The Fall - By Claire McGowan

Keisha

The kids streaming out of school didn’t notice much. It was three o’clock and they were done for the day, time to visit the sweetshop or watch telly. They definitely didn’t see Keisha standing there, sliding back against some bushes on the other side of the road. She tried not to be nervous. She’d a right to be there, hadn’t she? Her eyes were swivelling round. He wouldn’t come here. Of course he wouldn’t. He probably didn’t even know what school the kid went to. No, he wouldn’t come for her here.

Most of the kids were out now, a whole stream of them in their red jerseys, the noise of them like birds when you wake up really early and everything else is quiet. Keisha used to hear that noise as she walked back from the nursing home, that high chattering sound, no meaning in it. Every time a girl with black hair walked by, Keisha’s heart jumped up in her like a frog. No, that wasn’t her either, too tall. Christ, there were a lot of little black girls at this school. Not that she was really black. That was the trouble.

Then, just as she was drumming her foot up and down in impatience, there was Ruby, her glasses slanting on her nose. They’d been fixed up with tape – what had happened? Why didn’t they take her down bloody Specsavers? Her hair was corn-rowed, something Keisha had never done, since she didn’t know how. Ruby was holding hands with a bigger girl, a black kid with bunches in her hair, and they crossed the road further down from Keisha. A woman was waiting for them, young, skinny, a pretty sparkly scarf round her hair. Black, of course. Was this the foster-mother? No, she was too young. Who were these people taking Ruby home?

Keisha pressed herself further into the bushes as they crossed. As crap as it was to be this close to Ruby and not talk to her, it would be even crapper if the kid knew she was there. Not fair on her, was it? At their closest they were just metres away, and she saw the woman reach around to close up Ruby’s huge schoolbag. Ruby toddled off, the bag nearly as big as she was. Keisha wondered did the kid smell different already, of some strange person’s house. Not like hers anymore.

As the girls and woman walked away, Keisha peeled herself out of the damp bushes, looked all around her two or three times, and went the other way.

It was weird how things turned out. Her mum would have said it was God moving in mysterious ways, or some such crap. When Keisha went to Charlotte’s that first time, it was one of those things you just do without thinking. Even though she didn’t know her, and what she did know made her think Charlotte was a posh bitch, she went. To help her, to warn her. To find out what she’d seen. F*cked if she knew why.

She’d never expected to end up staying there, and if someone had told her she’d be living there she’d have said, yeah right, stop f*cking about. Even though, let’s be honest, she’d nowhere else to go. But when she’d spilled her story out, all mixed-up and breathless, sounding like a loony, and Charlotte finally got what she was trying to say, that maybe, probably, her fella hadn’t been the one to whack off old Anthony Johnson after all, she’d gone all white like her face was being wiped over, and then she went, bam, whacking her head off the table. After that it didn’t seem right to go and leave her, all confused and crying, and anyway, where was Keisha going? She’d no money left for the hostel and couldn’t face those showers full of pubes again. Plus, and she didn’t like to think about this too much, there was definitely some reason Chris was after this girl. She’d seen something – but she obviously didn’t know what yet. So now, somehow, Keisha was living with the blonde bitch. It was mad. But there was nothing else for either of them to do.

After she’d hung round Ruby’s school for a bit like a nutter, Keisha set off back down to Gospel Oak. It was raining again, and she hunched her shoulders up against it. Getting a bus would have been quicker, but this way took her past the Church of Holy Hope, and freaky-ass as that place was, she was going there for the third time.

It was all bloody Charlotte’s fault. The day they’d got that crappy envelope off the nursing home was the same day Keisha realised they’d never pay all the bills, working in homes and hostels for strung-out druggies. No, they’d have to get better jobs if Charlotte had her heart set on keeping that overpriced flat.

But Charlotte wasn’t ready, a blind man could see that. Christ, it was a good day if she only cried two or three times, watching the news (story about prisons came on), doing the washing (Dan’s sock in the basket), or getting an email (some snooty mate of hers didn’t invite her to a cheese and wine night or whatever). It was like being around a leaky tap, her tears never all the way off.

So it was down to Keisha to help her, the poor little rich girl. But the daft thing was, even though Keisha had been dumped and punched and lost her mum and her kid and had to think about maybe putting that kid’s father in the nick, she really did feel sorry for Charlotte. She was like a kid whose puppy got run over by the ice-cream van. Like she didn’t f*cking know, like no one had ever told her life could be shit. So Keisha was helping. She was going to see Pastor bloody Samuel.

She stood in the porch again trying not to feel nervous. It was just a church, wasn’t it? She could go in if she wanted. They weren’t going to make her be a bloody Christian just like them. In the porch were posters for normal things like cake sales and fair trade, as well as stuff like talks on witches and meetings about how not to get shagged before marriage (that’s what it meant, anyway). This was what her mum had believed in. This was the place Mercy had come every week for ten years. Keisha went in. It was quiet inside, the noise of traffic muffled. Her feet made a squelching noise on the rubber floor.

‘Welcome!’

Christ! She jumped, luckily not swearing out loud in church. Pastor Samuel was there in his tank top, carrying a mug in his good hand.

‘Yes?’ He peered at her through the dark of the church.

‘It’s Keisha, Mercy’s daughter. Mercy Collins.’

‘Of course, welcome, child. My old eyes.’ He came padding across the quiet floor, no hand free to shake hers, but grasping her round the shoulder with his arm. She tried not to look at the nothing coming out of his cuff. He smelled like a charity shop, of old clothes, but his eyes were kind. ‘What brings you back to us, Keisha? Are you troubled?’

Bloody hell, he didn’t know the half of it. She hadn’t stopped being troubled since that Friday night. ‘Wanted to say thanks for sorting the funeral and all. I wasn’t, like, I didn’t know what to do.’

‘That’s our job, here, and our blessing. We miss her greatly, but God has taken her to Him.’

Keisha dipped her head so he couldn’t see how much she didn’t believe this. It felt to her like Mercy was behind some kind of brick wall where she couldn’t hear or see or feel her.

He was looking at Keisha. ‘Your mother used to speak of her worries for you.’

‘I left him,’ Keisha said suddenly. ‘She didn’t get time to tell you, but I left him, Ruby’s dad. Mum never liked him, not even when we was at school.’ Crap, she was close to crying again. She screwed up her face.

‘You miss her very much, I think.’

‘Who? Me mum or Ruby? I miss them both.’ Stupid churchman.

‘You have difficult choices ahead, Keisha.’ He smiled at her again. It was annoying, what did he know about her choices?

‘Thing is, Pastor, I wanted to see that Mrs Johnson. She was kind, at Mum’s funeral. She made all them sandwiches, didn’t she? And she lost her boy.’ She spoke quickly, sure that God and Pastor Samuel would see through her.

‘Oh, well, her son is here now.’

Keisha must have looked shocked, because he explained, ‘Her other son, my child. I will call him. Ronald! Are you here, brother?’

He called and the door opened into the back part of the church, and a man came in. And in. He was f*cking huge, muscles up and down his arms. There was a gym bag over his shoulder, and his black T-shirt was darker in patches with sweat. ‘Finishing up now, Pastor. Sent the boys to change.’ He looked at Keisha, and she looked at him, the muscles tight under his T-shirt. He had an earring in one ear.

‘Ronald, this young lady would like to see your good mother. Sister Collins’s child, do you remember? Mercy who helped with the flowers?’

‘Yeah.’ His accent was hard to pin down, London by way of Jamaica, and he was still looking at her. ‘Sorry for your loss.’

She blushed, her stupid light skin turning red. ‘You, too. I was here – I mean, I came to your brother’s funeral.’

His face was blank, smooth like polished wood. ‘S’good of you. You want to see Mum?’

She stared at her feet. ‘Yeah, er, just wanted to say thanks, like. She was dead kind when my mum . . . you know.’

Pastor Samuel was smiling away between them as if he was Cilla Black on Blind Date or something. Ronald – crap name for such a hot guy – shifted his bag. From outside in the yard behind the church, Keisha started to hear a noise like twenty boys shouting and running and slurping down Fanta.

Then she saw the first ones come streaming through, tall and short and pudgy boys, chins dribbling with soft drinks. They were all black, the boys. The noise was mad as they crowded round Ronald and the Pastor, almost swamping the smaller man, who held up his bad arm laughing. ‘Boys, boys, this is the House of our Lord, hush now.’

Ronald cleared his throat. Growled, ‘Oi, shut it.’ Instantly the kids shut up, some giggling a bit. ‘Now, get on home,’ he said, like a teacher at school, strict but with a bit of a smile that said he was nice, really, he watched EastEnders in the evening like you did. ‘Don’t be getting in no trouble on the way, you hear?’

‘Yeah, Ronald,’ they all shouted, and streamed out to the street like a bunch of balloons let go, giving Keisha a good old look on the way.

‘Ronald takes our class, Football for Life,’ said the Pastor, when he could be heard. ‘It teaches them to avoid crime. So much violence here, now.’

And Ronald had lost his own brother to it, stabbed in the neck. Keisha couldn’t look at him, thinking about it, thinking what she knew. It was the same as when she thought about Dan sitting in that prison up the road. ‘Er – you done it long, helping?’

He gave her another look. ‘A while. Go back home a lot, Jamaica.’

‘Ronald has many businesses.’ The pastor patted him with his bad arm. ‘He’s the rich man going through the eye of the needle, ha ha!’

Ronald hauled his bag up again. ‘Ain’t rich. Off to me mum’s now, if you wanna see her. S’round the corner.’

‘Now?’ Shit.

He shrugged. ‘She’ll be there now.’

‘Yes, yes, do go, child.’ The pastor waved them off with his stump, smiling like a retard. ‘Come again – this is your home too, as it was your mother’s.’

Something about the way he said home brought that feeling back to her, that she might cry. She swallowed it down. ‘Maybe. Thanks.’

Outside on the street in the noise and dust of traffic, Ronald walked so fast she had to half-run after him. ‘What sort of business?’

‘Eh?’

‘He said you had businesses . . . Is it the same as your brother?’ She’d no idea why she said that. Maybe she wanted him to know she’d seen his brother, she knew something about him.

But Ronald turned round, stopped. ‘My brother’s dead, yeah?’

‘I know! Sorry, I just – he owned a bar, didn’t he? Thought maybe you did too.’

He sighed. ‘Come on.’ They started walking again. ‘Anthony ran the club. I got a few out in Jamaica, beach bars, restaurants. But now I gotta sort out all his shit, since he died.’

‘Sure, sure.’ She was such a dumb-ass.

They’d reached a small terraced house a few streets away. From the open window was the sound of music and voices. It was just like her mum’s house, even the same smell of spices and oil.

‘Hang about.’ Ronald stopped her gently with his arm; it was like a beam. ‘You knew him – Anthony?’

She stared down. ‘Nah, just went to the club, one time.’ She didn’t say it was that night, the night he’d died.

Ronald looked at her hard, like her mum used to when she bunked off school. ‘Me mum, he’s her angel boy now, yeah? Like he never done a thing wrong. She needs to think that now, right?’

‘I didn’t even know him, honest.’

‘OK.’ He let his arm down. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Eh?’

‘You never said your name.’

‘Oh.’ Shit, she was dumb. ‘Keisha. Keisha Collins.’

He nodded and led her into the house.

The Johnson house was full of noise, and really hot, as if the oven had been going for hours. Over the noise of the TV and shouting in the back kitchen, Ronald yelled, ‘Ma! Someone to see you.’

More shouting. A thundering on the stairs and two little kids came running down, grabbing Ronald’s neck and legs. ‘Lift us! Lift us!’

‘Throw me over your shoulder! Uncle Ronald, throw me!’

‘All right, all right, keep it down, yeah? There’s a lady here.’

They stared at Keisha, the ‘lady’, with their round dark eyes. She was backing away to the door without realising; God, they were so like Ruby to look at. But Ruby was so quiet, creeping about like a little mouse. Not like these kids.

Ronald picked up one under each arm as if they weighed less than cushions, and jerked his head at Keisha to follow him into the sitting room and through to the back kitchen. An old man, old as the ones in the nursing home, sat watching telly, and out the back smelled of chicken and ginger.

‘Put those children down, Ronald,’ said Mrs Johnson. ‘Where have you been? All this time I am waiting for you to lift my rice cooker down.’

‘I’m here now, yeah? This here girl wants to see you.’ Now she was a ‘girl’. They all looked at her, fat wobbly Mrs Johnson, and a woman she’d seen at Anthony Johnson’s funeral, who seemed to be the mum of the kids, and there was the skinny sister too, with the afro. Her hair was tied under a patterned scarf now, and she was leaning up against the cooker in tight jeans.

She gave Keisha a dirty look. ‘Ma, it’s getting late. Do I have to go, like?’

Mrs Johnson gave her daughter a look that Keisha knew. It was the same one her own mum used to do. ‘I don’t want to hear another argument! Now put on some decent clothes – the world can see your bottom in those trousers, shameful!’

Rachel went out in a huff and Keisha backed away a bit more. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. Just wanted to say thanks, like, for your help with me mum.’

‘Oh my darling, such a small thing to do.’ Mrs Johnson came close, taking Keisha’s hands in her floury ones. She smelled like milk. ‘Starved you are, look at you. Tanika will make extra.’

‘Er, no, sorry, don’t want to put you out.’ But wait, they were asking her to dinner. Was this not what she wanted?

‘Come now, no arguments. Your poor mummy will see I take good care of you.’ She touched Keisha lightly on the cheek, leaving flour dust that Keisha didn’t wipe away. ‘Tanika, make more of those.’

Tanika, the kids’ mother, was forming a huge line of little patties and crimping them with a fork. She gave Keisha a little smile, sad and tired. She was darker than the Johnsons – Rachel was nearly as pale as Keisha, a gorgeous caramel colour, the bitch – but you could see the red rims and dark circles round her eyes. Under all the noise and talking, this house was sad, you could feel it. And the reason they were sad, well, Keisha wasn’t going to think about that now.

When Keisha and Mercy used to eat in the evenings it was usually on their knees, in front on the telly, and they hadn’t even done that for years. The Johnsons ate round the table, pulled out as far as it would go in the sitting room. There was the mum and daughter, Ronald, the daughter-in-law Tanika and her two kids – Anthony’s kids – and the gummy old man who, it turned out, was called Pappy. He was the father of the Johnsons’ dad, who’d died four years before. Keisha found out a lot about the Johnsons during this meal.

‘All those gangs, it was, coming round the club. Mr Johnson, he just dropped down dead with a heart attack.’ Mrs Johnson banged on her own chest.

‘Ma-a,’ said Ronald, irritated. ‘The doctor said it was his cholesterol. You’re obsessed with the bloody gangs.’

‘Cholestr’ol,’ huffed Mrs Johnson. ‘We never had this in my day.’ The same as Mercy, and like her mum’s house the table here was about to bust under all the stews, patties, bread, dumplings. Trying to control herself, Keisha ate more than she had since she could remember. Every mouthful of juicy meat and crispy plantain was just like being with her mum. It was as if Mercy was right there with her.

‘Pappy, wipe your chin,’ said Mrs Johnson. Her name was Asanta, Keisha would later find out, but everyone called her Mum or Granny. Pappy smiled all the time but didn’t talk at all. You didn’t know if he knew what you said or not. Rachel reached over and wiped the gravy off his face for him, making Keisha think about her nursing home and how he could almost fit in there, with his shuffling slippers and old tank top. But he was here, with his family.

‘Keisha, darling, have more rice. Thin as a shadow, you are – what would dear Mercy say? God bless her.’ Mrs Johnson raised her eyes to heaven.

‘Who is that lady?’ The little girl had been staring at Keisha, and her mother scolded her, holding up a spoonful of patty to the little boy, who was younger. ‘Tia, shush now. Come on, Ricky, eat up.’ Ricky – named after his dead grandad – was quieter than his sister, peeping out from behind his Sponge Bob Square Pants bib.

‘Who is she, eh?’ Mrs Johnson pushed more bread towards Keisha. She barely seemed to eat at all herself, between loading her family up with treats. ‘She is our friend. Her mummy is gone to Jesus, so she needs to eat her dinner with us.’

Tia stared. ‘Does she have a baby?’

They all stared at Keisha then, and she swallowed down her food. ‘Er . . . yeah, Tia. I’ve a baby girl, she’s five. What age are you?’

Tia stuck her nose up. ‘Five and a half.’ Everyone smiled. Pappy patted the little girl on her braided hair. ‘Where is your baby?’ Tia was still curious, liking the attention.

Crap. Keisha put down her fork. ‘She’s, well, some people are looking after her, now.’ She heard herself say, ‘She’ll be home with me soon.’ When she looked up, Ronald was watching her. Why did these nice people have to find out she’d lost her kid?

The kids’ mum was quiet, gentle. ‘What’s her name, your girl?’

‘Ruby.’

‘Pretty.’ She smiled.

Tia wanted attention. ‘Uncle Ronald, look what I can do.’ She flicked rice off her spoon and it spattered onto the table.

‘Oh, Tia,’ said her mum, tired. ‘You have to behave at the table.’

Ronald put down his fork. ‘Come on, up.’

‘Nooo!’

‘Come on.’ He picked Tia up over his shoulder, kicking and shouting, ‘No, no! I’ll be good!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Tanika said quietly. ‘Her daddy died, you see. She misses him.’ She looked at the huge photo of Anthony Johnson that was on the dresser. ‘I don’t know how to tell her he’s not coming back.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ Rachel sighed, because Mrs Johnson was crying, dabbing her eyes with a tea towel that had a picture of the Queen on it. Rachel rolled her own eyes as she patted her mum’s hand. ‘You’d think we could go one dinner without crying, yeah?’

Keisha stared hard at her plate. What right had she to be here, with all her problems? They were good people. The only thing wrong with the Johnsons was that Anthony was dead. And here she was, in it up to her skinny neck, sitting at their table. ‘I should go, sorry.’ She tried to get up, banging her knees on the leg of the table.

‘No, no, you must have cake first.’ Mrs Johnson sniffed back her tears. ‘Rachel, get the cake.’

‘Aw, I have to go now! Since you’re making me work there, I should be on time, at least.’ Rachel was also what Mrs Suntharalingam would call a cheeky miss.

‘Your brother will take you. Ronald! Ronald! You will take Rachel to the club?’

Ronald reappeared, Tia trotting happily in front of him. ‘What? Say sorry, Tia.’

‘Sowee!’ The little girl was beaming. ‘Cake for me?’ Her little brother already had sticky crumbs over his face and hands, and Keisha fought the urge to wipe them off. Just then Tanika leaned over and did it. It was the same, Keisha thought, for mums. Somehow you were the same.

‘I’m going down the gym first,’ Ronald was saying. ‘She can get the tube like all the other staff.’

‘Always in the gym, what about your family?’

Rachel shouted, ‘Oh, so I’m staff, and you can run the place? How’s that fair? I don’t even wanna work there. I’m at university, duh!’

‘Technical college.’ Ronald crammed cake in his mouth.

‘Muuum!’

‘Oh my goodness, worse than the children, you two, fighting. Keisha, are you working now?’

All eyes on her again. ‘I was. Looking for some waitressing now, maybe.’

Then, as if it had been planned out, Mrs Johnson said, ‘You should give Keisha a job in the club.’

‘For God’s sake, Ma!’ Ronald exploded. ‘Can’t give a job to everyone just ’cos you met their mum down Tesco’s or something, can I?’

‘The Lord’s name in vain, oh!’

‘Sorry, Ma.’

‘And her poor mother passed on! And Rachel has her studies, and she fights with your customers, you said.’

‘They piss me off!’

Keisha looked between them, Ronald and his sister and his mum. If she worked in the club she’d be able to look everywhere, go into the office where someone had stuck a bottle into Anthony Johnson’s neck. But they were nice people. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ve enough staff, though. Better go.’

‘Ronald will give you a lift home.’ Mrs Johnson never gave up.

‘S’OK, I’ll get the tube.’ She grabbed her denim jacket. ‘Thanks, thanks for dinner, thanks, see you soon.’ Christ, it was hard to be polite. Easier when everyone was pissed off at you all the time.

‘Will we see you at church?’ Mrs Johnson called, but Keisha was out the door.

Ronald was standing on the doorstep with his car keys and gym bag. ‘Going now. Rachel’s not ready.’

‘Oh.’ She misunderstood him. ‘See you then.’

He pointed to his car. ‘Come on. I’ll drop you.’

‘But—’

‘It’s dark now, look.’

Getting into his little car, Keisha actually felt shocked. Imagine a man caring that she had to walk to the tube in the dark. And he hardly even knew her. She remembered Chris on That Night, leaving her to walk all the way from Camden in her stupid high heels.

‘Put your belt on.’ Ronald had his hand over her seat back, reversing.

‘Oh, sorry.’ She hadn’t been in a car for so long. Nervous, she babbled at him. ‘You don’t have to drop me, you know. My mum, she was the same, always saying, Oh, yeah, Keisha’ll babysit your kid or walk your dog or something. Like, without even asking me. She sent me to your brother’s funeral, ’cos she was sick then. Don’t know if you saw me there.’ He said nothing. They’d arrived at the station so she undid her belt. ‘Right, eh, say thanks to your mum for me.’ She got out onto the pavement, again looking round her swiftly. Just in case.

He leaned over and wound the window down. ‘Listen, if you want a job, come in next week sometime. No promises.’

‘No shit?’

He shrugged. ‘Just a trial. Rachel, she’s crap at it. You worked in a bar before?’

‘Done catering near ten years, and silver service, event bars.’ What hadn’t she done? As long as the pay was shit and the hours crap, there she was.

‘Give us a bell at the club then.’ He rolled the window up again.

‘Oh, thanks—’

He was gone.

So it was easy, this spying lark – if your mum happened to have had interfering Caribbean ladies as friends, who’d make their sons do anything they wanted. Keisha had gone home with a pound of ginger cake in Mercy’s embroidered bag, wrapped up in tinfoil. She put it on the table as she went into Charlotte’s. ‘Cake there, s’nice,’ she called. Then she saw something else on the table, a cheque. Looking at the amount, her eyebrows went up. ‘Char? Where you at?’

Muffled, from the bedroom. ‘In here.’

Keisha went in. She’d not seen inside Charlotte’s room before, but was fairly sure it didn’t always look like this. There were clothes all over the bed and floor. ‘Jesus, you moving out?’

Charlotte blew hair off her red face. ‘Selling stuff, like you said.’

That was Charlotte’s wedding dress there, in the long white wrapper. ‘How’d you get that cheque?’

Charlotte turned, a skirt draped over her arm, and she held out her hands. They were totally bare, the nails clipped short.

‘F*ck! Your ring! Are you OK?’

‘Yeah, sure. Like you said, it’s only jewellery.’ Charlotte rummaged in the cupboard, flinging things out behind her, jeans and jumpers and T-shirts.

‘Char?’

‘I’m fine!’ From inside the wardrobe came a little choked sound.

‘Come on, leave it out.’

She came out. Her face was shiny all over, wet and slick with tears. ‘It’s OK. I just can’t stop crying.’

‘Listen, I got a job. In the club, like you said. I can go there for a trial, they said.’

‘You did?’ That worked, and she was smiling through her tears. ‘That’s amazing!’

‘I met the brother, Anthony Johnson’s brother. He’s running it now. He’s . . . well, seems like a nice guy.’ She thought about how his muscles rippled, how he’d turned on her when she mentioned his brother.

‘He had a brother? No, don’t tell me, I can’t bear it. I have to focus on Dan.’

‘Yeah, well, I had it all today, didn’t I. His mum, sister, brother, grandpa . . .’

‘Stop.’ Charlotte wiped her face on a T-shirt. ‘I can’t think about it. So you’ll go and see what you can find out?’ A wavering smile was on her face. ‘This could be it, then. We might be able to show Dan didn’t do it?’

Keisha remembered the look on Ronald’s face, the anger and pain at whoever had killed his brother, but hadn’t the heart to crush Charlotte. ‘Could be, could be. Come on, let’s get the kettle on. There’s enough cake there to bust your guts.’

Things were moving on. It was summer already, and Dan had been in prison for nearly a month. Ruby had been away from Keisha, properly away, for a month. Her mum was dead and buried, so was Anthony Johnson. In just a few weeks everything had changed so much, it was like a picture turned upside down and shaken.

Ruby would be off school soon for the summer holidays, so Keisha wouldn’t have her sly little trips to hang out by the school gate. Maybe Ruby’d look back and this would be the first summer she really remembered, the summer when she was five-nearly-six, and her mum had left her with strange people. Sometimes, though Keisha tried not to, she thought about what Sandra had said. Adoption. Was it true? If she stayed away from Ruby to keep the kid safe, could she lose her for good?

If you only knew your mum until you were five, would you remember her? Ruby wouldn’t remember her granny much, despite all the hours of love and TV and sweets and kisses. There were times Keisha lay and thought all these things, waking up in Charlotte’s little room, all her stuff cramped up in one corner around Charlotte’s ironing board and box-files and a set of weights that must be Dan’s. Charlotte had so much stuff, it must feel like lugging round a massive suitcase all day long. Like you could never just walk away and leave it all, the Laura Ashley sofa and the machine that cut pasta for you, for f*ck’s sake. For people like Charlotte and Dan and their friends, Keisha thought it must be like they literally got to a point where they couldn’t think what to spend their money on any more, so on came the pasta-machines and coffee-makers and what have you.

Those friends, they weren’t around much. When she wasn’t writing to Dan and getting the letters sent back, or arguing with her mum on the phone, Charlotte kept trying to call her mates and they just blew her off, seemed like. One time she’d gone to a party and she came home early and went in her room and cried for like three hours.

‘They all think he did it,’ she’d said, red and puffy. Charlotte was practically keeping Boots in business with all her tissues and eye-masks and Rescue Remedy. ‘They think he’s, you know, racist. And they don’t think I should stick by him, because of what he did. This guy asked me tonight how I could live with myself!’ She fiddled with her hands all the time too, drove you mad, it did. The white strip where the ring had been stuck out a mile. ‘But then I don’t know what to say. Am I even sticking by him? I sold my ring, I haven’t seen him in ages now. Am I even engaged?’ And the tears, then, the sobbing and snuffling and gulping in big gasps of air, blowing her nose on Kleenex Ultra-Balm tissues, not cheap at all.

Keisha couldn’t afford to cry like this so she didn’t cry at all. She went to work at six most nights, came home at four, slept till lunchtime. If Charlotte wasn’t in she felt as if she’d no right to be there, as if she had to creep about. Sometimes the phone rang, making her jump. Usually she ignored it, but one day it rang and rang until she had to pick it up just to get some peace. ‘Yeah?’

A posh woman’s voice. ‘Who’s that? That’s not you, Charlotte?’

‘No, er, she’s out.’

‘And with whom am I speaking?’

‘Eh – just a friend.’

‘You don’t have a name? Don’t you know how to answer a telephone?’

Keisha said nothing; she wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

‘Well, are you hard of hearing? Where is my daughter?’ Shit, it was Charlotte’s mum.

‘She’ll be back later, yeah?’

‘For goodness’ sake.’ The phone clattered down. Snooty bitch!

After that, Keisha just left it alone. You never knew who’d be on the other end. In the afternoons she’d just lie there and think about her mum and Ruby – and Chris, wondering where he was. That’s who she would have said was her family, those three people, and everyone else could go screw themselves. But they were all gone now, in their own ways.

The first night Keisha had turned up at the club, she was in her usual work mode, i.e. just waiting for them to give her grief. Tapping her foot for trouble, almost.

The manager was called Dario, a skinny black guy with a real Cockney accent. How the hell he was called Dario when he was from Dagenham she didn’t know. It was probably Darren. The first time he saw her, ‘Dario’ gave her this big look up and down. ‘Yeah, darlin’?’ She was fairly sure he was gay. Mercy would have been shocked.

She squared up to Dario, with his falling-down jeans and tight T-shirt. All the staff wore black work tops, but Dario seemed to have one of the girl ones. ‘Here to see Ronald,’ she said. The arched eyebrows went up. Did he pluck them? So she was put to work, stacking dirty glasses, shovelling ice until her hand froze, opening about sixty thousand bottles. They didn’t let her talk to customers the first night – mostly a black crowd there for the pounding reggae music, but the occasional white wanker with fistfuls of cash. She wasn’t allowed to work the big flashing till yet either. Everyone talked like you needed a bloody degree to go on that thing.

At the end of the night she was knackered, and she could see Dario looking at her with a bit of a smile. ‘Too much for you, darlin’?’

She slammed the fridge door shut. ‘Nope. Been cleaning up actual shit for months, so this is nothing.’

‘Hmm. Well, you’ll have to see if Ronald wants you to stay, babes.’

Babes. He could f*ck right off. It was the most annoying thing when people called you ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’, and you could see all the time they were hating you inside. Like lying, it was.

Ronald was walking across the club, rolling on his feet, as if he was thinking hard. He towered over everyone else and seemed surprised to see her. ‘How’s takings, mate?’ he asked Dario.

‘Not bad, picking up.’ She’d overheard that the club had been quiet since Anthony died, except for some weirdos who asked where ‘it’ was found. ‘F*cking coffin-chasers,’ Dario called them.

‘So?’ She looked at Ronald. ‘I did me trial, like you said.’

‘Oh.’ He scratched his shaved head. ‘She do OK, Dar mate?’

Dario/Darren smiled a bit. ‘Better than wiping shitty arses, I bet.’

‘Eh?’

He dumped a bag of ice in the sink. ‘She’ll do. Not as stroppy as your sister.’ That was what he thought then, anyway. Because pretty much everyone hated Rachel. She was always late, swanning in like Paris Hilton or someone, just ’cos her family owned the place. ‘Little Miss World-owes-me-a-living,’ Dario called her, though to her face he called her ‘gorgeous’. ‘All right, gorgeous? Looking a treat.’ And kissy-kissy on the cheek. Yuck.

Meanwhile Charlotte was getting up every day around about when This Morning came on, and going out to work in jobs Keisha’s agency found her. They didn’t really like Keisha there, not since she’d spilled gravy all over the bare shoulders of some posh bitch at a silver-service do. And shouted out, ‘MotherF*ckER!’ at the same time (well, some of it got on Keisha’s hand too). They must like Charlotte though, with her nice ways and blonde hair, because she seemed to be out most days at the nursing home or in staff canteens in big branches of Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s. What was surprising was how behind closed doors there was a whole city of crap jobs out there, and most of them meant you came home stinking of old burned coffee. It was a smell like vomit that you could never wash out of your hands; Keisha never drank coffee because of it.

The first night Charlotte worked a shift, Keisha heard her come in about five in the morning, and opened the door to see if she was OK. Charlotte had eyes like a zombie and her white shirt was stained all over with baked beans. ‘You survived?’

Charlotte was half-staggering. ‘Tired.’

‘But you did it? Served the toast and made tea and stuff? S’easy, yeah?’

Charlotte shook her head. ‘Dunno. I couldn’t find anything. Didn’t know how to work the urn. I felt like a div, to be honest. Have to sleep now.’ She went to bed and slept in her underwear, chucking the dirty shirt and trousers straight onto the floor. But fair play to her, next day she got up and went out again. Who’d have thought she had it in her, to serve up eggs for hours, surrounded by the smell of crap? The posh girl wasn’t as weak as she looked, in fact.

Once Keisha was settled in to work it was easy to find her way around. She hated being the new girl, always did in her jobs, people giving you funny looks and going, Oh no, we don’t do it that way. How was she meant to know? She worked hard, no one could say she didn’t, whipping the tops off bottles and crushing up the ice and chopping the lemons so everything was ready at their elbows for the bar staff. Rachel was very slow, she noticed, looking round her as if the bottles and glasses would magically dance up to her on their own.

‘Here,’ Keisha muttered sometimes, shoving mint at her, as Rachel stood gaping at a man who’d asked for three mojitos (wanker). The white customers always wanted stuff like that.

‘A mo-whato?’ Rachel said. Dumb cow. Keisha wondered what this university was like, where she was meant to be studying Business Management. ’Cos as far as she could see, Rachel was as thick as Bailey’s Irish Cream.

All the time Keisha worked, Dario/Darren was watching her with his eyebrows and his little smile. Noticing. ‘We chop the limes in wedges, not slices,’ he said. ‘We give the change on saucers – make sure there’s enough.’ Always something. She thought he was testing her, seeing if she’d blow up, so she did what he said. Even if sometimes she chopped the limes so hard it left big scores in the board.

She kept going. After a while it got better, Dario eased off, she saw him watching her still, nodding sometimes. But Rachel didn’t seem to get any better. When Dario spoke to her about giving the wrong change or putting in the wrong mixer, she threw a strop, shouting, ‘I’m trying!’ One night she flipped. She’d given some arrogant tosser Sprite instead of tonic, and he kicked up such a massive fuss Dario had to come over and say he could have more drinks for free. ‘Sorry, mate, so sorry, yeah?’ Under his breath he said, ‘Wanker. Rachel, babes, we need to talk. I’ll go over the buttons again with you.’

‘For f*ck’s sake, I learned it like five times.’ Rachel looked tearful.

‘Yeah, but you still don’t know it, babes.’

Another customer came over, a black guy with dreadlocks, and he asked for two Coronas. That was easy – Keisha had them open and the lime wedges in before Rachel even went to the till. That was when the trouble started. Rachel put in the wrong price, and the till was making a beeping sound. ‘Oh, shit. What’d I do? Where’s the Coronas?’

‘Under “bottled drinks”,’ Keisha shouted, mopping up melted ice. Even though she wasn’t ‘till-trained’ (what a ponce) she knew that.

‘What? Where?’ Rachel was poking random buttons. ‘Shit.’

‘Hey, can ya get a move on?’ The customers were getting fed up.

‘Here.’ There wasn’t time to be nice. Keisha shoved Rachel aside and pressed some keys on the till. ‘Right. Seven-eighty, please, mate.’ She put his twenty-pence change on the plate with the napkin and he took it. Fair play, she’d have done the same herself. Seven-eighty for two beers was criminal.

Dario had been watching. ‘OK, Miss Keisha know-it-all, you’re on the till. Rachel, babes, go out back and clean your face.’

Once her break came up, Keisha went out to the staffroom. Rachel was curled up on the sofa clutching a tissue.

‘Hard work, that.’ Keisha was sweating. ‘You OK?’

Rachel sniffed loudly. ‘I hate it, you know. I wanted to be a student, like, and live in a flat, not serve beer all night. Some of them customers are wankers.’

‘Yep, they are that.’

‘It’s just . . . I’m so crap at it, and I hate it, then you come and you’re all good and shit and you just started.’

Keisha felt like being kind. ‘Well, I been doing shit jobs since I was fourteen. Working in the corner shop, Maccy D’s, the old folk’s home – after a while you just know how to do stuff.’ She saw Rachel was crying again. ‘If you don’t like it, can you not pack it in? Your mum wouldn’t mind, would she?’

‘No.’ Rachel gulped. ‘Ronald would. God, I miss our Anthony.’

So that was it. Sitting beside her, Keisha looked at the clock; her break wasn’t long. ‘Been about a month now, has it?’

Rachel nodded, mashing the manky tissue up in her fingers. ‘You met him that one time? He was always the life and soul, our Anthony. When he was young, Mum was so afraid for him she’d lock him in the house. ’Cos of gangs and stuff, you know? Mum used to say, That boy, he’ll come home in a coffin one day and break my heart in pieces.’ She blew her nose. ‘But then we thought he’d be OK. He meets Tanika, has the kids, gets this place . . . But look!’ She cried again a bit. ‘Got himself f*cking killed after all.’

Keisha didn’t know what to say. This was dangerous. ‘I thought it was just like some banker dude lost his temper? Random, like.’

Rachel dabbed her eyes and looked round, lowering her voice. ‘Don’t say nothing, yeah, but Anthony, he sorta borrowed cash for this place. Losing money, see. So he needs cash, he goes back to his old mates in the gang, don’t he?’

Keisha pressed her nails into her hands. She knew more than she wished she did that once or twice, Chris had been involved in getting debts back. And not exactly for legitimate bailiffs. ‘What’re you saying?’

‘Oh, I dunno. Shit, they never told me nothing, Anthony and our Ronald. I’m just the little baby sister, aren’t I? But Ronald’s in there every night with the accounts, never lets anyone else near the computer, whatever’s on there. I know he was worried, Anthony. I know I was worried for him.’

‘But – you told the police it was the banker. He said racist shit, didn’t he?’

Rachel sniffed. ‘Mel said he did, and I thought I remembered . . . I dunno. I was upset, wasn’t I?’

Upset enough to knock Charlotte’s tooth out, yeah. Keisha decided Rachel might be annoying and up herself, but she knew a lot more than you’d think. ‘I’m sorry. Sucks, what happened.’

‘Ta.’ Rachel sniffled some more. ‘Thanks for doing the till. I’m crap at it.’

That was when Dario threw open the door and said it was nice they had time to chat and brush their hair or whatever, but he had a bar to run and could they get their arses out into it? Rachel gave Keisha a roll of the eyes as they got up, and after that they were sort of OK with each other.

People got used to her at the bar. When they did, it was easy to slip about and no one’d pay you a blind bit of notice. The door out to the back of the club opened with a code that all the staff knew. It led into a corridor that had the staffroom, the storeroom full of barrels and stuff, and at the other end, the office where Anthony Johnson had died choking on his own blood. At the end of the corridor was a fire exit, and that opened out into an alley where the bins and things were. Keisha’d seen it open when they got deliveries, and she couldn’t hear any alarm. You could hardly see the door when it was closed.

After watching for a few nights as people took in barrels and took out rubbish and stepped out for fags, she decided to test it out. Sneaking down past the office with a load of dirty glasses, she gave the back door a nudge with her foot and it opened. Nothing happened. But maybe it went off somewhere else?

She went into the staffroom, where Dario was smoothing down his hair. ‘Er, hiya? I knocked the back door open by accident.’ Accidentally on purpose, more like.

‘So?’

‘So, says it’s on an alarm. Did I set it off?’

He was looking in the mirror. ‘Nah, it don’t work. We lock it up last thing. S’OK.’

Well, that was a bit of a find, wasn’t it? She wondered had the police, so sure they’d got the right guy, figured out that any random person could get in from the outside. The side of the door facing into the alley had no handles, but she’d been around Chris long enough to know you could open that in a second with a knife or something. Keisha stood in the corridor, thinking hard. She thought of Chris leaving the club that night. Going home. What was he up to in between? She thought of Charlotte, standing outside waiting for Dan. What had she seen? There had to be something.

‘Not busy?’ She jumped. F*ck! Ronald was standing in the doorway of the office. He looked tired, like always, and pissed off.

‘Oh yeah, just doing the glasses.’

‘Are you done? ’Cos it’s rammed out there, you know.’

Her heart was racing. ‘OK, OK. Christ, you can be really arsey, you know that?’ Shit, she hadn’t meant to say that. He was her boss. She’d get sacked.

He looked sad for a moment. ‘You’re right. I am arsey. Wish I didn’t have to be.’ He went back in and she saw him sit down at the computer and put his head in his hands. His feet were right near where his brother’s head had fallen back, dead.

Keisha would have said to him, ‘What’s up with you, then?’ But she knew. Even without Rachel’s story of lost money and old gang connections, she knew. And Ronald thought, everyone thought – the police, the Johnsons, Dan’s family, even Dan, for Christ’s sake – they all thought they knew who did it. The only people who thought something else were herself – and what did she know, really? – and Charlotte, keeping her faith, not able to believe she’d been about to marry a killer.

Keisha went back into the noise and dark of the bar.

Dario shouted over the racket, ‘Where’s your head at tonight?’

Her head was everywhere. She was thinking, you never knew anyone, not really. You never knew what someone would do, or how many ways they would let you down. And in that moment, without knowing why, she had already decided not to tell Charlotte about the door. Not yet, anyway.

Memories. Bits of the past. She lay in the room in the long mornings and they were all she had. The day she found out about Ruby – not really that much of a surprise, since she hadn’t taken her pill in months.

Chris’s face when she showed him the stupid little stick, shy, nervous to her stomach. ‘F*ck.’ He’d gone white as a sheet. ‘How the f*ck?’

She’d got angry. ‘How d’you think? Never used nothing to stop it, did you?’

‘Thought you did.’

‘Well, looks like you thought wrong.’ This wasn’t how it was meant to be. He was meant to hold her in his arms and spin her round and all that shit.

His face when he looked up. ‘Christ, Keisha, I never wanted this. My dad . . .’

Chris’s dad, father of eight kids (that they knew about), was an Irish drunk, falling out of Kilburn Wetherspoons any day of the week you wanted to walk past.

‘Thought you’d be pleased.’ Her eyes filled up when she said it. ‘It’s your kid, you know.’

‘Shit. Shit. I need to think.’ And he’d got up and gone, and she’d sat there on the grotty sofa with her little wee-stained stick in her hand. F*ck, what an idiot. Up the duff, as bad as her mum, and now she’d probably get fired from Maccy D’s, and he’d most likely give her the elbow. That was when he’d started up with the gangs, for the easy money, the bling. And he didn’t really want some pregnant, grumpy, mixed-race girlfriend cramping his style. As she sat there and waited, she’d known how it would be. But he came back that night, with a bunch of crappy carnations, the yellow discount sticker from Tesco’s on the side. And it was OK, at least for a while. Until what happened to Ruby, of course.

There was a noise outside the room. Keisha looked at her phone and saw it was getting late, nearly time for Loose Women. She got up in her ‘sleepwear’, as Charlotte would call it, sports shorts and a man’s T-shirt. ‘All right?’ When Charlotte came in she always felt like she should be cleaning something, doing something.

Charlotte was opening and shutting cupboard doors; she’d done a load of proper shopping, in Waitrose, no less. That was a first. There were bananas, bread, carrots. Proper things, not just Pot Noodles. ‘What’s all this?’

Charlotte shrugged. ‘Don’t you just feel we’ve been eating rubbish for weeks?’

That was all Keisha ever ate. ‘Where was you today?’

‘In that canteen again. But they’ve got me a new place next, homeless shelter. I’m not sure I’ll like that.’

‘They’re OK, those. Pay’s better.’

‘Yeah.’ Charlotte turned round to her, holding a packet of biscuits. ‘Listen. I called DC Hegarty today. You know, the policeman who arrested Dan.’

‘Oh.’ Shit, the police. She’d been wondering when this would come.

‘He’s coming round tomorrow. I told him some of the stuff you found out, about the club’s money troubles and all that.’

That explained the shopping then, and Charlotte looked different somehow too. Keisha peered at her. She’d put make-up on, that was it. Mascara, lip gloss.

Come to think of it, what with all the working nights, she hadn’t seen Charlotte much that week. So, this was for the policeman, that bloody annoying one who’d hauled Keisha in after the girls beat Charlotte up. She didn’t like him, his green eyes sharp like he could see all the way through you. Nosy bugger. ‘He’s coming tomorrow night?’

Charlotte was staring into her cupboard. Maybe she was thinking, Viennese sandwich or chocolate chip? Make Keisha dob Chris in before or after the cucumber sandwiches? ‘Hmm? Yes, in the evening.’

‘Oh, right.’ Keisha could play this game too. ‘Probably be at work then, won’t I.’ She sat down and turned on the telly, put her feet on the coffee table. She knew that drove Charlotte mad.

Charlotte snapped out of her thoughts. ‘What? No, you need to be here.’

‘What d’you need me for? You and him can have all those nice biccies together.’

Charlotte came over and stood in front of the telly. ‘That’s what you call helping?’

‘I found out all about the gangs and that. Told you what I know, didn’t I.’

‘Did you?’ Charlotte’s face was getting red. ‘Look at me, will you? Is there something else?’

‘No! For f*ck’s sake, I’m trying to watch Loose Women. Anyway, if anyone knows something, it’s you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Charlotte looked furious.

‘You must have seen something, why else’d Chris be after you? Stands to reason. If you’d just tell me – well, maybe it’d make him keep away. Leave us alone.’ And Ruby.

‘I don’t remember anything, I already said. I don’t know what he wants with me. And if you’ve told me everything, why won’t you make a statement? I mean, do you think the law doesn’t apply to you or something?’

Keisha stood up stiffly. ‘I’m not f*cking stupid.’

Charlotte sighed, running her hands through her hair. ‘I know. That’s what’s so annoying. Are you scared Chris’ll find out? Because I hate to tell you, I think it’s a bit late for that.’

It wasn’t fair. Keisha didn’t need this shit. ‘You sprung it on me! I get up and there’s you taking out biscuits for him! “Oh Officer, would you like some more tea?” Anyone’d think you fancied him.’ Shit, she couldn’t talk to the cops. What if they lifted her? Then who would stop Chris getting to the kid?

Charlotte took in a deep sucking breath. ‘Oh, f*ck off, will you?’

Silence. Neither of them said anything. Charlotte slumped down on the sofa, wringing her hands together. ‘I didn’t mean to say that. I’m just – I can’t go on like this. I haven’t heard from Dan for weeks. I don’t even know if he’s . . . Look. That came a few days back.’ She slapped a letter down on the table. ‘He’s going under in there, just so you know. Look at it – someone beat him up.’

Keisha wouldn’t look at the letter. ‘Well, whatever. I have to go. You wanted me to work in the club, remember? Trying to find out shit for you?’

Charlotte put her head in her hands. ‘Whatever. Do what you want.’

Keisha bashed about in the bathroom getting ready, making as much noise as she could. She made a point of using Charlotte’s bottle of that perfumey Jo Malone stuff, cost, like, twenty-five quid. Criminal. Then, ignoring Charlotte who was still sitting at the table, she went out, banging the door behind her, so angry she almost forgot to peer into the bushes just in case someone was hiding. As she stomped along to the bus stop, she was getting more and more pissed off. Bloody Charlotte! She’d told her, she’d said she didn’t want to talk to the police, when they wouldn’t believe her anyway, when she had no proof, when Chris was still round somewhere, and hello, he wouldn’t exactly be loving it if she told the f*cking cops on him! Charlotte was so stupid sometimes, like she came from another planet where the police were your chums. Keisha was glad she hadn’t told her about the door. Why should she? She had to look out for herself, her kid.

The bus came and Keisha got on, giving the driver a look that just dared him to make trouble. Yeah? Yeah? He didn’t even look at her. Well, f*ck him. She swung into a seat at the back of the bus and turned the music on her phone up high, swivelling round to see if any old biddies wanted to tap her on the shoulder and say they could hear it through her headphones and could she turn it down please, it was meant to be a personal stereo, wasn’t it?

She was still pissed off when she got into the club, banging the door into the staffroom and chucking her denim jacket over a chair.

‘Afternoon to you too, Keisha.’ Ronald was in already as well, in his office across the corridor, computer on again.

She stomped out again in her staff T-shirt. ‘Well? What’m I on tonight? You want me out back hauling bottles, in case I upset the poor little punters? Oh poor them, so sad if they want diet tonic and they get normal instead, it’s a tragedy . . .’ She was storming off as she ranted, about to go and find Dario so he’d tell her what to do, but Ronald said, ‘Hey, come in here.’

‘In there?’ She hovered in the doorway. Although it had been cleaned and repainted, she couldn’t go near it without thinking about the blood all over the floor.

‘Yeah. Shut the door.’

Was she fired? ‘Listen, right, I didn’t mean it, I’ll be nicer, honest I will.’

Ronald didn’t look up from the screen. ‘Good to know, Keisha. You won’t be calling the punters f*cking arseholes any more then?’

She didn’t think he’d heard her ranting in the staffroom. ‘Ah. No.’

Ronald looked up. ‘Rachel said you was here that night. When my brother got killed. Says you came with some white fella who wanted business with him.’

Keisha hung back against the filing cabinet. ‘Yeah, so? Lots of people were.’

He just looked at her. ‘You gonna tell me who he was?’

Shit, what was the point? Rachel would’ve told him. ‘Chris. He was with me. My, you know, my boyfriend.’

‘Your kid’s dad?’

‘Yeah, but like, we’re split now.’ She stared at the newly painted floor, not wanting Ronald to look at her and see somehow that she’d left Chris after he mashed her face up.

‘Why’d you come that night?’

‘Dunno. Chris was a bouncer, like, before all the credit-crunch shit. Thought he wanted to talk to your Anthony about work.’

Still Ronald looked. He said, ‘Police talk to you? Rachel told me about the court, and the girl, that fella’s missus. She’s sorry for that now. She was upset.’

‘Yeah, the police talked to me after it.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘What’d you tell them? What’d you do that night?’

She was tired. ‘I went home, didn’t I?’

‘And your fella went too? Chris?’

Shit. SHIT. ‘Er, dunno. Nah, think he went ahead, said he felt sick.’ Her heart was beating so fast he could probably hear it in the small room.

‘Keisha. Darlin’.’

‘What? I told you all I know.’ She might cry at the way he said darlin’.

For a long time Ronald said nothing. ‘You can trust me. Maybe I’m arsey, like you said, but I look after my family, yeah?’

‘I’m not your family.’ She was just some girl who could f*ck up his life and everyone else’s too. But when he said it, she looked up at him, heart thudding. Family.

‘You’d tell me if you knew something?’

‘I don’t.’

Slowly, he sighed. ‘Right. OK. Go on, then.’

Outside in the corridor she let out a shaky breath, like a balloon coming down.

‘Got you too, did he?’

‘F*ck!’ She jumped. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘Getting ready, duh.’ Rachel was in the staffroom with the door wide open, pulling her T-shirt on.

‘What’s up with your Ronald? Gave me a right grilling.’

‘Yeah, sorry.’ Rachel patted out the halo of her hair. ‘I told him you was here that night. Didn’t mean no harm by it. He’s been over us all, me, Dario too.’

‘Why? What’s got up his arse?’

Rachel gave herself a last look in the mirror, probably thinking, Oh wow, I am so gorgeous, who can resist? ‘Had a visitor, didn’t he. About that cash our Anthony owed.’

‘What?’ Keisha leaned back against the wall as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

‘Yeah, some fella came round. I weren’t here and Ron didn’t know him. I thought maybe it was that Chris, your boyfriend. You split, didn’t ya?’

She couldn’t breathe. ‘W-why would he be here?’

Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘Our Ant might be Mum’s golden boy now, but he weren’t no saint. I told you he was in a gang years ago? The Parky Boys – they lent him some dosh. So they’re gonna send someone round to get it back, aren’t they. So maybe it’s the same fella what was here the night our Anthony—’ She looked at Keisha. ‘Hey, you OK? You gone all white. More than usual, like.’