This Little Piggy (17 page)

Clare blinked hard, surprised at how much Catt’s words stung. She held the phone away from her face so that she could try to gulp back her urge to cry, without Catt hearing her. She swallowed and hoped her voice wouldn’t come out too thick. “Okay. Point taken.” She put the receiver back in its cradle and reached for a tissue. She held it, scrunched up, against her wet eyes for a few minutes. She could easily rescue her reputation, just by being honest about what had happened on the day of the job interview. But she couldn’t bear the thought of everyone knowing about it.

seven

The phone rang again. Clare took a deep breath before picking up the handset.

“Hi, Clare, it’s Amy. I might have a scoop for you.”

Clare couldn’t help smiling when Amy used words like that. She hadn’t the heart to say that real reporters would never say ‘scoop’ these days. “Go on, then.”

“You have to come and see it.”

It turned out to be quite a good story, about one of Amy’s neighbours who’d found a cockroach crawling in her baby’s cot. When she’d seen the state of the flat, with its patches of black fungus growing on the walls and its insect infestations, Clare knew she could write a weighty feature about the conditions in the last occupied flats on the estate. A quick quote from the council would finish it off. Another double-page spread, Clare reckoned.

On their way out, Amy linked her arm into Clare’s. “Have you noticed anything?”

“Like what?”

Amy stopped and sniffed the warm air. “I’m not sure. But it’s like… it’s like something’s about to happen.”

Clare looked at her and frowned. “What sort of thing?”

“I don’t know, do I? I’m not Russell Grant or someone, am I? I can’t, like…” she wiggled her fingers in the air, “…see into the future. But it just feels different round here.”

“In what way, different?”

Amy screwed up her face. “It’s hard to say. But the air is all buzzy. It felt like that before Jamie died too. I could sort of smell it. Like something’s about to change.”

“I wish I knew what you meant.”

Amy traced a circle round and round with her toe. “I wish I knew what I meant, too.”

“You’re a funny girl, Amy.”

Amy gave a little sigh. “That’s what everyone says.”

Clare nudged her gently. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”

“Good. ’Cos that’s what most people mean.”

The strangely mournful-sounding ice-cream van cruised slowly around the corner. “Want a lolly?” Clare asked, glad to change the subject.

“Yessss. Can I have a Funny Feet?”

They sat on a low brick wall and Clare handed Amy the lolly. It started melting its Germolene-pink drips almost straight away, but Amy was deft at catching them with her tongue.

“Baby Jamie loved ice-cream,” she said. “If I had one I would put a bit on my finger and he would lick it off. He loved it.”

“You still missing him?”

Amy nodded and for a few moments she stopped eating and let the lolly drip onto the floor. “I’ve got no one to sing to any more. Or do games with. He used to like doing Round-and-round-the-garden, and having his toes tickled.”

“Try not to think about it,” Clare said. “I know that’s hard, but you should try not to dwell on it like this.”

Amy turned her attention back to the ice lolly.

“So you think there’s a strange atmosphere on the estate?” Clare tried again.

Amy frowned. “A strange what?”

“You know, like things feel odd and different. You were saying that, remember?”

Amy nodded and made a slurping sound as she tried to stop any drops of ice-cream from falling to the ground. “I don’t know how to say it. It’s like things are all shifting about. Changing. But I don’t know how, really.”

“What makes you feel like that?”

Amy stared around her and sighed, trying to find words that would properly explain her thoughts. Clare watched her, remembering how it sometimes felt as a child to lack the right words to tell someone how you felt. To know that something was happening but not to understand it.

“Everyone’s cross or sad or worried. More than usual, I mean. And the kids hardly ever come out to play anymore. All anyone talks about is baby Jamie or the strike or not having any money. No one says anything nice or funny these days.”

Clare looked at the ground. Not just on Sweetmeadows, she thought. “These are hard days, Amy, for lots of people. You’re right. And when something really bad happens – you know, like Jamie being killed – people can feel it’s wrong to be happy. At least for a while.”

“And there are these boys that hang around at night,” Amy went on. “Some girls too. And they have stuff to drink and they shout and throw things around. A woman told them off and they smashed her windows. I get scared of them. I can’t sleep when they’re out there.”

“Has anyone told the police about them?”

Amy gave Clare a pitying look. “The police? Nah. Why would they? They wouldn’t do anything to stop it, anyway.”

“So how long’s this been going on?”

Amy gave a little shrug. “Three or four nights. I watch them from my bedroom but I keep the light out. I don’t want them to see me watching.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“A couple of them. One of them’s the brother of a boy in my class. He stopped coming to school a while ago, though.”

“I’m sorry you’re scared. But they’re not interested in you, Amy, they’re just letting off steam. They’ll soon get sick of hanging around here with nothing to do. Especially when the weather gets colder or it starts to rain.”

“I wish it would rain.”

“You do?” Clare smiled. “How come?”

“Maybe then it won’t feel so… crackly. Maybe some of the bad stuff here will get all washed away.”

Clare nodded. “The funny thing is, you’re right. People do fewer crimes in bad weather. Look, I need to pop back to my office to finish some work. But I’ll come back tomorrow. I might get a story out of the way these yobs are terrorising people on the estate. Ask your mum if I can talk to her about it, will you?”

Amy pouted. “You’ll be lucky getting any sense out of me mam these days. She’s got this new bloke and she spends all her time running after him. I hate him.”

“Why do you hate him?”

Amy made a face. “Just because.”

Clare glanced at her watch. “Ask your mum anyway. And if there are any other mums I could chat to, you could point me towards them, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Clare waved Amy goodbye, and headed for the nearest phone box to call the picture desk. “Hey, Stewie? I’m glad it’s you. I need you to come to your favourite place. Yes, Sweetmeadows. I need you to take a pic of a cockroach in a jar.”

Wednesday 25th July
It didn’t take long for Clare to find people on Sweetmeadows to complain about the way small gangs of teenagers were disturbing the estate at nights, although she preferred the word ‘terrorising’.
Yobs terror on murder estate
.

As she knew she would get stuck there for a while, Amy’s mum was her last door-knock of the day. She was half-surprised to find that Tina was around, pale and sleepy-looking, and she was even more surprised to be let into the flat. Usually, even Amy kept her standing outside the door.

The place smelled heavily of cigarettes, unwashed clothes and dog. Like most of the living rooms Clare had seen in the last couple of weeks, the place was sparsely furnished: a sofa, a rug so coated in dog hairs that it was difficult to guess at its original colour, a TV, a plug-in electric fire. There were no pictures on the wall.

“Aye, I’ve heard them, the little sods,” Tina said, when Clare asked her about the teenagers. “Drinking and shouting and throwing things about. It keeps her awake,” she went on, jerking her head in Amy’s direction. Amy nodded vigorously, her arms firmly round the dog, to stop it from jumping at Clare. Clare kept half an eye on it as it wagged its tail vigorously, ready to pounce.

“What would you like to see done about it?” This was a question for which it was frustratingly hard to glean any answers. The tenants were reluctant to speak to the police about the problem and, however angry they were about the noise and disruption, most wouldn’t commit themselves to a solution. They shrugged their shoulders and said they just didn’t know.

Tina sighed and sucked on a cigarette. “The trouble is, there’s nothing else for them to do. I remember being that age and doing the same thing, hanging around, hoping for trouble.”

“So should the police speak to them? Move them on?”

“I suppose so.”

That’ll do, thought Clare. I can turn that into a call for the police to take action.

“Does it scare you? You know, when they smash things and stuff?”

Tina pouted. “Not really. I’m scared for them, though.”

“How do you mean?”

Tina raked a hand through her hair, an unwashed frizzy perm in unnatural gold. “You know what kids are like, drinking and smoking whatever they can get their hands on. Riding round on those daft scooters. There’ll be a horrible accident. That’ll be another reason for everyone to call the people on Sweetmeadows worse than scum.”

A death waiting to happen
. Good line, Clare thought.

“Have you seen them?” Tina asked suddenly.

“Not actually seen them, myself,” Clare admitted. “Just heard the stories.”

“You should come round here tonight,” Tina suggested. Clare was taken aback. It wasn’t like Tina to show that much interest. “Come here about nine o’clock and sit and wait. They’ll be round. Then you can see what happens.”

“You wouldn’t mind? I wouldn’t be interrupting your evening?”

Tina shook her head. “Don’t be daft. Come and sit and chat to Amy. She’d be chuffed, wouldn’t you, kid? And then you can write about whatever you want. That’d be better than talking to me.”

Clare blinked. “Okay, I will, thanks very much.”

“
Yesss
.” Amy’s face glowed.

Clare managed to fill her day’s story quota and decided not to tell the newsdesk her plan to stake out the Sweetmeadows estate. For one thing, Catt was still in charge and there was every chance she would hand the story to Chris Barber. For another, they might decide to send someone else with her – a photographer, for example – and for reasons that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, she wanted to do this on her own. After all, nothing might happen. Sod’s law said the more resources the paper put into it, the less likely a story was to work out. She was just checking it out, after all.

She arrived at Amy’s flat at around eight-thirty with a carrier bag full of sweets, crisps and fizzy pop. When Tina opened the door, she’d changed and put on some make-up. She still looked unnaturally pale, but much more human than she had earlier in the day. A man who Clare hadn’t seen before was sprawled across the sofa, watching the TV.

“Hey, Mickey. This is the reporter woman.” Tina raised her voice at the man as if she was used to having to repeat herself. “What’s your name again? Right. Clare. This is Mickey, my boyfriend.”

“Aye.” The man heaved himself up and nodded at Clare. He looked younger than Tina and as he stood up a strong waft of cheap aftershave made Clare catch her breath.

“See you then,” Tina said, picking up a handbag from the floor. “Hope you get what you want. And you,” she nodded at Amy, “behave yourself. None of your fairy stories.”

Amy stuck out her tongue as her mother turned round.

“You’re going out?” Clare tried to keep the surprise out of her voice.

“We might be late,” Tina added. “So don’t worry. We’ll probably go to a club. Amy’ll be fine, whenever you need to get off you just tell her to go to bed. Not that she will.”

Clare said nothing as the couple slammed the door behind them. I walked into that one, she thought. She noticed Mickey had barely looked at Amy and hadn’t bothered to say goodbye. No wonder Amy hated him.

Amy gave her a little shrug and a huge grin. “Yay! What’ll we do? Shall I put my tape on?”

“You might as well,” Clare said. “We’ve got a bit of waiting around to do.”

“Hang on.” Amy fiddled with the cassette in a player plugged in next to the TV. It clicked and whirred. She pressed play, then stop, then wound back a little more. “This is my favourite song, ever. I never get fed up of it.”

The opening words of Wham’s
Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
boomed out. Amy jumped in the air, waving her hands, then did a wild stepping dance across the floor.
Jitterbug
. “Dance, Clare!”

Clare laughed.

“Dance properly!” Amy held out her hands and Clare took them, letting Amy do most of the jigging about, until the girl was red in the face and out of breath. “I love that one. Don’t you love that one, Clare?”

“Sure. That Walkman playing okay?”

“I love it. I love it so much. I take it everywhere I go. Me mam says I’m asking to get it pinched but I don’t want to leave it at home. Anyway, it’s meant for carrying around, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is.” She couldn’t bring herself to ask Amy if her mum had remembered her birthday, but she noticed there were no cards around the room.

They watched some of the news. Seventy arrests on the picket line at Babbington Colliery in Nottingham. Amy was restless. “I’m so sick of hearing about this,” she said to Clare. “Strike, strike, strike, that’s all anyone talks about.”

“I know, but it’s quite important to lots of people. That’s what news is, Amy, something that matters to real people. You have to get used to that if you want to be a reporter.”

“Do you ever get to meet pop stars?”

Clare half-smiled. “Not on a local paper, at least, hardly ever. But if you go and work in London you’ll meet them all the time.”

“That’s what I’m going to do, then. Why don’t you go to London?”

“I might, one day. My friend Joe keeps talking about it.”

“Is Joe your boyfriend?”

“No. But anyway, you need to start on a local paper and get lots of by-lines, then you might get a job on a national paper. They’re all in London. That’s when you might get to meet all the stars.”

“You get millions of by-lines,” Amy commented.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You do. Wait there.” Amy slid off the sofa and ran into her room. She came back with a scrapbook and put it across Clare’s knee. “There, look. I’ve been keeping them.”