Cath Staincliffe - Crying Out Loud

I was still amazed and very grateful that he had agreed to look after her while I went to the prison.

‘Like the outfit.’ He nodded at Jamie’s stripes.

‘My new range,’ I said. ‘We need to get her some more clothes. She was sick over her spare set. They might have some in the charity shops.’

He gave a sigh. ‘Anything else?’

‘No, that’s all. If you can’t find any, text me and I’ll call somewhere on my way back.’ There was a Children’s World in Ancoats en route from the prison.

‘When’s your meeting?’ He buttered toast.

‘Nine thirty. I can take them first.’ I nodded at Maddie and Tom, who were trying to get Jamie to talk.

‘And when will you be back?’

I began to clear the table. ‘Say about one to be on the safe side. There’s often a lot of waiting about.’

I was fibbing, buying time so I could fit in a bit more work before taking over from Ray. It was fair to assume that he wouldn’t be prepared to look after the baby any more; he’d only agreed because it was an appointment I couldn’t reschedule. I’m a lousy liar so the table clearing meant I could avoid his eyes and mask any increase of colour in my cheeks.

‘I want to hold her,’ Maddie said.

‘Does she like Crispies?’ Tom asked Ray.

‘No, she’s too little. Just baby milk for now,’ Ray told him.

Jamie gave a gummy grin and Tom yelled with laughter.

‘You two: do your teeth and get your bags ready,’ I said.

‘When’s she going home?’ Maddie asked. ‘Can she stay the weekend?’

‘We’ll see.’

When the children had gone upstairs, Ray stooped and picked Jamie up. He ran his hand across her head, stroked her baby quiff then cradled her skull in his palm. I loved the sight of them like that: the baby so tiny next to him, his easy confidence as a carer; Ray’s dark curls, the stubble peppering his jaw, his moustache contrasting with the baby’s soft smooth skin.

‘What if the mother shows up while you’re out?’

‘Get her to call me.’ I thought again. ‘No, I can’t take my mobile in with me. Don’t let her leave without a good explanation. I want to know who she is and where the fire was. And it had better be good!’ I tried for jokey but he wasn’t amused. As for me, the night had taken its toll and I was becoming more edgy about the baby.

Driving towards Strangeways later that morning to see Damien Beswick, I reran my visit to his sister Chloe, almost a week earlier. She had been my first port of call once I’d agreed to look into the case for Libby.

Chloe worked on the tills at the big Asda supermarket in Wythenshawe but was at home when I called her on the phone to arrange a meeting. At first she seemed to think I was offering to run the campaign for her brother’s release. It took me a couple of goes to explain who I was and my role in it all. Chloe spoke quickly with a flat Mancunian accent, tinged with the cultural twang that the nation’s urban youth seemed to have copied wholesale from young black kids.

‘Yo better come ’n see us, then. Yo got the address?’

Leeson Close was on the council estate to the north of Wythenshawe Park. Taking the road which skirted the park, in the shade of the large forest trees, I spotted more signs of autumn. The silver birch leaves were already yellowing and the big bunch-of-five leaves on the chestnuts were curling and crisping. Many of the chestnuts were sick, their familiar conkers not developing and there was talk of a virus, like Dutch elm disease, at work. It was a still, bleak day. Clouds grey as dirty linen muffled the sky and the threat of rain hung brassy in the air.

Chloe’s house was a simple semi-detached, brick built, dating from the post-war years. It had been refurbished with double-glazed windows in stubby plastic frames and a new roof. The front garden was tarmacked and a lone black and white wagon wheel, like a prop from a pioneer western, leant against the front wall; the only adornment.

Chloe opened the door with a baby on one hip and a toddler at her side. She led me into the living room, placed the baby on a play mat and told the toddler, a little girl in pink tights and a purple dress, to watch the telly. A Charlie and Lola cartoon was on and the child settled happily on her tummy a few inches from the screen, her chin on her hands, angled up at the telly. It was a flat screen with a group of dodgy pixels at the left-hand side and a yellow cast to the colours.

The room was cool and sparsely furnished. A shiny sofa slumped against the back wall and there was a bamboo coffee table and in one corner a PVC box of toys.

The kitchen was off the sitting room and Chloe left the door open so she could hear the children. She didn’t offer me a drink, as most people would do, but sat and waited for me to talk.

Chloe had incredibly pale skin, almost translucent, and large pale ginger freckles across her forehead and cheeks. She wore thin black eyeliner which made her look hard, mean even, and pink frosted lipstick. Dressed in a close-fitting navy vest and trackie bottoms, with an open zip-up hoodie in red, she had painted her nails to match her lips but her fingers were stained nicotine yellow. A tattoo of a butterfly nestled in the hollow of her throat. She toyed with a throwaway lighter.

‘Tell me about Damien.’ An open-ended question to get her started.

‘He’s my half-brother: same dad, different mam. He came to live with us when he was about eleven. She’d gone off the rails, his mam.’

I looked at her for more.

‘Druggie.’ She shrugged. ‘She did some time. Damien never went back.’ She turned the lighter over and over, marking time to the story.

‘Is she still around?’

‘Nah. She went down south, someplace. No one knows how to find her. She dun’t know he’s inside, prob’ly dun’t care. Damien breathes trouble – he’s no sense. Not wicked just… dense, innit.’

I kept my face straight at the ‘innit’, though it always sounded such a parody to me after being lampooned by so many comedians. Would Maddie start using it when she reached her teens? Or the equivalent slang for her time? No doubt.

‘We had the police round day an’ night. Robbin’, dealin’, burglary, possession. Gets to the point where my dad kicks him out for good.’

As a character reference it was pretty damning. ‘How long ago?’

She watched the lighter, took a breath and calculated. ‘Six years. He was fifteen, I was twelve.’ Which made her eighteen now – and the mother of two.

‘Damien was getting well out of order. And there was the little ones: I’ve twin sisters. And me mam – she’s had enough of him.’

There was a clunking sound, a hiss of static; the light went off and the sound of the telly cut out. The toddler began to cry.

‘All right, babes,’ Chloe yelled out, ‘just the lecky. We’ll go to the shop in a bit, yeah?’ She turned to me, her face flat and drained of emotion. ‘Fiver doesn’t last five minutes in this thing.’

‘They reckon it’s the most expensive way to pay,’ I said.

‘They’re right there, innit.’

‘So Damien was already well known to the police?’ I said. ‘And did he get into more trouble?’

‘All the time, ’cos of the drugs. But low level, you know? Least till last year but by then he was using a lot of coke and it wasn’t doing him any good. If he could only have kicked that…’ She left the sentence unfinished.

‘And when he confessed to the murder?’ I asked her.

She shook her head. ‘I din’t believe it. He’s not a hard man. He’s never been done for assault, let alone aggravated.’ I knew the jargon – ‘aggravated’ meant a weapon was involved. ‘Damien never got into fights. Too busy fighting himself.’