“I remember him. He was here when Dani died.”
Hostility, plain and clear, one woman reaching for her pocket, the child sat bouncing on her mother’s knee glaring, her face a fixture of compressed concentration and dislike, he had no idea one so young could find such depth of feeling in her soul.
“I was Dani’s friend,” he replied, hands folded in front of him, back straight, head down. “I knew her from Shawford.”
“Could be anyone”
“Can’t trust”
“Could be one of the filth”
“Men!”
“Fucking coming here and giving it”
Theo blurted, “I’m Lucy’s father.”
The women hesitated, the child’s face flushing brilliant red with the effort of rage she was putting into this moment. Then her mother put a hand on her shoulder, and all at once the infant relaxed, beaming proudly into her parent’s eyes, asking with her suddenly lightened smile, delightful eyes—Did I do well? Did I hate well enough?
“Come with me,” said a woman and stood up, nodding at her sisters of the guard, and Theo followed.
They walked through the estate. No lights shone in the windows, no creatures stirred. Far off, the sound of the motorway; across the stubby grass, a torn plastic bag, a tumbled can oozing fizzy drink. A banner was slung across three different windows, huge and torn by the wind, the letters sometimes visible, sometimes twisted into obscure tangles as the stitched-together sheets on which they were written caught together.
jobs justice and
He couldn’t make out the last word.
“Dani was one of us,” the woman grunted as they walked together towards the door. “She was a patty from the women’s line. We tried being with the men, but when you spend your days in the women’s prison, in the men’s prison, these things—you spend so much time thinking about what it’ll be like that when you actually try to be together it’s hard, sometimes, to see what’s real and what’s not. So here we are. Sometimes the queen of the patties sends us a few things. She’s got a court in the north. We have to stick together, us sisters, that’s what the queen says. What’s your name?”
“Theo.”
“Theo what?”
“Theo Miller.”
“She never mentioned you.”
“Did she mention someone from home? Someone she grew up with?”
“No.”
A little laugh that vanished instantly. “That’s me too.”
She shrugged. None of her affair.
From an open window a sudden rising of a voice, female, coming high and shrill, reaching a crescendo of fury
gurgling away
dying.
The woman walked, and seemed undisturbed.
The rage rites of the patties were something Theo did not enquire into.
Coming to Dani’s door
shut
lights out
no sign the police had been
or gone
or cared.
She said, to no one in particular, “I stalked a woman called Naomi. I stalked her for five years. I told her I’d rape her, with a bottle, with a stick, I described it all so she’d understand. I sent postcards to her sister the day her kids were born, congratulating them on the birth and telling them to enjoy their kids while it lasted. I thought it was funny. It was funny. It was very, very funny.”
Sighed, waving at the door.
“The police said they’d send someone to clean the blood, but no one came. We’re saving up for some bleach.”
Theo walked inside. The woman followed.
Up the stairs, pushed open the door
the stench of brain, rotting flesh it was still on the floor bits of her brain on the floor it hadn’t been real until this moment Theo
guessed at a bathroom and managed to vomit into the sink before it was too late, acid in his nose, up his nostrils he was…
The woman stood behind him, waiting, arms folded, leaning against the wall, lost in her own thoughts. There was no water in the taps to wash his puke away, but she didn’t seem to care, and he felt ashamed.
Theo returned to the bedroom, tried again.
The room had been searched. Drawers opened, mattress turned over, cupboard torn apart, clothes ripped out. Had that been the way it was when he stood in this door, looking on the feet of Dani’s corpse?
He thought that yes, it had been Seph Atkins who searched the room and had she found…
“Has anyone touched the window?” he asked.
His guide shrugged.
The window still half-open, letting in cold air, taking some of the stench off.
There was no way to avoid Dani’s blood, the sprays of the policemen as they’d squirted something orange around the body. He looked out of the window, down to the hedge below. If you’d been fast, you could have thrown a mobile phone out of the window at the right angle to land in the privet hedge, a desperate act at the sound of footsteps, an act that acknowledged in an instant that it was too late, you were done, nowhere to hide.
“Papers,” he blurted, turning away. “Did she have any papers?”
The woman nodded, once, and led him down to the concrete back patio behind the house. Between the overgrown brambles and stinging nettles, someone had cleared the space for a crooked child’s swing, the parts salvaged from a skip and strapped back together with tape and long, string-wrapped branches. Someone else had drawn the outline of a rat’s corpse in pink chalk.
A metal bucket, knee-high, stood in a corner. The ashes were cold. Discarded half-matches formed a halo around the edge.
He sifted through the blackened crumbs of paper, found a white corner.
The words vanished into char.
“She was down here a lot. Burning things. People joined her. They liked the fire. Sometimes the biters would come, the zeroes, and they’d sit and rock and scream and that. Neighbours hated it, but we respect those things round here. You gotta get it out of your system. You gotta let it out. You gotta let it go so you can keep going.”
“You’ve been very helpful.”
“One of ours let the killer in, of course. One of ours did it for the cash. I get that, we could all do with the dough, but when we find her… are you really the kid’s dad? For real?”
“Yes. I am.”
“You should do better. You should.”
Theo cycled home, and the route seemed shorter tonight than it had last time he made the journey.
Chapter 32
Neila drew cards the moment they moored on the outskirts of Northampton, where the canal divided towards the River Nene.
Knight of cups, ten of cups, the Fool (inverted), nine of swords, the High Priestess, three of cups, seven of wands, the Tower, the Hanged Man (inverted).
She stared at them long and hard, realised she didn’t know what they meant, couldn’t find any comfort or meaning in them. Usually, no matter what she drew, there was something that gave purpose, direction to her life. Today her mind seemed frozen, trapped, looking at images without meaning. For the first time in her life she drew nine more.
Four of cups, Temperance, the Chariot, the World, six of staves, the Stars (inverted), four of swords, six of swords, the Hanged Man (inverted).
A guard from the university was at the side of the boat within ten minutes. Who are you? What are you doing here? I’m from the business school. There’s a business school next to the station, we have to keep an eye out because this is a protected space for our students; we promised our students that they’d be safe here…
No.
Our students do not cross the canal.
They don’t go to—are you joking with me, lady, are you—no, of course they don’t go to… we abandoned the northern campus two years ago because we couldn’t guarantee the safety of