lexi

  Saturday, 20th April

  I can’t face going straight home to Jake. I’m not ready to deal with this. I need to try to process it first. But how? Where do I start? I have no idea. The blankness in my mind terrifies me. I always know what to do. I always have a solution, a way of tackling something, giving it a happy spin. I’m Lexi Greenwood, the woman everyone knows of as the fixer, the smiler (some might even slightly snidely call me a do-gooder). Lexi Greenwood, wife, mother, friend.

  You think you know someone. But you don’t know anyone, not really. You never can.

  I need a drink. I drive to our local. Sod it, I’ll leave the car at the pub and walk home, pick it up in the morning. I order a glass of red wine, a large one, then I look for a seat tucked away in the corner where I can down my drink alone. It’s Easter weekend, and a rare hot one. The place is packed. As I thread my way through the heaving bar, a number of neighbours raise a glass, gesturing to me to join them; they ask after the kids and Jake. Everyone else in the pub seems celebratory, buoyant. I feel detached. Lost. That’s the thing about living in a small village, you recognise everyone. Sometimes that reassures me, sometimes it’s inconvenient. I politely and apologetically defle
ct their friendly overtures and continue in my search for a solitary spot. Saturday vibes are all around me, but I feel nothing other than stunned, stressed, isolated.

  You think you know someone.

  What does this mean for our group? Our frimily. Friends that are like family. What a joke. Blatantly, we’re not friends anymore. I’ve been trying to hide from the facts for some time, hoping there was a misunderstanding, an explanation; nothing can explain away this.

  I told Jake I’d only be a short while; I should text him to say I’ll be longer. I reach for my phone and realise in my haste to leave the house, I haven’t brought it with me. Jake will be wondering where I am; I don’t care. I down my wine. The acidity hits my throat, a shock and a relief at once. Then I go to the bar to order a second.

  The local pub is only a ten-minute walk away from our home but by the time I attempt the walk back, the red wine had taken effect. Unfortunately, I am feeling the sort of drunk that nurtures paranoia and fury, rather than a light head or heart. What can I do to right this wrong? I have to do something. I can’t carry on as normal, pretending I know nothing of it. Can I?

  As I approach home, I see Jake at the window, peering out. I barely recognise him. He looks taut, tense. On spotting me, he runs to fling open the front door.

  ‘Lexi, Lexi, quickly come in here,’ he hiss-whispers, clearly agitated. ‘Where have you been? Why didn’t you take your phone? I’ve been calling you. I needed to get hold of you.’

  What now? My first thoughts turn to our son. ‘Is it Logan? Has he hurt himself?’ I ask anxiously. I’m already teetering on the edge; my head quickly goes to a dark place. Split skulls, broken bones. A dash to A&E isn’t unheard of; thirteen-year-old Logan has daredevil tendencies and the sort of mentality that thinks shimmying down a drainpipe is a reasonable way to exit his bedroom in order to go outside and kick a football about. My fifteen-year-old daughter, Emily, rarely causes me a moment’s concern.

  ‘No, no, he’s fine. Both the kids are in their rooms. It’s… Look, come inside, I can’t tell you out here.’ Jake is practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. I can’t read him. My head is too fuzzy with wine and full of rage and disgust. I resent Jake for causing more drama, although he has no idea what shit I’m dealing with. I’ve never seen him quite this way before. If I touched him, I might get an electric shock; he oozes a dangerous energy.

  I follow my husband into the house. He is hurrying, urging me to speed up. I slow down, deliberately obtuse. In the hallway he turns to me, takes a deep breath, runs his hands through his hair but won’t, can’t, meet my eyes. For a crazy moment I think he is about to confess to having an affair. ‘OK, just tell me, did you buy a lottery ticket this week?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’ I have bought a lottery ticket every week of my life for the last fifteen years. Despite all the bother last week, I have stuck to my habit.

  Jake takes in another deep breath, sucking all the oxygen from the hallway. ‘OK, and did you—’ he breaks off, finally drags his eyes to meet mine. I’m not sure what I see in his gaze, an almost painful longing, fear and panic. Yet at the same time there is hope there too. ‘Did you pick the usual numbers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His jaw is still set tight. ‘You have the ticket?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, it’s pinned on the noticeboard in the kitchen. Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘Fuck.’ Jake lets out a breath that has the power of a storm. He falls back against the hall wall for a second and then he rallies, grabs my hand and pulls me into the room that was designed to be a dining room but has ended up being a sort of study slash dumping ground. A place where the children sometimes do their homework, I tackle paying the household bills, and towering piles of ironing, punctured footballs and old trainers hide out. Jake sits down in front of the computer and starts to quickly open various tabs.

  ‘I wasn’t sure that we even had a ticket, but when you were late back and the film I was watching had finished, I couldn’t resist checking. I don’t know why. Habit, I suppose. And look.’

  ‘What?’ I can’t quite work out what he’s on about, it might be the wine, it might be because my head is still full of betrayal and deceit, but I can’t seem to climb into his moment. I turn to the screen. The lottery website. Brash and loud. A clash of bright colours and fonts.

  1, 8, 20, 29, 49, 58. The numbers glare at me from the computer. Numbers I am so familiar with. Yet they seem peculiar and unbelievable.

  ‘I don’t understand. Is this a joke?’

  ‘No, Lexi. No! It’s for real. We’ve only gone and won the bloody lottery!’

  2

  Lexi

  £17.8 million.

  £17.8 million.

  £17.8 million.

  No matter how often I say it, I can’t make sense of it. In fact, the opposite is true. The more I say it, the less real it seems. I can’t imagine what it means. Not really. Our numbers are on the screen. They are still there, I’ve checked a thousand times, just in case, but they are there. And the other numbers too. The numbers saying how much our winning ticket is worth – 17,870,896 pounds. So much money! I rush to the kitchen and grab the ticket off the noticeboard, suddenly terrified that a freak gust of wind has blown it away, or that one of the kids has knocked it off when they pinned up their letters from school. Although this makes no sense because in the entire history of our family life, neither of our two kids has ever pinned up a letter from school; I’m much more likely to find them crumpled up at the bottom of their rucksacks. I stare at the tiny hole made by the drawing pin; the ticket is slightly creased at the corner. How can this scrap of paper be worth 17.8 million pounds? It’s unbelievable. It’s incomprehensible. What does this mean for us? I turn to Jake to see if he is making any more sense of this. Jake beams at me. It is the widest, most complete beam I have seen him wear for years. I’m reminded of our early days together. When we were nothing other than hope and happiness. It makes me splutter laughter through my nose.

  ‘Are you sure this is right?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve checked. I’ve watched the draw six times on YouTube. They’ve announced that there is a winner. Just one. Lexi, that’s us! We are rich. Rich beyond our wildest dreams.’

  I giggle again because the phrase is crazy. Rich beyond our wildest dreams is something people only say in pretty dreadful plays or movies. My body is tingling. I can feel every nerve end. It is almost painful. ‘Wow. I mean wow. What shall we do?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, we need to call it in.’

  ‘How do we do that?’ My fingers are cold, immobilised, but on the other hand I feel hot and no longer solid. I am melting. The two glasses of wine I downed now feel like six. Shock, I suppose.

  ‘I don’t know. It must be on the website or something.’ Jake starts to dart around the screen, hitting buttons. I can’t believe it. Don’t dare to. It can’t be true. It’s too lucky. It’s too wonderful. I am quivering, Jake might be able to hear my teeth chattering. I notice his hands are shaking too. ‘Here it is. The National Lottery winners’ line. We have to call them.’ Jake pauses and stares at me. His eyes gleaming, bright but unfocused. He picks up the house phone and hits the buttons to dial the number on screen. We almost never use the landline, but the occasion demands gravitas and somehow the dusty neglected phone on the desk feels more serious than a mobile.

  ‘I think we’ve won the lottery. The whole amount. The jackpot.’ The person at the other end of the phone must ask Jake if he bought the ticket because he looks confused and a bit irritated when he replies, ‘No. My wife actually bought it. Well, yes, she paid for it… Yes, yes, she’s here with me now.’ He offers the handset to me. ‘They want to talk to you.’

  I somehow manage to stumble through the security questions that confirm where and when I bought the ticket. I suppose some people might find winning tickets or steal them. The lottery company has to be certain I bought ours fair and square. r />
  ‘Can you please write your name and address on the back of the ticket now, if you haven’t already done so,’ advises the woman on the end of the line. She sounds calm and measured, which I find comforting but bizarre. I wonder how many times this woman has spoken to winners, to people whose lives will never be the same again following this particular phone call. I wonder what it must be like to be her. I’m struggling to be me. I feel I’m having some sort of out of body experience. I can’t concentrate or reason when she says, ‘Well, congratulations, Mrs Greenwood. You are indeed a winner!’

  ‘The whole lot?’ I just can’t believe it.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Greenwood. The whole lot – 17,870,896 pounds sterling.’ The number, massive as it is, rolls fluently off her tongue. I start to giggle. It’s impossible. Earlier on I thought this was the worst night of my life, but now the night has turned around completely. What am I talking about? My life has! ‘Now, Mrs Greenwood, we have people here who’ll take you through the process and for us to do that most effectively we’ll need to know, will you be taking publicity?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ I imagine the lottery company like it if you take publicity. A good luck story in the papers must mean more tickets are bought but my instinct is to keep this to ourselves.

  ‘You don’t have to decide now,’ she replies smoothly. ‘One of our winners’ advisors will be in contact with you shortly. They’ll send an email or call you, and then they’ll fix up a meeting. Probably for Tuesday next week. Usually it’s sooner but as it’s a bank holiday on Monday, Tuesday might be better for you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, whatever you think.’ I don’t want to cause any inconvenience, make someone work on their bank holiday.

  ‘You can talk through the matter of publicity with them and they will tell you everything about what happens next.’

  Jake grabs the phone from me. ‘Will he bring the cheque?’

  Even at this distance I can hear the amusement in the woman’s voice. ‘No, there is a tiny bit more paperwork to be done first. Bank account details etc.’