The Make by Jessie Keane Page A

firmly.
    ‘No!’ Now Suze was shaking, crying, shouting. ‘It ain’t going to be all right. George could have died tonight. Someone did this to him, put him in fucking hospital. He might never recover. Never. And Harry. God knows what’s happening to Harry. Where is he, Gracie? What the hell’s happening to our lives?’
    Gracie stared at Suze, unable to give her comfort. She was almost relieved when she heard the key in the front door, glad of someone else’s presence, anyone’s , because she didn’t know what to say to ease Suze’s pain.
    It was Claude, coming in red-nosed from the pub, bringing in a waft of icy winter air with him. He came into the kitchen and looked at Suze, sitting there in floods.
    ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh Claude, it was horrible,’ said Suze, and sprang up and flung herself into Claude’s arms.
    Claude looked a question at Gracie. ‘George’s heart stopped,’ she explained. ‘They restarted it. He’s okay.’
    For now, anyway.
    Gracie threw back the brandy. It warmed her all the way down to her toes. She stood up. Hated this feeling of being powerless, swept along like a reed on a current of water. She was used to being in charge, in control. Owning her surroundings. But all this was so strange to her. She didn’t like it. Not at all. It didn’t suit her, and she wasn’t about to accept it.
    ‘I think I’ll go on up,’ she said, easing her way past her mother and her boyfriend.
    She went wearily up the stairs to her room, feeling exhausted. She went to the window and looked out at the dark street. There were little wisps of snow drifting down, but it was too thin and it was still too warm for snow to settle.
    Christmas was coming and here was a perfect winter’s scene to go with it. But George was lying half dead in intensive care. And Harry . . . well, where the fuck was Harry? She thought of the matching bags of hair and felt her guts twist with anxiety. And the notes. The bloody notes. Maybe they should get the police involved. But Harry. She had to think of Harry. If somebody saw them talking to the police, where would that leave him? Up shit creek.
    There was a cough behind her.
    She turned.
    ‘Settling in?’ asked Claude, smiling at her from the open doorway. She hadn’t heard him coming up the stairs.
    ‘Yeah. Fine,’ said Gracie.
    ‘If there’s anything you need, anything at all,’ he said, addressing his comments to the front of her shirt.
    ‘There ain’t,’ she said coldly, and walked over and shut the door in his face.
    Creep , she thought, then dismissed him from her mind. She had come down here to find answers. And she was going to bloody well do that, starting first thing tomorrow.

Chapter 20
    22 December

    By ten next morning, Gracie was slipping one of Suze’s spare keys into the outer door of the building where George and Harry rented their flat. The building was a soulless, Thirties block of ten flats, set on a busy main road. Outside there was no greenery, no ornamentation, nothing to suggest homeliness. Stepping inside, Gracie looked round at a bare concrete hall, a utilitarian staircase. The grey-painted doors to flat 1 and 1A were on her left. The air in here smelled of cooked cabbage and curry.
    ‘George and Harry live on the first floor,’ Suze had told her at breakfast. ‘Flat number two. I don’t know what you think you’ll gain from going there, but here’s the keys if you really want them. And you can fetch a clean pair of George’s pyjamas and a dressing gown for him if you don’t mind.’
    Suze had handed over a bunch of four keys – two for the outer door to the block, two for the flat door. Gracie didn’t know what she was going to gain, either. She just knew she had to start somewhere, and their flat seemed like the best place to begin. She went up the stairs. There was no one about. Flats 2 and 2A were to her left. The same, putty-coloured paint on the door. Spyholes on both, just like on the flats