Just as she was getting up and hoisting her bag over her shoulder, she noticed Finn look past her and saw his face change. She turned to see two men in plain clothes, who were almost certainly police officers, walking up to them.
“Finn McKenna?” one of the men asked.
Finn gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“We’d like to ask you some questions in connection with the death of Jamie Donnelly on 12th July.”
Clare sat back down next to Finn and looked at him. He gestured to the officers to sit down, but they stayed where they were.
“At the station, if you don’t mind, Mr McKenna.”
Clare expected Finn to protest, but he just shrugged and stood up. She stared at him, at the two men, and back again. Then she grasped at his hand. “What’s going on?”
Finn looked down and gave her a half-smile. He folded his fingers around hers. “I don’t know. But I know I have nothing to worry about, so neither have you.”
“But…”
Finn squeezed her hand and then, in a quick movement that was over in a second, he leaned down and kissed her knuckles. Then he let her go. “I’ll call you when they’ve finished wasting everyone’s time. Let’s get this over with, then.” He followed the officers out of the bar. Clare stayed where she was, with everyone else in the bar staring at her, then she hurried out to the car.
She wondered where she could find to go. Anywhere but back to her flat, as usual. She set off almost without thinking about it towards Sweetmeadows, forming ideas in her head as to what she could do when she got there. Have a word with Annie Martin, perhaps, and see if there were any definite plans yet for Jamie’s funeral. That would be the next big story, she thought.
The Donnellys’ flat was Clare’s first call. She was relieved that Rob Donnelly was out, but Annie was there. “He’s taken the kids to the beach,” Annie said, on the doorstep. “I’m minding Deborah.”
Clare made a sympathetic face. “Still no better? Not that it’s surprising.”
“Come in.” Annie walked into the flat and Clare followed, stepping over the plastic building blocks and trying to avoid pressing broken crayons into the carpet as she walked. Things looked no worse than the day of Jamie’s death, though. That would be Annie, cooking, keeping on top of the cleaning and washing as best she could, while Deborah – the sunken-faced husk of a woman hunched on the sofa, swamped in a faded track suit – remained on heavy medication.
“This is the woman from the Post,” Annie said, loud and slow, as if to a little child.
Debs just blinked.
Annie shook her head. “Drugged up to the eyeballs. But otherwise I think the pain would be too much.”
Clare nodded. “How’s Rob coping?”
“He’s just getting on. You know, the way men do. By working and not talking about anything and going around like nothing’s happened.” Annie reached for a cigarette. “I don’t know which is worst.”
Drugs or denial. Clare wasn’t sure either.
“I wondered if there was any news on the funeral?”
Annie shook her head. “Deborah can’t think about that right now. What’s bothering us is that the police still haven’t caught the bastard.” She sucked hard on the cigarette. “Worse than bloody useless, the lot of them.”
“They still don’t seem to have any real leads,” Clare agreed.
“We’ve decided.” Annie stubbed out a half-smoked cigarette in a red tin ashtray that had come from a pub. “If there’s no news by tomorrow, we’re going to go and protest outside that police station.”
“Who is?” Clare wrote Sunday - protest in her notebook.
“Me and some of the other women from the estate. We’re going to go outside that police station with pictures of Jamie and we’re going to take candles and torches and we’re going to stand there all night. We want to shame the police, for doing bugger all for more than a week.”
“We’ll be there,” Clare promised. “We’ll get you some coverage for that.”
She toyed with the idea of telling Annie that Finn McKenna had been arrested, but decided against it. She was sure – she found herself hoping – that he would be released without charges after an hour or two. No point in getting Annie worked up about something that would almost certainly come to nothing.
“There are women round here who haven’t let their kids play outside since it happened. They’re having to keep them indoors in this stinking heat because they don’t want to let them out of their sight. Not when some madman’s roaming around throwing bairns out of their prams.”
On the sofa, Debs made a snuffling sound. Clare and Annie looked at her, but Debs just stared down at her own fingers and said nothing. She looked as if she was fading into her own sofa, as if she barely existed. She looked like someone who’d had her insides wrenched out. Clare’s own guts twisted painfully.
“See, if it was because of Rob breaking the strike, that would be one thing,” Annie went on. “No one else from this estate has been stupid enough to do that, so it follows that everyone else would be safe, right? But the police say they don’t think it’s anything to do with that. So we’re no further forward, and every mother thinks her kid might be next.”
Outside, Clare could see Amy leaning casually on the car. She waved when she saw Clare walking towards her. “Hey, Clare, what’ve you been reporting on today?”
“Some of the mothers are holding a demonstration outside the police station tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, that. Me mam’s going. I’ll go too, if you’re going to be there.”
“I will.” Clare noticed Amy was wearing the same shorts and neon T-shirt as the other day, and they didn’t look or smell as if they’d been through a wash in the meantime. “How’ve you been?”
“Great. I love not being at school.” Amy did a little hopping dance. “I did some more shorthand. I did it watching telly the other night. I’m getting faster.”
“That’s brilliant. Only try to write it in your notebook, not on your arms, eh? Why don’t you like school, anyway?”
Stupid question, really, Clare thought, after the words had tripped out. All kids hate school. She’d disliked it herself. More than disliked.
Amy scratched her head. “Everyone gives me wrong all the time.”
“Like, for what?”
“For things I say. I never mean to say the wrong thing but I always do. Me mam says, ‘Amy, I wish you’d learn to keep your daft gob shut.’”
“What about lessons?”
Amy shrugged. “They’re okay. Some of them. I like writing stories and all that.”
I bet you do, thought Clare. “What about your friends?” She hoped it was okay to ask that.
Amy gave a long, outward sigh. “Not ’specially.”
“You don’t have a best friend or anything?”
Amy shook her head. “Sometimes they let me play. Sometimes they don’t. They say I’m dirty and that I smell.”
“That’s horrible. Take no notice, Amy. You don’t smell.” Clare hoped her lie sounded believable.
“I sometimes play with the littlies instead. They’re not so mean.” The girl shrugged.
Clare nodded. She knew what it was like to be the weird kid who didn’t quite fit in. She knew how much those tiny daily humiliations – not to be allowed to join a group, not to have the right clothes, shoes or hair – could hurt.
“What else are you doing today?”
“Mmm, something about the miners’ strike.”
“Oh, yeah.” Amy didn’t look interested. “I’m dead sick of all that.”
“Amy. You haven’t been left on your own today, have you?”
“No, me mam’s up in bed.”
Clare glanced at her watch. It was getting on for four in the afternoon. “Is she poorly?”
“Nah.” Amy laughed. “She’s with a fella.”
“Oh.” Clare wondered how often the little girl found herself wandering the balconies and streets while Tina entertained a
boyfriend. Amy’s tone of voice didn’t suggest today was out of the ordinary. “Do you like your mum’s boyfriend then? What’s he called?”
“Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything about this new one. ’Cept he snores.”
Clare smiled. She pulled a sheet of paper from her notebook and wrote on it, while every professional part of her brain screamed at her not to do it. “Look, Amy. This is my home number. If you’re ever on your own at night again, or… or you’re ever feeling scared and your mum’s not around, I want you to give me a call. Promise?”
Amy nodded and stuffed the paper into her pocket. “Promise.”
“Okay. Good. Listen, I need to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow at this demo.” Clare opened the car door and turned back to Amy. “Sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, see you.”
Clare watched Amy cartwheel her way across the deserted courtyard. It was eerie, the way she was the only kid playing outside here on such a warm summer’s Saturday afternoon. But whoever did commit the murder, whoever found it in themselves to pick up a sleeping child and throw them over a balcony to smash their little skull on the concrete below, was still out there, somewhere.
Clare drove into town and battled the Saturday shoppers in her local DIY store. Almost without thinking, she found herself at the counter with a trolley-load of disinfectant and carpet cleaner, tins of emulsion paint and a set of rollers. She winced at the total bill. But it was time, although she could not find a rational reason as to why, to tackle that spare room.
Her resolve felt less solid when she arrived back at the flat. So she made herself a mug of tea and sat in the hallway, looking at the closed door to the little box room. Somehow, she was going to have to find the courage to go in there and look at the place again, otherwise the paint tins and cleaners were just going to add to the clutter that had built up in every other part of the flat for the last month and a half. It took almost an hour, some of it spent sitting on the floor with her head between her knees and taking deep breaths, before Clare found the energy to change out of her work clothes and into an old T-shirt and jeans. Then she put her hand onto the spare room door handle and, ignoring the sweat on her palms and the tremor in her fingers, she pushed the handle down and leaned against the door with her shoulder. It opened and Clare stepped inside.
In the airless room, that stain on the carpet was still there. A matt, dark, accusing colour, it looked even more difficult to shift than it had before. Clare crouched down and touched it, lightly. It was stiff and crusted. Clare filled a plastic bucket with the cleaner and added a large splash of the disinfectant, in the faint hope that it would help bleach the mark away. She put on the gloves, gagging at the mixture of smells: rubber and whatever chemicals made up the disinfectant. It was so strong it made her eyes smart and as she knelt down and tried to mop at the stain, tears ran fast down her face. She didn’t bother trying to stop them. Clare dabbed at the mark gently at first, but it made almost no impact on the crusted fibres of the carpet. She started rubbing harder, blinking and sniffing continually, feeling almost as though she was dissolving into a heap of tears and snot. The stain wouldn’t budge. Clare scrubbed more and more vigorously, making involuntary groaning and panting noises that eventually turned into sobs. There was no way that cleaning fluid was going to shift the stain. It needed something industrial strength. Or, more likely, a new carpet altogether.
And then there was the rest of the room. Without focusing on it, Clare turned and went back to her living room, ripped off the rubber gloves and dropped them on the table with a slap. She picked up the Yellow Pages and looked for the numbers of local charities. She picked on the first one she recognised and called the number. There was no one there, but there was an answer machine.
“Hi,” she said, awkwardly. She hated speaking into recording machines. “I’ve got some stuff to donate, but I can’t transport it. Could you pick it up? It’s…” she stopped, swallowed. “It’s a baby’s cot. Brand new, not used. And there’s baby bedding and clothes. And a Moses basket. And some other bits and pieces. It’s all really nice, still in its wrapping.” She left her number and address. “I’d like it collected as soon as possible, if you can do it. Thanks.”
There. That was a start, at least. She could get rid of all that stuff, give the spare room walls a couple of coats of paint and turn that little room into somewhere that… what? What was she doing it for? Clare didn’t want to acknowledge the half-formed idea that was playing in a corner of her mind, the notion that another child could occupy the space meant for a half-wanted, half-unwanted baby.
She had a long hot shower, although even her strongest scented soap didn’t seem to entirely lift the smell of the rubber gloves around her fingers and arms.
In all that time, though, Finn still hadn’t called. Clare tried ringing the station and asking for Seaton, but he wasn’t on shift and she didn’t know who else she could persuade to leak any information.
She sat for a few more minutes, staring at the phone, willing it to ring. This could go on all night, she thought. I’ll send myself mad. So she dialled Nicki’s number. “Hey. It’s Clare. I wanted to say sorry for being a pain in the neck the other night. Any chance I could buy you all a drink later on?”
She was relieved to hear that Nicki and the others were happy to spend an evening propping up the bars with large glasses of white wine, soda and ice. Afterwards, maybe a club and its most lethal selection of cocktails. Which would mean not getting back home until the small hours of the morning, having drunk enough to make sure she would collapse into bed and sleep for at least a few hours.
Sunday 22nd July
On weekday nights, if she hadn’t been out drinking, she would almost always wake in the grey early hours, and she was used to the fact that she would not, after that, get properly back to sleep. Once or twice, she’d fallen heavily asleep just before the alarm went off, but most of the time, Clare resigned herself to lying awake, her limbs aching with the unmet need to get comfortable and stay still, her eyes sore from staring into the half-dark. This morning, after the drinking and clubbing, Clare fell into her bed at around three-thirty, and managed around four hours of hot, fuggy-headed sleep before the sound of traffic and birdsong penetrated enough to wake her up properly. She tried gulping the tepid water from the glass beside her bed and lying back down with the pillow over her head, but after a few minutes she gave up and rolled out onto the floor.
The smell of yesterday’s disinfectant was the first thing that hit her as she opened her bedroom door and she ran into the bathroom and leaned over the basin, retching dryly. It was going to be a long day. She switched on Radio 1 and Amy’s uninhibited singing and dancing came to mind. If she had just a fraction of that child’s energy, Clare thought, she could sort out this flat in no time. Maybe she could just tackle that pile of newspapers and stuff lying in the hallway. That would be a start. Clare dressed in old clothes again and bent a little over the pile of papers that came up to her thighs. She picked the first one up and looked at it. Free-sheet. That could go. She started a pile of things to be thrown out and after a short time, staggered to the bins outside with the old papers and managed to stuff them in, although it meant she couldn’t put the bin lid back down.
Back inside, though, the newly-created pile of unopened post was harder to face. On the very top was a brown envelope with a red-bordered bill inside it. Clare decided she’d had enough cleaning for the day and took a shower and a walk. She bought the Sunday papers, aware that this would just start the pile all over again. She also bought some bread. Alone in the house, these days, she rarely bothered eating. It was something she often only remembered to do when she was out with other people. So today, the two slices of toast she managed at around four o’clock in the afternoon were real progress.
Clare liked putting on her work clothes: smart skirts and white shirts. They were part of a costume, making her appear so very normal, as if she was functioning properly. No one would be able to look at h
er and guess there was anything wrong, although they would if they set foot inside the flat. She was becoming something of an expert at keeping people out. It occurred to her, as she listened to the start of the Top 40 countdown on the radio, that Amy and Tina usually kept people on their doorstep too. She pictured Amy listening to the same programme and wondered which were her favourite songs.
At six, she was outside the police station, where a large group of women from the Sweetmeadows estate were already gathering. Most had their children with them. Some carried homemade placards with pictures of Jamie, or hand-written messages: Who Killed Baby Jamie? And Get Off the Picket Lines and Find Jamie’s Killer. And When Can Our Kids Sleep Safe? Some of the women held candles to light when it got darker. Clare knew that was a bigger deal than it looked: some of the strikers’ families were lighting their home with candles, the electricity having been cut off. They would be using up their supplies.
Clare waved at the duty photographer, Stewie, who she’d called yesterday. He followed her, the squeak-and-whirr sound of his camera behind her at every point. Clare started by having a quick word with Annie Martin. She reckoned there were around fifty mothers and kids there.
“This is a good turn-out,” Clare said. “Are you pleased?”
“I knew it would be.” Annie looked around at the crowd. “When it comes to something like this, the people on Sweetmeadows support each other. In spite of what everyone says about us.”
Clare wrote down some quotes from a few other mums: “I daren’t let the bairn out of my sight.” “Everyone’s terrified. The place will never be the same again, not till that bastard’s found and locked up.” And most often: “The police are doing nowt. Too busy clocking up their overtime on the picket lines to do their proper jobs.”
The crowd had been there around half an hour when Chief Inspector Seaton came out and spoke to them. He looked hot and even redder in the face than usual. “I understand your concern. Of course I do. But let me promise you, we are doing everything we can to find the killer of little Jamie. Demonstrations like this won’t help. I have to ask you now to leave and go back to your homes. Let the police do their job.”
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