Nineteen
We didn’t speak again until we’d travelled through Morecambe and were heading further out towards Heysham. Sean had three locations to try, and we drew a total blank on the first two.
“If this one is a wash-out, we’re back to square one,” Sean said as we pulled up outside the last address. He peered out through the windscreen at the grim-looking three-storey flat complex in front of us. “Ah well, let’s get this over with. I have a feeling if we’re up there for too long the wheels will have gone by the time we get back.”
We left the Cherokee parked on the broken-up tarmac, and headed across the rubbish-strewn grass to the outside staircase at one end of the block. We took the stairs to the top floor in silence, stepping over the soggy detritus scattered over each exposed half-landing on the way up.
The flat we were after was in the centre of the row. Sean knocked on the shabby front door while I tried not to listen to the full-scale screaming match going on in the next flat along.
Eventually the door was opened by a girl not yet completely out of her teens, with a baby balanced on her right hip. She had a lank blonde ponytail, and the remains of a hare lip. At the sight of Sean her eyes widened and her mouth formed into a soundless oh.
She tried to slam the door shut on us, but Sean had his shoulder against it before she had half a chance. The flimsy hardboard rebounded off him and he kept right on coming, as unstoppable as a truck, and about as compassionate. The girl retreated backwards down the tiny hallway, clutching at the child.
I stepped across the threshold after them, closing the door firmly behind me.
“You can’t come barging in here like this, Sean,” the girl protested, her voice high with panic.
“Give it up, Leanne,” Sean said now. His voice was tired rather than angry, which somehow made it all the more threatening. “You know why we’re here. Where is she?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Leanne snapped. The baby took its cue from her. It’s little face crumpled around the dummy in its mouth, then it turned a healthy shade of puce, and started screeching.
Leanne jiggled the child by way of comfort. It didn’t seem to help much. She lowered her voice, but it lost none of its venom. “Get out before I call the cops.”
Sean laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound. “Go ahead,” he invited. He stepped to the phone on the hall table, lifted the receiver and held it out to her. “Your phone was cut off six months ago. You could always try a letter.”
“It’s OK, Leanne, you may as well let him in,” said a dull voice from the sitting room doorway. “Once he sets his mind to something there’s not much can stop my brother.”
Sean turned to face her. “Hello Ursula,” he said quietly.
Leanne tried to smother the baby’s cries against the stained shoulder of her T-shirt, then whisked the infant off into the kitchen. The thin plywood door she slammed behind her did little to muffle its wailing.
“You’d better come through,” Ursula said. “Don’t take it out on Leanne, she’s only trying to help.”
Sean’s sister led us into the cramped living room and sank down into the single armchair by the gas fire. He sat on one end of the sofa nearest to her, and was so close their knees almost touched. I stayed on my feet, trying not to look like I was hovering.
Roger didn’t look like either of them, but Ursula was almost as tall as Sean, with thick dark hair cut short and feathered in to her pale face. The facial structure was the same, high wide cheekbones and a good jawline. Arresting, rather than conventionally pretty.
“Mum’s worried about you,” Sean said gently. “You should get in touch with her, at least. Let her know you’re all right.”
“But I’m not, am I?” Ursula said. She sat up, and for the first time I could see the curve of her belly beneath the baggy jumper she wore. Four, possibly five months gone, if I was any judge.
She looked her brother in the eye and demanded bitterly, “What do you want me to say to her, Sean? ‘Hi, Mum, I’m pregnant to an eighteen-year-old Paki, but don’t worry, there’s not going to be any mixed marriage, because he’s just been shot dead.’ How do I tell her that?”
It was a fine defiant speech, only let down by the way her chin trembled at the end of it.
“She already knows,” Sean said, keeping his tone quiet and measured. “And what she doesn’t know, she’s guessed. Anything you tell her now isn’t going to be as bad as her sitting at home worrying about where you are, and what’s happening to you. Mum doesn’t give a stuff who the father is, not really. You should know that.”
He reached for her hands, took them in both of his, smoothing his thumbs over her bones. “This is her first grandchild, for God’s sake. It could well be the only one she ever gets. Don’t take that away from her.”
Ursula sat motionless for a moment, then jerked her hands out of his grasp, but only to wipe them quickly across her rapidly filling eyes. Sean waited half a beat, then folded her into his arms and held her there, listening to the sobbing.
Our eyes met over the top of his sister’s head. It was strange to watch him offering such tender comfort with his body, while his face was so utterly cold.
I continued to stand and say nothing. There was nothing I could say.
It was a little while before Ursula moved again. She sat up, dug down a sleeve for a handkerchief, blew her nose and got herself together. She threw Sean a shaky smile. Not much of one, but better than nothing.
“So, do I tell Mum you’ll come home and let her fuss over you?” he asked.
“I can’t,” she said, anxious again. “I-I don’t think it’s safe for me to be where anyone can find me at the moment.”
To his credit, Sean didn’t point out that we’d traced her here without vast effort. Instead he said, “Why? Why isn’t it safe at home?”
She shrugged. “Nas was – he was scared. Last week, he told me to get out and find somewhere safe to stay for a while. Told me not to go home until he said it was OK. He didn’t say what was wrong, and now he’s dead.” She looked up at him with overflowing eyes. “And
Sean stood up. “I’ve got friends down south,” he said. “We’ll get you right out of here until this is all sorted out. Go pack your stuff.”
She sniffed again, nodded. “OK,” she said, sounding subdued, but eager, all at the same time. She made it as far as the doorway before Sean called her back.
“Just one thing,” he said. He always did know when to apply pressure. He’d been so good at that in the army. “Where was Nas getting his money from?”
Ursula’s expression flashed over from gratitude to mistrust. “I don’t know,” she said carefully.
“Don’t lie to me,” Sean said, his voice even. “Was he back up to his old tricks again?”
“No!” she denied instantly, but couldn’t meet his gaze. “He knew if he got caught again he’d get put away for it, not just juvenile detention centres, the real deal this time, so he kept out of the action. He, well, he was doing a bit of scouting, that’s all. Passing on names, you know?”
“Who to?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, and this time it had the ring of truth about it. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.” She paused, memories hitting her like a bad dream. “He just wanted the best for the baby,” she said. “He was so pleased about it,” and her face started to dissolve again. She stumbled out of the room and across the hall, wrenching the door shut behind her as she went through it.
We started after her, but Leanne appeared out of the kitchen at that point. She was minus the baby, which was manacled into a high chair behind her, and trying to chip its way to freedom with a plastic spoon. Leanne stood with her hands on her hips, as though daring Sean to follow his sister into her bedroom.
He eyed the closed door for a moment, then turned that intense gaze onto Leanne instead. “Has Roger been here, too?” he demanded.
Leanne tried to stand her ground, but quailed rapidly. “Yes, but we haven’t seen him since—” she glanced at the door and lowered her voice. “Since the night Nas was killed. Roger came to tell her he was dead.”
“When?”
She thought for a moment. “Late, close to midnight, I think. I’d been having trouble with the little one. She’s teething. I was still up with her.” She glanced back at the child, who was now attempting to redecorate the kitchen in something pale green and pureed out of the dish in front of her, and letting out shrieks of delight.
