This Little Piggy (7 page)

“I’m working on it, Amy. Anyway, how come you’re not at school again? I thought you didn’t break up until Friday.”

Amy filled her cheeks with air and blew it out again. “I got sent home.”

“What for?”

“Nothing.” She pronounced it,
Noffink
.

“It wasn’t nothing, you little mare.” Tina emerged from the stairwell. “Tell the lady why you got sent home. Go on.”

Everyone looked at Amy, who looked down at her own sandalled feet and started making circle-shapes with her toes.

“She got asked to tell the class something good that happened this week,” Tina began.

“Stop it,” said Amy. “Don’t tell.”

Tina poked Amy on the shoulder. “And she stood up in front of everyone and said the best thing that happened was that the baby died.”

“That wasn’t…”

“The best thing that happened was the baby died, because it made the reporters come round and Amy got in the paper.” Tina folded her arms and glared at the girl. “So she got sent to the head teacher. And I got dragged in to pick her up again. I could’ve killed her, honestly.”

“Sorry,” Clare said, not sure where to look. “That wasn’t a very sensitive thing to say, Amy.”

“It wasn’t like that!” Amy’s cheeks were now a deep red. “You
bloody stupids
!” She turned and ran off.

Clare made a cringing face at Tina. “I am so sorry.”

“It’s not you, it’s her,” Tina said. “She’s a bleeding pain in the backside. The council is always on my back to send her to school and when I do it, I get a phone call saying I have to come and take her home again.” She rummaged in her bag for her purse. “I have to go out, anyway.”

Joe and Clare watched her hurry towards the bus stop. Joe spread his hands. “Tell me she doesn’t think we’re about to babysit her daughter?”

“I don’t think she really cares. I think Amy does quite a bit of fending for herself.”

Joe checked his watch. “I should get a move on. Give me Annie Martin’s quotes and I’ll tell you about the mystery man Finn McKenna.”

“Sounds like a good swap.” Clare traded the story about Annie’s thanks to her neighbours and how the family was hoping to sort out a funeral soon. “Might be worth calling in on the priest at that church over there, maybe tomorrow. What’s it called again?”

“St Lawrence’s. One of the patron saints of miners.”

“Huh?”

“Just one of the many things a lapsed Catholic knows.” Joe folded his arms. “Now then, Clare Jackson. You have an admirer, I think. Or I should probably say another admirer, to add to your legions of adoring men.”

“Oh, for god’s sake. What’re you on about?”

“Finn McKenna is the new branch official for the miners at Sweetmeadows. And you certainly caught his eye this morning.”

“Never mind that. What did he say about George Armstrong? And what about this card he tried to give the Donnelly family?”

“He seriously wants to quash this rumour that strikers were in any way involved in Jamie’s death. I believe him, about that, anyway. He’s given me some quotes but he really wants to talk to you, he says. And he asked me far too many questions about your personal life.”

“Oh, honestly. Men.” Clare had her pen at the ready. “Give me the quotes. And I’ll call him, later.”

Joe read his notes back. “If he suggests meeting you somewhere, I’m happy to come along and ride shotgun.”

Clare laughed. “Why would I ask you to do that? I’d be a pretty crappy reporter if I needed a chaperone every time I went out.”

“There was something about him, that was all.” Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. Something I didn’t like.”

“You don’t like many people, let’s face it.” Clare punched Joe lightly on the arm. “It comes from being a journalist. You think everyone has feet of clay.”

Joe gave a little grunt. “That’s because they usually do.”

“Haven’t you got some copy to write?”

“Yep, I’d better get going.” Joe turned to his car. “Coming?”

Clare hesitated. “I might just go and see that Amy’s all right. I feel a bit responsible for what happened at school.”

“That little girl again? Clare, don’t get too involved.”

“I’m not.” Clare put her fingers inside her bag to make sure the chocolate was not too badly melted. “I’m just going to make sure she’s not still upset. Then I’m gone, I promise.”

Joe shook his head, opened the car door and swung inside. He gave Clare a quick salute as he drove away. She held up her hand in response then turned to stare around the empty square, surrounded by its grim buildings. No one seemed to be around and the only sounds were traffic from the nearby main road, a dog barking somewhere and a piece of torn plastic skittering along the pavement in the faint breeze. The heat seemed to be keeping everyone indoors. That, and the fact that there was still a killer on the loose.

Which way did Amy run? Clare wandered in the general direction and noticed that the dark open stalls where Jamie’s body was found were still taped off, although presumably any police forensics team would have taken everything they needed days ago. The tenants’ bins had been moved outside, where flies buzzed around their rancid-smelling lids.

Clare was about to turn away when she heard a tiny shuffling sound. She peered into the stalls, suspecting a rat. But she spotted Amy’s pink day-glo T-shirt, which the girl had stretched over her skinny knees. Amy was sitting huddled on the stone floor, watching her.

“Hey.” Clare gave her little thumbs-up sign. “You’re here. I was looking for you.”

Amy stuck out her lower lip. “Are you going to give me wrong?”

“Not my job.” Clare wrinkled her nose at the stench from the bins. “This isn’t a great place to hang out, though. I’ve got you some sweets but the chocolate’s melting fast.”

Amy stood up and brushed dirt off the backs of her legs. “Okay.” She emerged from the little stall, her face still grubbily tear-streaked. Clare handed over the Double Decker bar and the bubblegum.

“Ta,” Amy said, tearing at the wrapper. “I always used to come here when I wanted to be on my own. It was like my den. Only now it’s been spoiled, because of baby Jamie.”

“How do you mean?” Clare waved away Amy’s offer of a bite of the sticky chocolate.

“This is where they found him. After he was dead.”

“Yes, I know. That’s very upsetting.”

“He’s still here.” Amy’s eyes went wide. “I hear him crying at nights. I guess it’s his ghost.”

Clare half-smiled. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Amy. What you hear must be something else. A different baby in one of the flats, or even maybe a cat. I get stray cats outside my flat. They sometimes sound like babies crying.”

Amy shook her head, very firmly. “No, I know Jamie’s cry, it’s special to him. I used to live upstairs from him, remember? Babies’ cries are all different. This is definitely Jamie.”

Clare looked down. “Yes, but, Jamie’s dead, remember? Maybe you dream it. That would be understandable.”

“Not if I’m actually awake, you stupid.” Amy unwrapped the bubblegum and stuffed it into her mouth, where it mingled with the chocolate. “Anyway, I know how to make him stop. I sing him a song, like how I used to do. He loves that. It always makes him smile.”

“You used to sing songs to Jamie?”

Amy nodded, chewing hard. “Yes, I sing him stuff from the charts and I sing him nursery rhymes and stuff that babies like. Then he stops crying.” She blew a huge bubble in Pepto-Bismol pink and let it burst with a dull, rubbery pop.

“What did you actually say to the teacher today, Amy?”

“Not what the stupid head teacher told me mam. She made that up to get me in trouble. I just told them about you and about helping you with your stories. I never said it was good that Jamie died. I wouldn’t say something like that. I miss Jamie. I miss cuddling him.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t say anything so daft. I suppose people are feeling so bad about Jamie that they hear things wrong. That can happen when people are upset.”

“Huh.” Amy looked as if that was no excuse.

Clare hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. “I can’t stay, Amy, because I’ve got work to do. But I think your mum went out. Will you be okay on your own?”

“’Course I will.” Amy had already turned away and was wandering slowly back towards the flats. She cut a tiny, waifish figure, in her over-sized T-shirt, her thin legs bare and unhealthily pale. It was with a sharp inner twinge that Clare watched her walk away. If she didn’t have all this copy to write up she would ring the desk and find an excuse to spend time with Amy, until her mother came back.

Clare tried to concentrate on typing up all her copy and outdoing every other reporter, especially Chris Barber, in terms of story count. But Amy wouldn’t leave her head. You didn’t have to spend long with the child to realise that she was prone to making things up, Clare thought, but mostly the lies were so preposterous that they were pretty harmless. And she clearly had loved the murdered baby, in her childish way.

But then there was this story about the two men who may have killed the baby, that everyone lumped in with all of the little girl’s imaginings about ghosts and such like. The police, and even Amy’s mum, filed them all under ‘Fibs’. But Clare thought there was a subtle difference. Clare was sure Amy didn’t really expect anyone to believe her stories about ghost-babies crying in the night: she was old enough to know the difference between what was possible and what had to be fantasy. But the girl seemed genuinely hurt that no one would listen to her version of how Jamie died. And simply by telling it and admitting that she had watched the tragic events unfold, too scared to act, Amy had laid herself open to trouble, though Clare was not sure whether the child had thought that through. She really wanted to believe Amy on this one, if nothing else.

As soon as she’d finished for the afternoon, Clare drove back to Sweetmeadows. The plan was just to make sure that Amy was okay. As she drove into the estate, she could hear music and spotted a gaggle of kids doing some kind of a dance routine. Amy seemed to be leading the troupe, all of whom were much younger than her. Clare parked and watched for a moment. The music was coming from a radio on a low wall: Grandmaster Melle Mel’s
White Lines
, so loud it was distorted. Amy was the one making up the dance, a combination of something she must have seen on
Top of the Pops
and her own, manic inventions. She was singing along too, tunelessly, and every time she yelled, ‘Freeze!’ the other kids obeyed.

Rang-dang-diggedy-dang-de-dang.
Amy was furiously crossing and uncrossing her feet, like some grubby little ballet dancer in a film on fast-forward. Clare noticed how the younger kids watched her every move and tried to copy it. Smaller children seemed to like Amy, perhaps because they weren’t old enough to notice the things that were different, the things they could use to bully or isolate her. Clare decided she’d better drive away before Amy spotted her. Smiling, she steered her car into a full turn. The track pulsed in her head for the rest of the night.

four

Wednesday 18th July
Clare parked outside the office and was fishing for her keys when she heard another car door slam. She looked up to see Finn McKenna walking towards her. Clare glanced at her watch. It was only eight-thirty; too early for anyone to be sitting waiting to meet her.

“Clare Jackson from the
Post
?” McKenna held out a hand.

Clare took it, lightly, and let it go again immediately. She deliberately looked at her watch again. “You’re an early bird.”

McKenna gave half a smile. “You’re hard to catch.”

“How can I help you?”

“Let’s chat,” McKenna said, nodding his head towards Clare’s office.

Feeling a little cornered, Clare led him up the office stairs. Jai called up after her. “No milk for your coffee this morning, Miss Beautiful?”

With her back to McKenna, Clare made an irritated face. She’d intended to say that she couldn’t offer him coffee precisely because she was out of milk.

“I drink it black,” McKenna said, without being asked. He picked up her kettle, shook it to check the water level and clicked it on to boil.

Clare sat at her desk and swivelled her chair to face him. “Make yourself at home.”

He peered into the mugs. Clare remembered with a small flush of embarrassment that they weren’t particularly clean, but she was damned if she was going to apologise for them. He didn’t seem concerned as he spooned in the instant coffee.

Clare waited, determined not to make any more small talk. She didn’t thank McKenna when he placed the coffee in front of her.

“I wanted to catch you before you were right up against your deadlines,” McKenna began. “Joe Ainsley said yours are late morning and early afternoon, right?”

“That’s right. Like most evening papers.”

“You’ve done some good reporting for the union, George Armstrong said.”

Clare shook her head. “Nope. I don’t do my reporting for the union, I do it for the
Post
.”

McKenna held up his hands. “That’s not what I meant. George Armstrong said you were fair. Not anti-union. That’s a good start as far as I’m concerned.”

Clare turned over her notebook to hide the bright red-and-yellow ‘Coal Not Dole’ sticker. She didn’t want McKenna to think she was some sort of a pushover.

“These are bad days,” McKenna went on. “The men are flagging and the press are out to get us. No, they really are. Three-quarters of the stuff in the national press is not true. If we lose the war of words we’ll lose the strike. As far as I’m concerned, a reporter without a built-in anti-strike agenda is like gold.”

Clare shifted in her seat and said nothing. Finn was around the same age as Clare and stockily handsome. His eyes were a very pale shade of blue, his eyebrows and lashes blonde. It gave him an almost innocent appearance.

“Losing George was a hell of a knock to the lads. That’s why I stepped in. They needed someone to take over, and quickly, before they lost their resolve. And then there’s this rumour about the baby. That’s a lie too. You must know that. You do, don’t you?”

Clare stared into her coffee. She didn’t like it black. “I just report what I hear. I don’t decide what’s true and what isn’t. But it’s only fair that people should know what’s being said, isn’t it? Then they can make their own minds up.”