I studied her from the doorway, allowed my eyes to take in the home from a stranger’s perspective. It was kind of clean, I made sure of that. I’d seen from where Rebecca came from that if you didn’t clean your house, the aromas of filth transferred to your clothes and became common knowledge.

No, that wasn’t the problem. Even though it was old-fashioned and tatty in decor, and freezing cold, the house itself wasn’t an issue.

It was her. I narrowed my eyes, knowing that if these people were to come calling, the odds on catching her like this, a relatively good day, were not in my favour. And it was Carl who was to blame for that.

‘Where’s Carl?’ I asked.

She turned around and I flinched at her face. Her skin was grey, her hair greasy and lank. Her chest, visible through the open neck of her house coat, was mottled with tiny scars. I knew those scars. When she took the brown stuff, she complained more and more of things in her skin, and she scratched and tore at her chest until it turned raw and bled.

She would need to wear a button-up shirt, or a polo neck, I realised.

‘He’s gone to get me some stuff,’ she said.

Stuff, I knew, meant brown, and fags and booze.

‘He’ll be back soon,’ she said.

I backed out of the kitchen and retreated to my bedroom to think.

Later, I moved around their still bodies as I searched the cabinets and piles of papers for bank statements and giro cheques. Our income was to be scrutinised, and it was non-existent. The money that came in was from the dole, and the money for the rent went out to the council.

I found a pile of statements, most of them unopened, and I took them out of the envelopes and smoothed the creases away. She was overdrawn, I noticed. I looked at the benefits that went in and the rent that was deducted, and frowned. The rent was a bit less than the amount she got from the government. There was enough of a difference to allow for other essential items like food and heating.

I looked across the room at her, deep in slumber. The brown cost money, I knew that, but I also knew she hadn’t been anywhere in a long time to withdraw money to buy it. I had assumed Carl was giving it to her for free, or in return for what she used to do with other men to earn some cash.

Those men never came here any longer.

A red-hot poker of anger stabbed at me. Carl was taking her money. The money that should be buying us stuff to eat, and gas and electricity. As if to prove a point, the single light in the lounge dimmed and went out.