tomorrow, eleven as usual.’
After that they sat in silence, pouring tea and lighting cigarettes. Grace’s anger was spent. Her mother was right about one thing, they must stick together in the face of this threat. Despite the mistake they’d made, these people were her family and John 94
was her husband and she must fight to keep them all safe. Though how she was to do that Grace had no idea. Adam was uppermost in her mind now and she wanted to go home to him. She scraped back her chair to get up.
Just then her nephew Benny came running into the kitchen.
‘Juice please, Mummy. Can I have some juice?’
‘Course you can, love,’ said Gillian, glad of the distraction.
Sue nodded and started putting out beakers, taking a jug out of the fridge.
‘Yeah, Jamie and the rest will be thirsty by now.
Call them in, Ben. Call them all in.’
‘No, not Jamie,’ said Benny, shaking his head.
‘Jamie not want any. Jamie gone.’
95
Chapter Six
The ground-floor maisonette could be reached in two ways. The first was through the front door facing the tower blocks on Barnet Street though he hardly ever used this, mainly because the road was always busy –
in the warmer months, kids and groups of nosy-parker women hung around watching all the comings and goings – and it was nobody’s business what time he came in or went out. He didn’t like to draw attention to himself or his home.
The second entrance was the one he preferred. It was easy to cut down the alleyway housing the bins that ran down the side of his block of maisonettes.
Rarely if ever used by anyone except the dustmen, it was dark, squalid and quiet. Just the way he liked it.
It didn’t bother him that rats infested the large bins, that rubbish spilled out over the ground, that the whole stinking place was rife with dirt and disease from the heap of crap that grew bigger every day.
From the alleyway he could pop the latch on his gate unobserved and let himself in through the back door, using the key he kept under a nearby brick.
No matter what hours he kept, whether it was winter or summer, he always left his lights on and the 96
front-room window slightly ajar, so that the sound of the radio playing could be heard should anyone come to call. You couldn’t be too careful in an area like this. But he didn’t get many visitors. He was recog -
nised by many but known by few, and that was the way he liked it.
He had lived alone ever since his short-lived childless marriage had broken down over thirty years ago. What a fool he had been then! That stupid, skinny, frigid woman and her busybody old mother
. . . what a pair! She wasn’t the woman to give him what he needed; no woman could. This way he could have things just the way he liked, with nobody to argue or contradict or to tell him he wasn’t right, like she had. Before he’d made her eat her words. Her and her old bag of a mother too.
But he wasn’t a complete loner, he had Twinkle for company. He loved that cat; would feed her scraps from the fishmonger’s instead of that tinned rubbish. He took less care over his own diet, happy mostly with Fray Bentos pies and tinned peas. On Friday nights he treated himself to fish and chips, always saving some of the choice white flakes for Twinkle. Costas, the big fat Greek at the local chippy, sometimes saved scraps and bits of old tail for the moggy, too. Besides, the chippie was a great place to mingle unnoticed; while putting salt and vinegar on his Friday night supper he could eye up the local kids, see who was a sort and who wasn’t.
97
Standing in the shadows outside, watching the kids with their mums or dads, he could easily rub himself off. He never bothered about the wetness in his pants, that could be sorted later.
Every night when he returned from work he would place the cat on his lap and groom her. It was a kind of meditation for him, an escape which brought him a feeling of total satisfaction. All the time he soothed her with
After that they sat in silence, pouring tea and lighting cigarettes. Grace’s anger was spent. Her mother was right about one thing, they must stick together in the face of this threat. Despite the mistake they’d made, these people were her family and John 94
was her husband and she must fight to keep them all safe. Though how she was to do that Grace had no idea. Adam was uppermost in her mind now and she wanted to go home to him. She scraped back her chair to get up.
Just then her nephew Benny came running into the kitchen.
‘Juice please, Mummy. Can I have some juice?’
‘Course you can, love,’ said Gillian, glad of the distraction.
Sue nodded and started putting out beakers, taking a jug out of the fridge.
‘Yeah, Jamie and the rest will be thirsty by now.
Call them in, Ben. Call them all in.’
‘No, not Jamie,’ said Benny, shaking his head.
‘Jamie not want any. Jamie gone.’
95
Chapter Six
The ground-floor maisonette could be reached in two ways. The first was through the front door facing the tower blocks on Barnet Street though he hardly ever used this, mainly because the road was always busy –
in the warmer months, kids and groups of nosy-parker women hung around watching all the comings and goings – and it was nobody’s business what time he came in or went out. He didn’t like to draw attention to himself or his home.
The second entrance was the one he preferred. It was easy to cut down the alleyway housing the bins that ran down the side of his block of maisonettes.
Rarely if ever used by anyone except the dustmen, it was dark, squalid and quiet. Just the way he liked it.
It didn’t bother him that rats infested the large bins, that rubbish spilled out over the ground, that the whole stinking place was rife with dirt and disease from the heap of crap that grew bigger every day.
From the alleyway he could pop the latch on his gate unobserved and let himself in through the back door, using the key he kept under a nearby brick.
No matter what hours he kept, whether it was winter or summer, he always left his lights on and the 96
front-room window slightly ajar, so that the sound of the radio playing could be heard should anyone come to call. You couldn’t be too careful in an area like this. But he didn’t get many visitors. He was recog -
nised by many but known by few, and that was the way he liked it.
He had lived alone ever since his short-lived childless marriage had broken down over thirty years ago. What a fool he had been then! That stupid, skinny, frigid woman and her busybody old mother
. . . what a pair! She wasn’t the woman to give him what he needed; no woman could. This way he could have things just the way he liked, with nobody to argue or contradict or to tell him he wasn’t right, like she had. Before he’d made her eat her words. Her and her old bag of a mother too.
But he wasn’t a complete loner, he had Twinkle for company. He loved that cat; would feed her scraps from the fishmonger’s instead of that tinned rubbish. He took less care over his own diet, happy mostly with Fray Bentos pies and tinned peas. On Friday nights he treated himself to fish and chips, always saving some of the choice white flakes for Twinkle. Costas, the big fat Greek at the local chippy, sometimes saved scraps and bits of old tail for the moggy, too. Besides, the chippie was a great place to mingle unnoticed; while putting salt and vinegar on his Friday night supper he could eye up the local kids, see who was a sort and who wasn’t.
97
Standing in the shadows outside, watching the kids with their mums or dads, he could easily rub himself off. He never bothered about the wetness in his pants, that could be sorted later.
Every night when he returned from work he would place the cat on his lap and groom her. It was a kind of meditation for him, an escape which brought him a feeling of total satisfaction. All the time he soothed her with
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