As I stand there, gathering myself, something catches my eye. Whatever it was she put into her bin is poking out a little. Curious, despite how shaken I am, I open the lid and peer inside.
A scrumpled wodge of grubby yellow cloth sits on top of the bin bag. For a second I can’t work out where I’ve seen it before. And then I remember. Amber was carrying it.
Smiling a little, I whisk it out and study it. It’s soft and well-loved by small hands. I put it to my cheek and inhale the milky sweetness as I think things through.
That pestle isn’t going anywhere. I have plenty of time to go to the police. Maybe there are other ways to make Melissa pay for how she has treated me first. Maybe I should be a little more … inventive.
It’s fair to say I am not a woman with many skills.
But I can bake. I am very good with small children. And I have an excellent memory.
Flat 302, Burnside Estate, N9 2HJ
The address is a tube ride and then a bus journey away, but it could be in another city in some ways. I clutch my handbag a little tighter as the main road narrows, lined now with a cluttered mix of fast food shops with names like Chicken Licken and a host of foreign names (Turkish and Middle Eastern, I think) along with charity shops and a plethora of betting establishments. The people have changed too and the population is much more mixed than in my own neighbourhood. There are more coloured people generally, and a lot of women in scarves and burkas, trailing small children in Western dress.
I get off the bus in what I think is generally the right area, feeling very out of place. I’m not totally sure that I know where I’m going and wish I had remembered to bring my A to Z. A little flustered, I go into a newsagent to buy some tissues and ask directions. An old Indian man is serving. His eyes are rheumy and yellow-tinged; his beard grey and thin. I ask him if he knows the way to the Burnside Estate and he just shakes his head as he hands me the change. I am about to leave when a young man, possibly his son, pops up from behind the counter, where he must have been bending down to do something, out of sight. He is wearing a white robe sort of thing and has a beard.
He also has the most beautiful brown eyes, and he flashes a friendly smile at me. ‘Burnside you want, love?’ he says in perfect Cockney.
‘Yes,’ I say, surprised at his English. But I suspect he grew up here. It seems a shame he has to dress that way. Why can’t people like that integrate?
‘Easier to show you, come on,’ he says lightly and leads me out of the shop onto the busy pavement.
He gives me a series of simple directions and I thank him before going on my way. I am not completely sure about what I intend to say when I get to Amber’s flat. I don’t even know if they will be at home. But my feet carry me with a sense of purpose that comforts me after the sensation of floating, untethered, in space ever since Melissa betrayed me.
My nerves almost get the better of me when I approach the estate. There is a scrubby patch of wasteland and a path littered with fast food boxes and dog mess leading to it. The buildings are those 1960s brown and white ones that have long balconies. I can see some makeshift washing lines from here and am suddenly longing for my own private, quiet garden. A young man with aggressively gelled hair approaches with a dog on a metal chain. It’s one of those Staffordshire terriers, which I’m not fond of since one bit Bertie. The dog is muscled, powerful-looking, and strains against the lead as though it wants to eat me up.
Scanning the numbers of the flats I see that Amber’s is on the third floor of the first building and so, clamping my handbag even tighter to my side, I gamely head for the staircase located at the end of the building.
It smells of urine, and I blanch, holding my breath. I am picturing gangs of youths now, with Mohicans, taking drugs and clogging up the stairwell, and my nerve almost fails me. But I only pass a couple of giggling teenage girls clutching mobile phones and a tired-looking woman about my own age with a shopping basket, who surprises me by smiling and saying ‘good morning’. I suppose I shouldn’t assume everyone in this place would like to mug me.
The walkway along to Amber’s house has an array of rubbish along it, from broken children’s bikes to an old pram and uncared for pots choked with weeds. Really, I see no reason not to look after the place you live just because it isn’t in the most salubrious part of town. It really doesn’t seem like the right sort of place to bring up children, especially ones who have additional health challenges. There are a couple though, which look neat and tidy, with plant pots that contain actual flowers.
But when I get to flat number 302, I am not at all surprised to see that the front door could do with a lick of paint. My heart is thumping as I press my thumb to the doorbell, hearing the sharp ring inside the flat. I wait for a few moments, and, nothing happening, I try again. It’s no use. No one is in.
Feeling rather like the withered balloons that hang from the letterbox on the house next door, presumably detritus from a long passed party, I turn to trudge my way home again. And then I see two figures coming towards me and my insides jolt.
‘Bertie?’ says the little girl in her flat voice. It is in marked contrast to the beatific smile that almost splits her face in two.
The pinch-faced woman scans me up and down as she approaches, brandishing keys. ‘What are you doing here?’ she says.
I take a deep breath and try to hide the nervous wobble in my voice as I reach into my bag for the cloth. Amber squeals when she sees it.
‘Mummy! It’s my cuddly!’
‘You dropped it in my street,’ I say gently and then, to her mother. ‘Look, I’ve come to talk to you about Jamie. And, and … about Melissa.’
‘Oh, have you now.’ Her expression hardens further and her cheeks pink as she wordlessly gestures for me to go inside.
The flat is tidy but strangely cold. There’s an ugly black stain of damp behind the enormous television. I’ve never understood why people with very little money have the need for expensive electronics, but there we are.
I perch on a battered sofa so low my knees sag to the side and glance around at my surroundings. The sitting room is small, with a nylon carpet like something you might find in one of the more run-down doctor’s surgeries, and there are a couple of flowery prints in frames on the wall. Glancing around, I jolt at the large framed photograph of mother, child, and … father, all tumbling together and laughing in a photographer’s studio.
I won’t look at it.
The woman, who reluctantly told me her name is Kerry when I offered mine, would no doubt have simply interrogated me on the doorstep. But little Amber, mistress of her domain, almost dragged me into the flat before her mother could protest. She claimed she wanted to show me what sounded like ‘Doggie and Uncle Dave’. I think I may have misheard.
Kerry offers me tea in a flat tone, eyes as dead as a shark’s. I accept and try to concentrate on what I intend to say. This seemed like an excellent plan when I initially thought of it. I liked the idea of Melissa’s face encountering those false nails. Hell hath no fury, and all that. But I feel rather out of my element in this council flat.
Doggie turns out to be exactly that, a Hush Puppy toy that has been loved into a state of greasy, limp submission. The other toy thrust at me by an eager Amber appears to be, as I believed I’d heard, called ‘Uncle Dave’. It’s a strange sort of clown toy. Amber is telling me something in a garbled stream of consciousness that I can’t follow when Kerry comes into the room holding two mugs of tea. She places them none too gently on a low coffee table next to a couple of hair scrunchies and an ashtray with a single squashed butt.