Clean Cut by Lynda La Plante Page B

Brandon.’
    ‘What the fuck has happened?’ She tried to push past him, shouting out, ‘Tina! Tina!’
    ‘Just calm down, love. Is this your little girl?’
    ‘What’s happened? Let me in–get out the fucking way!’
    Brandon blocked the door. ‘Your kid’s fine. Just stay calm. We need to talk to you.’
    Anna carried out the little girl.
    Gail was allowed to go to her. She held out her arms and hugged her tightly. ‘Fucking coppers, you broke me door. What’s this about?’
    Brandon cleared the officers out and told them to wait in the patrol cars.
    By now, Gail had changed Tina, and her other daughter, Sharon, had been brought out of the Shogun. Sharon was seven years old, a thin waif-like child with lank blonde hair and red-rimmed eyes.
    ‘I only went to get her from school and take my Keith round to his mate’s house to play. I weren’t gone for longer than twenty minutes, for God’s sake. You’re notgoing to report this to the bloody social services, are you?’
    Anna asked Brandon to give her some space as Gail was in such a state, rocking the still-silent Tina in her arms and keeping Sharon close to her.
    ‘Gail, I’m really sorry we’ve frightened you.’
    ‘You just bloody broke in here–you got no right to do that, she’s terrified. You got no right to break into the place.’
    ‘Gail, we do have every right. We’re looking for your brother.’
    ‘He’s not fucking here. I wouldn’t let him cross the bloody doorstep, he’s a lunatic. I’m gonna make an official complaint about this.’
    ‘Your brother is wanted in connection with a murder.’
    ‘That’s got nothing to do with me. You lot have had him in the nick more times than I’ve had hot fucking dinners and you just let him out; he’s sick, sick in his head. I’ve not seen him for years and if he did come here, my bloke’d take a shotgun to him.’
    Gail started to sob. This upset the little girl, Tina, and she began to cry. This started Sharon off and she clung to her mother, crying too.
    Anna put the kettle on. It was greasy to touch and the sink was full of filthy dishes. The kitchen was disgusting.
    ‘Where is your husband?’ she asked.
    Gail sniffed and wiped her face with the back of her hand. ‘He left just after I moved in here; bastard just pissed off.’
    ‘That would be Mr Summers?’
    ‘Yeah. I changed me name to Sickert, as I’m livin’ with someone else now.’
    ‘And where is he?’
    ‘He had to collect some pig food, went off early this morning. I have never left my kid on her own before, but I had to pick this one up.’
    Anna emptied a cold teapot full of tea bags into the overflowing trash.
    Brandon and the other officers did a thorough search of the property, but there was no sign of Murphy. The patrol cars left and Brandon came to the back door, but got a warning look from Anna to stay out. By now, she had made a cup of tea for Gail and warmed a bottle to give Tina some milk.
    ‘She’s deaf,’ Gail said, rocking her.
    Sharon was sitting eating biscuits, banging her heels against the side of a high stool. Anna sat opposite Gail, drinking from a nasty chipped mug.
    ‘We need to find your brother,’ she said softly.
    ‘Well, I dunno where he is, and I don’t want to know; if I did know I would tell you, and you have to believe me. I think they should have locked him away for life–meaning life–after what he done to those poor women, and now you say he’s done it again.’ Gail took a deep breath. ‘Molested me when I was at home with me mum–I think he’d have raped his own granny if he could. Few drinks and he was a brute. I hated him; my mum didn’t know how to handle him, now he’s killed some poor woman and it’s me you come to looking for him. I dunno what’s wrong with you lot. I’d like to kill him myself.’
    Anna listened and kept her voice calm and steady. ‘We’ll get both your doors repaired today, Gail.’
    ‘So you bleedin’ should. My man’s gonna go apeshit