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  But Sheena spent too much time with Simone and Rosie Price got choked. She thought Sheena was going to leave her. Probably this was not true because Rosie Price was a big girl, and there were advantages to having a big special friend in a place like Burlington House.

  According to Simone, this was what was behind it all. She told me that when the screws found the fag ends and busted the dormitory, Rosie Price stood straight up and pointed the finger at Simone. Simone said that while Rosie Price was doing this she was staring at Sheena, facing her down, daring her, making her choose there and then. Sheena didn’t dare choose Simone. She backed up Rosie Price. And then the other girls in the dorm backed her up because, as I say, Rosie Price was a big girl for her age.

  You can’t blame them. Stuff like that happens all the time at places like Burlington House.

  I tell a lie. I say, now, you can’t blame them. Now, I have a relaxed mental attitude and loads of self-discipline. But then, I blamed them and I was really bitter against Rosie Price. Really bitter.

  I told Simone. I told her we should go in there to Rosie Price’s dorm and duff her over. But that made Simone cry even harder. She said if we did that Rosie Price would get her alone and make her pay for it. She said all she wanted was to get back in the dorm, like normal, and show Rosie Price how nice she was. She didn’t want anyone to hate her, see.

  But I knew different. I knew girls like Rosie Price. They never let up. Once they’ve got you down they keep kicking. And the trouble with places like Burlington House is that you can’t get away from girls like Rosie Price.

  So I did it by myself. I filled a jug with cold water and I went along to Rosie Price’s dorm, and I tiptoed up to her bed. I threw the water all over her and her bed and when she woke up screaming I shoved the wet pillow over her face and hit her with the jug. I hit her three times, as hard as I could, and then I tried to leg it before the others could get up and turn the light on.

  But one of them did manage to turn the light on before I could get out of the door, so they all saw that it was me. And I saw that I’d got the wrong bed. I’d poured water all over Sheena by mistake. Rosie Price was bone dry and madder than a wasp’s nest.

  So I did a runner. I grabbed Simone and we went and hid in the boiler-room in the basement. Which wasn’t a bad idea, because as I say it was nearly Christmas and very cold, and it was warmer in the basement than it was in the hall.

  Rosie Price didn’t find us.

  I suppose we were reported missing at morning roll call but it didn’t much matter. We went over the wall while everyone else was at breakfast.

  I told Simone it meant we’d be home for Christmas, and so we were. But Ma wasn’t too pleased to see us, and Nan thought we’d only get ourselves into more trouble. Simone never said anything much but she must’ve been pleased because when they caught up with us they didn’t send us back to Burlington House. They sent us somewhere more secure and it wasn’t any better than Burlington House but at least Rosie Price wasn’t there. And at least we’d got home for Christmas even if we weren’t very welcome.

  When that happened I was nine and Simone was ten.

  So, you see, right from when I was a little kid things have had a habit of not turning out quite right. Sometimes they don’t turn out too wrong, but either way they never go exactly as I mean them to. Mostly I get myself out of one hole and fall into another one even deeper.

  Maybe it was like Harsh said. Maybe I was a thing blown in the wind. But how do you persuade the wind to stop blowing? Tell me that.

  I’d hoped Harsh might’ve told me what to do – like when he showed me how to weight-train with no weights – how to use my own weight or my own force as the resistance to push against.

  But he didn’t. All he did was make me think about the old days and about how stuff in my life has never turned out quite right. And although I try to look on the bright side, like how we were home for Christmas and didn’t get sent back to Burlington House, the bright side was never very bright. It was a lousy Christmas and the new place was just as bad as the old. What’s more we were marked out as absconders which made things even more difficult next time.

  Harsh hadn’t helped at all. He’d just depressed the shit out of me. But, looking on the bright side again, he had reminded me of a simple very important fact – there was nobody on my side now. I was on my own, and I had to be even more careful.

  I spent a long time getting back into the yard. I circled the whole area, spiralling inwards, making sure the streets were clean before I went home. I looked for people I knew, people who were out of place, men in parked cars, and especially for two guys sitting in a white Maestro van.

  Nothing looked wrong. The Maestro van was gone. I went in. But before I could reach the Static, Mr Gambon caught me.

  ‘What do you want?’ I said. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘Why are you always in such a foul mood?’ he asked, and his thin little moustache twitched. It made him look like the rat he is. ‘It’s Friday. I need your signature.’

  Friday, I’d forgotten again. Pay day. I scrawled my name in his book and took the brown envelope. The men were beginning to clock off.

  ‘Someone’s been leaving windows open in the office block,’ I told him.

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Ladies’ bog. You’re supposed to check.’

  ‘That’s what I like about you, Eva,’ he said. ‘Such a lovely personality.’

  ‘You don’t pay me for personality,’ I said, and walked away before he could say anything else. I felt sharp and mean.

  I found Rob lurking near the Static.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Eleanor.’

  ‘Oh, her,’ I said.

  ‘She came back, picked up her gear and left with them two sammies. It looked like she knew them.’

  ‘They’re mates of hers.’

  ‘She didn’t seem the type,’ he said.

  ‘What type’s that?’

  ‘You know,’ he said.

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘I can see you going round with blacks. But not her.’

  ‘Shows how much you know,’ I said. He looked really brassed off and it made me feel great.

  He turned away and then he turned back. He didn’t know what to do, the silly sod. I watched him. He really did look miserable.

  ‘She coming back?’ he asked, not looking at me.

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ I said, not a care in the world. ‘We’re too rough for her here.’

  He went away then.

  I sat on the Static steps and watched him go, the big soppy wilf. What did he have to moan about? He’d had more of her than he deserved in the first place.

  It was funny. I was cold, dying for a cup of tea, but I didn’t want to go indoors.

  I thought, I’ll sit here and wait for the yard to clear. Then I’ll let the dogs out. No point going in and getting comfortable before letting the dogs out.

  Rob told me one thing, though. If Goldie knew those two in the Maestro it meant they were from Count Suckle’s not Bermuda Smith’s. And if they were from Count Suckle’s it meant that they now knew I was not dead. And if they knew I wasn’t dead they might want to do me over. I would if I was them.

  It was dark. I sat on the steps. The men left by ones and twos. I wished they would get a move on. I wanted to lock the gate and let the dogs out. Until then anyone could come in.

  I could just see the gate from where I sat, and I kept my eyes on it. I wanted to be sure everyone moving about there was going, not coming. But the light was poor and I couldn’t see properly.

  At last the yard cleared. I picked up the big torch and went to the gate. I’d just got the first chain and padlock on when a voice from across the road called, ‘Eva? Eva Wylie.’

  It was a woman’s voice. I peered into the dark.

  ‘Who is it?’ I said. ‘Goldie,
is that you?’

  But the woman who stepped out of the shadows was not Goldie. It was the lady copper I’d brushed off a couple of days past.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ I said, and carried on locking the gate. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘A word,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘No, I’m locking up.’

  ‘All the same, can we talk?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t talk to the polizei.’

  ‘I’m not police,’ she said and came right up to the gate where I could see her. She wasn’t in uniform, but if she wasn’t polizei, I was a tomato sandwich.

  I said, ‘Pull the other one, copper, it plays Lavender’s Blue.’

  ‘I was a copper; you’ve got that right. But not any more. I went private years ago.’

  They’ll tell you anything and expect you to believe it, then when it’s your turn they call you a liar.

  I snapped the padlock on the bottom bolt and straightened up.

  She said, ‘You think I was part of the police raid on Bermuda Smith’s club don’t you?’

  I didn’t bother to answer.

  She went on, ‘In fact I’d been there for a long time.’

  ‘I didn’t see you,’ I said.

  ‘I saw you.’

  ‘You saw fuck-all,’ I said quickly. She had that copper’s way of saying, ‘I saw you,’ which was supposed to mean she saw me up to no good.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I saw nothing. But if I was a cop I’d have seen you, and you’d be in choky right now for lifting wallets.’

  She was annoying the crap out of me.

  I said, ‘You were too busy lifting drunks to see a crane lift a bungalow.’

  ‘One drunk,’ she said. ‘Eleanor Crombie. She was going to get badly hurt down there on the floor. I was trying to get her out, and then you dived in and snatched her. In a way you did the job for me, but it meant I lost her. I’ve been looking for her ever since.’

  I was trying so hard to remember what I told her last time she came that my head hurt. With the polizei, the trick is to keep saying the exact same thing all the time. If you say one little thing different they come after you with a pick and shovel until your story is smashed into little pieces on the ground and you can’t remember your own name.

  On the whole it’s always best to say nothing. I said nothing.

  She said, ‘I’m looking for Eleanor Crombie. I’m working for her family. They think she’s in trouble. They want her home.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ I said. ‘I told you last time I don’t know where she is. I’m telling you now – I don’t know where she is. And that’s all I’m telling you.’

  Which was God’s truth, but it made me feel very sad. I turned my back on the lady copper and walked away.

  ‘Eva,’ she called. ‘Eva Wylie. Don’t stay here tonight.’

  I stopped.

  ‘Don’t stay here,’ she repeated. ‘And don’t fight tomorrow. There are too many people out for your guts.’

  I turned to face her.

  ‘What you talking about?’

  ‘I told you, I’m a private investigator. I talk to people. I talked to Harry Richards.’

  ‘Now I know you’re lying,’ I said. ‘Harry wouldn’t talk to no lady copper.’

  She lost her rag completely. She said, ‘Look, you silly twommit, clean out your lugholes and listen for a change. I’m not a sodding cop.’

  It was great – I’d really got her going. It was a lovely feeling, knowing I’d annoyed her as much as she’d annoyed me.

  I said, ‘Clean out your own lugs. I don’t know where Goldie is. And I don’t talk to the polizei.’

  I marched away leaving her on the other side of the gate. And then I hurriedly opened the dog pen.

  ‘Go for it,’ I yelled as Ramses and Lineker came crowding out. ‘Go on. Kill!’

  And they went hell-for-leather straight at the gate, snarling and barking, climbing up the wire.

  It was a shame, really. She didn’t fall on her backside and wet her knickers the way I’d hoped. She just turned and walked away, that back of hers as straight as a telephone pole.

  All the same, she left me quite charged up and ready to go into the Static. I hadn’t wanted to before because I thought it would be all cold and empty and it would make me sad. But now I went in without a second thought. I went for the kettle without looking right or left and started to heat the water. I did not use the electricity – that was something Rob had fixed for Goldie. It didn’t have anything to do with me.

  In the end, though, with a mug of tea safely in my hand, I felt I could bring myself to look round.

  Everything was the way it was before she came – cold, empty and whiffing of brine. The only thing different was in the bedroom – that still smelled of her, and the soap she liked was still in the shower. She hadn’t taken it.

  The other thing was on the bed in a Selfridges carrier bag. At first I didn’t want to look in case it was something awful, like a message about what she really thought of me. But, after a couple of minutes I forced myself to look.

  It was an enormous T-shirt with ‘Big Is Beautiful’ written on the front. And a cuddly stuffed tiger with an evil grin on its face and wonky whiskers.

  I sat on the bed. I was in bits, I admit it. I couldn’t help remembering her coming back squiffed-out, the night I was so narked with her, telling me she’d bought me a present. I can’t remember what I said but I expect I told her to stuff it. I do that – say things without thinking. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

  She didn’t leave any message, so I didn’t know what the present meant. Perhaps she thought, ‘Well, I bought these things with Eva in mind, and now I can’t stand the thought of her so I don’t want any reminders.’

  Perhaps she thought, ‘Well, I suppose she did help me out of a jam once.’

  Perhaps she didn’t think either of those things. Perhaps she simply didn’t care and forgot them the way she forgot the soap.

  I didn’t know what she meant by leaving me a present on the bed. I stuffed both items in my emergency kit bag, and I blew my nose, and I finished my tea. It doesn’t do to dwell on stuff you don’t understand – take it from an expert.

  There were things to decide. Decisions. Farkin’ decisions. How do you make them? Mostly you don’t. You fart around and get a headache, and then, when you’re totally pissed with doing nothing, you do something and call it a decision. Anything will do.

  I decided to leave the yard. Why? Well I’ll tell you – although it’s against my religion to believe anything the polizei tell me, there was a niggling feeling that the lady copper wasn’t just screwing around with my head. I was looking for advice, wasn’t I? Well, she gave me some, didn’t she?

  ‘Don’t stay here,’ she said. All right. It was a tip I was ready to take. I already had everything in an emergency kit bag.

  She could stuff the rest of her advice, though. Not fight tomorrow? Not meet Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis, Star of the East? I mean, really! Do I look like a wimp? Does a cat act like a canary? Come on, behave.

  When taking advice, always do what you want to do. That’s my advice.

  But it was cold – not cold enough to burn your face, but cold enough to see your breath – and I have to say I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping out. At one time I did it every night. I didn’t particularly want to, but it’s a thing you get used to and after a while sleeping indoors seems almost unhealthy. If you sleep in a room you can’t breathe and you feel trapped. On the other hand, you can sleep easier knowing you won’t be moved on or that there’s no one coming up on you in the dark.

  You see, no matter how poor you are, you’ve always got something to lose. It’s a law of nature. It may be your coat, or your bit of shelter, but if you’ve got it you want to keep it.

  The other law of nature is that if you’ve got it, there’s someone out there who will want it too. And if they come up on you in the dark, they’ll try to take it. />
  The knack is not having anything you can’t protect.

  That’s what houses are for – to protect all the stuff you don’t want to carry round with you. If it was just a matter of a place to sleep and wash there would be no problem. Nobody would need much space. But people collect stuff and then they have to protect it, and the more they collect the more space they need to house it. It isn’t people who need big houses. It’s things.

  Look at me. I was dithering on the steps of the Static. And for why? Well, if you must know, I was worried about what I was leaving behind. It wasn’t much. Just some clothes, a few old pots and pans and my London Lassassin poster. But it was enough to make me dither.

  Also there was my stash. I couldn’t take that, not if I was sleeping out. When I slept out before, I didn’t have a stash. Now I do, and let me tell you it’s a worry.

  I went back inside. There was no heat on, but it was warmer than outdoors. Maybe I was going soft, but suddenly it was hard to leave. Perhaps I had been happy in the Static. I couldn’t remember if I had or not, but for sure it had been my home. The only place I’d ever had a right to. Mine by right.

  Bleeding daft, I thought. I was only leaving for the night. I’d be back tomorrow. I had to be – there were the dogs to feed and the yard to open.

  I took a last look round. Then I walked out and locked the door.

  Chapter 18

  I would have walked straight out the gate but the dogs were acting funny. They were sticking together and prowling. Normally, when they are first let out, they race round the yard, stretching their legs, sniffing out what’s happened during the day. After that, Ramses takes up a central position, out of the wind, and settles. He stays very watchful all night but he doesn’t waste much energy. Lineker, being younger and dafter, scurries about hunting rats and barking at cars. Sometimes he tires himself and gets to sleep before morning.

  I watched them for a minute, and then I put down my kit bag and followed. They were most interested in the fence on the gate side. They ran a few steps, stopped, tested the air, then ran on. Sometimes they stood side by side, paws up on the wire as if they could get a better view on their hind legs. A better view of what?