Tuesday Falling Read Free Page B

part of the station, although I have to fill it with water from a stand-pipe in the running tunnel. Really, It’s more home-y than home ever was.
    I’ve got other cribs in other stations for other things, scattered all across London … I don’t like to have all my eggs in one basket in case one of them breaks.
    There’s three ways out of this crib, so I feel OK. Any less and I start getting jittery. I set the alarms, tune the laptop to the
World Service,
and lie down in my cot. I stare at the fairy lights sparkling above me, their little twinklings reflected in the millions of tiny dust particles that are no doubt poisoning my lungs. The computer is all news speak. Fucked-up country this. Fucked up climate that. All happening in a world I’m so separate from, it might as well be made up. I tune out and just lie here, looking at the tiny porcelain tiles that make up the ceiling. Honestly, it must have taken them years to fit all those bricks in. Why did they do it? Why did they make the bricks so small? And where did they make them? I can’t think of an answer so I stop thinking about it, and just lie here, breathing in and out.
    Like I’m alive.
    That’s about it really.
    Lights out. Night-night.

11
    Even from the doorway where he and DS Stone are standing, DI Loss can tell the girl has been messed over good and proper. She’s got that gaunt look of someone who’s lost weight suddenly: skin too tight and eyes too big. Like a cancer victim, or someone who’s undergone extreme circumstances. War. Famine. Or, he thinks sadly, someone who’s been repeatedly raped and beaten and no longer sees her body as an ally.
    They are shown into the living room. It is a rectangular box identical in structure to thousands of other rectangular boxes the DI has been shown into over the years. The mother has tried to personalize it with pictures and paint, furniture and rugs, but to Loss’s mind it’s still a rabbit hutch on a sink estate that might as well be a prison.
    The mother is staring hard at them, her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Protecting her. Pouring strength into her. Neither of them wants him here. Or his DS. He can tell that from their faces. He can see that from their posture. Have to be blind not to. What he can’t tell is why. It could be that, after the attack, the police were brutish and unsympathetic. They often are where rape is concerned. In some police circles, rape is just another word for ‘changed her mind’. Not in all. Much better than it used to be, but some. It could be that, mother and daughter have simply had enough, and want to shut themselves away and heal, or try to heal, and they, the police, are just a reminder of past horrors. It could be all these things and more besides. Loss had noticed a strange expression on the daughter’s face when she’d first caught sight of him. Almost guilt. And that furtive look at her laptop? The DI doesn’t know what to make of it, so decides to make nothing of it and get on with why he is here. He leans forward in his chair.
    ‘I’m sorry to disturb you this morning, Mrs Lorne, Lily, but I’ve got some information possibly relating to your, er …’ He is at a loss what to say. Sitting here in this tidy small flat with its touches of humanity, even using the word ‘rape’ seems to invite an evil that doesn’t belong in this place. He can see the mother’s hand whiten as she squeezes the daughter’s shoulder.
    ‘We heard it on the radio, Inspector …?’ The mother wants his name again. Even though he’s told her. Wants to keep control. He doesn’t blame her.
    ‘Loss.’
    ‘Inspector Loss, all I can say is those animals got everything they deserve.’ The mother’s face is flushed high with anger, and the daughter is staring at her hands. Loss notices she has bitten her nails down to such an extent that the skin has been chewed and the end of each finger is raw and bloody.
    ‘I’m sorry to have to ask, Mrs Lorne, but because of the