The yellow-brick estate was new and pleasant. It had yet to wear and show its weaknesses. The houses were small but well proportioned, laid out in winding streets with wide pavements for the children to cycle on, safe from passing cars. The streets were midday quiet, empty driveways, children at school. A small dog watched them from a neighbour’s window.
Though it was daytime, a blinding bright spotlight shone straight down on the step outside the Kirks’ front door. McGrain pressed the bell and an elaborate electronic jingle sounded inside. The door was opened by a uniformed Liaison officer who was pulling her coat on.
‘I need to go,’ she said quickly, sliding past them.
‘Something wrong?’ Morrow stepped into the hall.
‘No,’ said the officer. ‘Just, got another house – busy morning.’ She called back into the kitchen, ‘Girls! I’ll be in touch this afternoon if you don’t phone me before then.’
She shut the door as the girls called their goodbyes in a ragged chorus.
Morrow walked across the hall to the kitchen and found three scantily dressed girls in there, standing, drinking from pint-sized mugs of tea. Eighteen, sixteen and fourteen. The girls were fat and no wonder: the kitchen was a private chapel dedicated to sugar. Every spare surface was stacked with catering boxes of biscuits, chocolate bars, sweets. Two packets of crisps were open on the worktop next to the kettle, a suggested accompaniment to a cup of tea. Even the window sill behind the sink was lined with bottles of red fizzy juice.
Morrow introduced herself and McGrain. The girls stood up and shook their hands in turn. Scarlet, the sensible oldest, was very dark and pretty. Marnie, the middle child, had her head shaved at the side, green eyes and a slightly manic giggle. Debbie had shocking pink hair and raw red stretch marks down the backs of her chunky arms. No one was angry, Morrow noted, and no one was crying.
With the front door shut Morrow realised suddenly that the house was unbelievably warm, which explained why the girls were all wearing as little as possible.
‘I know!’ said Marnie. ‘Boiling! We don’t know how to work the central heating.’
McGrain nodded at the boiler cabinet on the wall. ‘Is it a combi?’
They didn’t know.
‘Let me have a look.’ He opened the cabinet door. ‘I’ve got one like this. See the dial there? Looks like a volume control?’
The girls were standing up, watching him turn it down.
‘There.’ He shut the door. ‘That should be all right now.’
‘Thank almighty fuck for that,’ said Debbie. ‘We’ve been sweating bullets in here.’
The girls all smiled at each other, because they’d solved a problem and because of the funny image.
Scarlet saw that there wasn’t enough room in the kitchen and suggested moving into the living room so they could all sit down. Debbie and Marnie pressed them with offers of cups of tea? Coffee? Glass of ginger, then? Want a wee biscuit? Sure? Crisps? Are ye sure? They told McGrain to take his coat off anyway, and clucked and fussed them into the cluttered living room.
Two outsized beige leather sofas faced each other, backs pressed tight to opposing walls. In the middle, a gigantic television dominated the room. Scattered around the base like votive offerings were flexes and wires and handsets and gaming consoles, some still in the boxes.
The girls all sat on one sofa, squashed up tight on a two-seater, giggling. Morrow and McGrain took the facing settee.
Morrow, observing protocol, told the girls she was sorry for their loss. The girls gave yelps of regret and shut their eyes, as if they’d just heard of something terrible happening a long way away.
‘God!’ said Marnie. ‘What a thing to happen! The poor woman.’
Morrow wasn’t sure it had sunk in yet. She said she had some questions but she could give them a little time if they felt they needed it—
‘No,’ Scarlet said firmly. Her sisters nodded in agreement. ‘You know, it’s complicated with my mum. We’re not . . . well, just you fire away.’
‘You’re eighteen, Scarlet, are you?’
‘Yeah. Ask away.’
‘And you’re prepared to explain what’s going on to your sisters, that they don’t need to answer anything they don’t want to . . .’
Scarlet turned and looked at her sisters with theatrical suspicion. They grinned back to show they got the joke. Morrow thought maybe they should wait for a social worker. They weren’t taking it very seriously.
‘Where’s your dad? Does he live with you?’
Marnie tutted. ‘Noonan’s a junkie fuck
.
’
‘Will I get put into care?’ Debbie fretted. ‘Because I am
not
staying with that psycho. I’m not.’
‘You’ll be appointed a social worker,’ said Morrow. ‘They’ll tell you more about what might happen.’
‘I can adopt you.’ Scarlet turned to Morrow. ‘Can’t I? I’m eighteen. ’Cause Noonan’s a junkie. He’s up at this door once a week looking for fucking money or anything he can sell, banging on the door like a zombie trying to get in. He nicked the plants out the front to sell. Sold them in a pub, can you imagine that?
Twat
. He’s looking in this window and he can see all this shit my mum bought.’ She pointed at the gaming consoles and the TV. ‘Junkie bait, all of it.’
McGrain looked covetously at the pile. ‘You not gamers, girls?’
‘No,’ said Debbie. ‘She’s bought it and says “that’s for yous” but it wasn’t for us at all.’
‘That’s right,’ Marnie interrupted. ‘It’s for Noonan to see through the window.’
‘He left her,’ explained Scarlet calmly. ‘Went off with some skinny bird and then she’s buying all this stuff so’s he can see it and it’s driving him mental. We can’t leave the house empty. Anyway, come on: ask us your wee questions.’
‘When did you last see your mum?’
Marnie answered, ‘Sunday night.’ It was four days ago and they hadn’t reported her missing.
‘What time?’
‘She went out. We were watching that Doctor Who documentary. Boring. It was about ten thirty. Remember it was boring?’
The other girls nodded.
‘Where did she go?’
They looked at each other and Marnie shrugged. ‘Two men came for her. She’s went off with them.’
‘Did you know the men?’
‘Never seen them.’ Scarlet looked regretful. ‘She just went with them.’
‘How do you know there were two men, then?’
Scarlet said, ‘She’s come in and says “That’s me offski.” We were watching the Doctor Who thing.’
It didn’t answer the question. Morrow looked at the other two. ‘Either of you see them?’
Debbie shook her head but Marnie said, ‘I saw two guys outside the front door but there’s a porch light above the door. It got knocked by a football and now it’s like . . .’ She flattened a hand over her head and cowered under it, making a high drone. ‘And they were outside it and I didn’t see their faces.’ She looked at her sisters. ‘They were just, kind of, I dunno,
guys
.’ The other two nodded.
‘What were they wearing?’
‘Hoodies, jeans and that.’
‘What colour were their hoodies?’
‘Dunno. But she went out and one of them turned away and I saw he had those, know those jeans from Markies, know the ones with the white wiggle on the arse pocket?’ Morrow nodded. ‘Except he would have bought them second-hand because he didn’t look like he shopped at Markies. He looked kind of prisony.’
‘How did he look “prisony”?’
Scarlet shrugged. ‘Pale. Poor-looking. Blond hair and tall. Broad across the chest.’ She drew a hand from shoulder to shoulder. ‘Handsomey, but also, kind of
prisony
.’
‘What about the other one?’
‘Never seen him.’
‘Did your mum know them?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Did they threaten her?’
‘No.’
‘Why did she go with them, then?’
The girls looked at each other. Marnie muttered at Debbie, ‘You say
. . .’ They seemed to have discussed this already and Debbie had been appointed the storyteller. The other two sat back as she began:
‘See all this gaming stuff? Ready money. Mum’s been ripping off the company she worked for. Well—’
‘Not “ripping them off”,’ corrected Marnie.
Scarlet slapped Marnie’s arm behind her sister’s head. ‘Let her tell it, Marnie.’
‘OK,’ Debbie conceded with a nod at her sister, ‘
fiddling
. Getting cash she shouldn’t have. So she had to spend it all on like . . .’ she opened her hand to the tumble of electrical goods on the floor, ‘
crap
. Because she had to get rid. You can’t bank fuck all now—’
‘It’s not “crap”,’ Marnie told McGrain. ‘Ye can sell that stuff.’
Scarlet told Debbie, ‘It has got resale value, right enough.’
‘
Fuck’s sake
,’ lamented Debbie, ‘I’m trying to tell the story.’
‘Well, tell it right.’ Marnie grinned at Morrow.
‘Shut it!’ Debbie had a hand up to still her sisters. ‘Right?’
‘OK.’ Scarlet nodded, looking at Morrow. ‘SILENCE!’
Marnie laughed. ‘Yeah! SILENCE!’
Debbie was indignant. ‘But you said for me to say!’
‘SILENCE!’ reprised Scarlet.
Morrow was an only child but she remembered the frantic atmosphere of crowds of girls at school, tumultuous emotional storms that were forgotten as soon as they passed.
They were a nice family, kind to each other in their confusion and sadness. They weren’t just a pool of genetics and mutual misfortune. They were so likeable, the three of them. The fondness in the way they spoke and moved as a single entity, their prompting and corrections, gamely slapping each other, looking to her only to witness what they had between them.
Debbie started again. ‘’K. She’s doing – I dunno,
whatever
. She’s getting money. She’s spending it on resellables. Storing them up. The house is heaving. Then some Spanish woman takes over and – boom – she gets the bump.’ She paused for dramatic effect. ‘
Not chuffed.
’
‘What did she do?’
Scarlet took over. ‘Kept just going into the office. I don’t think she believed it. Then, when she’s finished working her time, she got drunk for a few days. Up there, in her pit, smashing about.’
They all glanced at the ceiling as if Hester was still up there, still angry.
Marnie whispered, ‘Fucking
furious
.’
‘Bealing,’ nodded Debbie.
Scarlet sat forward to be heard. ‘And then she appears in the kitchen one day, cooking food an’ that—’
‘Mince and potatoes,’ reported Debbie ominously.
‘Creepy as
fuck
,’ said Scarlet. ‘Well creepy.’
‘It
was
,’ Marnie agreed, ‘Like,
really
creepy. She’s like “HELLO
DEAR!” ’ She said it in a shrill falsetto and made the other girls jump and laugh. ‘And all that, like
normal.
’
‘Debbie’s like that . . .’
They watched as Debbie gave the police a pantomime rerun: mouthing ‘OH
MY
GOD’, waving her hands wildly by her head. They laughed and Morrow laughed along with them.
‘Anyway, anyway.’ Marnie batted a hand to calm the laughter down. ‘Hettie had a plan, she told us later. They weren’t going to “get rid of her that easy”, ’cause that’s how she talked, wunnit?’
Scarlet gave her sister a rueful smile. ‘That’s right, clichés. Talked in clichés, thought in clichés.’
‘ “Hunners o’ gear”,’ said Debbie, wiggling her shoulders, mimicking her mum. ‘ “Hunky guys”, like that.’ Suddenly self-conscious about taking the piss out of her dead mum, she gave Morrow a guilty look and stopped. ‘Anyway. She was going to get even. She said they were at it. This new woman wouldn’t want an investigation into whatever they were doing now. She’s told the Spanish woman she’d get the cops in to investigate if she didn’t pay her off. That’s what the two guys were here for, taking her for the pay-off. She’s hung in the door and she’s like “That’s me offski for the big bag.” ’
‘ “Big bag of readies”,’ said Marnie. ‘That’s what she’s called the pay-off.’
‘She was blackmailing them?’
‘Aye. Pay me or I’ll get the polis in, sort of thing.’
Hettie would have gone quite happily, thought Morrow, imagining her climbing into a car or a van, a small greedy smile on her face.
‘Anyway, I’m not fucking living with Noonan,’ said Marnie.
‘They’ll never ask us to live with him,’ said Debbie. ‘They won’t, will they, Scar?’
‘Can I adopt them?’ said Scarlet, thumbing at her sisters.
‘Social work’ll do whatever they can to keep you out of care. How come you didn’t report your mum missing?’
The girls looked at each other.
‘She went missing a lot. Went on holidays and that. Didn’t always tell us. Ye didn’t know when she’d be here, really. And we’ve got food . . .’
Morrow could see the girls and their mum, the trust between them damaged early on. The girls were too young to feel they should lie about their feelings for her. They’d formed their own family without her and their sadness was for Hester’s loss, not their own. They didn’t seem to feel they had lost that much. It made her think of Danny. She wished she could be as honest as them.
Marnie interrupted Morrow’s train of thought: ‘What would you do with all of this stuff?’
Morrow looked at it, pricing the consoles and the telly, at a big Buddha’s head on a table in the corner. They should confiscate it for proceeds of crime. ‘EBay it.’
Marnie nodded seriously. ‘Reckon?’
‘Quickly. Get all the money and put it in a bank account. Show the social worker you’re able to support yourselves. Your dad won’t stand a chance then.’
She was lying to them. Noonan wouldn’t get custody of the girls if they objected but he might burgle them and then they would have nothing. It was pretty good advice. She felt that she had finally managed to do something useful.
‘Is there any more of it?’
‘Serious? Come ’ere.’ Marnie was on her feet, leading the way out to the hall. Morrow and McGrain followed her up a steep set of stairs to the landing. The other girls came too.