During the afternoon, an Uber driver had delivered two plastic bags containing clothes for me – a short suede skirt, red tights, knickers, socks and a fitted white blouse with a Peter Pan collar – all of them new. The knickers are black and lacy and a size too small. I have never worn a thong before. At Langford Hall they issue the girls with grandma knickers from Marks & Spencer and sports bras that never fit properly.
Keeley wrinkles her nose as she examines each new piece of clothing, holding it between her thumb and forefinger as though she might catch something. The only thing she seems to covet is the patent leather ankle boots.
She’s sitting on the bed, waiting for me to finish showering.
‘Where are you from?’ I ask, over the spitting water.
‘Why do you care?’
‘I don’t.’
There is a pause. ‘Sheffield.’
‘Do you have family?’
‘There’s me and Mum and two half-brothers. They must be two and four by now.’
‘You ever see them?’
‘Nah.’
‘Why not?’
‘My stepdad.’
The answer doesn’t need elaboration. I’ve known at least a dozen girls from Langford Hall whose parents had split up and a new partner pushed them to leave. It’s like when a new lion takes over the pride. He kills the cubs or forces them out, clearing the way for his own progeny. That’s one of my daily words: ‘progeny’. It means descendants or children. Blood is thicker than sentimentality.
Turning off the shower, I reach for a towel and catch a hated glimpse of myself in the mirror. The bruises on my ribs are yellowing at the edges and turning a deep purple at the centre. They only hurt when I touch them.
Emerging from the bathroom with a towel around my chest, I use another to dry my hair.
‘Where does Felix live?’
Keeley shrugs.
‘Have you been there?’
‘No.’
‘But you’re his girlfriend.’
Her eyes flare. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You should keep your opinions to yourself and your hands off him.’
I begin getting dressed. Keeley spies my tuft of pubic hair and snorts with derision.
‘What?’
‘Your bush.’
Embarrassed, I turn my back to her and slide the skirt over my thighs. Once I’m dressed, I risk looking in the mirror, surprised at the transformation. They used to bring me new clothes all the time when I was young: dresses and pinafores and leotards and gowns. Some made me look younger, others made me look older, but none of them felt like they belonged to me.
A door opens somewhere and voices echo through the derelict building.
‘They’re here,’ says Keeley.
‘Who?’
‘You’ll see.’
The visitors are in the lounge – two black men in their twenties and a skinny middle-aged woman wearing a sarong and sandals like she’s holidaying somewhere warm.
One of the black men, Tuba, has his hair shaved in rings around his head like crop circles in a wheat field. His friend is lighter-skinned but morbidly obese. He wants me to call him Rambo, but Tuba says, ‘Nice one, Kev.’
‘I can call myself Rambo,’ complains Kev, who has multiple chins and rolls of fat that fill out a huge shiny orange tracksuit that must be visible from outer space.
‘You should call yourself Star-Lord,’ says Tuba. ‘Or the Hulk.’
‘Fuck off!’
The middle-aged woman ignores their banter and lights a cigarette. She hasn’t acknowledged me, concentrating instead on her phone and chewing at the edges of her fingernails like she’s trying to sharpen them.
I introduce myself. The woman ignores me.
‘Don’t mind Carla,’ says Tuba. ‘She’s not a people person.’
‘She’s a voodoo priestess,’ says Kev, who starts singing ‘I Put a Spell on You’ and waving his arms around like he’s Harry Potter.
Felix arrives, carrying two six-packs of beer. He’s showered and changed, dressed up for a night out, in expensive jeans and a designer shirt. He greets Tuba and Kev with a choreographed ‘handshake’ involving bumped shoulders and dabbed fists. Keeley drapes herself over him, purring into his ear.
Carla stops staring at her phone and says, ‘Sorry about your sister.’ Her voice is coarsened by cigarettes or alcohol or both.
‘Yeah, brah,’ echoes Tuba. ‘Fucking intense.’
‘It was all over the TV,’ says Kev. ‘Pictures of Jodie and your folks.’
Felix doesn’t answer.
‘What happened to your sister?’ I ask, more alert than before.
‘Nothing,’ says Felix.
‘Is she the girl who got killed?’
‘Not up for discussion.’
The statement is so savage that I bottle up my curiosity.
Kev sits down and splays his legs, taking up the whole sofa. Tuba keeps moving in a loose-limbed sort of swagger like he’s playing a pimp on TV. Carla has lit up another cigarette, sucking so hard that the filter compresses between her lips.
‘What’s she doing here?’ she says, thrusting a bleeding fingernail at me.
‘She’s a new recruit.’
‘How do we know she’s not a narc?’
‘Does she look like a narc?’ replies Felix.
‘Where did you find her?’
‘At the bus station.’
‘Oh, great! Yeah, she’s definitely not a narc.’
Her sarcasm annoys Felix. ‘I found you at an AA meeting. Maybe you’re the narc?’
Carla backs off but isn’t happy. Felix tells me to wait outside.
I don’t mind. I didn’t like the vibe in the room, or the direction of the conversation. Nobody had been lying, but I sensed how quickly the mood changed when Jodie Sheehan’s name was dropped.
Cyrus didn’t mention that Jodie had a brother. And his name didn’t come up in any of the police interviews with Craig Farley. Yet here he is, organising deliveries of vitamins, or steroids, or whatever shit he deals in. It surprises me. I don’t know why. It’s not as if murder victims have to come from a squeaky-clean family. Surely the opposite is sometimes true.
Standing in the poorly lit hallway, I press my ear to the door, listening to the muffled voices, which become clearer when they relax and open the beers.
‘You got to stop picking up strays,’ says Carla. ‘It’s too risky.’
‘She’s a juvie. A runaway. Someone beat her up,’ replies Felix.
‘She knows our names and what we look like.’
‘She won’t be here long.’
‘Good,’ says Keeley. ‘I don’t like her.’
‘All of you shut up,’ Felix says angrily. ‘I’ll check her out before she does a run, OK?’
‘Are we working tonight,’ says Tuba, ‘or gasbagging?’
‘No. I’m putting deliveries on hold for a while,’ replies Felix. ‘I had a visit from the pigs today. They know fuck all, but we’re going to lay low for a spell.’
‘For how long?’ asks Kev.
‘Until the heat dies down.’
‘I got bills to pay,’ complains Carla.