This Little Piggy (33 page)

She opened the door and held it wide. “Where’ve you been? Your mum’s worried. I’ve been worried. Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Finn stepped inside and closed the door behind him, leaning back against it. “No. Never mind me. Are you feeling better?”

“Come in. Let’s have a drink.” Clare led him by the hand to the kitchen, where she leaned up to kiss him. “I’ve missed you, that’s all.”

“Clare.” Finn took the glass out of her hand and put it back on the bench. “I have to talk to you.”

He took both her hands. “I… I know we haven’t known each other very long. But you mean a lot to me. I want you know that.”

Clare squeezed his fingers. “Good. I feel the same. You don’t have to say anything. We can just see how things go.”

Finn screwed up his eyes as if he was in pain. “We can’t. I’ve done something, something I’m not proud of. And when people get to know about it, I can’t be here.”

“We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. I should know.” Clare put Finn’s arms around her back. “Whatever it is, we can just work through it. It’ll be fine.”

“Not this. I need to get away from here. But I wanted you to know why.”

Clare felt her blood pulsing through her. She wanted to stop the conversation before Finn said anything he couldn’t take back. “Tell me later,” she said and pushed her mouth against his.

A moment later, a loud gagging noise made them jump apart. Amy was standing in the kitchen doorway, pretending to put her fingers down her throat. “Bleaaagh. I hope you’re not going to start
doing
stuff.”

They both laughed.

“I’d better go,” Finn said.

Clare made a pleading face. “When will you come back?”

“Take care,” Finn said. “I’ll call. Soon.”

Shortly before midnight, Clare woke up from a deep sleep to the sound of running water. It took her a few moments to work out what it could be. She went into the kitchen to find Amy kneeling on a stool next to the sink, trying to shove a bedsheet under the tap. She jumped when Clare spoke.

“You okay? What’s happened?”

In the bright light of the kitchen, Amy’s face went a deep pink. “I spilled something on the bed.”

“Oh, right. What was it, just water?”

“Erm… juice.”

“Juice?” Clare didn’t recall Amy having any juice. She guessed that Amy had wet the bed and was too embarrassed to say so.

“Okay, but you don’t need to wash it under the tap. I’ve got a machine, look.”

“I know. But I didn’t know how to work it.”

“I’ll show you.” Clare squeezed water out of the sheet and pushed it into the machine. She taught Amy how to add the powder and which setting to use. “And now I’ll get you a clean sheet. Feeling better now?”

Amy nodded. “Sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Accidents happen. I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

Amy perched on the stool. “My mam goes mad with me when I do it at home. She says I have to take the sheets to the launderette myself, but I never have the money. So sometimes I just have to try to dry them out.”

“I don’t want you to worry about it here.” Clare wondered if she should ask Amy directly, but decided against it. “Does it happen very often? You, um, spilling something on your bed?”

Amy looked shifty. “Can we stay up for a bit? I don’t want to go back to bed yet.”

“Go on then.” Clare made Amy’s bed again, then filled the kettle. “Is it too warm for hot chocolate?”

“Nahh.”

Amy moved to the sofa and hugged her bony knees. “Shall I tell you a secret?”

“If you want to.” Clare wasn’t sure what to expect. “Is it a good secret?”

“Not really.”

“If you want to,” Clare said again.

“I think my mam and Mickey might’ve gone on holiday.”

“You’re kidding? What makes you think that?”

“I heard them talking about it. Mickey said he could get a good deal to go to Spain, but not if they had to drag a kid along with them.”

“So all that stuff about you being a target?”

Amy sniffed. “That did happen. I think they were just going to go away and let me stay on my own, only when people started banging on the door and calling me a grass, they got worried.” She darted a glance at Clare and then back down to her mug. “It was my idea to come here.”

Clare resisted the urge to swear. “So why didn’t your mum just tell me? At least then I would have known how to get hold of her. Now I haven’t a hope of talking to her until she comes back. Tell me they’ve booked a week and not a whole fortnight?”

“I think it was a week. Sorry, Clare.”

“It’s not your fault. But Tina should’ve put me in the picture.” She looked over at Amy’s hunched little figure. “I bet you’d have liked to go to Spain, though.”

“Mmm.” Amy pouted. “Not with that Mickey.”

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

“Nuh. He just… he does stuff I don’t like.”

Clare suddenly felt her skin crawl. “What do you mean?” She swallowed. “I know about the Walkman. That was awful. But is there anything else? He doesn’t hurt you, does he?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Sort of.”

Clare waited. She didn’t want to press Amy for any more details. She wasn’t sure if she could cope with what the girl might tell her.

“Your turn to tell me a secret,” Amy said, suddenly, her face brightening.

“Oh.” Clare ran a hand through her hair. It was a very warm night and she was finding it hard to cool down. “I’m not sure I have any interesting ones.”

“You must have. Anyway, I know one of your secrets already.”

“You do? You tell it to me then.”

“You’re having a baby.”

Clare gasped, as if she’d been hit across the face. It took her a moment to recover. “No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. You’ve got baby clothes and nappies and stuff in your bedroom. I found them when I was tidying up for you. And there’s a baby bed on top of your wardrobe, all wrapped up in a bin bag.”

“I’m not sure how you managed to find that, Amy. You must’ve climbed up and had a good root around.”

“I peeked inside the bag, that’s all. Just to see what it was.”

“You’re very nosy.”

“I know. But you said it’s good for reporters to be nosy, right?”

“I suppose I did.”

“So, are you having a baby? You look sort of skinny if you are. You should be getting a big belly.”

Clare swallowed hard, fighting the lump that was hurting her throat. “I’m really not having a baby. That stuff is waiting to go to a charity shop.”

“So where’s it come from, then? It’s new. Whose is it?”

Clare put the knuckle of her index finger in her mouth and bit on it. She was going to have to say out loud the thing she didn’t want anyone to know.

“I was having a baby. But I had a miscarriage, a couple of months ago. Do you know what that means? It means I lost the baby, before it got big enough to be born properly.”

“Oh.” Amy took a sharp breath in. “Ah! Was it in my bedroom? Where the baby came out?”

“Well, it wasn’t really a proper baby. It hadn’t grown enough. But yes, it happened in my spare room, where you sleep. It happened on the day I was supposed to be having a job interview at work. The one that man Chris Barber got instead. Everything seemed to go wrong after that.”

“Right. That’s what the ghost is, then. I thought it might be Jamie following me all the way here, because I suppose a ghost can do that, can’t it? But it’s the ghost of your baby.”

“I’ve told you, there’s no such thing as ghosts. You’re imagining all that.”

“I am not.”

“Amy, please.” Clare reached for a tissue and wiped at her eyes. “I don’t really like talking about it.”

“Okay.” Amy patted Clare’s leg. “Don’t cry. I don’t think your baby’s ghost is sad. Not like Jamie’s.”

“Amy, this stuff about ghosts…”

“Jamie’s ghost is really angry with me.”

Clare sighed. “That’s daft, in all sorts of ways. But let’s imagine there is a ghost. Why would it be cross with you?”

Amy stuck out her lower lip and thought for a minute. “I think I should go to bed now,” she said.

Clare stared as Amy got up and took the hot chocolate mug into the kitchen, where the washing machine was whirring. She got up and followed her.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yep.” Amy didn’t look Clare in the eye as she swerved past her and headed for the spare room. Clare listened as the door clicked shut. She sat on her own bed and thought. These days, it felt like Amy was always on the point of telling her something. Something big, at least big to Amy’s ten-year-old mind. But then she kept backing out at the last second.

twelve

Sunday 5th August
It was shortly after four in the morning, when it was starting to get light, that Clare woke to a sound in her back yard. She sat up and inched back the edge of the curtain. Amy was quietly replacing the lid on Clare’s dustbin and slipping back through the kitchen door, clicking it shut as silently as possible.

Clare lay still, waiting until she was fairly sure Amy had gone back into the little bedroom. Then she pulled on a T-shirt and went out to look in the bin, to see what Amy had dropped in there. She hoped it wasn’t more bed sheets.

At first Clare couldn’t see anything obvious among the piles of cartons and newspapers. She leaned over and poked around, her hand finding something wrapped up in a sort of bundle. She pulled it out and opened the layers of paper. It had been well wrapped, she thought. It reminded her of the child’s game of pass-the-parcel: layer after layer of paper. And just when she was beginning to think that that’s all there was, and there was nothing at the centre of the bundle, she peeled back the final layer to find something small and soft. It was a baby’s blue and white checked sunhat.

Clare jumped and her skin felt as if electricity was jolting through it. She could feel her heart palpitating. She wrapped the hat quickly back in its final layer of newspaper and ran back inside. She put the little parcel on the kitchen bench and stared at it, her heart thumping so hard and her breath so short it was making her feel dizzy. Her thoughts raced, unable to form any sense. How had Amy come by this? Why was she carrying it around with her? Fingers shaking, she edged the paper back again just to be sure she had seen what she thought she’d seen. There could be no doubt about it. This had to be baby Jamie’s missing sunhat.

She heard a tiny shuffling sound and turned quickly to see Amy standing in the doorway, watching her. She found herself going hot, as if she’d been caught in the act of doing something she shouldn’t.

“Amy. Hi.”

Amy said nothing. She just stared at the bundle on the kitchen bench. Then she looked back at Clare. Clare couldn’t read her expression.

“Look, I heard you putting something in the bin so I got up to see what it was, that’s all. I have to ask where you got this. Is it what I think it is?”

Amy nodded.

“How did you get hold of it?”

“I found it, that’s all. Out beside the bins at home.”

“When was that?”

Amy blew air out of her cheeks, thinking. “Just the other day.”

Clare leaned forward and put her head in her hands for a minute. “You’re saying you found baby Jamie’s missing sunhat beside the bins, just a few days ago?”

Amy said nothing. She pressed her lips together and looked at Clare. She took a step backwards and the wariness in her eyes suggested she was expecting Clare to get angry.

“The thing is,” Clare went on, “I can’t see how that would be possible. The police went through that area very carefully just after Jamie died. They would have found it then, wouldn’t they?”

Amy still didn’t reply. She twirled a ratty strand of hair round her fingers, her eyes still fixed on Clare.

“You must have found it quite a long time ago,” Clare went on. “And you knew the police were looking for it. Why didn’t you hand it in? It could be really important in helping them to catch Jamie’s killer.”

Amy’s chin crumpled.

“Don’t cry. I’m not angry, I promise. I’m just trying to understand.”

“I wanted to give it to you.” Small tears trickled slowly down Amy’s face. “I thought if I gave it to you then you’d get a really good story on the front page. But then I got scared. So I thought I’d just put it in the bin and forget about it.”

Clare didn’t know what to say, for a moment or two.

“Okay, Amy. We are going to have to give this to the police and tell them, you know that, don’t you?”

Amy’s mouth dropped wide open. “You can’t. They’ll put me in prison.”

“They won’t.”

“They will. It’s called holding evidence or something. I’ve seen it on the telly. They always put people in jail for it.”

“But you’re a kid, Amy.”

“They might put me in care though. I don’t want that.”

“You’re really scared of that, aren’t you?”

“Me mam says it’s just like prison. She says people beat you up all the time and lock you up in your room and it’s really scary and there’s no one there to be nice to you.”

“I’m sure it’s not really like that. Anyway, they won’t do that. They might tell you off a bit, that’s all.”

“Me mam said I hadn’t got to speak to the police anymore, about anything, because it just causes trouble.”

“I’ll speak to them, then. Your mum’s not here to decide. But you must promise me that you’ll never do anything like this again. Tell me again exactly where you found it. And when.”

Amy bit her lip. “I’m hungry.”

“It’s a bit early for breakfast.”

“But I’m starving.”

Clare sighed. “I’ll make some toast. And then we have to think about this. It’s important.”

“We don’t have to see the police today, though?”

“Yes, we do.”

Amy’s face twisted. She didn’t eat her toast and her usual constant chatter dried up completely, no matter what Clare tried to talk about. At around five-thirty, she started yawning.

Clare looked at her and softened. She was being too hard, expecting Amy to respond like an adult. “You know what? It’s still really early. Neither of us have had much sleep. Why don’t we both go back to bed and try to get a couple of hours? And then we’ll go and see my friend Chief Inspector Seaton and explain everything.