Deviant (19 page)

She knew these people now. One of them was dead. Two were mysteries.

Then she remembered the iPhone.

Snatching it from her bag, she keyed in the pin number and scrolled through the list of contacts until she found Stick’s name. He was supposed to be her closest friend. Maybe he had some of her things. Or at least she could try talking to him about what had happened here.

“Is that Matthew?” she asked in as good an American accent as she could pull off. She didn’t want to be recognized.

“No. It’s his father.”

“Oh, is he there please?”

“No. I haven’t seen him in three days.”

“Really?”

“Nothing unusual.” Mr. Howard’s voice was surprisingly calm. “If you do see him, tell him I’ve washed my hands of him. I understand he’s going through a hard time. We all are. But until he seeks my help and takes responsibility, I won’t be bothered. Will you tell him that?”

Abigail opened her mouth to try to respond.

The line went dead.

A
BIGAIL NEEDED MONEY FOR
the taxi. She hadn’t changed her remaining pounds into dollars yet. She felt bad doing this, but helped herself to $50 from the stash in a jar on top of the fridge. She’d repay it later.

She didn’t have the address of the house, and it was getting dark, so it was difficult to remember how to get there. The taxi
driver’s patience wore thin as she squinted for landmarks and gave instructions: “This exit, here, quick … This way, no, no, turn left. Right at the lights!” She asked him to wait, but he drove off as soon as she handed over the money.

Night had now fallen completely. The street light had been smashed out in front of the ramshackle house, or
Headquarters
as they called it—by Stick and Becky in all probability. In the shadows, Abigail crept over the gate, along the side of the house, and into the back garden. The back door was locked. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn. Feeling around the gravelly ground with her hands, Abigail found a stone that was large enough. Holding her breath, she smashed the kitchen window.

A dog barked in the yard next door. No alarm sounded. She crouched, waited. The barking stopped. Thank God; no one had heard. Reaching inside, she felt for the snub on the kitchen door, opened it, and crept inside.

It was nearly pitch black. She wished she’d thought ahead and brought an electric torch. Not wanting to turn on the lights, she shambled around the kitchen, hands out before her, and swept surfaces until she found the cooker. The flame on the gas hob came on after three clicks, enough light for her to find a candle in the cupboard underneath the filthy sink. She lit it, and turned off the gas.

The hall was empty except for a few leaflets scattered on the grotty carpet. The bedrooms were bare, too. The living room, once a mess of papers and paint supplies, had been stripped and cleared of its furniture, just like Becky’s bedroom.

Wait. A noise. What was that? Did someone cough? Was it the dog?

Abigail stopped still in the hall, shielding the light of her candle flame with her hand. She held her breath. Had she imagined it? She counted to twenty, slowly. Imagination was the enemy. She tiptoed, candle flickering before her, to the cupboard under the stairs. The lock was broken now. The door creaked as Abigail pushed it fully ajar. She moved a shaky hand inside the dark cupboard and watched as the weak candle lit the space. The box where Becky had stashed the money and her mother’s photocopied letter was gone.

But the rectangular box they’d carried in from the van together wasn’t. It was still covered in the blanket, untouched. Lifting the blanket slowly, she gasped.

The box was made of oak. It looked like a small trunk, or …

The lid was engraved with an image: two large birds, flying.

The chest
.

Abigail stopped breathing. The house went silent. There was only her heart, thumping under her ribs.

Nieve’s chest of special things. Here. Now. In this place.

She covered her hand with her mouth. Her fingertips were trembling. In her other hand the candle flickered. Was she seeing things? How could that chest be in
this
cupboard? No, no, no … Abigail’s breath came fast, terrified, as she felt for the chain around her neck. Nieve had given her the key.
Seven years ago
. Her father must have hidden the chest from Becky. Or not even hidden; as far as Becky was concerned, the chest was just another piece of junk in the attic. She’d probably never
given a second thought to its significance. Why would she, if Grahame had lied? She’d only thought to grab an empty trunk, only when she needed storage space.

But there was no point in guessing about Becky. The chest meant that Nieve knew where Becky was, and that Nieve had kept her a secret from Abigail. When did Nieve send the chest overseas? The same day that she’d given Abigail the key, lying on her bed in the trailer, dying? “
Take this. Keep it with you. I don’t have anything else to give you.”
Those were Nieve’s last words, pretty much. Until now, Abigail had always thought they were strange and wasted words. She’d always thought that Nieve might have said something more meaningful, more beautiful.

Abigail swallowed, her throat tight. She propped the candle against the door. It flickered into the wood. She felt for the clasp of the chain. She needed the key. Where was the small lever to undo it?
There
. Was that—

The candle toppled.
Shite
. The carpet was burning.

In a panic, she started pounding the smoldering carpet with her bare hands.
Damn it
. The flame died, but not before it singed her.

Tinkling. Footsteps on broken glass.

Panic turned to terror. Her imagination hadn’t betrayed her, after all. She jumped to her feet. The noise had come from the kitchen. Someone was in the house. She tiptoed through the hall, stood behind the kitchen door, and peered through the crack with one eye. The back door was open. A dark figure was running across the back yard and jumping the fence.

Abigail bolted in the opposite direction—out the front door onto the street.

She didn’t stop running until she reached a brightly lit bodega. A bunch of teenage boys stood in front of the door. Hoodies, bagged beers, drawn faces. They stared at her as she breathlessly called a cab. She stared right back. Funny: boys like this didn’t seem so scary now. She wouldn’t even know how to give them a scariness score.

W
HEN
A
BIGAIL ARRIVED AT
the house, Melanie was watching
Two and a Half Men
in the living room. She laughed along with the soundtrack. “Where have you been?” she asked Abigail without diverting her eyes. “I cooked Pad Thai.”

For a moment Abigail wondered if the Alien Lizard was into dope, too.

TV and Pad Thai
.

“I don’t want to eat.” Abigail planted herself in between Melanie and the screen. “I don’t understand how you can—Hey. I’m talking to you.”

“There’s some left in the fridge,” Melanie replied in a neutral voice. She tilted her head. Abigail’s imagination was not her enemy here. Melanie was trying to see past Abigail to watch the screen. Melanie was truly oblivious to how her stepdaughter was a frazzled wreck.

With a shudder, Abigail hurried from the room and past her father’s den.

Tonight, for once, the door was ajar. She caught a glimpse of him, sitting at the desk, head in hands. Abigail paused. She
could feel the rage building. She would go in and confront him. She’d go in, any second now, and say:
“Hey, I wanted to see Becky’s things, touch them, learn from them and you tossed it all out, like some old rubbish. Why?”

Or:
“Hey, I found Nieve’s chest. Which means Nieve knew where Becky lived all along. Which means you’re a liar.”

Or:
“Hey, I want an explanation. Do you hear me? I have a right to know what’s really going on. What is your wife’s problem?”

That’s what she would have said if her father hadn’t looked up.

He spotted her fidgeting. His eyes hardened.

Abigail muttered a “sorry” and skulked her way upstairs. Melanie hadn’t lied (she never lied). Grahame wanted to be left alone. And that was fine. Right. Because Abigail had learned something tonight. Grahame would never help her fill in the gaps. Who needed him, anyway? She’d never relied on anyone for answers and she was not about to start. She would wash her hands of her father, as Stick’s father had washed his hands of
his
flesh and blood. She would find out everything she wanted to know without asking Grahame a single thing.

And without telling him a single thing, either.

The next morning at breakfast, Abigail refused Melanie’s wobbly offering. “I don’t like poached eggs,” she said. She shot a glare at her father, hunched over his own untouched plate, his freshly shaved face inscrutable. “In fact today, I’m going to go looking for Marmite.”

“Mar-what?” Melanie clucked her tongue. “I’ll never understand that accent of yours. Will it fade, do you think?” She cleared away the uneaten eggs and tossed them in the bin, then refreshed Grahame’s coffee. “And goodness, you’re morphing into Becky. Breakfast is at seven … Look at you, coming down late, so sullen.”

Abigail blinked. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling.
Sullen?
Melanie had moved beyond 10/10 scary. Abigail thought of Camelia, more torn up over Billy’s pathetic betrayal than Melanie was over her stepdaughter’s suicide.
Trapped
was more like it. Frightened, maybe. Was there even a 7
A.M
. breakfast rule? Now, still? And how could she mention Becky’s name like
an afterthought? Typically, Grahame seemed neither to notice nor care what Melanie said.

“Can I be excused? I’d like to go shopping.”

Grahame nodded without looking up.

Abigail left the kitchen and walked straight to the front door, slamming it behind her.

H
ER FEET WERE BLISTERED
and throat parched by the time she made it to Juvie. An hour and a half under an unforgiving LA sun: half on roads with no sidewalks. No doubt her neck and arms would turn a fiery red. She could already feel the burn. No choice but to walk. Most of her money had been spent on taxis the day before except a jumble of small bills and coins. The American change in her pocket looked and felt like play money compared to pounds: slender, green, and worthless.

New Beginnings
, the sign outdoors read. She almost laughed.

She hadn’t noticed it before. She’d hopped out of an expensive car when she’d last arrived. Just like New Life Hostel, right? Same euphemistic bollocks all over the world.

She pressed the buzzer at the front of
No
Beginnings Detention Center, gave her name, and pushed the huge, heavy steel gate.

“I’m here to see a boy called Joe,” she muttered to the guard at the reception.

“Joe?”

Abigail thought back to the last time she visited with Becky. “Dixon, Joe Dixon.”

“Ah, Joseph Dixon. Have you scheduled a visit?”

“Ach …” Abigail couldn’t believe she’d come all this way to be stopped by petty bureaucracy. “No, I haven’t. But he knows me. I’m Abigail. I’m Becky’s … sister.”

The guard looked up at her from above his glasses.
That
look. She was powerless scum again. “You need to schedule with us first. Are you on his list?”

“No, I’m not on his shitey feckin’ list—” She broke off, biting her dry cheek.

But the guard smirked. He scratched his head. “That accent … Are you Scottish?”

She looked up, hopeful. “Aye?”

His smile widened. “The only country on earth where a local drink outsells Coca Cola. And I don’t mean Scotch.”

“Heh. Good ol’ Irn Bru.” She tried to smile back. She felt her lips crack. What she’d do for a slug of the orange fizzy drink right now. Made from Iron girders, so the adverts joked.

“Do you ever go to the Barras in Glasgow?” he asked.

“Only if I wanna get stabbed.” The Barras market was as depressing as it was hilarious. Only there, only in Glasgow, would stall owners try to woo passing customers by proclaiming: “DVD’s only a pound: as advertised on Crime Watch!”

The guard peered at her over the rims of his glasses. “My mother is from a place called Pollok. Heard of it?”

“Pollok! Hell yeah. I have a friend from there.” The word “friend” was a lie: Billy was from Pollok. And Pollok was the ugliest, most impoverished, and most dangerous part of the city.
More murders than people
, Billy once boasted. But she was getting
somewhere with this guy; the right kind of small talk could cut through red tape, no matter how thick.

“Edna McGowan.” He smiled.

“McGowan, aye.” Abigail upped the accent-charm. “McGowans are well-known. There was one in my class.” Not so much of a lie, this time, except that the word “class” implied school. Stacy McGowan had lived at No Life Hostel when she was sixteen. The same Stacy McGowan had died at No Life Hostel when she was seventeen.

“My mum’s dead now, but I have cousins,” the guard went on. “Rab, Jennifer, Chuggy … and Rhona, not sure which ones are McGowans.”