"There is one more."
"Now then." Mr. Pell slid the parcel across the bed. "The last package."
It was small and flat and tied with string. Alex cut the string with a dagger, because he was holding one anyway.
The first thing inside was paper. A lot of paper. It was a stack of slips as thick as his fist, held together with a rusty clip. Every slip had a date, a sum, and the same red stamp.
PAID IN CASH.
"Rent receipts," said Mr. Pell. "Twelve years of them. The first six have a different address. I have crossed it out. Keep the rest. Landlords forget."
Alex flicked through the stack with his thumb. Some of the slips were so old the ink had gone brown. Every one of them said the same thing in the same red. Paid. Paid. Paid.
He had always wondered why nobody ever came to kick him out. He had thought the building just forgot about him.
'All this time I thought I was a line in some government spreadsheet,' he thought. 'Turns out I was somebody's bill.'
