Bad Sister(24)

‘Last one, then I’ll get out of your hair.’

‘Looks like it should be a word, but it doesn’t look English. I can’t make it out. If anything, I’d say that could be a prison tattoo, one meant to affiliate the person to a specific gang. I can’t say I’ve seen it before though, but there will be prison officers who’ll know if it’s gang-related – they might even be able to tell you which gang.’

‘That’s great.’ Mack gathered all the pictures, patting the edges to make a neat pile, then replaced them in the envelope. ‘You’ve been very helpful—’

‘I don’t think I have, Mack. I’ve probably not told you anything you didn’t already know.’

‘Next time, I’ll ask you to come into the station. In fact, we could do with you as soon as possible. We need to compile a profile of the killer, and your track record is pretty good.’ His face flushed. He’d avoided a direct response to her statement and gone for the ‘we need you’ approach, again.

‘Sure. Is tomorrow good enough? I was only going to have an admin day, so I can free myself up.’ Anything was better than police showing up at her door again.

‘Great. Yes, I’ll arrange it and give you a bell to confirm,’ he said as he left the room.

Connie heard his heavy footsteps dash down the staircase. She stood at the window and watched him weave his way across the street; he crossed the market square and disappeared, presumably heading for the car park.

Grabbing a piece of paper, Connie scribbled down the code. U2X51. By the time she saw Mack tomorrow she wanted to give him something better than ‘number plate’. Despite her initial reluctance to get involved, Connie’s intrigue was drawing her into this case. Besides, it would keep her mind occupied tonight, keep it from straying to Luke. And what resided on the USB stick.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


Then


Her uncle gave her a tenner and a pat on the backside when she left his flat. Said: ‘Be careful, missy. You don’t know this lad from Adam.’ She’d given him a forced smile, muttered her thanks for letting her stay the past couple of months and left without a backward glance. She knew Uncle Jimmy, but that hadn’t been of any comfort – the fact she didn’t know Vince very well was neither here nor there. At least it got her away from Jimmy the letch.

Vince helped lug her bags up the four sets of concrete steps to his flat. She’d only been there once before, after a party where she’d been drunk out of her skull. Looking at the state of the flat now, she realised her memory of it had clearly been wrong. Either that, or he’d been burgled. He gave her a lopsided grin, cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth.

‘Where can I put this lot?’ She indicated her bags.

‘Only got one room other than this, so knock yourself out.’ He winked.

There was nowhere to put them where she stood. It was an L-shaped open-plan room with a battered three-seater sofa, a TV on a crate, a cluttered coffee table, and clothes strewn all over the place. Her eyes travelled over to the tiny kitchen area and to what she assumed were work surfaces, but couldn’t be sure because of the piles of takeaway containers, pizza boxes and dirty plates. She closed her eyelids tightly. What had she let herself in for?

‘The other room then, I s’pose.’ She shrugged.

Vince waved an arm towards the other room. She took small steps, to avoid tripping on discarded items – what exactly she was treading over, she didn’t care to know – in the direction indicated. She pushed the door open with her shoulder. A smell, sweet, sickly, wafted out to greet her. It wasn’t much better than the first room. She tried to quash her feelings of disgust; her disappointment. This was a move she’d been looking forward to, one she’d obsessed about and that had got her through the darkest days at Uncle Jimmy’s. The reality of it fell far short of her expectations; her hopes. How could she have gone from a decent three-bed house to this in such a short time? This sucked.

Her mind conjured Brett’s face. This was all his fault.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


Connie


Tiredness swept over her. She’d only seen two clients since her visit from Mack, but her energy was zapped – the effort of actively listening and responding appropriately to them leaving her weak.

A brisk walk down the hill to the bakery for a calorie-filled treat would sort her out. She got her purse and keys, planting them in her suit jacket, and headed out. The drizzle had been replaced with sun again – the sporadic clouds light and fluffy now. It was one o’clock so the cafés were full. She glanced at the faces of random people sitting at the tables in the windows as she passed. Busy. Chatty. Social. She made a mental note to text Niall later. She didn’t feel the need for company quite so strongly now, but she knew she should. She might have to force it, but in the longer term it would be better for her. She didn’t need her mum to tell her that; she knew it only too well herself.

While standing inside the bakery contemplating which pastry to have, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Assuming she was in the way, or had failed to move up sufficiently in the queue, she stepped back and apologised.

‘I thought it was you.’

Connie straightened at the sound of the voice, whipping her head around to face the opposite direction. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Ignore her.