Mary saw the ravaged look on the girl’s face and sighed heavily. The last few months she had started going clubbing – whatever the fuck that was – and Gabby had apparently taken to it like a duck to water. She was out more than she was in, and the upshot was that Cherie now spent more time with her grandmother than she did with her own mother.

That Cynthia was behind this newfound freedom, Mary had no doubt but, at the moment, Cynthia could do no wrong in Gabby’s eyes. She was all ‘me mum this’, and ‘me mum that’. Like Cynthia was suddenly the fucking oracle or something.

Mary was even more worried because she had found little pills in Gabby’s bedroom drawer, and she guessed they were those things called Es they were always talking about on the news. They were dangerous – people had died taking them.

She looked at her granddaughter’s emaciated body; she had lost a lot of weight, and she often appeared spaced out, that was the only way she could describe the vacant look on the girl’s face. That was Christine fucking Carter’s fault; she was known on the estate for everything from drugs to thieving. Now Gabby thought that Christine Carter was the epitome of council house chic.

Gabby was already asleep again, and Mary sighed, knowing it was pointless trying to talk to her while she was like this. In a way she sympathised. Gabby was little more than a child herself and she was tied down with a baby, with the father locked up on the Isle of Wight. With her mother on the scene, she felt her baby was being well looked after – it was with its nanny after all who doted on the child – so Gabby could go out and have a good time. Mary wasn’t so old she didn’t understand human nature, and if it was once a week she would have encouraged it. But it was now nearly every night. It was as if once Gabby had tasted freedom, she was hooked and wanted more and more of it, but at the expense of her baby daughter. Cherie had not been to their house in ten days, and that bothered Mary. The social worker was not impressed either, and that did not bode well.

She walked slowly from the room and, making a cup of tea, she wondered at how this would all finally pan out.

She didn’t have long to wait for the answer to her question.

Chapter Ninety-Eight

‘My mum’s too old to have the baby full time and so Cherie would be much better off here. I think Gabriella would prefer it too.’

Miss Byrne nodded in resignation; as nice as this woman seemed there was something off about her that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

‘Are the police sure she was selling the drugs?’