JANE ELLIOTT

Sadie

Dedication

‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Contents

Title Page Dedication Prologue Part One Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Part Two Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Epilogue Also By Jane Elliott Copyright About the Publisher

Prologue

A Manchester Prison, 1985

Something was going to happen today.

The screws could tell. The inmates could tell. Nobody knew when or where; they just knew. Whispered rumours in the corridors of the prison had not gone unnoticed by the authorities, but it’s hard to put out a fire when you don’t know where the flames are. All they could do was watch and wait.

The air of the canteen was thick with the smell of grease and eggs. It would have turned the stomachs of most people, but the prisoners queuing for their breakfast hardly seemed to notice it. They smelled it every Sunday, after all, when their cereal and yoghurt was replaced by fatty bacon, eggs and fried bread. Normally there were boisterous shouts as the inmates queued, but not this morning.

Something was going to happen today.

Vic Brandon was eight years into a life sentence, so he was more used to the bland stodge of prison food than most of the small-timers around him. It still wound him up, though, queuing for his meals with everyone else. He’d been in six prisons since the day he went down for shooting some copper who got in the way of him and a waiting VW – an occupational hazard of being an armed robber – and in each of those prisons he had stamped out his authority within forty-eight hours of arriving. It was amazing how all you had to do was take a blade to some hapless lag if you wanted to have everyone else eating out of your tattooed hands.

‘Bacon?’

Vic looked up unsmilingly at the inmate who was serving. New face, he thought. Didn’t know who he was. It wouldn’t last. He said nothing, but held his tin tray in front of him.

‘Just give him some,’ another server whispered to the bacon man, before turning back to Brandon. ‘All right, Vic?’ he asked with a slightly nervous smile.

Vic nodded curtly as food was placed on his tray, and then went to take his seat at the place that was always reserved for him.

Respect. Hierarchy. That was what it was all about in these places. The screws might insist that he queue up with all the others, but he had his own ways of keeping things the way he liked them. No matter that half his eight years had been spent in isolation wings; no matter that his violent behaviour meant that his chances of parole were minutely small. Cop-killers always served the full stretch anyway. Look at Harry Roberts. Besides, he liked it in prison. On the outside he was a nobody; in here he was a somebody. His missus turned up once a month, done up to the nines and turning heads the way he liked her, and his eyes on the outside told him that she was keeping on the straight and narrow. If she was a trophy in the real world, she was double that in here.

Every now and then, though, he needed to make his presence felt. Today, he had decided, was going to be one of those days.

Something was going to happen today.

Of course, he was spoiled for choice in this place, as it was one of the few lock-ups he’d been in that housed a Vulnerable Prisoners’ wing. The VP wing was like jam to an insect as far as Vic was concerned. Bent coppers, convicted paedophiles – it was where they stuck all the scumbags whose very presence offended both inmates and screws alike. They were kept apart from the rest of the prison population – different sleeping quarters, different recreation times – for their own safety. The only space they shared was the canteen on a Sunday morning, when the promise of bacon and eggs lured them out of their protective bubble. There had never been any doubt in Vic’s mind that his next target would be one of the dogs from the VP wing: that way he could reassert his authority and do everyone a favour at the same time.

He had even chosen his man.

His name was Allen Campbell, another new boy, and if ever one of these sick fuckers wanted the smile wiped from his face, he was it. The word on the corridors of Brandon’s wing was that he was just starting a five-stretch for spiking the drink of a fourteen-year-old with Rohypnol and then doing God knows what with her. Five years, out in two and a half. It wasn’t right. Made Vic’s flesh creep just to think about it, and he saw it as his duty to make sure those two and a half years were as bad as they could be.

The prison authorities were doing their best to keep him safe, but nobody was untouchable. Not if you wanted to get at them badly enough.

Brandon chewed his breakfast slowly as two other inmates came and sat with him. They made a mismatched trio. Brandon was short and sinewy, his balding hair closely shaved. On his left sat Matt, an ageing bare-knuckle fighter doing a six-stretch for GBH, much of his muscle bulk now turned to fat, but still useful in a fight. To his right was a thin, bookish, bespectacled man with a deeply lined face. This was Sean, a counterfeiter at the start of a sentence for flooding the streets with a wave of funny money. A weaselly sort of man who would do whatever it took to ingratiate himself with the right people – not the type Brandon would usually associate himself with, let alone let sit by at mealtimes. But Sean had no history of violence, which made him essential for today’s work. Neither Brandon nor Matt would be allowed to walk out of the workshop without being searched down; Sean was a different matter, and had been instructed to smuggle something out during one of his woodwork sessions.

‘Well?’ Brandon asked eventually.

‘Philips screwdriver, Vic,’ Sean informed him in a reedy cockney voice. ‘Small one, like you asked for.’

‘Where is it?’

‘In my pocket, Vic.’

‘Hand it over.’

There was a fumbling below the table as Sean passed the tool over to Brandon. Vic grasped the handle and ran his finger along the business end of the screwdriver. It was a good weight, and small enough for him to conceal up his sleeve. Not as sharp as he’d have liked. But sharp enough.

‘Off you go, then,’ he told Sean.

Sean looked nervously at him. ‘I thought I might stay, Vic,’ he chattered. ‘Give you a hand.’

Vic just gave him one of his looks.

Sean read the signs well. He stood up from the table, took his half-eaten breakfast over to the slop bucket and then left the canteen.

As he left, the men from the VP wing shuffled in, flanked by three bored-looking screws and ignoring the unfriendly stares from all the other inmates. A youngish man, in his mid-twenties perhaps, Allen Campbell was halfway down the line. His dark hair was close-cropped, his skin closely shaved. A handsome man in his way, but Brandon watched him with loathing. As Campbell accepted his breakfast, a misty calm descended on the lifer. He clutched the screwdriver in his right hand and watched with satisfaction as his prey took a seat at the end of a long table.

He turned to Matt and nodded subtly. ‘Let’s do it.’

The two men scraped their plates into the slop, and then casually walked over to where Campbell was sitting and concentrating on his meal.

‘Nothing like a fry-up, eh?’ Brandon asked quietly.

Allen’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth, and he turned to look up at the two men towering above him. He looked each of them in the eye, sneered faintly and then turned back to his bacon and eggs.

Brandon bent down and whispered in his ear, ‘Not ignoring us, I hope.’

‘Fuck off,’ Allen murmured in a heavy Mancunian accent, not even bothering to look up this time.

Brandon felt the mist descending a little further. ‘No one talks to me like that, you sick little bastard,’ he spoke even more quietly. ‘’Specially not sex cases like you.’

Allen still refused to look at him. ‘And what are you in for, bad boy? Speeding?’

‘It ain’t the same,’ Brandon hissed through gritted teeth. He felt a nudge in his ribs and looked up. Matt was pointing to two screws in the corner of the room: they had spotted what was going on, could clearly sense trouble and were closing quickly in.

‘Do it, Vic,’ Matt urged in a low growl.

Brandon needed no more encouragement. ‘Hold the screws back,’ he told Matt.

Allen Campbell became instantly aware that the situation was about to explode, and he started to push himself up from the table to try to get away. But he was too late. With a deftness that seemed to belie his squat frame, Brandon grabbed Campbell with his left hand around the neck and pulled him up from his seat. The buzz of voices in the canteen suddenly fell silent, and one of the screws shouted as he ran, ‘Put him down, Brandon!’

But Vic wasn’t going to do that. Gripping the screwdriver firmly, he used his right hand to punch the tip into the belly of the squirming Campbell. As it punctured the skin, Brandon felt his victim’s T-shirt become saturated with blood, and his hand became warm and sticky. Campbell exhaled sharply, like a bellows. Vic twisted the weapon fiercely, first one way and then the other. Campbell shouted out in pain and fell to his knees. The screwdriver slid out of his body as he did so, and the blood started to seep out even more copiously, forming a shallow puddle around his midriff.

Brandon looked around. The screws were nearly on him, but he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, he thought. Matt would be able to hold them off for a little bit. He bent over the weeping Campbell, picked up his meal tray and crashed it down on his head. The metal tray had a small, jagged nick on the edge that tore coarsely into Allen’s skin just above the eye.

Suddenly Vic felt the screws’ coshes raining down on him. With a roar, he pushed his arms out to the side, but the screws soon grabbed him, one to each arm. ‘All right, all right,’ he shouted, but as he struggled with them, he could not help aiming a kick firmly in Campbell’s side. Blood stuck to his shoe as Allen groaned loudly, but the screws seemed more intent on dragging Brandon away than helping the bleeding inmate on the floor. They started shouting to their colleagues, ‘Lock down! Lock the place down!’ The hubbub had returned, and there was a palpable feeling of mutiny in the air as a siren started up.

And above it all, there was one voice shouting. It was Vic Brandon.

‘Fucking nonce,’ he yelled. ‘You got what was coming to you. You’re lucky you ain’t dead. You fucking nonce!’

Part One

Chapter One

Wandsworth, south London, five years later

The woman who held the door open was still in her dressing gown and already on the third Rothmans of the morning. Her skin always looked a bit greyer before she’d done her lipstick, but her daughter was used to that. It didn’t worry her too much nowadays. It used to, after the funeral and everything, but her mum seemed better now. Happier.

‘Don’t be late back, love.’ Smoke billowed from her nostrils as she spoke.

‘But I wanted to go round Carly’s.’

‘Not tonight, love. I’ve got a surprise for you.’

She had such a mysterious twinkle in her eye when she said it that the girl immediately relented, looking up at her with a mixture of suspicion and pleasure.

‘All right, Mum,’ she said quietly.

Sadie Burrows kissed her mother, and then slung her beaten-up leather school satchel over her shoulder. It didn’t contain much, but Sadie would never be persuaded not to use it. Her dad had proudly presented it to her two years ago, and even though she knew it was off the back of a lorry, it was her most prized possession. Even more so now he wasn’t around any more.

She slammed the door shut and ran down the path of the tiny front garden of the run-down house that Dad had blagged so hard for them to get; then she hurried down the road that led through the centre of the estate. It was just past eight o’clock, but already the sun was warm and bright as Sadie half ran, half skipped to the small playground where she met her friends before school every morning. As usual, she was the first one there, so she slung her satchel on the ground and sat on a graffiti-covered swing to wait.

Sadie liked it at this park, but it made her sad too. Her dad used to bring her here almost every day. No one ever dared push her as hard in the swing as he did, and sometimes, if Sadie was persuasive enough, there was ice cream on the way back. But it was also here, in the same park where they used to have such fun, that Sadie heard the news. That had been a couple of years ago, on a much colder day than today when she and her friends were wrapped up in mittens and hats. They had seen the ambulance scream past them, but of course they hadn’t paid it much attention – ambulances were always for other people, after all. Perhaps there had been a fight; maybe one of the junkies on the estate had overdosed. Minutes later, though, old Mr Johnson from next door had come hurrying out to find her.

‘Sadie, sweetheart,’ he’d said, out of breath and in a voice made rough by the stinky brown cigarettes he smoked, ‘you’ve got to come with me.’

She was only eleven years old at the time, but she could tell something was wrong. ‘What is it?’ she asked, her eyes wide and her lips trembling.

‘It’s your daddy, sweetheart. He’s not well. The ambulance is taking him to hospital now.’

The rest of the day had been a horrible blur. Mr Johnson had taken her in a minicab to the hospital, where her dad was lying in intensive care, an oxygen mask on his face and tubes coming out of his hands. The nurses had been nice to her, bringing her glasses of orange juice and even some chocolate biscuits, but she knew that people were only that nice when something was really wrong. She kept asking what was the matter with her dad, but nobody wanted to tell her. It was only afterwards that she learned that it was a heart attack. At about six o’clock in the evening, the machine to which her unconscious father was wired started to beep alarmingly. Doctors were called and Sadie and her mother were ushered away from his bedside.

Ten minutes later he was dead.

They didn’t want Sadie to see the body, but she had insisted. She was thankful that they had removed the mask and the tubes – it made him seem more human. More like her dad. In fact, he didn’t even look as if he was dead. Just asleep. Sadie stood on a chair so that she could see him more clearly, but she didn’t cry. She just stared at him, drinking in the sight of the face that she knew she would never see again.

Not until she got home, under her duvet, did the tears come. Then she cried until she could cry no more.

That was two years ago, but it felt like yesterday.

Carly was the first of her friends to arrive at the playground this morning, her hair pulled back tightly as it always was and her face made up so that she appeared older than her thirteen years. She was closely followed by Anna, whose black skin and closely plaited hair always seemed somehow exotic to Sadie, even though black faces were as common as white ones on the estate. None of them greeted each other; they just fell into conversation, which was casual at first but soon became excited and loud as they made their way to school. None of them had any money, but they all had an appetite for sweets. And they had a plan.

‘Who’s going to do it?’ Anna asked as they walked to the edge of the estate.

‘It’s your turn,’ Carly told her.

‘No, it’s not.’ Anna’s voice became louder in her own defence.

‘I did it last time,’ Carly insisted.

‘Yeah, but—’

‘It’s all right,’ Sadie interrupted them quietly. ‘Leave it to me.’

In the old days, Sadie had been able to get anything anyone at school wanted. Or to be more accurate, whatever Sadie brought to school everyone wanted. Her dad would indulgently let her take what she asked for from his ever-changing stocks, and she would supply them, mirroring his wheeler-dealer attitude with stardust that fizzed on your tongue and erasers that came in every shape, colour and smell under the sun. Sometimes she would sell them, sometimes she would give them away – making herself the most popular girl in the school. For a while.

Now, though, she had to find other ways of coming by her stash of goodies.

They were outside the newsagent’s by now. It was part of a parade of shops in the main road that led to the estate, between a dry-cleaner’s and an off-licence. Carly and Anna loitered to one side while Sadie marched brazenly in. It wasn’t a big shop, but there were two small aisles selling groceries and a huge counter of sweets, behind which sat the shopkeeper, who eyed Sadie with suspicion. He had dark skin, white hair and a deeply lined face.

‘Got any milk?’ Sadie asked with a smile.

The shopkeeper pointed in the direction of a tall, glass-fronted fridge in the aisle furthest from him. ‘In the fridge,’ he told her.

Sadie nodded and wandered over to where he had indicated. She opened the fridge, and although she saw three cartons of milk on the lower shelf, she made the pretence of scanning up and down as though unable to find them. Then she shut the door and walked back up to the shopkeeper. ‘Couldn’t find it.’

‘It’s in the fridge,’ the shopkeeper repeated with a frown.

Sadie shrugged, and continued to smile at him.

The shopkeeper muttered something beneath his breath; then he stood up from his stool, walked out from behind the counter and made his way over to the fridge. Sadie watched him carefully. As he opened the door and bent down to take out the milk, she quietly snatched two big handfuls from the sweet counter, shoved them into her satchel, grabbed another couple of handfuls and slipped outside again. She had left the shop before the man had straightened up to close the fridge door.

The three girls ran silently round the corner of the parade, stifling their giggles. Then Carly and Anna huddled excitedly around Sadie.

‘What did you get? What did you get?’

‘Did you get any ciggies?’

‘Course not,’ Sadie scoffed, but not unpleasantly. ‘Ciggies are behind the counter. Anyway, you don’t smoke, Carly.’

‘Course I do.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since last week. Tom gave me one of his, didn’t he?’

Sadie and Anna looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and then exploded with laughter.

‘What?’ Carly asked defensively. ‘What?’

‘We knew you were after Tom,’ Anna screeched.

‘I’m not after him. He just gave me a ciggie, that’s all.’

‘Bet that’s not all he gave you,’ Anna laughed.

‘Shut up.’

‘Look,’ Sadie interrupted them, more to defuse the argument than anything else. She opened her palms to display her haul – chocolate bars, gum, sweets. Carly and Anna moved to grab what they could, but suddenly they heard a man’s voice behind them.

‘Oi, you lot!’

As one, they turned their heads to see who was calling them. The newsagent was running towards them. ‘Give me that stuff back. I’ll call the police on you.’

The three girls were like pigeons dispersing at the sound of gunshot. Quick as a light switching on, they ran in three different directions, Anna and Carly disappearing in opposite ways down the street, Sadie speeding down the alleyway that led past the bins and back into the estate.

As she ran, she nervously congratulated herself on not risking their little shoplifting escapade on the estate. Everyone knew her there, even the shopkeepers – it was difficult to get away with anything. She looked back over her shoulder to see the shopkeeper running after her, and felt a little surge of adrenaline in her stomach as she upped her pace. The alleyway turned a corner and then led out on to an area at the foot of a grey concrete tower block where people parked their cars. There were about fifteen vehicles, all fairly old and run-down. Without stopping to think, Sadie hurled herself into the middle of the car park and hid down by the side of a rusty old blue Fiesta. She tried not to breathe too heavily as she crouched, holding her sweets, and she strained her ears to hear the patter of the shopkeeper’s feet as he emerged from the alleyway – only to find that she had disappeared. She heard him swearing to himself in his pronounced Asian accent. ‘Bloody kids. Always the bloody same.’

Suddenly, to her horror, she saw someone approaching. He raised an eyebrow at her just as she heard the shopkeeper calling to him, ‘’Scuse me, my friend. You seen a young girl running through here? About thirteen, maybe a bit older, long brown hair.’

The man paused, and seemed to be wondering if he should reply or not.

‘She just stole something from my shop, you see,’ the man continued, a bit desperately.

Sadie threw an imploring look up at the man.

‘Sorry, pal,’ he replied in a northern accent. ‘Didn’t see anyone. She can’t have come this way.’

The shopkeeper breathed out in annoyance. ‘Bloody kids,’ he muttered again.

The man watched him go. ‘It’s all right,’ he said finally. ‘He’s gone.’

Slowly Sadie stood up, flashing the man her most winning smile. ‘Thanks,’ she said. As she spoke, the alarm on her digital watch beeped twice. Nine o’clock.

‘Shouldn’t you be going to school?’ the man asked her.

Sadie’s grin grew a bit broader. ‘Yeah,’ she replied, clutching her sweets and starting to slip away. ‘Yeah, I suppose I should. Um … Anyway, thanks again.’

The others, she knew, would be back at their usual meeting place by the swings. Flushed with the success of her adventure, she ran off to meet them.

Stacy Venables had wanted to be a teacher ever since she was a little girl. Her mum had been one, and her dad too, so she supposed it was only natural. Of course, teaching now wasn’t as it was then. Her mum had never had to deal with pupils using four-letter words to her face, and whenever Stacy told her about the things she had to put up with, she would shake her head, tut and start talking about standards. But standards in the cosy corner of Wiltshire where the Venables family lived were very different to standards in inner-city London. Stacy remembered the time her parents had given her what for when she had asked if her eighteen-year-old boyfriend could stay the night. If they only knew what kids nowadays were up to: drugs, sex – they needed so much more than education, she always thought. They needed a bit of care – a bit of what they weren’t getting in the home. That was why she tried to make herself seem accessible to the children. Unlike her female colleagues, who wore severe suits in rough, cheap material, Stacy wore jeans. In summer she wore a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket – much to the disapproval of the disciplinarian headmaster, Mr Martin; for winter she had a succession of thick, woolly thigh-length cardigans that seemed to match her full head of long, curly hair and made her appear, she thought, a bit more homely.

Of course, she was still a teacher, and subject to the disdain and abuse most of the kids at school gave anyone in authority; but every now and then she felt as if she had made a difference, and that made her efforts worthwhile.

Miss Venables stood patiently at the gates to the school. It was ten past nine now, and the two police officers who stood outside the school every morning and afternoon to keep away undesirables had just left. It saddened her that they had to be there, but she knew it was the right thing. Prevention was better than cure, even if some of the older kids were savvy enough to arrange meets with their dealers just round the corner, where there were no uniforms. Last year a boy had been excluded for having a wrap containing three rocks of crack cocaine. Bright enough kid, decent family – you never could tell who was going to go down that line. The police had been called, a fuss had been made and the children had been told that this sort of behaviour was not to be tolerated. Stacy had argued that he should be given help, not exclusion, but hers was a lone voice, soon drowned by the head. She had received a letter from the lad’s parents just a couple of months later, saying that he had gone missing and that the police weren’t hopeful of finding him unless he wanted to come back, but thanking her for everything she had done for him.

It saddened her, too, that they had to lock the main gates to the school, not so much to keep the children in as to keep other people out. You could never be too careful these days.

She looked at her watch. Another minute for the stragglers and then she’d lock up.

Just then, around the corner, came three familiar figures.

Miss Venables had a soft spot for Sadie Burrows. It wasn’t just that she looked appealing, with her glossy long hair, olive skin and those beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Some kids just had something, a spark, call it what you will – when you’d been in the job for a while you found you could recognize it easily, and you knew how rare it was.

It didn’t make her a goody-goody. Far from it – more of a charming tearaway, and plenty of the teachers in the school had marked her out because of that. She was neither brilliant academically, nor poor – just average, although here that almost made her stand out. Sadie could be cheeky and mischievous, just like any other kid. But she was definitely the daughter of her father, a man well known all over this part of London as being able to sell umbrellas in July and sunscreen in December. Just don’t ask where it came from. Tommy Burrows had a twinkle in his eye that he had passed on to his daughter, which meant that whenever she was caught crossing the boundary, it was impossible to stay angry with her for long.

‘Come on, you three!’ she shouted at the girls as they approached. ‘You’re late. I was just about to lock up.’

‘Sorry, Miss Venables,’ Carly and Anna intoned in unison.

‘Why are you late? What have you been doing?’

‘Nothing, miss,’ the two of them told her rather guiltily.

‘Sadie?’ Miss Venables turned to the ringleader with a raised eyebrow.

Sadie looked straight at the teacher. ‘Carly had to get the little ones ready for school, miss. Me and Anna said we’d wait for her.’

Miss Venables looked at each of the girls in turn. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh, Miss Venables. Would I lie to you?’ Sadie looked innocently at her.

‘Probably, Miss Burrows.’ She couldn’t help smiling at Sadie’s banter, perfectly aware that she was being twisted round the finger of this little thirteen-year-old, but somehow not minding. And who was to say that they weren’t telling the truth? She knew that Carly’s mum was off the rails: a child protection officer had informed the school that she was under observation by social services. Single mum, too fond of the bottle – it was a story they heard all the time, and too often the eldest daughter ended up with the responsibility of looking after her younger siblings.

‘All right, girls. In you go, quickly. Straight to your classes.’

Carly and Anna hurried inside, but on a sudden whim Miss Venables called out, ‘Sadie!’

Sadie turned. ‘Yes, miss?’

‘Is everything all right?’

Sadie looked confused.

‘At home, I mean.’

‘Oh.’ She smiled at the teacher in appreciation. ‘Yes, miss. I think so. Thanks.’

‘Good. Well … Off you go.’

Sadie nodded and ran across the playground into the school building, while Miss Venables thoughtfully locked the main gate and wandered back inside, slowly so as to enjoy the warmth of the morning sun on her face.

After lunch she noticed Sadie again. It was Friday, so Miss Venables was on playground duty, doing her best to keep some sort of order among the couple of hundred screaming kids working off their lunch in the early-afternoon heat. Frankly, she dreaded playground duty: it was hard enough keeping a class of forty kids quiet, let alone a schoolyard full of them. And especially on a Friday, when everyone was looking forward to the weekend.

In the far corner, something was going on. A boy – she couldn’t quite make out who it was – was being circled by three other kids. Even at a distance, she could tell it wasn’t a friendly game. He was being pushed about from one to the other and being jeered at. It was going to escalate into something nasty. Miss Venables started to stride across the playground, blowing her whistle. But, as usual, the kids paid her no attention.

Now she could see the boy who was being bullied. Poor little Jamie Brown. He didn’t stand much chance in this place. He was so badly cared for at home that his skin was always dirty and his clothes stank of urine and filth. She suspected physical abuse, and knew that he was being closely monitored; but he would never admit to anything – he was too scared – and the mother always seemed to have a story to explain away any suspicions people had. But Jamie’s peers didn’t know about all that, or if they did they didn’t care. All they saw was a smelly little boy who cowered at every harsh word, and for whom barely a day passed without tears and fights and traumas. Even Miss Venables had to admit that standing too close to him was a bit of challenge, so the moment he had arrived at school she had known what a rough ride he was likely to get from the kids. And she knew that even if she stopped this little fracas, another one wouldn’t be far behind. That didn’t mean she shouldn’t try, though.

Suddenly she stopped.

She narrowed her eyes as she saw Sadie step confidently into the ring.

Ordinarily she would never have stood back to let other kids enter a brawl, but something encouraged her to keep her own counsel for a few moments.

Sadie was older than the boy who was being bullied, but the kids who had formed the ring were her own age and outnumbered her three to one. With casual confidence, she stood beside Jamie Brown.

The bullies sneered. ‘What are you then? His girlfriend?’

Sadie’s face didn’t flicker. ‘What do you know about girlfriends?’ she asked quietly.

A blush came to the bully’s cheek. His eyes moved from left to right as he looked to see what reaction Sadie’s comment was getting from his companions; then he made forward as if to attack Jamie Brown. Miss Venables saw the little boy flinch and, in her most authoritarian voice, started to call out the bully’s name. But as she did so, she saw the bully’s friends grab him by the arms and pull him away. They started scuffling among themselves for a moment, but then they caught sight of Miss Venables bearing down on them. Each of them threw her a scornful look, and then turned and hurried away. A final insult – ‘At least I don’t piss my pants!’ – reached her ears, but she let it pass, choosing instead to hurry up to Jamie and Sadie.

‘Are you all right, Jamie, love?’ she asked, kneeling down so that she could be more at the little boy’s level. But Jamie simply looked angry and confused; he turned and ran to the other end of the playground, where he sat with his back to the wall, alone and avoided, as he always was.

Miss Venables turned to Sadie. ‘You should leave that sort of thing to the teachers, Sadie,’ she chided.

Sadie looked calmly at her. ‘Sorry, miss,’ she said, but there was no apology in her voice. She looked over at Jamie. ‘But I don’t see why they have to be so horrible.’

‘I know, Sadie,’ Miss Venables agreed. ‘But sometimes it’s the easy targets that attract the weakest people. Jamie will be all right. I’ll keep an eye on him. Now run along.’

She watched as Sadie made her way back to Carly and Anna, who were laughing good-naturedly. They didn’t seem to have noticed what had just happened, and Sadie rejoined them quietly, only occasionally glancing across the playground to where Jamie Brown was still sitting by himself.

Chapter Two

The afternoon passed slowly. Sadie sat at the back of the class with Carly and Anna, her chin resting in the palm of her hand; she stared into space as the teacher at the front droned on and on, his monotonous lesson frequently punctuated by barks of reprimand and tellings-off. It was a typical Friday afternoon.

Carly slipped a note under the table. Her childish handwriting asked Sadie in misspelled English if she still wanted to come round to her house after school. Sadie thought about writing a reply, but instead she just whispered back.

‘Can’t,’ she told her friend. ‘Mum says I’ve got to go back home.’

Carly shot her a surprised look, and Sadie understood why. Her mum never told her when she should be back.

Even when Sadie was younger, she had been allowed to wander round the estate by herself. People came to expect it of her. She was forever knocking on doors, fixing her neighbours with her most appealing smile and flogging whatever goods or goodies her dad had a run on that particular week. She understood how difficult grown-ups found it to refuse such a chirpy young girl and she’d got a taste for it. She would always come home, of course, but she never had to be told.

After the funeral, though, things started to become a bit different. Mum would still never tell her when to be home, and at first that was just because it was the way things had always been. But the loss of her man hit Jackie Burrows hard. Sadie would never forget the first time she got back after school to find her drunk. The bottle of cheap vodka on the smoked-glass coffee table wasn’t quite empty, but it wasn’t far off. An ashtray was full of stubs, and the television was on. Sadie’s mum was comatose on the sofa and, try though she might, the little girl couldn’t rouse her. She shook her, tears streaming down her face and crying at her to wake up; but when she did open her eyes, they just rolled unconsciously to the top of her head before closing again. Sadie had been on the point of calling an ambulance when her mother rolled off the sofa and started vomiting on the carpet.

It had taken her two days to get back on her feet again. Sadie stayed away from school to nurse her, bringing her glasses of water and painkillers. Jackie had begged her daughter not to be angry with her, but Sadie was not angry. In her childlike way she understood. At times mother and daughter held each other and cried and cried, but they never spoke of their sadness. How would they have known what to say?

Since then Jackie had never been that bad. But for several months not a day went by when Sadie didn’t come home to find the ever-open bottle of vodka depleted and the ashtray brimming over. And more than once, when the booze had run out and Jackie was in no state to leave the house, she handed Sadie one of the precious ten-pound notes that arrived in her purse courtesy of the benefits office, and begged, ‘Get us a bottle of voddy, love.’

The first time it happened, Sadie was reluctant. ‘I can’t, Mum. I’m not old enough.’

But Mum looked imploringly at her, a horrible, pitiful desperation in her eyes, and Sadie agreed because she didn’t know what else to do. She took the money down to the off-licence with the grey metal grilles on the front where on a number of occasions she had gone with her dad to sell cheap cases of spirits. The first time she tried to buy vodka the owner had been nervous; but she told him it was for her mum, and she soon ceased to have any problem.

Jackie’s habit grew from bad to worse, and soon she was able to drink the same quantities she had that first time without the devastating effect.

And then, a few months ago, it simply stopped. Sadie returned home one day to discover that for the first time in ages her mum had dealt with the washing – a job Sadie had taken over in some unspoken agreement, knowing that if she didn’t she’d just have to wear dirty clothes. Jackie had folded the clothes and placed them on the kitchen table, and as Sadie walked in, her satchel slung over her shoulder, Mum was standing proudly by her handiwork, dressed and sober. She almost managed to look proud of what she had achieved. No matter that the dirty dishes were piled in the sink; no matter that the house stank of cigarettes. Sadie could tell it was a turning point.

That night Jackie even went out. Sadie lay alone in the darkness of her bedroom, wondering where she was and waiting for her to come back, but towards midnight sleep overtook her; she awoke the next morning to find her mum still asleep. She left for school quietly, without waking her up.

At first Jackie’s evening outings were few and far between. But as the weeks passed, Sadie found herself alone in the house of an evening increasingly frequently. Now and then she would ask her mum where she had been, but Jackie would reply evasively. She was lonely in the house by herself at night, and the creaks and cracks that always sounded ten times louder when the lights were off were frightening. But she never said anything to Mum: she was just glad she had stopped drinking. And when they did spend time together, there would be kisses and cuddles and affection; sometimes they even managed to talk about Dad without crying.

Life was getting better. They were going to be OK. Just the two of them.

The bell rang for the end of school, and there was a sudden cacophony of chair-scraping. Sadie closed the book that she had not glanced at since the start of the lesson and tossed it into her satchel. Most of her share of the chocolate bars she had pinched that morning were still in there, she noticed, as she heard Carly speak.

‘So, why does your mum want you home?’

‘Dunno,’ Sadie shrugged, affecting less interest than she felt.

They wandered out into the corridor and walked towards the exit.

By the time they got there, most of the other kids had left. As they walked through the school gates, Sadie saw little Jamie Brown, the boy she had helped in the playground. He seemed to be in a world of his own, scuffing his shoes as he shuffled along and humming dreamily to himself in that tuneless way that always attracted so much derision from the other kids.

‘You all right, Jamie?’ she asked as they passed.

Jamie looked up as though noticing the girls for the first time – which he probably was. The pungent odour of stale urine hit Sadie’s nose, and she did her best to stop her distaste from showing in her face; but next to her she heard Carly’s voice, half-choking, half-sniggering. She glanced at her in momentary annoyance and then turned her attention back to Jamie. As soon as he had heard Carly, he had hung his head straight back down and started to walk away, his cheek twitching nervously. Sadie strode after him. As she did so, and on a whim, she thrust her hand into her satchel and brought out a bar of chocolate. She shoved it into Jamie’s hand. ‘Here you go,’ she told him. ‘You can have this.’

Jamie stopped once more and stared in astonishment at the foil wrapper in his hand. He looked to Sadie as though he had never seen a bar of chocolate in his life.

‘Go on,’ Sadie said to him, half laughing. ‘It’s not poison.’

A look of indecision crossed the little boy’s face, but eventually he shook his head and handed it back to Sadie. ‘No thanks,’ he said in a small voice. ‘I can’t.’

Sadie and Carly shared a surprised glance.

‘What do you mean, you can’t?’ Carly asked. ‘She just gave it to you, didn’t she?’

‘I’m not allowed,’ Jamie said firmly, handing the chocolate bar back.

‘Who says?’ Sadie asked him gently.

‘My mum.’

Sadie looked at him in confusion. ‘But it’s only a bit of chocolate.’

‘Yeah, but I’m still not allowed.’

‘But she won’t know.’

Jamie looked away, embarrassment shadowing his face. ‘Yeah, she will. She always knows. She gets … angry.’ As he said the word ‘angry’, his voice went hoarse.

Sadie and Carly stood awkwardly, unable to think what to say.

‘Anyway,’ Jamie mumbled, his voice a little aggressive now, ‘it’s nothing to do with you.’ And he strode off, walking with more purpose than before and resolutely not looking back.

‘Weirdo,’ Carly observed, but without much conviction. Sadie said nothing.

It was a ten-minute walk back to the estate, and the two girls remained quiet all the way home. Sadie couldn’t speak for Carly, but she had been shocked by the look on Jamie’s face when he spoke of his mother. It was a look of sadness, certainly, but also of confusion and fear. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to feel those emotions when you were going home.

That thought brought her mother’s farewell words this morning back to her: ‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ An involuntary smile flickered across Sadie’s face – like all children, she liked surprises. She liked the anticipation. And most of all, she liked the idea that her mum had thought about doing something for her. It was like the old times, when her dad would arrange little treats for her if he’d made a bit of money.

As they arrived on the outskirts of the estate, Sadie and Carly said goodbye and went their separate ways. In the bright afternoon sunshine, the faceless grey tower blocks almost managed to look cheery, and Sadie continued to daydream as she wandered home, her mind full of what-ifs. What if she were to get back to find the flat as it used to be: full of boxes and the life that her dad breathed into the place? What if they were going out, to the cinema, or McDonald’s? Maybe her mum had rented a video from the shop, and bought them Coca-Cola and crisps.

She wandered up the pathway, put her key in the door and walked inside.

Jackie stood in the kitchen. It was a large room, big enough for a dining table, which they never used. As Sadie stood in the door, her always-present satchel hanging around her neck, she blinked in astonishment. When she had left this morning, the sink had been brimming with dirty plates and pans, and Sadie fully expected to find it so when she returned. Jackie might have kicked the booze, but she was still a long way from being the perfect mum, and it was just a matter of course now for her to have to wash up whatever she needed when she made her sandwich for tea. But this afternoon, the kitchen was pristine. Even the large ashtray had been emptied, although Jackie still had a long, slim cigarette burning between her fingers.

‘Are they new trousers, Mum?’ Sadie asked, a bit disconsolately, as she had been telling her that she needed new school shoes for ages now.

‘Oxfam.’ Jackie smiled a little nervously, stubbed out the half-smoked ciggie and walked forward to embrace her daughter. She planted a kiss on Sadie’s cheek, and the girl turned to look at her mum in suspicious amusement. Mum never kissed her when she got home from school – it just wasn’t something she did.

‘What’s going on, Mum?’ she asked, removing the satchel from round her neck and plonking it in the middle of the floor.

Jackie took her daughter by the hand. ‘Come with me, love,’ she said, unable to hide the quiver in her voice. ‘I want you to meet someone.’

She led Sadie through the kitchen and into the sitting room. As she did so, Sadie felt a lurch in her stomach. Her childish instinct told her what was coming.

The man standing in their sitting room had very closely cropped hair. His face was slightly round and clean-shaven, and his sideburns were sharp and angular. There was a scar, about an inch long, above his right eye, and his lips were pale and pursed. He wore brown trousers, pleated below the waist in such a way that they gave the impression of hiding a bit of tummy, and a pale blue shirt that complimented his piercing eyes. It was his eyes that struck Sadie most of all. They were surrounded by black bags and stared straight at her with a flatness that seemed to contradict the thin smile that spread across his face.

And within seconds of seeing him, she realized that she had met him before. That very morning. He was the man who had sent the shopkeeper packing. The man who had stopped her copping it.

She stared at him awkwardly, her dark eyes narrowing a little and the inside of her mouth suddenly becoming dry. Then she heard her mum speaking.

‘Sadie,’ she said in an emphatically friendly voice, like a hostess introducing two people at a party, ‘I want you to meet Allen.’

She waited for Sadie to say something, but Sadie didn’t.

‘Say hello, Sadie, love. And remember your manners. Allen’s going to be your new dad.’

Chapter Three

‘What do you mean?’

Sadie looked round at her mother incredulously. What was she saying? They were in this together, weren’t they? They were mourning her dad together.

Jackie seemed surprised by Sadie’s reaction. ‘Don’t be like that, love.’

Silence.

Allen spoke for the first time. His voice was deep, quiet and not unfriendly; Sadie could not place his faintly Mancunian accent, but to her it sounded almost musical. ‘Why don’t we have a nice brew, eh, Jackie?’ he suggested to Sadie’s mum.

Jackie responded a bit too quickly. ‘Cuppa, Sadie?’ she asked, even though she knew perfectly well that Sadie had never drunk tea in her life. When Sadie didn’t reply and just remained staring at Allen, she turned. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, almost to herself, as she walked back into the kitchen. But instead of making for the kettle she first picked up a packet of cigarettes on the side, took one out and lit it with a deep drag.

Sadie’s emotions were running riot, and a feeling of physical sickness arose in her gut. She spun round and walked back into the kitchen, wanting to ask her mum a million questions but somehow unable to find the words for even one. Allen followed her and stood in the doorway. The silence was filled by the clattering of her mum getting the tea things together.

When Sadie could bear it no longer she finally spoke. ‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ she whispered.

‘What’s that, Sadie?’ Allen replied, his voice loud enough to be heard by Jackie.

Sadie shot him a spiteful look as her mum turned round to listen. ‘We just met before, that’s all,’ she mumbled.

Allen raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘No, pet,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Yes, we have,’ she insisted.

‘Sadie,’ her mum reprimanded. ‘Don’t answer back to Allen.’ She turned to her new man. ‘I’m sorry,’ she told him.

‘It’s all right. She’s just getting confused, aren’t you, pet?’

‘I’m not getting confused, I …’ Her voice trailed away as she realized that Jackie was now suddenly too busy making the tea to listen.

Allen approached her, and Sadie became aware of his strong-smelling aftershave. He put his hand into his pocket pulled out a cuddly toy, pink and floppy-eared, and pressed it into Sadie’s unwilling hand. She looked at it briefly. It was not new – she could tell that instantly – and it was the sort of thing that might have been of interest to a child half her age.

‘Squeeze it,’ Allen said.

She did so, and the cuddly toy started to laugh. The laugh lasted for about thirty seconds, during which time the three of them were silent. When it stopped, Sadie looked from the toy back to Allen. He was obviously expecting a ‘thank you’, but she didn’t have the voice to give it to him, and his eyes tightened in momentary annoyance. He looked over her shoulder, across the kitchen and into the hallway. ‘Don’t you think you should pick up your school satchel, Sadie?’ he asked.

Sadie stared at him in astonishment, and then glanced at her mum for some sort of support.

‘Do what Allen asks, love,’ was all she said.

Sadie blinked. She handed the cuddly toy back to Allen, and then turned and walked to her satchel as calmly as her turmoil would allow. She picked it up and hung it on the creaky stair banister where she always kept it; then she ran up the stairs, her feet thumping the floorboards, and slammed her bedroom door behind her. She threw herself on to her bed, hugged her pillow and burst into tears.

After some time – Sadie was not sure how long – she heard the stairs creak as they always did when someone walked up them. There was a knock on the door and, without waiting to be asked, Jackie walked in. She was holding the cuddly toy. ‘Come on, love,’ she said, sitting on the bed beside Sadie and gently stroking her hair.

Sadie continued to whimper into her pillow.

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ Jackie continued. ‘To have a man in the house, I mean.’

‘What about Dad?’ Sadie asked accusingly through her tears.

‘Oh, love. No one’s forgetting about your dad. It’s just …’ Her voice trailed away, and she continued to stroke Sadie’s hair as she waited for the crying to subside. Eventually Sadie sat up and put her head against her mum’s shoulder. Jackie handed her the cuddly toy. ‘You should say thank you to Allen for this,’ she told her daughter.

Sadie looked at it in distaste. She could hardly explain to herself why she found it such an unpleasant thing, let alone to her mum. ‘I’m too old for things like that,’ she said finally. ‘It’s babyish.’

‘I know love, but Allen … He doesn’t have any children, and he just wanted to do something nice for you.’

As she spoke, Sadie felt a hot wave of guilt passing over her, and she knew she had behaved badly. She stared hard at the frayed carpet on the floor in a gesture of apology, but she prayed her mum wouldn’t make her go down and say sorry. ‘Is that where you’ve been going? In the evenings, I mean. To see him?’

Jackie nodded, and brushed a strand of Sadie’s long hair off her face. ‘Allen’s going to look after us, love,’ she said in a half-whisper. ‘He’s going to make sure we’re not lonely, you and me.’

Sadie continued to stare at the floor. ‘Is he going to live here?’ she asked.

‘Yes. If that’s all right with you. Is it?’

For a moment Sadie thought about telling the truth – that she didn’t want anyone else in their house, that she didn’t want anyone else in their life. But then she looked up at her mum and saw the anxiety in her eyes. ‘All right,’ she muttered.

Jackie squeezed her hand. ‘Shall we go down?’ she asked.

Sadie nodded mutely.

Allen was sitting on the sofa downstairs, his hands behind his head and his legs stretched out in front of him. When he saw the two of them in the door he sat up straight. Sadie felt her mum give her an encouraging little push, and stepped forward. ‘Thank you for my present,’ she said, without fully catching his eye.

Allen stood up, walked over to her and slid the palm of his hand momentarily down the back of her head. When it reached her neck, she felt him stroke her gently on the shoulder and then squeeze slightly. He stepped over to Jackie. ‘You ready?’ he asked her.

Jackie shot a guilty look at her daughter. ‘Um, me and Allen are nipping out tonight. You’ll be all right, won’t you, love?’

The corkscrew in Sadie’s heart twisted a little further. ‘Yeah,’ she said sullenly. ‘I’ll be all right.’

She pushed past them and hurried back up to her bedroom.

By six o’clock she was alone in the house. It was a light, sunny evening, and from her room looking out over the front of the house she could hear the sounds of other children playing in the street. There was nothing to stop her from going out and joining them, or phoning Carly or Anna, but somehow she didn’t have the enthusiasm. Her mind was saturated with the confusion of her mother’s bombshell; it was like a piece of blotting paper that had soaked up so much ink that you couldn’t see its original colour. She could concentrate on nothing else. At times she found herself crying; then she would find herself unable to cry, even though she felt as though she ought to. She made herself a sandwich, but two mouthfuls in she realized she wasn’t hungry, so she left it half-eaten on a plate by the sink. She ran herself a deep bubble bath – that always made her feel better – but it did no good. She put on her nightdress, which was a bit too small for her, and climbed under her duvet in an attempt to shut out the persistent evening light. Clutching her teddy bear, she bit her lip as the words her mother had spoken echoed in the chamber of her mind.

‘Allen’s going to look after us.’

But they didn’t need looking after.

‘He’s going to make sure we’re not lonely.’

But they weren’t lonely, as long as there was the two of them.

‘Allen’s going to be your new dad.’

But she didn’t want a new dad. She just wanted her old one.

The following morning was a Saturday, and Sadie woke early. The ugly feeling that had been with her until she had finally fallen asleep the previous night had not gone away, and she didn’t feel as if she would ever want to get out of bed. But she was thirsty, so, still wearing her nightdress, she crept downstairs, doing her best not to wake anyone.

Allen was already up, leaning with his back to the sink, a mug of tea in his hand. As Sadie walked into the kitchen, she saw his eyes look her up and down and she felt a sudden prickle of discomfort. He looked at her in an enquiring way, and Sadie found herself almost apologizing for her presence.

‘I just wanted a glass of water,’ she told him.

He acted as though he had not heard her and, instead of moving to allow her access to the sink, he looked meaningfully at the kitchen table.

Sadie followed his gaze. There, on the table, was her beloved satchel. It was lying on its side, the sturdy leather straps unbuckled and the contents spilling out. On top of her few school books, neatly arranged in a precise line from smallest to largest, were the sweets from yesterday.

‘Who said you could look in my satchel?’ Sadie whispered, horrified that anyone would do such a thing and moving swiftly to pack her things up. But again Allen seemed to ignore her.

When he finally did speak, it was slowly and smoothly. ‘That’s a lot of sweets for a little girl whose mam only gives her two pound a week,’ he observed. He sniffed, his nose wrinkling as he did so, and then took a sip of his tea. The blue eyes continued to look at her over the rim of the mug.

Sadie looked at him with what defiance she could muster, but she couldn’t help glancing guiltily back at the table. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been saving up,’ she retorted.

Allen smiled humourlessly. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell your mam.’ And then, almost as an afterthought, ‘I don’t think she’d be very happy, do you?’

He turned and poured the dregs of his tea into the sink. Sadie started to pack her things back into the bag, but stopped when Allen spoke again.

‘You didn’t clear your dinner things away last night.’

‘I’ll do it this morning.’

Allen breathed out heavily through his nose, a contemptuous sound. ‘It’s no good doing it this morning,’ he said in a suddenly irritated voice. ‘You made the mess last night. No one likes messy children.’

A thousand different retorts popped into Sadie’s head. ‘I don’t care what you like or don’t like.’ ‘This is my house, not yours.’ ‘What makes you think you can talk to me like that?’ But suddenly she was tongue-tied. She gazed at his back for a few moments before continuing to pack up her satchel. When she had finished, she looked back at him to see that he had turned and was moving towards her; but he stopped in his tracks as soon as she noticed him.

‘You should go and get dressed,’ he told her, his voice quiet again now. ‘Nice girls don’t walk around the house wearing next to nothing.’ He smiled, and the expression seemed out of place to Sadie. ‘Go and get dressed. Then come back down and we can have breakfast together.’

Sadie gathered her satchel in her arms and, feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the shortness of her nightdress, ran back up the stairs. She threw her stuff carelessly into her room, and then she shut herself in the bathroom and slid the lock closed. Half of her wanted to run into her mum’s room and slip into the bed next to her, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to face seeing the ruffled sheets on the side where Allen had been sleeping, or lying on the linen where his skin had been. She could hear him moving about in the kitchen, but she vowed that she would not leave the bathroom until she heard her mum getting up.

She didn’t have to wait long before Jackie walked down the stairs. Sadie knew what she would be doing – going to find her cigarettes. She listened to the creaking of the floorboards before unlocking the bathroom door and slipping back into her room. She removed her nightie and dressed in a tracksuit – quickly, though she wasn’t sure why. Then she took a deep breath and went back downstairs.

As soon as she walked into the kitchen she could tell that something was wrong. Allen sat at the head of the table, stony-faced, and Jackie seemed unwilling to look her daughter in the eye. A third place was set, with a side plate containing a slice of toast and jam. As Sadie walked in, Allen stood up, picked up the piece of toast, took it to the other side of the kitchen and dropped it in the bin.

‘Sadie, love,’ her mum said, breaking the tense silence. ‘Allen told you he was making you your breakfast, and you let it get cold.’

Sadie was silent, too stunned to speak.

‘What do you say?’ her mum insisted.

The little girl’s eyes flickered between the two of them. ‘I didn’t know,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll get my own toast.’

Jackie glanced at Allen, who almost imperceptibly shook his head. ‘No, Sadie, love. It’s too late now.’ Jackie’s voice was subdued. ‘Try and be quicker next time, all right?’

Sadie opened her mouth to object, but as she did so she caught Allen’s eye. There was something about the stern look he gave her that made her feel suddenly frightened of this man in their kitchen. Too angry and upset to say anything, she turned and left the flat, slamming the front door behind her.

As she made her way to the estate playground, she felt hot tears of indignation welling up in her eyes. Someone called her name in a friendly way, but she didn’t want to speak to anyone and picked up her pace; by the time she reached the playground she was running, and the tracks of her tears were horizontal along the side of her face. It was still quite early, so the playground was deserted as she took her usual seat at the swings.

Sadie just couldn’t understand why her mum was taking his side against her. She hadn’t been out of order, had she? She hadn’t done anything wrong. Then she thought guiltily about the chocolates. It was true that she shouldn’t have stolen them, but they hadn’t done anyone much harm, had they? Not that she thought her mum would see it that way. Sadie really didn’t want Allen to tell Jackie his suspicions, and she hated the fact that this man suddenly had a hold over her.

As the morning wore on, the playground began to fill up – mums mostly, with their kids, but also a few older teenagers, loitering and sharing cigarettes there because there was nowhere else to go. Sadie was used to these people – she recognized most of them and certainly never felt threatened by them – but she didn’t want company this morning; and as the nearby tower block started casting a shadow over the playground, she left with a vague shiver and wandered round the concrete jungle of the estate. By lunchtime, though, she knew she would have to go back: she was getting hungry, and had no money to buy food. And even though she knew she could knock on the door of a neighbour, somehow she didn’t feel like sharing what was bottling up inside her. She headed home.

Allen was still in the kitchen when Sadie walked in. She looked around to see if her mum was there but, as though reading her mind, Allen said, ‘She’s gone to the shops.’

Sadie kept her lips tightly closed.

Allen walked towards her, and suddenly his frowning face lightened up and he smiled down at Sadie. ‘I’ve been out and got you something,’ he told her. He smiled a little more broadly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small chocolate bar. He bent down and gave it to the reluctant Sadie. ‘If you want sweets,’ he told her in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘you only have to ask.’

Sadie winced slightly under his piercing stare, but Allen ignored it. He held her chin gently between his thumb and first finger and lifted her face slightly. Sadie couldn’t help but notice that his hand was shaking slightly. Once more she smelled his aftershave, and she suppressed a wave of nausea.

‘Just keep it a secret from your mum, eh? She doesn’t have to know everything, does she?’

Suddenly a key could be heard in the door. Allen quickly stood up, turned his back on Sadie and walked swiftly into the sitting room. By the time Jackie was in the house, Sadie was alone in the kitchen.

Last night Sadie had been shocked and upset that Mum and Allen had gone out; tonight she wished they would. But they stayed in, and on Sunday they didn’t leave the house at all. Sadie spent most of the time in her bedroom, only coming down for food which her mum – uncharacteristically – prepared for them. They would sit round the table in silence, eating ready meals and drinking water. Occasionally Jackie would try to goad them into conversation, but never with success. It was the longest weekend of Sadie’s life, and she couldn’t wait to get to school on Monday morning.

She met up with Carly and Anna as she always did, but they could tell instantly that Sadie was subdued and not her usual self.

‘What’s up with you?’ Anna asked when Sadie appeared not to hear something she had said.

Sadie blinked. ‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t look like nothing. You look like you’re sucking a lemon.’

‘I’m fine, OK?’ she snapped.

Anna and Carly looked at each other, their eyes mock-wide. ‘All right, all right!’

They walked in silence for a bit.

‘What d’you reckon?’ Carly asked finally. ‘We going to help ourselves to some chocolate this morning? There’s that minimart on the side of the main road – we haven’t tried that yet, and I reckon we could get our hands on the ciggie counter if someone distracted the girl there.’

Anna sucked her teeth. ‘What d’you reckon, Sadie? I’m up for it if everyone else is.’

They waited for Sadie to answer, but she seemed to be in a world of her own. Suddenly she realized what they had been saying and snapped out of it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not this morning. I don’t feel like it.’

‘Why not?’ Anna asked, her voice rising several notches.

‘Yeah, come on, Sadie. I’m starving. I haven’t had any breakfast.’

Sadie snapped, ‘I don’t want to, OK?’

Sadie never usually raised her voice, and the sound of it was enough to silence Anna and Carly into submission. But Sadie felt suddenly guilty that she had lashed out at her two friends, so she put her hand into her satchel and rifled around. After a few moments she pulled out a chocolate bar. With an unpleasant pang she realized it was the one Allen had given her – she didn’t remember having put it in her schoolbag – and as though dropping a hot coal she handed it to Carly, before rummaging around and finding another one for Anna. Like hungry kittens being given a plate of food, they fell silent and ate their treats as they continued their journey to school, although Sadie could sense them glancing warily at her from time to time.

In class Sadie was more unwilling than usual to concentrate, and when the bell rang for morning break she found herself in the unfamiliar position of being by herself in the playground – clearly Carly and Anna were giving her a wide berth after this morning’s little outburst. On this occasion, she didn’t really mind. She kicked her heels around for a few minutes before she became aware of someone following her. Looking round, she saw little Jamie Brown. He was pretending not to notice Sadie, but she could tell that he knew she was there. ‘All right, Jamie?’ she called.

Jamie looked up and nodded at her; then he walked a little more quickly in her direction. As he approached, the unmistakable odour he carried with him assaulted Sadie’s senses.

It was hot. Most of the other children in the playground – Sadie included – were wearing T-shirts, but not Jamie. He had on his usual tatty corduroy trousers and thick, stained sweatshirt that was several sizes too small, and he looked stifled. As he fell in beside Sadie, he said nothing, and the two of them carried on walking in silence. As they walked, however, Sadie threw the occasional glance down at the younger boy.

‘Aren’t you hot in that top?’ she asked him finally.

Jamie shook his head, and clumsily pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt down further towards his wrists. As he did so, Sadie noticed something: just below where the cuff of his sweatshirt finished was what looked like a purple stain. For a moment she couldn’t work out what it was; then it struck her that it was a bruise. She stopped, and turned to take hold of his hand, but the sudden movement made her companion flinch and draw away.

‘Let us see your hand,’ she urged gently.

Jamie shook his head, and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment; but when Sadie made a second attempt to look at his wrist, he relented. She peeled back the dirty sleeve of his sweatshirt and he winced as she did so. She was horrified by what it concealed. The bruising continued all the way up his arm, and it was mottled and ugly. In places it was a deep almost-black; elsewhere it was yellow and faded. Sadie had no idea if it continued beneath the rest of his sweatshirt, and she couldn’t bear to ask. But she had to say something.

‘Who did it?’ she asked.

Jamie said nothing: his lips were pursed and he was shaking his head stiffly.

Sadie looked around her. She could see little groups of people looking in her direction and talking, so she put her hand round Jamie’s shoulders and moved him to a further corner of the playground.

‘Was it your mum?’ she asked the boy.

Jamie looked away. He hadn’t said yes, but it was acknowledgement enough for Sadie.

‘Why don’t you tell someone?’

Jamie shook his head.

‘I can tell someone for you, if you like. There’s that social worker who comes in sometimes. Or what about Miss Venables? She’s nice – ’

‘No!’ Jamie spoke forcefully. ‘I wish I never showed you now.’

He stomped off, but Sadie followed him. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell no one.’

Jamie stopped and looked at her with an anger that seemed almost comical on his tiny frame. But he couldn’t keep it up for long, and soon his gaze dropped back down to the ground again. ‘She’d only say it weren’t her,’ he muttered. ‘Any case,’ – his eyes flickered up to Sadie then back down again – ‘I don’t want her to get into trouble. And they’d only get me kicked out, wouldn’t they?’

Sadie felt a sudden pang of pity. The little boy’s plight made her own problems seem inconsequential; and without knowing quite how, she understood his desire to keep things to himself. Ever so gently, more out of a wish not to frighten him than not to hurt him, she rolled his sleeve back down so that the bruise was covered once more.

‘And anyway,’ Jamie continued with a weak smile, ‘I have told someone, ain’t I?’

Sadie looked at him in confusion. ‘Who?’

‘You,’ the little boy said, and he wandered away into the heart of the playground, ignoring the unkind comments from the children he passed.

Chapter Four

‘Why?’ Sadie watched her mum wiping down the kitchen surfaces, and wondered why she wouldn’t catch her eye.

‘Because we need the money, Sadie,’ Jackie replied irritably. ‘Stop asking so many stupid questions.’

It was three weeks since Allen had moved in, and apart from that first night he appeared barely to have left the house. The sitting room had become his domain, where he would sit on the settee, his legs stretched out in front of him, the TV remote never far away. And since his arrival, the room had become immaculate – not just the room, in fact, but the whole house. Sadie found it weird: for as long as she could remember she had lived in a chaotic house, and her mother was not one for tidying up and cleaning. But one look from Allen seemed to be enough for her to clear up a dirty coffee cup or wipe crumbs from the now perpetually empty kitchen table. Sadie herself had always kept her room tidy, but since Allen’s reprimand about the dirty plate on his first morning, she had been extra fastidious. There was no way she was going to give him an excuse to tell her off again.

‘But you’re always saying there’s no point you getting a job. What about your benefits?’

Sadie heard her mum start to swear under her breath. ‘For fuck’s—’ But then she checked herself, and turned to her daughter. ‘It’s more complicated than that, Sadie. Grown-up stuff, OK? I’ve got a job in a pub up the road, and that’s that.’

At the word ‘pub’, Sadie’s stomach gave a little lurch. Whatever else she thought of Allen, she had to be thankful that he seemed to have got her mum off the booze. The ciggies too, although she knew from the smell on her mum’s clothes and skin that she still had the occasional crafty fag outside, despite Allen’s ban on smoking in the house. The idea of Mum working in a pub filled Sadie with a sudden fear that she would slide back into her old ways.

‘But he doesn’t do anything,’ Sadie complained, ‘apart from watch the telly.’ She kept her voice low so that Allen wouldn’t hear her in the next room. ‘Why can’t he be the one to go out to work? Why does it have to be you?’

Still Jackie refused to look directly at her daughter, and she avoided her questions. ‘You’ll just have to get used to it, Sadie. Lots of mums go out to work.’

‘But—’

‘No buts, Sadie.’ Allen spoke quietly from the doorway to the sitting room. Sadie and Jackie both turned their heads to look at him at the same time, and waited for him to speak again. ‘Have you thought that your mam might actually want to go out to work, Sadie? You shouldn’t be so selfish.’

Sadie jutted her chin out forcefully, but she didn’t reply.

‘Tell her, Jackie,’ Allen instructed.

Jackie hesitated, but kept her eyes on him. ‘It’ll be nice for me,’ she said in a slightly monotone voice, ‘to get out of the house and all.’

‘Just as long as you keep off the sauce,’ Allen said rather contemptuously. ‘Putting you in a boozer is like putting a cat in a mousehole.’ As he went back into the sitting room, Jackie’s face flushed with embarrassment and she turned back to her cleaning.

‘So when do you start, Mum?’ Sadie asked in a small voice.

‘This afternoon. Late shift. Three till twelve. You can get your own dinner, can’t you?’

Sadie nodded, but her mum didn’t see her, so she slung her satchel sullenly over her head and left.

School was uneventful and passed quickly. It always did when she didn’t want to get home. As she sat daydreaming in her lessons, she thought about what had happened that morning. It made no sense. She loved her mum, but she knew her well enough to doubt that she really wanted to go out to work. And yet she had heard her say so herself. Maybe her mum wanted to go to work so that she could get away from Sadie. She wouldn’t have thought that before Allen had arrived, but in the last few weeks she had been different. Distant. Not the mum she knew or wanted to remember.

What was more, Sadie didn’t relish the idea of being in the house alone with Allen. She couldn’t work him out – sometimes he was nice to her, sometimes mean, and she almost didn’t know which Allen she liked the least. He was always walking up quietly behind her, appearing out of nowhere, getting in the way. Even when she hid herself away in the bedroom, he was always coming in to check on her, knocking gently – three measured raps that she had grown to dread – and entering without waiting for a reply.

The weather had turned. It was still warm, but the dry summer had become wet and the day was punctuated with thunderous showers. The rain started as soon as the school bell went for home time and was torrential on the way home, so Sadie, Anna and Carly barely spoke and concentrated on running back to the estate and its rain-stained concrete as quickly as possible.

Soaked to the skin, Sadie sprinted up the pathway to the front door. Her key was already in her hand– it had been in readiness ever since she entered the boundaries of the estate – and almost on autopilot she tried to open the front door with it. The key slid easily into the lock, but when she tried to turn it, it wouldn’t budge. She tried again, wiggling the key gently at first and then with more force, but it was no good. She rang the bell instead.

The door opened almost immediately. Allen stood in the doorway and observed Sadie as though she was a stranger or a cold caller. After an awkward few moments, during which he did not step aside to let her in, Sadie was forced to speak.

‘Can I come in?’

Suddenly Allen looked as though his attention had been snapped into focus. His lips flickered into a smile, and he stepped aside slightly, though not quite enough for Sadie to be able to enter without her sopping clothes brushing against him.

‘My key wouldn’t work,’ she mumbled as she entered.

‘No,’ said Allen. ‘It wouldn’t.’

‘Why not? It’s always worked.’

‘I’ve changed the lock,’ Allen said as he walked back into the kitchen. Sadie stayed in the hallway, watching him.

‘What for?’ she asked, but Allen didn’t reply, instead walking into the sitting room. Sadie followed him, water dripping off her coat on to the kitchen floor. ‘What did you change the lock for?’ she asked again. She knew she sounded insolent, but she couldn’t help it.

By now Allen was sitting on the settee again, his legs stretched out in his usual position. ‘You’re too young to have your own door key. I’ve discussed it with your mam and she agrees with me.’

Sadie could hardly believe what she was hearing and found herself unable to speak. She’d had her own key for years – Mum and Dad had trusted her, and she’d never done anything to betray that trust. Tears started to brim in her eyes.

‘No use crying about it. It’s about time we knew where you are and when you’re coming back. I know for a fact that you get up to no good when you’re out on your own. I haven’t told your mother what I suspect yet, but if it carries on, I will – don’t you worry about that.’

Sadie was shivering now, half from the wet clothes, half from the way he was speaking to her. Unable to trust herself to open her mouth, she spun round and ran, not for the first time since Allen had arrived, up to her bedroom. Outside the rain continued to hammer on her window and the sky was a deep, felt-tip grey. She slammed the door shut and started to peel off her sopping school uniform. She felt her long wet hair cold against her face.

As the clothes fell to the floor, she froze. She could hear Allen moving around downstairs, his footsteps sounding heavy and impatient. And then she heard a sound she recognized – a click. It was the front door being locked.

A sudden panic arose in her. She held her breath and remained deathly still as she listened with all her concentration. At first there was silence; then there was an unmistakable sound.

It was the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

Feeling an irrational burst of terror, Sadie jumped on to her bed. Goosebumps arose on her skin as she crouched in the corner, hugging her knees, wanting to remove her wet underwear and yet somehow not wanting to. As she did so, she counted the footsteps up the stairs.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

And then they stopped – about halfway up, Sadie calculated. For a few moments there was silence and then, more quietly this time, the footsteps disappeared back down the stairs.

Sadie did not move until she was sure that Allen had finished walking around. Instead, she remained on her bed, her skin clammy and her limbs shaking, the sickness of fear suddenly replaced with the hot flush of relief.

After a few minutes, she dared to creep on to the landing. Standing at the top of the stairs, she strained her ears and could make out the low hubbub of the television. By now she knew his habits. She knew that once he was installed in front of the box, he would not move from it willingly, so she crept back to her room, removed the rest of her clothes and put on the blue dressing gown that hung on the back of her door. Then she crept back on to the bed.

How she wished her mum were there. How she wished she could wordlessly snuggle up to her, feel her arms around her shoulders and put her head in her lap. She wished now she hadn’t been so mean before she left for school. When she saw her, she would be really nice. She would make things better between them. Jackie might have been different these past few weeks, but she was still her mum, and Sadie wanted her. It all seemed wrong, being stuck in the house with this man she hardly knew and liked even less – a cruel inversion of the way things were supposed to be.

The rain continued to pound on the window. For a precious minute or two, Sadie allowed herself to be transfixed by the droplets falling like tears down the windowpane.

Unbidden, the image of little Jamie Brown popped into her head. She suppressed a shudder as she remembered the bruising up his arm and wondered, not for the first time, what sort of hell he had to endure when he was at home. All of a sudden she felt slightly ashamed of herself. The little boy who had taken to following her around the playground at breaktime surely had to endure more than she did: Allen might be mean, but at least he never hit her.

Maybe he was right. Maybe she was selfish. Maybe this whole situation was her fault.

How long Sadie sat there, huddled in her dressing gown, she couldn’t say; but she was snapped out of her daydream by the sound of Allen’s voice: he was calling from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Your tea’s ready, Sadie.’

Sadie blinked. He never made her tea; it was normally up to Jackie or Sadie herself to prepare meals for all of them. She felt like calling down to say she wasn’t hungry, but something told her that would not be a wise thing to do, so she quickly pulled on her pink tracksuit and went downstairs. A plate of spaghetti hoops on toast was waiting for her on the kitchen table, with a glass of water.

Silently she sat down and started to eat. The food was only lukewarm, and she barely had an appetite, but she knew that if she didn’t eat it would only cause aggro, so she soldiered on, aware of Allen’s gaze on her all the time.

‘You don’t say much, do you, Sadie?’ he asked after a while.

Sadie chewed her food and didn’t reply.

‘You like spaghetti?’ Allen tried again.

‘’S’all right,’ Sadie said, her mouth still half full.

‘Me too. Mind if I have a bit of yours?’

Sadie did mind, but she knew she couldn’t say so, so she shrugged and watched as Allen stood up and fetched himself a fork from a drawer. He walked back to the table, put his left hand on Sadie’s left shoulder, and then leaned over the other one and lifted a forkful of food into his mouth. Sadie felt her muscles seizing up and she stared intently at the plate in front of her. Allen’s hand remained lightly on her shoulder. When he had finished his mouthful, he helped himself to a second, gave her a little squeeze and went to wash up his fork.

Sadie started eating more quickly. As she heard Allen put his fork by the sink, somehow she could tell that he was looking at her from behind. The moment she had wolfed down her last mouthful, she scraped back her chair and picked up her dirty plate. Allen was leaning against the sink, a strange smile on his face.

‘Excuse me,’ Sadie muttered. ‘I have to wash up.’

With a nod, Allen cleared out of the way and wandered back into the sitting room.

Sadie washed up quickly, and hurried upstairs.

She felt a chill. It was not particularly cold in the house, but she had got soaked earlier on, so maybe that was why. She felt like having a bath, hot and soapy, to warm her up and wash away the uncomfortable feeling Allen had just left her with. Then she would go to bed – early. Changing back into her dressing gown, she took the towel that was hanging on the end of her bed and went into the bathroom.

Immediately she noticed that the sliding lock that had been there ever since she could remember was not there. All that remained were four screw holes and a patch of unpainted wood where the lock used to be. Sadie stared at the door, puzzled: why would anyone take the lock off the door? Admittedly it had always been a little stiff, but it had never been a problem – although she knew Allen never locked the door behind him when he used the bathroom. Looking around her, her eyes fell on the dirty-washing basket that was always kept by the sink. She dragged it across the floor and propped it against the door – at least that would make it clear that someone was in there. She turned the taps on and the sound of running water filled the room.

When the bubble bath that she had poured into the hot water had transformed itself into huge snowy peaks, Sadie let her dressing gown fall to the floor and climbed in. The hot water stung her skin, but she liked it – it felt as if it was cleansing her all the more thoroughly. Slowly she allowed herself to sink beneath the suds and stretch out, closing her eyes to block out the harsh glare of the plastic strip lighting on the ceiling. She slipped gently further down into the water, allowing her head to become half submerged and her long, dark hair to splay out. She loved the feeling of being under water, and the way all the sounds became muted and muffled; she felt as if she was in her own little world, away from it all. She started drumming her fingernails against the bottom of the bath, and focused on that regular, rhythmic, under-water sound.

But then she heard something else. A voice. It could only be one person’s.

Spluttering, she pushed herself up from under the water and wiped the suds from around her eyes. Her pulse was suddenly racing, her breathing heavy, but she was relieved to see nobody in the bathroom. Perhaps she had imagined it. She sat still in the bath.

Suddenly, the dirty-washing basket in front of the door nudged forward a couple of inches as the door was pushed ajar. It nudged forward again. She could see Allen’s fingers curled round the edge of the door. ‘Let us in,’ he said, his voice echoing slightly against the yellowing tiles of the bathroom. ‘Let us in to use the toilet. I’m desperate.’

Sadie found that her breath was shaking, and all of a sudden something snapped in her as she started to scream. ‘Get out!’ she yelled. ‘Get out! Get away from me!’ Her screams degenerated into a whimper. ‘Get out!’ she repeated, her wet hands covering her wet face.

When she looked up again, Allen’s fingertips were no longer round the door; but she had not heard him walk away, so she could not tell whether or not he was waiting for her on the other side. For an unrealistic moment she considered staying where she was, safe under the water, until her mum came back. But of course that would not be for hours: she had to get out.

Still catching her breath through sobs that escaped involuntarily through her throat, she stood up in the bath and, her hands covering herself to afford her some sort of modesty, stepped over the side. She grabbed her dressing gown and tried to pull it quickly over her wet skin, but her fingers were fumbling and the more she tried to hurry, the slower she seemed to go. Eventually she had herself covered, and she wrapped her towel around her shoulders to give her extra protection. She wanted to be in her bedroom. Now. So she pulled the dirty-washing basket away from the door and, with a deep, shaky breath, stepped out on to the landing.

Allen was there.

He was standing at the other end of the landing, at the top of the stairs. His head was bowed slightly, but his eyes were looking straight at Sadie and his breathing was heavy. His lips seemed stuck in a position that was almost a sneer, but not quite. For an instant he looked away from her, but then he blinked again and his eyes were on her once more. She found herself unable to move.

When he spoke, his voice was even quieter than usual. ‘I thought you said come in.’

Sadie shook her head faintly.

‘I thought you were done in there,’ Allen repeated. ‘I thought you said come in.’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Sadie whispered hoarsely. She returned his gaze as coolly as she dared.

All of a sudden, Allen lashed out. He banged the flat of his hand hard against the woodchip wall, and Sadie jumped. In an instant his face had transformed. His eyes were flashing and his lip curled into an ugly mockery of the expression Sadie was used to. And then he was shouting – not particularly loudly, but forcefully, and with unbridled contempt. ‘I was calling you for ages. You should have shouted back.’

His hands appeared to be shaking, and Sadie took a frightened step backwards into the doorway of the bathroom.

‘Anyhow,’ he hissed, more quietly now, ‘what makes you think I want to see you in the first place? You’re too fucking cocky, Sadie. You’re lucky I don’t see to it that you go into a home.’

Sadie felt her lower lip wobbling. She watched, wide-eyed, as Allen struggled to control his sudden burst of fury. With a hateful look, he turned and stomped down the stairs. As though his disappearance had released her from a lock and chain, Sadie rushed into her bedroom.

Dusk was falling, as was the rain, though less heavily now, and her room seemed saturated with gloom. Sadie did not want to turn on the light, feeling that the half-darkness somehow protected her. She quickly dried herself, pulled on her nightdress and buried herself under her bedclothes, clutching a soft teddy bear her dad had bought her many years ago. She breathed in its smell. Normally it was so comforting, but tonight for some reason it just made the tears come, and it didn’t take long for the bear’s matted hair to become quite wet. And even when she could cry no more, she remained under the covers, curled up and clinging desperately to the soft toy which could not offer her the comfort that she craved.

It was fully dark outside by the time she dared to poke her head out from under the duvet. Late, though sleep seemed only a distant possibility. Slowly, tentatively, she put her head on the pillow and closed her eyes.

Time passed.

After a while, a warm blanket of drowsiness fell over Sadie; but it was ruffled before she could truly fall asleep by the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs once more. They were not heavy footsteps this time, but her eyes sprang suddenly open when she realized they were approaching her door. And then came the sound she dreaded.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

She said nothing – she knew there was no point. She heard the sound of the door brushing against the carpet as it swung open, and she closed her eyes, lying desperately still and pretending to be asleep. Despite not being able to see anything, she could sense Allen walking across the room to her bed. He sat on the side of it, and the sickening smell of his aftershave filled her nose.

Then, with a start, she felt him brushing his hand across her hair.

‘I know you’re not asleep, Sadie,’ he whispered.

Sadie wanted to jump out of bed and scream, but some unseen force pinned her to the mattress and she kept her eyes resolutely closed. The stroking of her hair stopped, and suddenly she felt Allen’s warm breath near her face. It smelled of the tinned spaghetti from earlier.

‘Goodnight, pet,’ he breathed, before planting a kiss on her closed mouth, leaving a vile feeling of the wetness of his lips.

Then he stood up and walked out, leaving Sadie alone in the darkness of her room.

She awoke with a start.

It was pitch black in her room, and she had no idea what time it was. In the darkness, however, she heard the front door closing and assumed that it must be her mum coming back from work. That would make it a bit past midnight; she could only have been asleep for an hour or two. The rain had stopped now, and she could quite clearly hear her mum shout ‘I’m back’ before moving through to the sitting room and out of earshot. Sadie wanted more than anything to go down and see her – to hug her – but she couldn’t bear to be in the same room as Allen.

So she just lay there, protected by her duvet and the darkness of the night.

All of a sudden she heard voices from downstairs. Raised voices. Allen was shouting at her mum. Sadie couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could detect the fury in his voice. Her mum said something – or shouted it, rather – but it was short-lived. There was an immediate and ominous silence; Sadie found herself holding her breath. The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps up the stairs – running, this time, and Sadie recognized the rhythm of her mother’s steps. She sat up in bed, hoping that Jackie would come into her room to say goodnight; but she was disappointed: all she heard was Jackie’s own bedroom door slamming shut.

Something told her that she shouldn’t go in to see her. She lay back down in bed and, despite the turmoil in her mind, soon fell asleep.

If Allen came up to bed that night, Sadie was not awake to hear it.

Chapter Five

The next day dawned bright and clear, but Jamie Brown had been awake long before the sun rose.

It was his birthday the following day, and last night he had gone to sleep cosseted by pleasant fantasies of a birthday present, and even a chocolate cake with candles. He had never had either, of course, but that didn’t stop him from hoping each time his birthday came around. Maybe Mum would have had a change of heart this year; maybe there would be a bit of spare money; just maybe he would have a happy day.

But the maybes had dissolved from his mind a little before dawn when he awoke with the familiar feeling of horror. The thin mattress which lay on the floor of the tiny box room he called his own was wet, and so was the stained sheet that covered him. He didn’t dare move for fear of waking his mother up; all he could do was hope that it dried before morning. But morning had come, and the bedding was still damp. The little boy shivered, not just because he was cold.

Perhaps he could hide what had happened. Perhaps if he got up now and pulled the frayed blanket over his sheet, she wouldn’t notice. He quietly slipped out of bed, removed his damp pyjamas and put them under the pillow; then he put on the underwear he had been wearing for the past week. He crept out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. It was filthy, as it always was. The taps to the bath were broken, and he wasn’t allowed to use the shower unless Mum said so; instead, he took his flannel, which had fallen down beside the toilet and become encrusted hard, and soaked it under cold running water. He squeezed it and rubbed it over his skin, taking care not to press too hard where the bruises were. When he had finished his ineffectual wash, he moistened his toothbrush under the running water. The bristles were worn and flattened, and the handle stained with lime scale; there was, of course, no toothpaste, but he brushed nevertheless, pressing so hard that his gums started to hurt. He placed the toothbrush back on the side of the sink, and then turned round and left the room.

His heart jumped.

Standing in the doorway of his room was his mum. She had a cigarette in one hand and his damp pyjamas in the other.

Jamie cowered, shrinking against the wall under the withering heat of her gaze.

‘What the fuck is this?’ she asked, her voice deathly quiet.

Jamie was too terrified to speak.

‘Don’t fucking ignore me, Jamie. What the fuck is this?’

‘I’m s-s-sorry, Mum,’ Jamie stammered. ‘I think I wet myself.’

His mum hurled the wet pyjamas at his head. ‘I can fucking see that!’ she screamed.

Jamie struggled to remove the clothes from around his eyes. As he did so he saw his mum bearing down on him. Instantly he crumpled to the floor, rolling up in a little ball like the hedgehog he had seen in a book at school. ‘Please don’t hit me, Mum,’ he whimpered, but it was too late. As he spoke he felt her bare foot against his abdomen. The thought flashed through his head that at least she wasn’t wearing shoes; but he still felt a shriek of pain as she kicked him on the bruises from his last beating. He found himself gasping as his mother shouted at him again.

‘It’s no fuckin’ wonder everyone hates you. I fucking hate you, and I’m your mum, more fool me.’ She stomped back into her bedroom, but the shouting continued. ‘Now fuck off to school. I’m sick of the fucking sight of you …’

The blue sky made yesterday’s rain seem like a weird dream; indeed, to Sadie, everything about the previous evening had a nightmare quality about it, almost as though none of it had happened. As she walked sleepily to the bathroom, however, she was reminded of it all: the bath water was still there, as she had been in too much of a hurry to get to her bedroom to pull the plug out. It seemed that nobody had been into the bathroom since; or if they had, they wanted to make a point. She removed the plug, and as the water drained out of the bath she cleaned her teeth and washed her face. Then she returned to her bedroom to get dressed.

It was quiet in the house, for which Sadie was extremely thankful. If she crept downstairs, maybe she could get her cereal and leave the house without anyone waking up. She tiptoed down, avoiding those parts of the staircase that she knew were creaky, and made her way into the kitchen, where she poured herself a bowl of cornflakes. There was only a drop of milk left, so she doused the cereal with what there was before turning to sit at the kitchen table.

She stopped in her tracks.

Allen was sitting at the head of the table, with his chair turned ninety degrees so that he could face her. He had been so quiet, so immobile, that she hadn’t seen him until now. His face was blank, but he looked tired, and he was wearing the same clothes that he had been wearing the previous night.

‘Good morning,’ he said.

Sadie walked brusquely to the other end of the table, where she sat down and started to eat with big mouthfuls; but the faster she tried to eat, the more the cereal stuck in her throat.

‘Aren’t you talking to me, Sadie?’ Allen asked.

Sadie swallowed her mouthful. ‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked.

‘Don’t worry about your mam,’ Allen told her. ‘She’s still in bed. Tired. She needs her sleep, now she’s working and all.’

‘I want to say goodbye before I leave for school.’

‘I told you, she’s tired.’ He stood up, and walked over to where Sadie was sitting. The girl put her hands on her lap and looked down at the now empty cereal bowl. He was standing too close now, invading her personal space. He lifted his hand and made as if to put it on her shoulder, but Sadie shrank from him and instead he picked up the bowl. ‘Off you go, then,’ Allen said. ‘I’ll wash this up for you.’

Sadie watched as he took the bowl to the sink and stood there, running the water, resolutely not looking back. As quickly as she could, she got her things together and left.

‘Miss Venables, you are not this school’s child protection officer. I can assure you that we are fully aware of the concerns about Jamie Brown, and they’re being dealt with through the proper channels.’

‘But Mr Martin,’ Stacy said, her frustration with the headmaster taking the edge off her politeness, ‘social services aren’t doing a thing.’

‘They’re monitoring the situation,’ the headmaster said emphatically, as though speaking to a child. ‘They can’t just storm in and remove the child from his mother – there’s no evidence of maltreatment, there’s been no disclosure from the child.’

‘But you only have to look at him …’

‘Enough!’ Mr Martin said forcefully, and she was stunned into silence by the sudden raising of his voice. The headmaster collapsed heavily into his chair and pinched his forehead momentarily before speaking again. ‘We’re keeping a close eye on Jamie Brown,’ he said more quietly. ‘It’s really not your concern.’ He looked her up and down. ‘I see you’ve chosen to ignore our last conversation about what constitutes a suitable dress code for teachers in this school.’

Stacy smoothed her white T-shirt. ‘Will that be all, Mr Martin?’ she asked coldly.

‘Yes, Miss Venables,’ the headmaster said wearily. ‘That will be all.’

Stacy’s footsteps echoed off the hard floor of the corridor as she stomped, seething, to her next lesson. Her cheeks were flushed with the embarrassment of her dressing down and also her frustration. She knew instinctively that all was not right with that kid. Why could nobody else see what was so obvious to her?

It was a long lesson. The children were distracted – it was always the way when the weather was sunny – and Miss Venables spent more time calming them down than teaching them English. There were the usual troublemakers: Anna and Carly felt the sharp end of her tongue, as well as a few of the boys. Curiously, though, Sadie Burrows was not sitting with the girls but had installed herself at the front of the class and was working quietly. It wasn’t like her to be by herself.

As the bell rang, the familiar sound of chair-scraping filled the room. ‘Don’t forget you have homework to do tonight,’ she called above the noise, but few people paid her any attention, and in any case her mind was on something else.

‘Sadie,’ she called to the girl sitting at the front. ‘Could you stay behind, please?’

Sadie looked up suspiciously at her teacher. ‘I’ll be late for my next lesson,’ she said without much enthusiasm.

Miss Venables approached her desk. ‘It won’t take long,’ she told her. ‘Just a couple of minutes.’ She looked around at the few children who were dragging their heels, clearly hanging around to see what she wanted with Sadie. ‘Was there anything?’ she asked them with a raised eyebrow. As one they shook their heads, muttered and left the room.

When it was just the two of them, Miss Venables’ face softened. ‘Is everything all right, Sadie?’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘You seem quiet, that’s all.’

‘I’m fine, miss.’

Miss Venables furrowed her brow slightly and nodded. ‘I was going to ask you if you could do me a favour, Sadie.’

She watched Sadie’s face twitch slightly and knew that she felt uncomfortable being asked this by a teacher. But give children a bit of responsibility, she always said, and it’s amazing how often they rise to the challenge. Besides, she really did need her help.

‘You know Jamie Brown?’

Sadie nodded cautiously.

‘Does he talk to you?’

‘Sometimes, miss.’

‘That’s what I thought. I’ve seen the two of you in the playground. Has he ever told you anything about what happens at home?’

Sadie looked straight into Miss Venables’ eyes, and the teacher found it impossible to read what she was thinking. She did notice, however, that the girl took a little bit too long to answer. ‘No, miss. We don’t talk about things like that.’

The teacher’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘No, of course not.’ She turned and walked back to her desk at the front of the class. ‘So what do you talk about?’ she asked lightly.

Sadie shrugged. ‘Just stuff, miss,’ she said.

Miss Venables nodded. ‘The thing is, Sadie, I’m a bit worried about him.’ She smiled at the girl. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why that is. He seems very down today. You’re a sensible girl. I’m sure you’d tell me if you thought there was anything I should know, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, miss.’ Miss Venables noted that Sadie avoided her eyes as she spoke. She thought of quizzing her a bit further, but at the last moment decided against it.

‘Well, you always know where to find me if you need to. Go on, then. You’d better get to your next lesson.’

Sadie nodded her head, slung her satchel over her neck and left the classroom.

Anna and Carly were waiting for her a little way up the corridor. ‘What she want?’ Anna asked immediately as Sadie approached. ‘What you done wrong? You in trouble?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Oh, c’mon, Sadie,’ Carly needled her. ‘What she say?’

‘It’s nothing, OK?’ Sadie snapped. Her two friends looked at each other in surprise, and then back at her. ‘Just leave me alone,’ Sadie muttered, and she stormed off without them.

As a result of her outburst, Sadie found herself alone again in the playground at lunchtime. Carly and Anna were pretending to have a good time, but she could tell by the sidelong glances that were coming her way whenever she was near them that they felt as uncomfortable as she did. Somehow, though, she couldn’t drum up the enthusiasm to go and make her peace with them. They would only ask her yet again what was the matter, and she didn’t want to talk about that. She hadn’t told them about Allen moving in, or any of the other stuff: for some reason she was embarrassed about it, and she wanted to keep it to herself.

Sadie had been surprised by Miss Venables’ questions – teachers weren’t supposed to talk like that. Maybe there was something really wrong with Jamie. Maybe she should find out: even if she didn’t tell anyone, perhaps she could do something to help. And it would take her mind off other things. Looking around, she saw the little boy walking along one of the walls of the playground, his finger tracing the shape of the mortar between the bricks. He looked just the same as usual. She crossed the playground to talk to him.

‘Hi,’ she said, as she fell in beside him.

‘Leave us alone.’

Sadie blinked at him. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Just leave us alone,’ Jamie replied. There were tears in his eyes, and to hide them he took a couple of quick steps forward. Sadie stood still, watching him go and feeling a hot creeping embarrassment rising up her neck. In her little fantasy she had thought she could make everything all right for Jamie Brown, but she couldn’t.

How could she, when she couldn’t even make things all right for herself?

Carly and Anna continued to avoid her, even after school. She wanted to make up with them, but she was embarrassed by her outburst and didn’t know how to; besides, now that she no longer had her own key, something told her that if she was late back home she’d get a grilling from Allen. The thought of seeing him was repugnant to her, but not as bad as the memory of his fury the previous night. So as soon as school finished, she walked home by herself.

It felt strange having to ring the bell, as though this was not even her home any more. In the event she had to ring it twice before Allen deigned to answer. When he did so, Sadie looked aghast at him. He was wearing no shirt, and the pungent odour of his aftershave was worse than ever. Sadie’s distaste must have been obvious from her face, because a shadow instantly fell over Allen’s expression.

‘What?’ he asked.

Sadie looked away. ‘Nothing.’ She pushed past him and ran straight upstairs to her bedroom.

Closing the door behind her, Sadie sat down on her bed and pulled a book out of her satchel. Homework for Miss Venables was to read a chapter. While Sadie would never normally have rushed to do schoolwork at home, it was a more attractive option than being downstairs with Allen, and if he came up to nag her, at least she had an excuse for staying in her room. She opened the book and started to read. For the next twenty minutes, though, she must have read the opening paragraph a hundred times, and still she had no idea what it said. Her mind was too distracted, and her ears were waiting to hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs that she knew could not be far away.

Eventually they came, followed by the predictable three knocks and the opening of the door. His shirt was still off.

‘What you doing?’ Allen managed to look almost revolted at the book in Sadie’s hands.

‘Homework,’ she replied curtly, furrowing her eyebrows and pretending to continue to read.

‘Never mind that now,’ he told her. ‘Come downstairs and talk to me. Nobody likes sulky kids.’

‘I can’t.’ Sadie tried to sound apologetic, but in fact she just sounded panicky. ‘It’s homework. I – ’

All of a sudden Allen was striding towards her. Sadie flinched as he grabbed the book from her hands and scrunched a handful of pages in his fist. ‘What’s the fucking matter with you?’ he fumed. ‘Think you’re brainier than everyone else, do you?’ He stared furiously at her before throwing the damaged book on the floor. ‘You see what you’ve made me do?’ he asked, his voice quieter now but no less dangerous. ‘You’d better stop being so fucking arrogant – otherwise I’ll tell your teachers it was you did that. Are you coming downstairs or what?’

Sadie bit her lip and nodded her head.

‘Well, go on, then,’ Allen urged. She pushed herself off the bed and then walked downstairs, never looking back but feeling him close behind her nonetheless. When she got to the kitchen, she simply stood there, not knowing what to do. Allen made his way into the sitting room, and he heard his voice drift out, calmer now: ‘Make yourself useful, then, and make us a brew.’ He switched the television on.

Sadie found herself filling the kettle full to the brim so that it would take longer to boil and she could stay out of the sitting room for a few extra precious seconds. But there was only so much time she could take making a cup of tea until she provoked his anger again, and before she knew it she was carrying a mugful into the sitting room and handing it to him.

‘Ta, Shakespeare,’ he said with a forced smile, apparently trying to be pleasant, before placing the mug on the arm of the settee. He then tapped the seat next to him. ‘Sit down next to me,’ he ordered, his eyes fixed on the television screen.

Sadie did as she was told.

They sat there in silence for a long while, Allen sipping his tea and watching the television, Sadie increasingly feeling the urge to shrink from him. But although she was repelled by the very presence of the man sitting next to her, she found that she couldn’t help looking occasionally at his bare skin. It was white and slightly podgy, with a wispy dusting of brown hair. What had caught her attention was a patch on one side of his belly that was even paler than the rest of his skin, where no hair grew. Sadie found herself wondering what it was, but pulled her eyes away when she realized Allen was watching her.

‘You looking at my scar?’ he said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

Sadie shook her head.

‘Yes you were. I saw you. It’s all right, pet. You’re allowed to look.’

‘I wasn’t looking.’

‘I suppose you’re wondering where I got it.’

Sadie remained tight-lipped.

‘It’s a knife wound,’ Allen said. ‘I got it in Manchester. There were a couple of scallies attacking an old lady for her handbag, so I stepped in. They went for me instead. Three weeks in hospital it cost me.’ He took another slurp of his tea, and then placed the mug back down on the armrest. ‘It still hurts sometimes, but rather me than an old granny, eh?’

Suddenly Sadie felt his hand on her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he just gripped harder. ‘You’re hurting me!’ she squealed, but that only made him squeeze tighter. He pulled her arm towards him and placed her clenched fist against the scar; then he moved it up and down, forcing her to caress it against her will. The scar tissue felt smooth compared to the rest of his downy skin, but the sensation made Sadie shudder with revulsion and she continued to struggle, despite the increasing fierceness of his grip. ‘Let me go,’ she said, feeling tears starting to stream down her cheek. ‘Please let me go.’

But he didn’t let her go. Instead, he was whispering in her ear, his lips brushing against her lobes. ‘You don’t want a scar like that on your pretty little body, do you, pet?’

‘No,’ she whimpered.

‘No,’ Allen confirmed. ‘So you’d better do as you’re told. Understand?’

Blinded now by her tears, Sadie nodded. Her wrist was burning, and if she had wanted to speak, she knew the words would choke in her throat.

As quickly as he had grabbed her, he let go. ‘Go on, then,’ he spat. ‘Fuck off back to your bedroom. Go and pretend to read your book.’

Sadie fled.

For the second time in as many days, she found herself trembling in her room, her ears straining to hear the sounds Allen was making downstairs. She deduced that he had turned the television off – or muted it, as he sometimes did, leaving the picture silently playing – because she could hear him walking around. His movements seemed more chaotic than usual, as though he was stomping around angrily. Sadie tiptoed to her door, opened it a little and put her ear to the gap: she jumped as she heard the smashing of a glass and then ran back to her bed, where she automatically grabbed her teddy bear and squeezed it with all her might.

Yesterday, she had been given some warning of Allen’s arrival in her room: his footsteps had stopped halfway up the stairs before he finally decided to intrude on her. Today there was no such hesitation. Out of the blue, Sadie heard a rush of clattering footsteps as Allen ran flat-footedly up the stairs and burst in. His shirt was back on now, but it was not his state of undress or otherwise that made Sadie freeze, statue still.

It was the look on his face.

There was a wildness in his eyes, an anger and a loathing that Sadie had never even dreamed of in her worst nightmares. One eye seemed to be open slightly wider than the other; his lips were fixed in a snarl that suggested the deepest contempt; and his whole head seemed to twitch intermittently. He took deep, shuddering breaths, as though he was trying to bring himself under control; but everything about his demeanour suggested that he was not being successful.

Sadie’s skin prickled with fear as he stood there and looked at her.

Finally he spoke. His voice was not loud, as the fury in his face would have predicted: he spoke in a forced whisper that was all the more sinister for its quietness. ‘You’re a fucking tease,’ he breathed.

Sadie shook her head, not trusting herself to reply, nor quite knowing how to.

‘Don’t look at me like that, you little bitch.’ His voice was dangerously soft now. ‘I’ve met your type before. You think you can do anything. You think you can prance around wearing next to fuck all. You think you can sit on the settee and touch me and then fuck off back to your bedroom.’ He took a step nearer. ‘You’re a worthless little slag.’ He licked his lips, almost nervously. ‘I suppose you’ve got a string of boyfriends at that school of yours.’

‘No,’ Sadie said in a small voice.

That seemed to mollify Allen a little, but he still spoke viciously quietly. ‘You should count your fucking blessings I don’t tell your mam what your game is and have you taken into care.’

Sadie allowed a sob to escape from her throat, and all of a sudden Allen smiled – a vicious, humourless smile that was even worse than the snarl.

‘Touched a nerve, have we?’ He walked right up to the bed and bent over so that his face was only inches from Sadie’s and his breath was hot on her skin. ‘It’ll happen, you know,’ he whispered. ‘Put one step wrong, and it’ll happen. You know I can make it happen, don’t you?’

Sadie nodded, her eyes brimming.

Allen smiled again. ‘Good,’ he said. His voice was calmer now, and as he stood up and stepped backwards towards the door, the beast in him seemed to have been tamed somewhat. When he spoke again, he had lost the whisper and managed to sound almost matter-of-fact. ‘I wouldn’t bother telling anyone about our little chat, Sadie. You’ll just show everyone what a lying little slag you are. And I’d hate to have to tell anyone all the things I know about you.’

He gave her an oily grin, and left.

Sadie sat perfectly still on her bed. She felt tears dribbling down her face, but could not summon the will to wipe them away; instead she simply stared into the middle distance. Allen’s words had cut through her like barbed wire in her veins, exposing her very worst fears. ‘I’ll have you taken into care.’ ‘I’ll tell all the things I know about you.’ She didn’t doubt that he would.

How long she sat there she couldn’t tell, but after a while a massive, body-shaking sob arose in her chest and she crumbled, prostrate on her bedclothes and weeping into her hands until they were quite as wet as they had been when she was caught in the rain yesterday. She felt as wretched as she had when her dad had died: Allen’s poisonous words made her miss him more than ever.

She didn’t risk going into the bathroom that night, and she certainly didn’t want to go down and make herself any dinner. Even before it was dark, she was underneath her duvet, sometimes crying, sometimes shivering, sometimes just lying there in shocked exhaustion, listening for footsteps up the stairs. But they did not come.

The evening passed with excruciating slowness. Sleep would be impossible until her mum got back, of that she was sure. When she finally heard the door opening it was with a surge of relief and yet she felt a slight lurch in her stomach when she realized in an instant that it didn’t really change things. All she wanted to do, though, was to see her mum, to have her put her arms around her and kiss her goodnight. A hug – it wasn’t much to ask. She slipped out of bed and, remembering Allen’s words about walking around in next to nothing, pulled on a jumper and her dressing gown before creeping downstairs.

It was not until she was in the kitchen that she was able to distinguish the murmur of the grown-ups’ voices from the babble of the television. She held her breath and stood with her back against the wall next to the door – unseen and unheard – so that she could determine if it was a good moment to walk in. Her mum was speaking, and Sadie immediately recognized a slur in her voice that told her she had been drinking. The little girl strained her ears to hear what she was saying.

Jackie was rambling. ‘It was only a couple of voddies. Ray from up the road – you know Ray, him with the white beard and the Rottie on a lead – was in, bought us a drink. They’re good like that down there, always someone to stand you a drink. I know most of them, course, from before.’ Jackie sounded carefree, as though she had been enjoying herself. ‘Don’t worry,’ – her voice was suddenly heavy with mock exaggeration – ‘they won’t dock my pay or nothing.’

‘I don’t give a fuck about the money,’ Allen replied quietly. ‘I told you I didn’t want you drinking any more. You stink of it.’

‘Oh, c’mon, it was only a couple of voddies,’ Jackie repeated. There was the rustle of movement on the sofa. ‘I’m sorry about last night, love. I didn’t mean to make you so cross. Why don’t you let us make it up to you?’ Her voice had suddenly turned almost kittenish, wheedling, as if she was trying to talk him into something. Sadie was not so naïve that she didn’t understand what was going on, and the sound of her mum making advances of that type to Allen made her feel nauseous. She didn’t want to hear any more, yet somehow she couldn’t drag herself away.

‘Your breath stinks of tabs,’ was the only reply Allen gave her.

‘Never mind that, eh?’ her mum breathed. ‘You ain’t hardly touched me since you moved in. You don’t have to be shy, you know. I won’t bite.’ Her voice was husky now, but there was something about the way her words drunkenly ran into each other that made her sound faintly pitiful.

‘Get away from me,’ Allen snapped. ‘I’m not fucking interested. Can’t you get that into your thick, ugly head?’

Before Jackie could cajole him any further, Sadie heard the unmistakable sound of someone getting up from the sofa and approaching the door. She panicked, spinning around to look towards the stairs and work out if she could get there before she was caught eavesdropping, but it was too late. Before she could move, Allen was there, standing above her.

‘You little…’ he whispered as his eyes narrowed. Then he smiled unpleasantly and raised his voice. ‘Hey, Jackie, look at this.’ Her mum appeared at the door. ‘Not quite the fucking angel you think she is, eh? Listening in on us – listening in on you making a fucking fool of yourself.’ He shot Sadie a warning glance, as if to say ‘I told you so’, and then disappeared upstairs.

Sadie didn’t watch him go. She turned to her mum with outstretched arms and teary eyes, hoping to receive the hug that she had been aching for all night. But before she knew it, her mum was bending down, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her like a rag doll. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Sadie?’ she shrieked, all restraint dissolved by the alcohol in her system. ‘Why the hell are you listening in on us?’

Sadie tried to speak, but all that came out was a breathless whimper.

‘You’re just a kid, Sadie.’ Her mum was raving mad now. ‘You shouldn’t be listening in to grown-ups’ stuff that you don’t understand.’

Jackie had stopped shaking her daughter now, but she was still bending down. Sadie looked directly into her mum’s face. Jackie was embarrassed; of that her daughter was sure. Ashamed of what Sadie had heard her say. Then, through her tears, Sadie looked closer and for the first time was shocked to see a bruise to the side of her left eye. She wanted to ask her where it had come from, but now Jackie was shouting at her again, breathing the smell of booze over her as she did so. ‘You can be so selfish sometimes, Sadie. A naughty little girl. Get to your room now, and I don’t want to catch you doing this again.’

At first Sadie didn’t move, but then her mum started screaming even louder, and she found herself running quickly up the stairs, slamming the door to her bedroom and retreating once more under the duvet.

Two minutes later, she heard Jackie stumbling drunkenly upstairs, and then the house fell silent.

Silent, apart from the sound of a small girl crying all the tears that were in her, feeling more desperate, more filled with self-doubt and more alone than she had ever done before.

Chapter Six

Sadie left the house at six o’clock the next morning, before anyone else was up. As soon as the door clicked behind her, she ran down the pathway and along the street in case the noise awoke her mum or Allen and she was summoned back into the house. There was hardly anybody about on the estate, and once she stopped running she realized that there was a chill in the air – the sun had not been long up, and although the sky was blue, it would be a while before she felt warmth on her skin. She headed straight for the playground without even thinking, and sat on the swings, waiting for Anna and Carly to show up.

But Anna and Carly didn’t come.

She had known it was going to be embarrassing to see her friends this morning after the awkwardness yesterday, but she ached to see them, to laugh and joke with them and try to forget about all the stuff that was going on at home. She had even prepared herself to apologize. But as it became increasingly obvious that they had arranged to meet elsewhere, Sadie started to feel the hot prickle of shame and solitude; she left it until the very last minute before making her way into school.

By the time she arrived at the classroom, the teacher had already started the lesson and all the pupils were sitting down.

Only half hearing the teacher’s reprimand, she glanced to the back of the room, where Carly and Anna were together, but they studiously ignored her. Feeling her cheeks redden, Sadie took a seat at the only space available – by herself.

The teacher droned on and Sadie neither heard nor cared what he said. When the bell rang, she packed her things up slowly, giving her friends the chance to come up to her and chat; instead, they walked straight past her and out into the corridor. Sadie felt the familiar sensation of tears filling her eyes, but she knew better than to cry in front of her classmates, so she fought it back and walked alone to Miss Venables’ English lesson, where again she found herself sitting alone at the front.

‘All right, ladies and gentlemen,’ Miss Venables called briskly above the hubbub when everyone was sitting down. ‘Reading books open at page twenty, please.’

Without thinking, Sadie pulled her book out of her satchel and placed it on the desk in front of her. The spine fell open on account of the crumpled pages, which for some reason looked a lot worse now than they had done the night before. Miss Venables noticed the state of Sadie’s book immediately.

‘Er, Sadie Burrows,’ she said, her voice not quite so loud now but certainly audible to the rest of the class. ‘What have you been doing to your book?’

Sadie looked guiltily down at the damage Allen had done. ‘Nothing, miss,’ she mumbled.

Miss Venables picked the book up from her table and held it up between her thumb and forefinger. ‘This doesn’t look like nothing to me, Sadie.’ It was a reprimand, but it was kindly spoken in the way that only Miss Venables could manage.

There were a few giggles from the class behind her, and Sadie felt her skin redden again. ‘What d’you do to it, Sadie?’ a voice called out. ‘Use it to wipe your—’

‘That’s enough!’ Miss Venables said sharply, and the class quietened down again. She laid the book back down on Sadie’s table and said, under her breath, ‘Don’t let it happen again, Sadie.’

The rest of the lesson passed without incident. When it finished, Sadie left quickly, so as to avoid having any further conversation with Miss Venables about the book, and went straight out to the playground for breaktime. Anna and Carly had made it impossible for her to approach them, she decided, by the way they had been ignoring her. It was up to them to make up with her. But from the way they had positioned themselves at the far side of the playground, it didn’t look as if that was part of their plan. So Sadie found a place away from everyone else, laid her satchel on the ground and sat down, clutching her knees with her arms. At first she started watching what was going on in the playground, but after only a few moments everything became an unseen blur as her mind concentrated on all the things that were preoccupying her.

She didn’t want to go home. She couldn’t bear to. The thought of being in the same house as Allen – let alone the same room – was horrible to her. It made her muscles clench and her stomach churn; it made her thoughts become confused and jumbled. Now Mum was never there, and even when she was she took his side all the time. If she told her the things he had said to her, she’d never believe her anyway. The image of the bruise on the side of Mum’s face flashed into her mind. It was perfectly obvious to Sadie where it came from, and she knew that she couldn’t leave Mum to that sort of treatment. She was too weak; she’d never survive it.

But what could she do? She was only thirteen.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a small voice. Shaking herself from her reverie, she looked round to see Jamie Brown, standing alone and awkward, a couple of metres away. The smell of his dirty clothes hit her, but she was used to that by now. He looked nervous – more nervous than normal – and Sadie suddenly remembered the way he had walked away from her yesterday. With everything else that was going on, Jamie’s troubles had barely entered her head. She forced her lips into a thin smile.

‘All right, Jamie?’

Jamie nodded, his wide, bloodshot eyes fixed firmly on Sadie. ‘Um, sorry,’ he said.

‘Forget about it,’ Sadie told him.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘It’s me birthday,’ he blurted out, blushing as he spoke.

Sadie felt a pang of renewed sympathy for the little boy. Jackie had taken her to McDonald’s on her last birthday; she had no doubt that Jamie would not have been treated in any way by his mum. She smiled at him. ‘Sit down, birthday boy,’ she said, indicating the ground next to her.

They appeared to come from nowhere. Before Jamie could sit down, he was suddenly rushed at from one side by a tall, lanky ginger-haired boy who pushed him roughly so that he fell to the ground. Jamie shouted in sudden pain as his hand scraped against the rough tarmac, but his cry was soon drowned by the jeering shrieks of his sudden assailants.

‘Gross!’ one of them shouted out. ‘You fucking touched him!’

Two other voices howled with laughter as the ginger-haired boy grinned at them. Sadie looked up at the gang. There were three of them, a little older than she was and quite a bit older than Jamie, and they started taunting him with chants, which he must have been used to by now.

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