This Little Piggy (20 page)

Amy looked down at her feet, which were bare and filthy, with chipped polish on the toenails. “Maybe.”

Clare took a deep breath. “Amy, how often does your mum leave you on your own for a whole night? Be honest with me.”

Amy didn’t look up.

“I won’t tell, I promise. But I want to know. Does it happen a lot?”

Amy shrugged, stretched out her leg and made invisible patterns on the floor with her toe.

“Please, Amy. You can trust me, can’t you?”

“Sometimes. It happens sometimes.”

“Once a week? More than that?”

“It just depends. Sometimes the boyfriends come here. But she doesn’t like that, not after…” Amy’s voice tailed off.

“After what?”

Amy shook her head and went silent.

Clare waited a moment. “So if she goes out with a boyfriend, what happens? You stay here on your own? She doesn’t usually get a babysitter?”

“I’m too old for a babysitter, stupid.”

“Not legally. Anyway, how often does she stay out all night?”

“She goes out a lot with this one. Mickey likes going out better than staying in with me. But I’m safe, because Max guards me.”

“That’s really not the point.” Clare felt as if she had been handed a very heavy weight, one that she could never quite give back again. “So how do you feel about being on your own?”

“I’m not scared.”

“That’s not true, is it? You were scared of that gang.”

“Yeah, but…” Amy kept her eyes fixed on her feet. “That was ’cause it was them. I’m not normally scared of being on my own. I’m not a baby.”

Clare was about to argue that there was a killer roaming around somewhere, unsuspected, and it was hardly childish to be worried about that. But she stopped herself from making Amy feel worse. That was an argument to put to Tina, when she eventually bothered to come back home. In the meantime, Clare wasn’t sure what to do.

“I know you’re not a baby, of course I do. I’m just worried that you’re still a kid, although you’re a very smart one. That means you shouldn’t be here all alone, even with a great big dog. That’s all.”

“But you won’t tell? You promised.”

“Who would I tell?”

“Me mam says if I tell anyone they’ll take me away. I’d have to live in care and she says that’s the same as being in prison.”

Clare frowned. “I’m not sure that’s right. But stop worrying about that. You’re not going to be taken away.” She glanced at her watch. Almost seven.

“I could come to yours again,” Amy said, looking up. “I’d be no bother, honest.”

“I don’t know, Amy.”

“Go on.”

Clare gave half a laugh, half a mock-sigh. “Oh, go on then. Let’s leave a note with my number on it and if your mum wants you back tonight, I’ll bring you straight home.”

“
Yessss
.” Amy ran into her bedroom and came out with a carrier bag. “Here’s my stuff.”

Clare narrowed her eyes. “Was that already packed?”

Amy just grinned.

Clare was pleased she’d got some food in, just in case. Bread, milk, breakfast cereals, biscuits. A new pop magazine lay on the bed in the spare room. The truth was, Clare knew, that she and Amy had wordlessly conspired with each other, without even realising it.

“You’ve already tidied up,” Amy said, as soon as she walked in. “It smells nicer.”

“I’ve done a bit of cleaning,” Clare admitted. “It needed it.”

“I sometimes clean up at home. I quite like cleaning,” Amy said. “I like the way things look when you’re done. But I haven’t got any stuff to clean with, right now.”

The phone rang. It was Finn. “How did you get on with my mother and her mates?”

“Really well, I think. They were helpful. Plenty to write about. Tell your mum thanks.”

“Are you doing anything tonight? We could go for a drink.”

“I’m sorry, Finn. I’ve got someone staying with me tonight.”

“Oh. A man?”

Clare paused. “Just a friend.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Was that your boyfriend then?” Amy wanted to know, when Clare put the phone down.

“No, it wasn’t, nosy. What do you want to do? Watch some telly?”

Amy shrugged. “If you like. That’s what I usually do. I like
Starsky and Hutch
.”

Clare cast around. “I don’t have any games or anything but I’ve got a pack of cards.”

Amy looked blank. “I don’t know how to play cards.”

“You don’t? I’m no expert, but I can teach you a couple of games.”

They started with Beggar My Neighbour and moved on to Pontoon. Amy was a fast learner and soon trounced Clare again and again.

“I love doing games,” Amy said, as Clare went into the kitchen to get some drinks. “But there’s never anyone to play with at home.”

“You’ll have to teach your mum.”

Amy made a spluttering noise. “As if she has time. I got Monopoly at Christmas and I set it all up and everything but she never played it.”

“Well, Christmas is busy. Sometimes mums don’t get the chance to play.”

“No, I mean she never played it
ever
. It stayed set up on the floor till it got all dusty and then I put it away. You can’t do Monopoly on your own.”

“Oh.” Clare wasn’t sure what to say for a moment. “It’s years since I’ve played Monopoly. Next time, I mean,
if
you have to come and stay again, you could bring it with you.”

As the time ticked on to almost ten, Clare thought she ought to tell Amy to go to bed.

“But I don’t usually go this early.” Amy sounded genuine and Clare believed her. Clearly Tina often wasn’t around to tell her daughter to go to bed at a decent time.

“But you should. You must be tired when you go to school in the mornings.”

“Sometimes I don’t go to sleep all night anyway.”

Clare frowned. “Are you still having dreams about the baby?”

Amy folded her arms. “I told you, they’re not dreams. I still hear him crying though. Sometimes he stops when I sing, like I used to. But I can’t make him laugh any more. I can’t tickle his toes or do finger games, and they were his favourite thing.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wish I could just be with him.”

“Perhaps you should talk to someone about the way you feel and these dreams you’re getting. I mean, maybe you could talk to your mum?”

“No way. She’d say I was mental. She says that anyway, lots of the time.”

Clare sighed. “Maybe you’ll sleep better here, tonight. You shouldn’t hear any crying here.”

“Ohh-kayyy.” Amy heaved herself up from the chair. “That room seems sad though.”

Clare blinked at Amy. “What do you mean?”

Amy screwed up her face, thinking. “I’m not sure. But you know when you go somewhere and you get a feeling about it? Well, that room feels like it’s sad, that’s all.” She looked at Clare, whose mouth was slightly open. “But it’s still a nice room, honest. I’m not, you know, complaining about it or anything, ’cos I really, really like it. It’s not scary-sad, it’s just, I dunno… sad-sad.”

Clare shivered. “I’m pretty tired myself, Amy, so let’s go to bed, eh? Off you go. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Amy didn’t move. “Do you know why the room is sad? Does it have a ghost?”

Clare stood up. “It definitely doesn’t have a ghost, because there’s no such thing, okay? Go on. You can go to the bathroom first.”

Amy chewed her lip. “Are you cross with me?”

“No. No, of course I’m not. But I think we both need to get some sleep.”

Amy skipped off into the bathroom. Clare went into her own room, sat on the bed and stared out of the window into the greying night.

eight

Saturday 28th July
Amy was up before Clare again, at around six-thirty.

“I’ve made toast,” she said, brightly, handing Clare a plate.

The toast was already cold, so Clare wondered how long Amy had been up. Or if she had been asleep at all.

“Your mum didn’t call, then.”

“I never thought she would.”

“You think she stayed out all night again?”

“I don’t know, do I? Probably.”

Clare dialled Amy’s home number, but there was no answer.

“She might be worried about that note from the police,” Amy said. “She won’t want to take me to speak to them.”

“That’s daft, though. They just want to talk to you, because you might be able to help them. You haven’t done anything wrong, remember. Nor has your mum.”

“She won’t get me to the police station, though, like the letter says.” Amy chewed the skin on her finger, her nails already bitten down to the nub. “So they’ll be looking for me. I’ll be Wanted.”

“Are you worrying about this?”

Amy nodded.

Clare sighed. She tried calling Amy’s flat once again, but there was still no reply.

“I suppose I could go in with you this morning. We could just make sure that you tell the police what you know and what you’ve seen. And then it would be over with and your mum won’t have to go and talk to the police. How would that be?”

Amy’s face brightened. “That’d be brilliant.” Then her expression fell again. “Will it be hard? Will they give me wrong?”

“No. I’ll be there and I won’t let them scare you. I promise.”

After Clare chewed her way through the cold toast, they drove to the police station. Clare asked for Chief Inspector Seaton and was shown to his office by the desk sergeant, who knew her.

Seaton raised his eyebrows when he saw Amy. “These reporters are getting younger all the time,” he said. Amy went into peals of laughter, which seemed to please Seaton. Clare watched her carefully, guessing that the forced laughter was a way of covering her nerves.

“Look, I’ve brought her along to talk to your officers, because her mum’s not keen on coming along. Is that okay? Can I be with her?”

“I suppose you qualify as a responsible adult. Just about.”

Seaton took them along to a tiny beige interview room and sat them at a table. “I’ll find an officer to take a statement. I’ll describe you as a friend of the family, for want of a better way of putting it.”

“But she is my friend,” Amy said, pushing her chair a little closer to Clare’s.

After a few minutes, a female officer came in with a sheaf of headed paper, followed by another officer with tea for Clare and some watery orange juice for Amy.

“Amy, I’m Margaret. Now, there’s nothing to be worried about.” The officer wrote down Amy’s name and address. “When’s your birthday, Amy?”

Amy didn’t answer. She stared down at the desk.

“It’s the 23rd of July,” Clare said. “She’s just turned ten. Amy, please don’t look so anxious.”

Margaret gave a thin smile. “Right. What did you get for your birthday, Amy?”

Amy beamed. “A Walkman.”

“Very posh. Lucky you.”

That was the small talk bit, Clare thought.

Margaret went on: “I understand that you think you saw something on the day of baby Jamie’s death. I just need you to tell me again everything that you saw that day, as truthfully as you can. As much as you can remember.”

Amy started to recount her version of what happened. It was a painfully slow process, because the officer was writing everything down by hand and kept asking each question two or three times.

“You need to learn shorthand,” Amy told her. “I can do Teeline shorthand. Clare showed me. It helps you write things faster.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Margaret said. Clare made an apologetic face in her direction, but she couldn’t help feeling a tiny spasm of pride at Amy’s enthusiasm.

“The thing is,” Margaret went on. “I’m trying to imagine you watching these men. Especially the one you say went up to the balcony and picked the baby out of his pram. I’m trying to work out how exactly you could see him, if you were on the balcony above. I can’t work out how you were at the right angle.”

“I wasn’t on the balcony above.”

“But you said…”

“Well, I wasn’t on the balcony all the time. I was on the stairs for a bit.”

“You didn’t say that before. Why were you on the stairs?”

“I thought I heard Jamie crying.”

“So?”

“So I went down to see him. But I saw this man go along the balcony.”

“I see. And then what?”

“I told you. He lifted baby Jamie out of his pram.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I went back up the stairs. To my balcony.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I just felt a bit scared, that’s all. I wanted to get out of the way of the man.”

“Why were you scared, at that point?”

Amy nibbled at her fingers. “He was acting funny. Like… like he was on drugs or something.”

Margaret gave Amy a hard look. Clare shifted in her seat. Sometimes Amy did sound as if she was making things up as she went along. But that might be because she was only ten. And because she was afraid.

“How would someone on drugs act, then?” The officer tapped her pen lightly on the table.

“Like… jumpy. And his eyes were kind of like
this
.” Amy’s eyeballs swivelled around.

Clare frowned. All this was new to Amy’s story.

Margaret’s expression was hard to read. “I thought you couldn’t see his face. I thought he was wearing a cap.”

“That was the man on the ground.”

“I thought you said it was the other one.”

Amy shook her head. Clare was having trouble keeping up with the details. So, it seemed, was the police officer, who read and re-read her notes and scribbled something Clare couldn’t read. “So you went up to the balcony and you saw what exactly?”

“I saw baby Jamie fall all the way down. There was blood on the ground.”

Margaret’s tapping got a little faster. “So you didn’t actually see this man throw the baby?”

Amy thought for a moment. “Yes. I mean, no, not exactly. But he must’ve done.”

Margaret wrote something else on the sheaf of papers. Clare couldn’t read it upside down and when Margaret saw her tilting her head, she placed a hand over it.

“And then? What about this man on the ground?”

“He sweared.”

“Did he shout?”

Amy shook her head.

“So how did you hear him, if he was four levels below you?”

“Mmmm,” Amy thought about this, her head on one side. “He must’ve shouted, then.”

“So why do you think no one else heard? Jamie’s mum, for instance?”