“I’ll say summat I shouldn’t if I get involved with the bloody Hatherleys,” she said. “I don’t like my Emma being so friendly with Kiley and her sister, but what can you do when they live so close?”
“Make a cup of tea for yourself and put a slug of whiskey in it,” Mower said, getting to his feet. “I’ll see if I can find out just exactly what went on at lunchtime.”
Closing the flat door behind him he stood for a moment, taking deep breaths of the cold air and gazing unseeingly out at the glittering early evening lights of the town below. From the moment he had arrived with Donna at the Infirmary and been addressed by the harassed nurse as Mr. Maitland while Emma was wheeled into the resuscitation room for urgent treatment, what Donna left unsaid had hammered at his consciousness with much greater clarity than what she actually put into words. Emma needs a father was the message he was getting loud and clear. And with that he could not argue, although he was equally certain that soon he would have to tell Donna very bluntly that he could not be the father she wished Emma had. He was not looking forward to that.
In any case, he doubted the underlying logic behind Donna’s panic: she seemed to believe that none of this would have happened if Emma had a father. Fat chance, he thought. On the Heights, this sort of accident could happen to any child at any time. It was not a safe place to be, and the presence or absence of fathers did not necessarily make much difference to a child’s safety.
He pulled the collar of his fleece up closer round his neck and shivered himself back to the immediate problem, where, he thought wryly, he could at least perform one paternal duty for young Emma and try to find out how she had managed to drink herself unconscious in her school dinner-hour. He ran quickly down the first flight of stairs and made his way to number 18, from where a loud and indeterminate noise seemed to shake the door in its flimsy frame. He knocked a couple of times without response and then banged hard on the kitchen window where he could see the silhouette of someone outlined against the drawn curtains. The noise inside the flat did not diminish but eventually the door was edged open a crack and a woman’s face peered out.
“Mrs. Hatherley? Is young Kiley in?” Mower asked. “Emma Maitland’s mum asked me to come down and talk to her about what happened at lunchtime. She’s very grateful Kiley had the sense to get help. Saved Emma’s life, I reckon.”
“Who are you, any road?” the woman asked, without a flicker of friendliness in her eyes.
“I’m Emma’s uncle,” Mower replied, knowing the codes of the estate. “I just brought Donna back from the Infirmary. They’re keeping Emma in tonight, but she’s OK. No harm done.”
From behind the woman the noise of television or hi-fi, or possibly both, diminished a decibel or so and a male voice could be heard calling angrily for the door to be closed. When the woman did not respond, a volley of curses was followed by the appearance of a large, shaven-headed man in jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt who pushed the woman out of the way and scowled angrily at Mower.
“Yer what?” he asked.
Mower repeated his request to talk to Kiley but met with even less co-operation than he had from the woman he presumed was her mother.
“If I could just ask Kiley a couple of questions. Whether the bloke was black or white, for one. There’s a lad called Ounce …”
“Don’t I know you?” the man broke in aggressively. “You’re the fucking fuzz.”
“No way
“He says he’s Donna’s bloke,” his wife put in tentatively.
“Fuck off, any road,” the man said and slammed the door in Mower’s face. As he turned away he was aware of a child’s pale face watching him with frightened eyes from the kitchen window.
Exasperated by the limitations of being without a warrant card in his pocket, and by the implications of what Kiley’s father had said, Mower leaned over the balcony again, fingering the beard which had not protected him as well as he had hoped. He considering his options which had suddenly become very much more limited than they had been even half an hour before. If he had been half-recognised once, he had no doubt that he might be again and the news that Donna Maitland was seeing a copper would travel round the estate within hours. It would inevitably reach her ears sooner rather than later, only adding to the emotional turmoil she was already in. The news itself would not necessarily upset her, he thought, but the fact that he had deceived her undoubtedly would. The kids at the Project would not greet the revelation with unalloyed joy either, he thought bitterly, as they jumped to the conclusion that he had been spying on them. He pulled out his mobile and called up Dizzy B.
“Where are you, mate?” Mower asked.
“Waitin’ for you in the pub like you said. It’s been a bloody long wait, man.”
“Do one thing for me will you?” Mower asked. “Those kids you were talking to with Laura Ackroyd. See if they know who got Emma Maitland pissed out of her head this lunchtime. Someone must have seen something, and if I know anything about the Heights, no one will tell me. My cover may be blown - such as it is - and I’ve got some things to sort out with Donna.”
“Sounds like bad news,” Dizzy said. “Give me an hour, right?”
“Right. And Dizzy. Ask them if it was an accident, will you? Or if someone’s got it in for Donna. That’s the really scary thought, OK?”
As Mower walked slowly back up the stairs to Donna’s flat he was surprised to hear voices he recognised on the landing above. Taking the last few steps two at a time he found Laura Ackroyd helping her grandmother slowly along the walkway. They turned in alarm at the sound of his footsteps and laughed in relief when they recognised him.
“You made us jump,” Joyce said cheerfully. “You won’t find me up here after dark as a rule. But I wanted to see Donna and find out how Emma’s doing.”
“She’s fine, thank God,” Mower said. “The doctors said it was a good job she was sick or it could have been much worse.”
“How did she get hold of the booze. Was it her mother’s?” Laura asked cautiously.
“No, it bloody wasn’t.” Mower’s response was angry enough to startle the two women. “Some idiot gave it to them apparently, but the other girl didn’t like it so Emma drank the lion’s share.”
“How old is she?” Laura asked.
“Eight,” Mower said, his anger suddenly out of control. “Booze at eight! What do they get for their ninth birthday on this god-forsaken estate? A shot of heroin? When do they start pulling the bloody place down, because it can’t be soon enough for me.”
“Well, that’s a sore point, too,” Joyce said. “You could get rid of the drink and the drugs without pulling the whole community apart and punishing us all. And I do mean you, Kevin. We might as well be on the moon, I sometimes think, for all the attention we get from the police.”
“Come on, Nan, I don’t think this is the time or the place …” Laura began but Mower took hold of her arm urgently.
“I’d be grateful if you didn’t link me to the police when you talk to Donna. She’s going to have to know very soon, but I’d rather tell her myself.”
Laura looked at the sergeant curiously.
“Unravelling, is it, your cover?”
“No comment,” he said sharply. “Tell Donna I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I’ve some things to do. OK?”
“Fine,” Laura said, taking her grandmother’s arm again. “We’ll keep her company till you get back.”
Later Laura drove her grandmother the short distance from Priestley House to the small bungalow, one of the row perched on the brow of the hill overlooking the town. Laura had never thought of the tiny properties as in any way “desirable” in estate agents’ terms, but on a clear night, with the view across the town in the valley below sparkling like a scatter of jewelled necklaces thrown carelessly down on black velvet, she suddenly saw the potential of the site through Councillor Dave Spencer’s - and his developer friends’ - eyes and knew with a depressing certainty that Joyce and her elderly neighbours would not win their battle to stay put.