After quietly closing the kitchen door, he sat at the table and booted up Suzie’s laptop. When Harry had shut him down at the pub, refusing to give him the name he’d wanted, he had realized that his original plan might not have been such a good idea, after all. He’d greedily thought the killer would be happy to pay for Josie’s address, but, in hindsight, the man was more likely to have put a bullet in his head after getting the info, to prevent him from warning her or passing his name to the police. But something about Harry’s story regarding the other Holly overdosing as a baby was still niggling him, and he needed to figure out what his instincts were trying to tell him.
37
‘What the fuck . . .? Josie? JOSIE!’
Jolted from her sleep by a sharp kick in the leg, Josie cried out when pain shot through her body.
‘Never mind whingeing,’ Fiona barked. ‘Get the fuck out of my bin cupboard, you little tramp!’
Unsure where she was, Josie gazed confusedly out at her from the cramped, foul-smelling interior of the cupboard.
‘Have you been in there since I gave you that?’ Fiona asked, staring in disgust at the now-empty vodka bottle lying next to Josie. Then, pulling a face when she saw the front of Josie’s coat, she said, ‘Ewww . . . is that puke?’
Josie gazed down at herself and, smelling the vomit before she saw it, covered her mouth with a filthy hand when her stomach heaved.
‘Don’t you dare throw up again,’ Fiona warned, taking a step back and holding the cupboard door wide. ‘It’s gonna take me ages to clean that up as it is.’
Josie’s head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool, and her limbs felt like lead weights as she scrambled onto her knees and crawled out onto the path. It was dark, and Fiona was wearing a dressing gown and slippers, her hair sticking up around her head as if she’d just got out of bed.
‘What time is it?’ she croaked, rising unsteadily to her feet.
‘One a.m.,’ said Fiona.
Confused as to why she was so angry, Josie rubbed her eyes, and said, ‘I haven’t been here long.’
‘You came here yesterday, so that’s more than twenty-four hours,’ Fiona corrected her. ‘If I hadn’t heard you rustling about just now and thought a fox was raiding the bins, you could have died in there.’
When Josie gazed blankly back at her, Fiona sighed and folded her arms. ‘How many of those caps have you got left, or have you taken them all?’
‘I – I haven’t taken anything,’ Josie said, not remembering that at all.
‘Jeezus, Josie, it’s no wonder your daughter’s worried about you,’ Fiona tutted. ‘You need serious help.’
‘H-Holly?’ Josie stuttered, the mention of her daughter breaking through the fog in her mind. ‘Has she been here?’
‘No, but I’ve had your mate on the phone asking questions while I was working, which was bad enough.’
‘What did you tell her?’ Josie asked, guessing that it must have been Suzie.
‘That I’d seen you and you were fine.’
‘Did – did she mention the police?’
‘No, she just wanted to know where you were, ’cos they’re worried about you,’ Fiona said. Then, her expression softening a little, she said, ‘Look, I know you’ve had a rough time of it, but you really need to sort yourself out. If social services get wind of this, they’ll have that girl of yours in a home before you can blink.’
‘You’re not going to report me, are you?’
‘I should. But, no . . . I won’t.’
‘Thank you,’ Josie said gratefully.
‘Just go home,’ said Fiona, her tone pitying now.
Nodding, Josie reached into the cupboard and pulled out her bags, both of which were coated in vomit, before shuffling away.
Fiona shook her head as she watched her go, and then closed the bin cupboard door and went back to her bed.
The walk home seemed to take forever, and Josie’s legs felt like they were going to give out on her by the time she got there. The cold night air had cleared more of the fog from her brain, and she was acutely aware of her surroundings as she made her way through the estate.
When she reached her road, she hesitated and looked around. She had half expected to see a load of police and forensic vehicles parked outside the flats and crime-scene tape blocking access at each end of the road, but all was quiet and no one was around. Relieved to think that Holly must still be safe, she slipped quietly into the flats.
Apart from the drip of the bathroom tap, the flat was silent when she let herself in, but she held her breath and listened out for sounds of movement or breathing which would tell her if anybody was hiding. Relaxing when she’d heard nothing after a couple of minutes, she put down the vomit-stinking bags and double-locked and bolted the front door before slipping her coat off. A foil strip fell out of the pocket, and she frowned as she picked it up and read the print on the back: tramadol. Fiona had asked her if she’d taken all the caps. This must be what she’d meant, but Josie didn’t recall taking anything last night. Three of the five blisters in the strip were empty, so she assumed she must have taken them. Maybe that was why she’d slept so long and couldn’t remember a thing between arriving at Fiona’s and leaving?
Glad that she still had some to ease the aches and pains, she checked Holly’s room. The bed was empty, and she guessed that Suzie must have invited her to stay another night. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than Holly falling into the clutches of social services, as Fiona had warned her would happen if she didn’t sort herself out. But Suzie already knew too much, and the longer Holly was there, telling her God only
