Page 34 of Her Last Walk Home

‘I’m sorry. How is Davy? Has the chickenpox eased?’

‘Like you care.’

‘He’s your kid, but I am concerned.’

He returned to the sitting room, where he flopped onto the armchair again.

She followed, though she really wanted to remove her make-up, fall into bed and sleep away the thought that someone might have walked home in her shadow.

‘Shannon, you need to get a decent job,’ he said. ‘You spend more than you make and then you spend mine. We have bills, utilities to pay. I’m sick of being the responsible one around here. You swan out to the pub and come back when you feel like it. Where were you last night? I was sure you were that girl they found dead at the cinema. Then you waltz in the next morning without a care in the world.’

‘Told you. I stayed with Karen. But listen, George, I think someone followed me home tonight. I had the weirdest feeling and?—’

‘Nothing to do with being drunk, was it?’

‘Will you stop? I had feck-all to drink.’

‘My online banking tells me different. Shannon, you have a problem. Did you buy drugs tonight? Was all the money I spent on your rehab a waste?’

‘You sound just like Mam used to.’

‘And look what you did toher.’ He jumped up. ‘I didn’t mean that, Shannon. I swear.’

‘But you thought about it enough that it was on the tip of your tongue.’

She edged back into the hall. She felt a lump in her chest. George was right. The strain of her habit had killed their mother. Well, cancer took her in the end, but what Shannon had done while on drugs had to be a cause of the stress she’d suffered. George often reminded her of it, before he became contrite.

‘I’m sorry, sis. Go to bed,’ he said. ‘I’ve to catch up on my work in the morning and I need you to care for Davy.’

She nodded. As she turned to climb the stairs, she thought she saw a shadow move outside, through the glass panel inthe door. Must be the drink, she told herself, but in reality it cemented in her head the idea that she had been followed home.

Upstairs, she abandoned the idea of taking off her make-up. She just wanted to sleep.

30

He was still smarting from the argument with Lottie when he got back to his apartment. His overcrowded apartment. Grace was using his bed. Sergio was asleep in the fold-out bed on the floor. Boyd was consigned to the couch again. Twisting and turning wasn’t going to bring sleep. At two, he got up. He made a sandwich from the chicken carcass he’d cooked the day before.

He could not believe Lottie’s vehemence earlier. What was stoking her fire? Two murders weren’t helping. He got that. Beneath her anger he sensed insecurity. Fear, maybe. But fear of what? Why wouldn’t she talk it out with him?

‘Talking to yourself is the first sign.’

He twirled round on the high stool to see Grace in the bedroom doorway, a red dressing gown tied tightly at her waist.

‘Jesus, you scared the shite out of me, Grace. What is it?’

‘I want to know what has my brother up at two in the morning. It’s Lottie, isn’t it?’

He wasn’t going there with Grace. ‘It was my first day back at work. A young woman was found murdered this morning. Then we found a man murdered this afternoon. I’m overtired.’

‘Ever think of quitting?’

‘Quitting?’ He was horrified. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your job. Give it up, Mark. It’s not good for you, and definitely not good for Sergio.’

He wanted to verbally lash out, to ask what she would know about having a son, but held his tongue. ‘I just needed something to eat. Go back to bed.’

‘You left that chicken out of the fridge. It’s probably reeking of salmonella by now.’

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