The Memory of Blood(39)

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Longbright, thinking, You should see my flat. I haven’t tidied the place up since Liberty died.

The house smelled of stale fried food. It had been lived in too long with the windows sealed. Rose Marquand was younger than Longbright had expected. Her dyed auburn hair had been newly permed, and as Longbright studied the pyjama-clad figure seated before her, she suspected there was little wrong with Anna’s mother apart from obesity and a desire to be waited on.

‘I was reliant on my daughter for everything,’ said Rose, clearly reluctant to thumb the off switch on her TV remote. ‘I don’t get around to the shops much. The plumbing’s packed up in the other bathroom and I can’t fix it. And the magpies are nicking all my nice seaside stones from the garden. The place is falling down around my ears.’

‘What’s actually wrong with you?’ asked Longbright, nettled.

‘The doctors don’t know. I stay well away from them—they’re no bloody use at all. Anyway, I’ve got Sheena to look after me now.’ I bet they told you to eat less and get some exercise, thought Longbright. You certainly didn’t waste any time replacing your daughter.

‘She seems like a good kid,’ said Rose. ‘They don’t feed her properly at home so she’s staying here.’

‘I understand Anna had trouble with the local youths. What happened?’

‘The Hagan family, they live in the corner house, grandparents, parents, kids and their kids, none of them ever had a job in their life, all on the fiddle, all ex-cons. Ashley Hagan, he’s the oldest boy, he’s the worst. We had our car broken into and the radio nicked, had to get rid of it in the end. And Anna had her phone nicked twice, once from the counter in the kitchen—’

‘You mean someone broke in?’

‘No, she left the back door unlocked by accident. It don’t pay to leave anything unlocked around here.’

‘Did you tell the police?’

‘Yeah, of course, and Anna told them who did it, but they did nothing.’

‘Did she have proof that it was Ashley Hagan?’

‘She didn’t need proof, everyone knows that when someone gets robbed in this street it’s always the Hagans.’

‘The problem is that she would have needed a little more evidence to pursue the matter further,’ Longbright explained. ‘I checked with your local constabulary and they agree the Hagans are most likely involved in much of the crime that goes on in this neighbourhood. But they also get blamed for everything else that happens.’

‘Seems to me the police are on the wrong bloody side.’

‘They’ve conducted raids on the house looking for stolen goods several times in the past, but haven’t found anything.’

‘That’s ’cause the Hagans keep it in a lock-up on the estate.’

‘Do you know that for a fact?’

‘Common knowledge, isn’t it? Ashley found out that my Anna had reported him, and after that she was given a really hard time by the whole family. It was stressing her out. She couldn’t sleep from worry. Then on Monday night she came home and one of them attacked her right on the doorstep.’

‘Did you see them?’

‘No, I was in here. But who else could it be? She had to go right past their house to get home. They’re always hanging around outside. She got her shopping bag back but they’d got her phone again, and her keys. I’ve had to change the locks. Anna hadn’t been feeling well for a couple of days, and this only made her worse.’

‘What happened after she was mugged?’

‘She came in, made some tea and started slicing up bread for toast. You know, for her supper. That’s when she cut herself. She showed me—it was just a little nick on her thumb, that’s all. I told her to stick a plaster on it. The doctor said it was some form of blood poisoning, like I keep a dirty house! That knife had only just come out of the dishwasher.’

Longbright was used to dealing with the fallout of sudden death, but was shocked by Mrs Marquand’s lack of grief. She seemed to be positively thriving on the drama of the tragedy.

‘Blood poisoning can be triggered by preexisting damage in the body’s immune system, Mrs Marquand. Or by some kind of organism that’s already in the blood. I looked at the doctor’s notes. Anna was just very unfortunate.’

‘Why had she been to see you, anyway? Nobody has explained what she was doing at your place.’

‘She was working with my boss. Would it be possible to see Anna’s room? Anna was taking care of certain documents for him, and I’m supposed to return them to the office.’