The room spins. Mark’s suddenly roasting hot. He can’t stop his mind slipping back to that night, the beers and vodka he and Jon shared before Mark hit the deck and Jon moved on to other things. Jon hardly ever drank more than a can of lager, but that night was different. When Mark was out getting booze, that woman had walked past, all dressed up, and told Jon that he scared her children, and that he should find somewhere else – somewhere more appropriate – to squat. Jon didn’t usually care what people thought of him, but he liked kids and her words upset him that night. And now he’s dead.

Because of her?

Jon wasn’t going through withdrawal when he jacked up for the last time, he was drunk, proper hammered, on Mark’s stash of booze. Mark would laugh at the irony if he could stop the anguish contorting his face, the police arresting him for possessing a drug that wasn’t his, while completely ignoring the empty bottles of alcohol that caused Jon’s death. Does that mean this is his fault? Did he kill his only mate in London?

No.

It was her fault. Jon got drunk because of what she said, what she called him. And now she’s acting like the local hero because she was there to watch him die. Mark looks up at the coroner, her concerned face, then he gives her a small nod of thanks and backs out of the courtroom.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Kat

Kat rubs hard at her midriff, but it’s pointless. She can’t quell the sick feeling bubbling inside her belly. It’s been building all morning, ever since she saw Beth Packard’s name on the schedule when she first arrived, and now it’s threatening to spill out. Fear and excitement mixing like oil and water.

It was Sunday morning when Kat decided she was going to try to orchestrate a meeting with Beth. But she didn’t have chance to put her plan into action until her day off on Tuesday. She’d left the flat early, when the sky was still black, and walked over to Clapham Common. The darkness had eventually lifted as dawn broke, and Kat had tried not to see the splash of red across the horizon as a warning sign. She’d dropped onto Brookhill Road, and then wandered up and down the hill, watching people come and go from the big houses. Office workers looking smart and vaguely put out that they couldn’t work in their pyjamas that day, teenagers with untucked shirts and heavy backpacks, grunting goodbyes and slamming doors, and younger children swinging book bags and skipping or scooting down the hill.