Bones in the Nest Read Free

that the police will be called. Chloe gets up and shuts the window. As she gets back into bed, she reaches for the radio she got this morning on the market. It plugs into the mains, so she can have it on all night.
    Under the quilt a DJ’s voice joins her. He introduces a guy called Jimmy Page and together they tell a story about Jimmy Page’s mystery guitar. The DJ and Jimmy must know the story, but the DJ’s asking questions to make sure Jimmydoesn’t miss bits out. She listens carefully to see if Jimmy sounds like he means what he’s saying, or whether he’s just going through the motions. It’s a special skill when someone’s asking you about stuff you’ve said a thousand times before. She’s an expert in it. Panels and boards and psychologists and governors. She’s been over the same things again and again with them.
    The guitar is in the house when Jimmy Page is growing up. It doesn’t belong to anyone and he doesn’t know how it got there. He sees someone playing a Lonnie Donegan tune at school, and he wants to be able to do that. He goes home to get the guitar and the rest …
    She doesn’t hear the rest. She wakes up later and there’s a woman talking. The music is different. She switches the radio off and puts it on the floor, carefully. Behind her closed eyes, Jimmy Page and the spaceman dance together, silhouetted against a huge Hollywood moon.
     
    Chloe wakes in a light-filled room. For a moment, she thinks she must have taken an extra tablet. She can’t focus, can’t snap out of the heavy, sweat-damp sleep of messy dreams. The sun is pouring through the glass, cooking up the air. She remembers closing the window to keep the noise out, but now it smells of the trapped odour of all the other women who have slept here before her. She pushes the quilt off and peels her damp T-shirt away from her belly, flapping it to cool her skin. The display on her phone reads ten-twenty. Confused, it takes a moment to sink in that this is ten-twenty in the morning; she’s slept for eleven hours. She leans over and reaches for the bottle of water she filled from the tap lastnight. It’s blood heat, but she swills it around her mouth and swallows it anyway.
    Finally she swings her legs round and sits up, dizzy for a moment. She takes the can of Icy Mist body spray from the top of the bedside locker and sprays a long burst, coughing as the droplets drift back towards her and sting her throat. She bought it yesterday in Boots. On her way to the till, she browsed the lipstick testers, inhaling the greasy sweetness that took her right back to her childhood, watching her mum get ready for work. Don’t touch me! You’ll mess up my face. She left the lipsticks on their stand and paid one ninety-nine for the own-brand body spray.
    She moves on shaky legs to the window and opens it again, letting a puff of warm air into the room. A bus is pulling up outside. There’s something she has to remember. Her link worker mentioned it yesterday. A trip out, did she want to come? A trip into the city centre, on the bus, or they could walk, it would depend on the weather. Meet at ten-thirty. She looks at her watch. Ten twenty-eight. Shit. She drops the curtain and pulls off the T-shirt, sprays her body all over and grovels in her bag for a clean pair of knickers. No time for socks. She pulls her canvas pumps over sticky feet. In two minutes she’ll be ready.
    The girl in the office is wearing a pale pink dress over black leggings. Her shoes are tiny sandals, covered in pink sequins, as if she’s going to a party, not on a sightseeing trip. She tells Chloe that she’s waiting for a couple more and then they’ll set off, and she might as well sit in the garden until they’re ready, since it’s so hot. Chloe wishes she’d made more effort to remember the girl’s name. Shecan’t ask her now. It will make her sound stupid.
    The garden at Meredith House is more like a yard, surrounded by an old brick wall. Someone’s filled a