What Came Before He Shot Her

’bout runnin off. She start to cry, an’ she say, ‘Oh please. My mummy going to be so cheesed off I got her phone nicked,’ and Six jus’ grab it and we push her down. Time she get up, we halfway to the high street. Easy as anyt’ing, wa’n’t it, Six?”

            Six punched in a few numbers. She said to Tash, “Got a fag?” Tash obediently fished around in her bag and handed over a packet of Dunhills. Six took one, lit up, and handed the cigarettes back. When Tash began to extend them to Ness, Six said, “Tash,” in a way that told her what she was meant to do. Tash looked from Six to Ness, then back to Six. Knowing on which side her metaphorical bread was buttered, she stowed the Dunhills.

            Six said into the mobile, “Hey, baby. Wha’s happenin, den? You got summick for your mummy or wha’? . . . Hell no. I ain’t going dat far. Wha’ you ’spectin to get off me I come all dat way? . . . In Queensway wiv Tash . . . Yeah, me and Tash c’n do dat, you got substance to make it worthwhile for us, y’unnerstan. Otherwise . . .” Six listened for a longer moment. She shifted her weight to one hip and tapped her foot. She finally said, “No way, mon. Me and Tash come all dat way, we too damn knackered to . . . Hey, don’t talk nasty or I sort you, baby. Me and Tash both  set on you, and den you be sorry, innit.” She laughed and gave Nastasha a wink. For her part, Natasha merely looked confused. Six listened a moment longer and said, “Okay, but you be ready for us, mon,” before she punched the mobile off and looked at Ness with a satisfi ed smiled.

            The smile was unnecessary as Ness, unlike Natasha, was far from dim. The constant me and Tash of the conversation had had its desired effect. Lines had been drawn. There was no crossing over. There was also no way of going back to how things had been before. For a hundred and one female adolescent reasons, Ness was anathema and she would remain that way.

            She could have demanded an explanation for this. She could have accused or analysed. She was able to do none of this in the pressure of the moment, though. She was only able to make a stab at saving face for having crossed over the road to talk to the two girls in the first place. Saving face meant not caring. It meant not dignifying a slight by acknowledging it. It meant ignoring the fullness inside. Ness locked eyes with Six and gave her a curt nod. She said, “Whatever.”

            Six said, “Yeah.”

            Tash looked as confused as she’d looked during all the me and Tash of Six’s mobile conversation, with their implications of an equality that clearly did not exist between her and the other girl. Six said to Tash, “Le’s go, den. We got someone waiting.” And to Ness as she stepped aside to let the other girl pass, “You watch yourself, gash,” which put a full stop to the interaction.

            Ness watched them go. She told herself they were two bloody stupid bitches and she didn’t want their friendship, let alone did she need it. But even as she assured herself of this fact—which was true enough— she felt driven once again. As a result, she moved towards Whiteley’s. There was lipstick waiting to be pinched by someone. Ness knew she was just the girl to do it.

            KENDRA WAS LOADING her massage table into the Punto when Fabia Bender arrived on Edenham Estate in the company of two enormous and well-cared-for dogs: a gleaming Doberman and a giant schnauzer. Although Kendra, with a limited knowledge of canine breeds, would have been hard-pressed to identify the latter animal, she was impressed and intimidated by his size since his head reached above Fabia Bender’s waist. Kendra stopped what she was doing. Any move—precipitate or otherwise—didn’t seem wise.

            Fabia Bender said, “No worries, Mrs. Osborne. They’re lambs, actually. The Doberman’s Castor. The schnauzer’s Pollux. No relation, of course, but I rashly decided that having two puppies at once would be easier than going through puppyhood twice, so I thought, Well, why not. I intended from the first to have two dogs. Two large dogs. I like them big. But it took four times longer to train them, and both breeds are supposed to be easy. Pollux quite likes you, I can see. He’s hoping for a pat on the head.”

            She had them on extendable leads and when she told them to “Sit, boys,” they did so obediently, and she dropped the leads to the ground. Castor remained at attention, in keeping with his breed. Pollux huffed gustily and sank down so that his great head lay upon his enormous paws. A literary person would have thought at once of the Baskervilles. Kendra thought of all the reasons why Fabia Bender was putting in an unexpected appearance at her house.

            She said, “Ness’s been doing her community service, hasn’t she?

            She’s been leaving the house right on time, but I’ve not followed her there to make sure she’s showing up. It seemed to me that I needed to. . . demonstrate trust in her?”

            “And a good idea as well,” Fabia Bender said. “Mrs. Ghafoor gives us only positive reports about Ness so far. I wouldn’t say she’s enjoying the experience—this is Ness, not Mrs. Ghafoor—but she is  being consistent. High marks in her favour.”

            Kendra nodded and waited for elucidation. She had an appointment in a tony neighbourhood of Maida Vale, with a middle-aged white American lady who intended becoming a regular client and who also had a great deal of time and money on her hands. Kendra didn’t want to be late for it. She glanced at her watch and put her container of oils and lotions into the back of the car, tucked alongside the massage table.

            “It’s actually Ness’s brother that I’ve come to talk to you about,”

            Fabia said. “Could we have this conversation inside rather than in the street, Mrs. Osborne?”

            Kendra hesitated. She didn’t ask which brother because it seemed to her that it had to be Joel. She couldn’t imagine a social worker from Youth Offending having a reason to talk to her about Toby, which meant that—as difficult as it was to believe considering his personality—Joel was now in trouble. She said, “What’s he done?,” and tried to sound concerned instead of what she was, which was panicked.

            “If we could go inside? The boys will stay out here, of course.” She smiled. “You needn’t worry about your belongings. If I ask them to guard the car, they’ll do it very nicely.” She tilted her head expectantly in the direction of the front door. “This shouldn’t take long,” she added and went on to say to the dogs, “Guard, boys.”

            These final remarks were a way of saying there was no getting around her intention of going inside the house, and Kendra recognised them as such. She lowered the boot lid and stepped past the dogs, neither of which moved. Fabia Bender followed her.

            Once within, the social worker didn’t reveal her mission at once. Instead she asked if Mrs. Osborne would be willing to show her around. She’d never been in one of the terrace houses on Edenham Estate, she said pleasantly, and she confessed to an interest in how all buildings were laid out or converted to accommodate families.

Kendra believed this as much as she believed the moon was made of green cheese, but she saw no alternative to cooperation considering the trouble Fabia Bender could cause if the social worker decided to do so. So while there was little enough to see, Kendra showed it to Fabia anyway, playing along with the game at the same time as knowing how unlikely was the scenario that the white woman had come calling in order to further her knowledge of interior design.

Fabia asked questions as they went: How long had Kendra lived in this house? Was she a lucky owner or was this rented housing? How many people lived here? What were the sleeping arrangements?

            Kendra couldn’t see what the questions had to do with Joel or any trouble Joel might have been in, so she was suspicious. She didn’t want to entrap herself should that be the social worker’s intention, and because of this she kept her answers as brief as possible and vague when vagueness appeared to be called for. Thus on the first floor, she gave no reason for the screen that leaned against the wall near the sofa like a languishing debutante without a dance partner, and on the second floor, she made no explanation for having camp beds and sleeping bags for the boys instead of normal beds and linens.

            Above all, she didn’t mention Dix. No matter that all over the city— not to mention all over the country—people lived in conditions far more irregular than this one, with the partners of parents coming and going with dizzying regularity as women searched for men and men searched for women, all in terror of having to be alone for more than five minutes. Kendra decided that the less said about Dix the better. She went so far as to mention sharing her own bedroom with Ness, a decision she regretted when Fabia Bender glanced inside the bathroom and noticed the man-size vests that were drying on hangers above the bath. Above the basin there was further evidence of a man’s occupation of the house. Dix’s shaving gear was laid out neatly: safety razor, shaving soap, and brush.

Fabia Bender said nothing until they were back downstairs. There, she suggested that Kendra and she sit at the kitchen table for a moment. She explained that throughout the time that she had spent with Ness— at the