Give Me the Child

by Mel McGrath

  I questioned myself constantly in those days and so did Sal. Hours spent combing the streets after I’d come home from one shit job after another to find my sister gone. Our mother refusing to speak to me.

  ‘She said, “So you’re abandoning me just like everyone else.” I don’t want to think what would have happened if you hadn’t rescued me. You did that for me, now I want to do it for Ruby. We’ll get help. Social services, the fostering people. More help than you ever got.’

  ‘You’re my sister.’

  ‘And Ruby’s my niece.’

  The run home later that afternoon is through darkened, patched-up streets. The snow has mostly melted, leaving only nuggets of ice where the wind has swept it. The yellow boards are gone now but LeShaun Toley lives on in the shrine beside Jamal’s store. I head in for lasagne pasta and popping candy. Jamal won’t be closing for Christmas; he needs to stay open to make up the money he lost in the riots. Besides, he’s Muslim and Christmas isn’t his thing. On Holland Hill, though, the atmosphere is loose and anticipatory. For now, the capital is held together with Christmas lights and the promise of the holidays.

  In January a public inquiry into the riots will begin its investigations. We have been warned that it will probably go on for months, maybe years, before reporting. Most likely nothing will be laid to rest, least of all the ghost of LeShaun Toley. But things will be quiet for a while as the old, restless energy of the city gathers itself and looks to the future.

  The ‘For Sale’ sign still sits in next door’s garden but someone from the estate agency has slapped an ‘Under Offer’ banner on it. It didn’t take long to go. Shortly after Tom’s arrest the Fricks decided they didn’t like the new basement and moved away. Well, that’s what they said. I don’t know anything about the new owners except that they will be people who like dug-out basements.

  At number forty-two the recycling bag has been collected from inside the front gate and the porch light is on. Inside everything is warm and orderly. Gloria and Freya have been tidying up. The new arrangement is working well. Gloria prefers coming here to cleaning the school. Freya has fallen madly in love and calls her ‘Teto’, which means aunt in Albanian.

  Speaking of which, here she is, thundering down the stairs to greet me. She’s holding out an open book.

  ‘Mum, look what I found.’

  I set my backpack on the floor and move over to her so I can see what she’s trying to show me. It’s the copy of The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking I’d taken from Freya’s bedside all those months ago. Freya doesn’t read Pippi anymore, or even speak about her. She’s moved on to Agatha Christie now. But she wants me to see a drawing of Pippi skipping hand in hand with another girl. Someone has scribbled a halo of orange hair in crayon around the other girl’s head. They look happy.

  ‘Ruby must have done it.’ Despite it all, Freya remains loyal to her sister. ‘What are we going to get her for Christmas?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

  ‘Definitely something purple.’

  Gloria appears from the kitchen door. Today she’s dressed in leopard-skin leggings, a pink frilled sweater and a pair of yellow Marigolds. She eyes the plastic bag in my hand and checks her watch.

  ‘Got time for a cup of tea, Gloria, or do you have to get off?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Gloria likes to keep the household guessing.

  ‘I bought the wafer biscuits you like.’

  ‘OK, so I stay just this long.’ She makes a pinching motion with her fingers.

  Over tea she announces that she’s decided to come for Christmas lunch after all. I’ve been petitioning her for weeks.

  ‘But only one thing,’ she says now, playing with the biscuits. ‘I cook, you and Freya and Dominic slice vegetable. We have proper Kosovar feast.’

  Gloria and Dominic have been seeing more of one another. They’ve begun legal proceedings to try to locate Gloria’s daughter. Dominic seems to think it’s unlikely she’ll be found, but what can you do? There is a rip in Gloria’s heart that can only be mended one way.

  ‘Come as a guest, Gloria. You don’t really want to cook.’

  ‘No way. Your cooking so bad. We must not poison lawyer. If he dies, he doesn’t find Elmira.’

  Freya takes my hand. ‘You want to see what we did today?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Close your eyes.’ She helps me up, walks me to the French doors, turns me to face the garden and flips on a switch. Everything close to the house lies in darkness but at the back of the garden the ideas tree is a luminous miracle, lit up in swags of blinking Christmas lights.

  ‘We gave the ideas tree a brain. Look! All that electricity going to and fro. The ideas tree is having ideas!’

  Christmas falls over a weekend this year. On Christmas Eve I will drive to the cemetery where Kylie Drinkwater’s body is buried and I will say the only kind of prayer I know then leave. Her parents don’t know I visit. I’m not sure they’d like it if they did. But for tonight I will light the fire and cook bad lasagne and Freya and I will curl up together on the sofa in the living room opposite the table of family pictures, Tom’s and Lilly’s and Ruby’s, and maybe we’ll watch a film. Later, as I pass by the darkened study on my way upstairs, I won’t think about Tom’s Christmas. I won’t think about Tom at all.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am indebted to two inspiring women, Dr Fiona Norwood and Dr Lade Smith who introduced me to the complexities of neuroscience and gave me an insight into the differences between mental illness and mental disarder. Thanks to Brian Spiro who was so generous with his expertise on the law surrounding domestic violence. It goes without saying that any scientific, legal or other inaccuracies or failings in this book are entirely mine.

  I’m grateful to Lisa Milton for championing the book early on. I’m very lucky to be in the hands of the terrific team at HQ. Thank you to all, and most particularly to my editor Clio Cornish, who whipped the text (and, when it was required, and in the nicest possible way, me) into shape. Peter Robinson is the kind of agent every writer should have. He’s been on my side from start to finish. Thank you too to Marina Benjamin, Dr Tai Bridgeman, Simon Humphreys, Ian Jackman, Lynn Keane, Olivia Lichtenstein, Jane Spencer and Al Upton. Simon Booker deserves a medal for putting up with no small quantity of late night whingeing and still, somehow, managing to be supportive, patient and tirelessly loving. The title is all Simon’s doing too.

  A huge fistbump to my ‘crime wife’ and Killer Women cofounder Louise Millar and to all the talented women crime writers I’ve had the privilege to get to know better through Killer Women and otherwise. Last, but definitely not least, thanks to the men, writers, friends and partners, who have cheered us on. You all rock.

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

  Copyright © Mel McGrath 2017

  Mel McGrath asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008215613

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  Mel McGrath, Give Me the Child