‘No, she’s not. They’ve got money, her folks. And sod all to do with the army. They could leave so easily, disappear, make it all go away for her if she squealed. Where are we going to go? Sleep in Victory Field? Like they won’t find us there. They own the whole fucking town.’

‘Can you believe she thought you were my sister?’ I change the subject, even though just saying the word ‘sister’ makes me remember Ma scrabbling about for something to feed Kayleigh before I left this morning. Rach doesn’t answer me.

‘Rach…’ I persist. In spite of everything I start to feel just a tiny bit warm inside, as I think about it. I always wanted a grown-up sister, especially now that I’m actually having to be one myself. Shop fronts clatter open around us as we turn into town.

‘Wait here a sec,’ she finally says as we stop outside Claire’s, disappearing and reappearing in a jangle of bells with a plastic cup of water.

‘Down the hatch,’ she says, nudging the cup into my blazer. ‘Come on.’

‘Oh … right.’ I pull the crumpled box from my pocket. The cardboard comes away in my hand as I find the foil packet of pills inside.

‘Now jog on, will you?’ she says as I swallow, pushing the blister pack with its second pill back into my pocket for later. ‘And make sure you don’t lose those in detention. Stash them good. I’ll speak to Jase. We can’t use that clinic again, not now social services have cottoned on.’

She turns her back on my nod, disappearing behind the columns of earrings and bracelets twinkling at me just inside the door.

I swallow again as I peer into the dark at the back of the shop, pill like a lump in my throat as I look for her. But she’s gone.

97

Marie ~ London ~ 2006

Inside the Scotland Yard press pen, the circus has already started. Battalions of tripods lined up behind the back row, microphone stands fighting over the podium up front, endless yards of transmission cables snaking all over the place. Usually I love this part, all process and detail smacking me round the face, Come on people, let’s go, charge! No time to think about anything other than what needs to happen to get the information where it needs to be. But today, the whole thing would taste sour, if I didn’t still have the dregs of bile in my mouth. They’ve done it, I think, hovering behind Jemima and doing the handshake dance, nodding and smiling at everyone massing into the room like a bloody flock of geese. We’re all here, waiting for them to feed us breadcrumbs, hanging on their every word as if none of us have anything to say that’s our own. Or are going to bloody bother trying, anyway.