‘Then why you looking at me like I just chopped out a line on the table?’
Helen’s face dissolved into a grin. ‘Even if you had, it wouldn’t exactly be a first in here. That’s why they have those nice little booths at the back.’
Kaz returned the smile, licked her finger and raised it. ‘Yeah all right, one up to you.’
Helen gave her a tepid smile. They relapsed into silence.
The waiter placed a one hundred and seventy-five centilitre glass of wine on the table in front of Kaz. Beads of moisture sweated round the chilled bowl. Kaz gazed at it. Four years. A long time sober. She wasn’t sure she even wanted it. She’d only ordered it to prove a point. But what point? That she could? That she was in charge of her own life now? That was a joke. Her freedom was contingent on playing the game, on abiding by the rules. Joey was right, the bastards had you every which way.
The waiter returned with his pad to take their order. Kaz stared at him balefully. ‘I asked for a glass, not a fucking bucket. Why does everything come in fucking buckets? You can take it away. And I’ll have fillet steak, medium rare, with chips.’
The waiter made no comment, he was used to being abused by the City’s finest. He blinked, scribbled, turned to Helen. She ordered fish; he picked up the glass of wine and hurried off.
Kaz huffed out a sigh then she gave Helen a tentative smile. ‘Sorry. I’m being a right fucking pain in the arse, aren’t I?’
Helen smiled. She blamed herself for this. Kaz was obviously struggling and she’d just made it worse.
She reached across the table and placed her hand over Kaz’s. ‘No you’re not. I’m the one owes you an apology. Bad choice of venue.’
They sat for a frozen moment, both completely absorbed by the feathery caress of skin on skin. Then Helen used the excuse of pouring Kaz a glass of mineral water to remove her hand; as she concentrated on this, Kaz scanned her face.
‘I told the new probation bloke about the cop.’ Kaz smiled at the memory. ‘Said I was being harassed, needed to leave the hostel. Really put him off his stroke, he didn’t know what to say. Said he’d speak to his supervisor.’
Helen raised her glass of mineral water. ‘Yeah and so will I. And Turnbull. And the IPCC if I have to.’
‘If I get into college maybe I can move into the student residences early. I don’t want to stay at Joey’s, that was never the plan. But that pink – seriously, it was an emergency.’
Helen sipped her water, smiled. ‘I can imagine. But you have to tread carefully. You can’t give them any excuse.’
‘I know that.’
Helen gazed at her client and sighed. Her relationship with Karen Phelps was different, there was no disguising that fact. The important thing was that feelings didn’t get out of hand. So it was up to Helen to manage the situation, to keep any unruly emotions contained. It was all about control and that was Helen’s forte.
She gave Kaz the detached professional smile. ‘Well, let’s enjoy our lunch. Though there was something I wanted to ask you . . .’
Kaz shot her a suspicious glance. ‘Now what?’
‘The BP Portrait Award is on until the end of the month. I usually try and go. The reviews have been very good this year. I wondered if you’d like to come with me?’
Kaz cocked her head, she didn’t bother to conceal her surprise. ‘To an exhibition? What, we friends now?’
Helen took another sip of water. ‘We’ve always been friends.’
12
Ashley gunned the Range Rover Evoque down the hill past Chalkwell Park and turned left on to Southend seafront. A disgruntled Joey sat beside him.
‘Speed cameras, mate! I don’t want a fucking ticket.’
Kaz sat in the back; she gazed out at the Estuary, a vast expanse of mudflats, low tide, the water was maybe half a mile distant. It was a breezy day and the kite surfers were out in force bobbing and leaping over the choppy waves. The pier sat long and low on the grey horizon as Ashley drove more sedately along the front towards it.
Joey had taken some persuading, but Kaz realized she had quite a bit of leverage with him if she cared to use it. They were finally going to visit Natalie. Kaz had tried calling a few times, but the phone always went straight to voicemail. So their visit was probably unannounced. Kaz had spent a lot of time wondering about what had happened to her baby sister. She had a few theories, but none of them were good so she kept them to herself.
Ashley negotiated the speed bumps from the Pier Hill to the Kursaal, passing the neon strip of arcades and bars, which late morning were largely empty. Back in the eighties this had been Terry Phelps’s stamping ground. Kaz remembered trips to the arcades with a fistful of coins to keep them quiet and amused whilst the old man conducted ‘business’.
They turned up into the town and headed for the rundown sixties tower blocks where Natalie lived, apparently with a boyfriend. His name was Jez and he was a toerag; that was all the information Kaz had been able to prise out of her brother. Ashley pulled off the road on to a patch of tarmac lined with council wheelie bins, which served as a car park to the flats.
Joey leant between the two front seats and eyeballed his sister. ‘You sure you wanna do this?’
She returned his gaze with equal determination. ‘Yes.’
He shrugged and got out.
The lobby to the flats had entryphone access. Joey stabbed at a random series of buttons until someone got fed up and the door clicked open. The entrance was tiled, grime in the corners and a pervasive smell of disinfectant and piss. Joey pressed the call button on the lift.
‘Hope to Christ this fucker’s working, ’cause they live on the thirteenth floor.’
Ashley giggled. Both Joey and Kaz cast him questioning looks.
‘Thirteen? Well, it’s sort of . . . well I dunno. Just thought it was funny.’
Joey scowled at him. ‘You have to be such a moron?’
‘No I . . . sorry Joe.’
The lift arrived and as the steel doors trundled open Joey gave Ashley a shove. ‘Get in you stupid tosser and keep your lame jokes to yerself.’
‘Ain’t a tosser.’
‘Yeah you are.’
Kaz watched their antics with mild amusement as she followed them into the lift.
Natalie’s flat was towards the end of a long corridor; a kid’s pushchair, a broken bike, a couple of bin bags of rubbish all had to be negotiated before they reached the front door. Joey hammered on it with his fist, the thin plywood reverberated with the force.
Joey sighed. ‘They’ll probably think it’s the social or the council.’
Abruptly the door opened and a tall, scrawny lad was blinking at them through round granny glasses. He was white, but his head was a mass of dirty bleached dreadlocks. He seemed confused, Kaz concluded he was simply wasted. Then recognition dawned and he beamed.
‘Joe! All right mate?’
Joey glared at him. ‘You letting us in or what?’
‘Yeah yeah . . . come in.’
Joey pushed past him into the narrow hallway. Kaz and Ashley followed. It was oppressively hot and when they got to the sitting room they could see why: the gas fire was going full blast. Joey turned to him. ‘Fuck me Jez, it’s like a bleedin’ sauna in here. Stinks ’n’all.’ He went straight over to the glazed door, which opened on to a small balcony, and flung it open.
Jez twisted the dreads between his fingers. He was struggling to focus on his visitors. ‘Nat, she feels the cold.’
Joey pointed at the gas fire. ‘Turn that bloody thing off.’ Jez looked at it blankly so Ashley obliged.
As Kaz rapidly took in the room all her worst fears were confirmed. Drug paraphernalia littered the table and the floor, together with takeaway cartons, bottles and beer cans. Joey booted an empty pizza box across the room at Jez.
‘Don’t you ever clean this place up?’
Jez raised his head slowly and gave Joey a dreamy smile. ‘Nat, she feels the cold.’
‘And where
the fuck is she?’
Jez looked around and a puzzled expression crept over his features as if he’d mislaid something, his keys maybe, and couldn’t quite recall where he’d left them. The whole performance served to wind Joey up all the more; he elbowed Jez aside. Jez landed on the sofa in a heap like a rag doll.
‘I hate fuckin’ junkies.’
The flat was a maisonette on two floors. Kaz followed her brother up a short flight of stairs to the two bedrooms above. One was empty, bare boards and a tatty old pair of jeans forlornly abandoned in one corner. In the second, larger room there was a mattress on the floor with a duvet and some blankets heaped on top. Joey gave the room a cursory glance and slammed straight out.
‘They do my fuckin’ head in.’
Kaz hesitated in the doorway, scanning the room more closely. There was a can of beer by the bed, a loaded ashtray, a lighter and a crack pipe. Her chest felt tight, she was conscious of having to make an effort to breathe. Days lost, waking up with sore, parched lips, it all came flooding back. Kaz had been here, she’d done all this. As she moved across the room towards the bed she noticed a tiny nugget of crack still nestling in the foil wrap next to the pipe. The desire exploded in her brain before she was even conscious of the thought. Just one hit, just the one, it screamed. For old times’ sake, what harm could it do?
She squatted down beside the bed, picked up the wrap and the pipe; the glass was discoloured, the edge broken, it was well used. Then the mound of covers moved and two eyes, pale and blue as Joey’s, were staring straight at her.
‘You nicking that?’ The voice was a barely audible croak.
Kaz put the pipe and the wrap down. ‘No.’
Kaz lifted the grimy corner of the duvet to reveal her sister’s face. Natalie’s blonde hair was also braided into short stubby dreads that gave her a fuzzy halo. The face was drawn, the lips and chin covered in sores. Kaz painted on a smile.
‘How you doing Nat?’
Natalie pushed back the covers and struggled to sit up. She wore a thin vest, which provided no disguise for her emaciated form.
‘What you doing here?’
‘Came to see you. Didn’t anyone tell you I was out?’
Natalie ignored the question as she focused on manoeuvring herself into an upright position.
‘Got a fag?’
Kaz shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
Without warning Natalie took a deep breath, opened her mouth and hollered, ‘Jez!’ The volume of sound took Kaz by surprise, it seemed impossibly loud for her sister’s frail form.
Natalie glared at her impatiently. ‘Where the fuck is he?’
‘Downstairs. You getting up?’
Joey appeared in the doorway. He glanced from Natalie to Kaz. His jaw was set, his gaze came to rest defiantly on Kaz. His point was made, now he wanted her to acknowledge it.
Kaz smiled equably. ‘I’m gonna help Natalie get dressed. Perhaps you and Ashley could make some coffee?’
Joey stared at her mutely, gave a curt nod and disappeared.
Natalie’s eyes remained fixed on the empty doorway where he’d been; her brain seemed to be functioning on a time lapse, it took several seconds to catch up with events. ‘Has Joe got a fag?’
‘I dunno. You get dressed and come downstairs, maybe we can find out.’
It took Kaz the best part of half an hour to coax Natalie out of the bed and into a pair of jeans and an over-large hoodie, which looked as if it belonged to Jez. As she descended the stairs she hugged the hoodie round herself.
‘Always fucking freezing in here.’
Joey was pacing the room, television remote in hand, channel-hopping. Ashley perched on the sofa, Jez stared into space.
Kaz shepherded her sister through the door. ‘Here she is.’
Natalie booted Jez’s outstretched foot. It jolted him out of his daze, he turned and smiled in recognition. ‘All right babe?’
‘Got a fag?’
Jez pondered the request, then his attention drifted away.
Kaz piloted Natalie towards the table. ‘Drink your coffee first.’
Natalie hovered uncertainly in the middle of the room; she was practically Kaz’s height, but her shoulders were bowed, her body rake-thin. She started to scratch.
‘I want a fag.’
Kaz picked up a tepid mug of black coffee from the table and held it out to her. ‘Have some of this first.’
Natalie eyed the mug and her sister with disdain. ‘I want a fag.’
Joey had ceased to pace, he was watching the battle of wills between the sisters.
Kaz painted on a smile. ‘The coffee’ll help.’
Natalie balled up both fists and shut her eyes. ‘I want a fag.’
Kaz watched, blankly, calmly, as Natalie started to chant. ‘I want a fag. I want a fag. I want a fag—’
This was too much for Joey. He hurled the remote at the sofa, narrowly missing Ashley’s head.
‘Christ almighty, will someone give her a fuckin’ fag!’
Kaz shot him a look and inclined her head towards the doorway. ‘Can I have a word?’
Joey stomped down the hall to the small kitchenette. It was worse than the sitting room, a narrow galley, cartons of congealed food furred with mould littering both counters. Kaz followed him in and pulled the sliding door to. Penned in he turned to face her.
‘Now you seen it for yerself. Satisfied?’
Kaz looked at him, tears were welling up in her eyes. ‘How could you let this happen?’
Joey stared at her in disbelief. ‘Me? Ain’t nothing I could do!’
Kaz erupted, the tears were coursing down her cheeks now. ‘This your idea of taking care of things while I was away? It’s all bollocks Joey! She didn’t get like this overnight. Where the fuck were you?’
Joey’s lower lip quivered. Kaz’s dark gaze was boring right into him. ‘I . . . we . . . she wouldn’t have it. Mum tried—’
‘Mum tried? Mum! And gave up after five minutes no doubt, soon as it got a little bit awkward or inconvenient.’ Kaz jabbed her index finger in his chest. ‘So you all closed your eyes, turned your backs, walked away.’
‘No! It weren’t like—’
‘You tell me how it was then. How did a bright twelve-year-old kid turn into an eighteen-year-old crackhead?’
‘I don’t know.’ Joey started to cry too. He booted one of the kitchen cabinets, caving the door right in. ‘I don’t fucking know! It’s not my fault.’
Kaz stared at him and she saw her father, his shadowy bulk filling her bedroom doorway. Once she’d been removed from the scene it was easy to imagine how he’d transferred his attentions to Natalie. If only she’d been there, she could’ve stopped it. The anger and bitterness rose in Kaz and like a filthy black bile engulfed everything. Joey and his tears, his excuses, seemed pathetic to her. He was flinging his arms about now like a petulant child; he punched a cupboard door, swept dirty crockery on the floor. Kaz stood stock-still, indifferent to his childish fury.
‘Look at you Mr Big Business.’ She laughed sourly. ‘You reckon you know it all? Gonna become rich and successful. You couldn’t even sort out your little sister. You stood by and let her turn into a junkie. What use are you?’
Joey stopped in his tracks. He stared right at her, the intense, hypnotic gaze. His voice was cold and detached. ‘That what you really think?’
Kaz stared right back at him but she didn’t reply. She was miles away, years away, before, if there ever was a before, searching her mind in vain for a time of childhood and innocence.
Joey pushed past her, practically yanked the sliding kitchenette door off its runners. He stormed into the sitting room, seized Jez by the throat and lifted him bodily off the sofa. Jez’s glasses tumbled to the floor, he looked like a startled fawn; Joey had one arm round his neck, trapping it in a vice-like grip, the other under his flailing legs. He strode across the room to the open balcony door and holding Jez’s gangling body horizontally he stepped through it, hoi
sted him up to shoulder height and threw him off the balcony.
Kaz returned to the room in time to see Jez disappearing. He made no sound, he was simply gone.
Joey stepped back into the room with a satisfied smirk on his face. He met Kaz’s astonished look. ‘You wanted it sorted, it’s sorted. Okay?’
He scooped the car keys from Ashley’s hand, marched down the hallway straight out of the flat, slamming the door behind him. Kaz rushed out on to the balcony and looked down. Thirteen floors below, Jez’s broken body was splayed face up across one of the council wheelie bins, neck and shoulders dangling limply over the edge, one leg twitching. Kaz stared in disbelief. Inside the flat Natalie started to scream.
13
Kaz had to admit she was impressed by the way Ashley simply took charge of the situation. He whacked Natalie round the chops just hard enough to stun her into silence. Then he rooted round the debris of the sitting room and found a pair of flip-flops for her to put on.
‘Right, we need to get out of here.’
Kaz was still so flabbergasted by Joey’s actions she didn’t reply. Grabbing Natalie’s hand, she allowed Ashley to shepherd them both towards the front door. They reached the lift and he pressed the call button. Kaz glanced at him anxiously.
‘Wouldn’t the stairs be better . . . less obvious?’
Ashley dismissed this with a shake of his head. ‘We’re already on the CCTV, if it’s working. Stay cool, act normal, pretend like nothing’s happened.’
The lift arrived and they stepped inside. Natalie was snivelling then a low keening started to rumble through her emaciated frame. Kaz put a comforting arm round her shoulders. ‘It’s okay babes, it’ll be okay.’ She didn’t believe this herself, her brain was reeling, but the immediate priority was to deal with Natalie.
Ashley reached in his pocket and pulled out a plastic grip-seal pouch of about half a dozen pills. He held it up.
‘Could try giving her a couple of these?’
‘What are they?’
‘Benzos. They’re ace for chilling you out. I give them to Joey when he has a freak out.’
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