Damaged Goods. Helen Black

      The main obstacle, of course, was Mrs Mitchell. She may be poisonous but Lilly doubted she would have made the whole thing up, which meant Kelsey was undoubtedly at the flats the night Grace was killed. She swallowed the remaining chocolate whole and dialled Miriam’s number.

      ‘Kelsey was there the night her mother was killed.’

      ‘You’re sure?’ Miriam asked.

      Lilly thumbed the police statement, leaving brown smudges that she tried to scrape away with her nail. ‘She was seen by one of the neighbours.’

      ‘That doesn’t mean she killed Grace,’ said Miriam.

      ‘No, but it does mean she might have seen who did,’ Lilly replied.

      ‘You know what else it means.’

      Lilly did. She closed her eyes and pictured a fourteen-year- old watching while her mother’s dead body was cut to ribbons.

      She arranged to meet Miriam the following evening and went back to the case papers. The idea of Kelsey as a witness to the murder was horrible, but better than the alternative. Maybe when Kelsey was less traumatised she’d be able to help the police, and with some therapy there might still be some hope of a foster placement for her. Somewhere she could feel safe and rebuild her life. Things didn’t have to turn out badly.

      Feeling positive, Lilly placed the papers back into their file one by one. Suddenly her eyes widened and she gasped at the remaining document on the table. The handwriting was poor and the grammar worse but there was no mistaking what it was. Lilly was reading a letter written by Kelsey to her mother, threatening to cut her into pieces.

       CHAPTER FOUR

       Thursday, 10 September

      The next morning Lilly dressed in a navy blue wool suit. The sun was shining and Lilly was hot but she had a meeting with the pathologist at eleven and needed to boost her confidence. Experience had taught her that looking the part helped her to feel the part.

      She had given up even trying to sleep at 4 a.m. and had instead paced the kitchen, alternately drinking red wine and rereading Kelsey’s letter.

      She looked every bit as terrible as she felt and the suit was already starting to itch.

      She scraped back her hair from her face and secured it in a tight knot at the nape of her neck.

      ‘I like your hair better the other way, Mummy,’ said Sam.

      ‘I like a lot of things I don’t get,’ Lilly snapped.

      ‘I only meant you look prettier with it loose.’

      Lilly turned to apologise but Sam had already gone outside and was standing by the car.

      The drive to school was torture. Lilly tried to make the peace but her attempts were rebuffed.

      ‘I’m sorry I was grumpy, big man, but I’m very tired,’ said Lilly.

      Sam refused to face her. ‘You’re always tired.’

      ‘I’m working very hard at the moment, trying to help a little girl whose mummy died.’

      Sam’s expression said it all. He didn’t care about the girl or any of the other children his mother was always talking about, and he didn’t want to share her with them.

      ‘Nothing will ever be as important to me as you. You know that, don’t you?’ Lilly said.

      Sam chose not to answer and collected his bags together to get out of the car.

      ‘Maybe I could leave early tonight and we could do something nice. How about a movie?’

      Sam reached for the handle before the car had even come to a stop. ‘Last time your phone rang three times, and when the man behind told you to turn it off you had fallen asleep.’

      ‘What do you want me to do, Sam?’

      He said nothing but watched Penny Van Huysan approach the car, her linen shift complementing a healthy tan and an athletic figure. Was the woman having an affair with her tennis coach?

      At last he turned to Lilly. ‘I want you to be like the other mums.’

      Penny waved. ‘You haven’t forgotten coffee this morning, have you?’

      Lilly looked at Sam’s forlorn expression.

      ‘Of course not,’ she said.

      * * *

      Hermione Barrows chooses her outfit with care. A black jacket, sharply tailored and begging to be taken seriously, over the crispest of white shirts. She has been taught from a young age that appearance matters. Her mother had almost bankrupted her father with her endless shopping trips for clothes and her demands for bigger cars and holidays in far-flung islands where they would all be bored senseless.

      When it became clear Hermione wouldn’t have children her mother didn’t ask why, didn’t actually care, but advised her to give the impression she’d at least tried.

      ‘Say you love kids but it wasn’t meant to be,’ she said. ‘People don’t trust women who don’t like babies.’

      Yes, Hermione’s mother would have made a fantastic campaign manager.

      Hermione drapes a silk scarf around her neckline to soften the edges and pick up the aqua flecks in her eyes. The clothes say everything she wants to project. She’s a tough politician but at the same time human. A no-nonsense woman of the people.

      The previous evening, at a local party meeting, she had given a rousing speech on law and order and called for the police to investigate the death of Kelsey’s mother. William is right, this is an opportunity she can’t afford to miss.

      ‘We cannot allow lawlessness to take over the streets of this constituency,’ she’d announced. ‘The police must take all crimes seriously, no matter how insignificant the victim seems, and this includes Grace Brand.’

      A local reporter had recorded every word and Hermione had been overjoyed to receive invitations to speak on both the local radio and television stations. If both run the story and include her involvement her profile will demand serious attention, maybe from the national press.

      She pulls on kitten-heeled slingbacks and struts downstairs. In the hallway, William is on the telephone. He smiles up at her and she remembers to smile back. He places his palm over the handset. ‘It’s for you.’

      ‘Direct it to Nancy, darling, my media need me,’ she says with a laugh. Nancy Donaldson will have to tear herself away from the nail bar today. Hermione’s parliamentary assistant is going to have an unusually busy day.

      ‘It is Nancy. She’s had a call from central office,’ William says.

      Hermione snatches the telephone from him. Today is going to be a very good day.

      The table was laden with croissants, pastries and preserves, but Lilly noticed that she was the only one actually eating. A cursory glance at the other women who sipped their black coffees told her that she alone weighed more than nine stone. She helped herself to butter and smiled at them. No doubt they didn’t have raging hangovers to quell.

      ‘Have you gone part-time?’ asked Luella Wignall, the mother of Cecily, who Sam always referred to as ‘Onion Face’.

      Lilly assumed Luella was smiling but it was so difficult to tell. Whatever her facial expression, Luella’s mouth always turned down at the ends like a cross between Cherie Blair and the Joker from Batman.

      ‘Afraid not, but my first meeting’s not until eleven, so here I am,’ Lilly said.

      ‘And we’re all very glad to see you,’ said Penny Van Huysan.

      ‘Where do you have to be at eleven?’