Read Online The Fall by Claire McGowan - Free Book Online Page B

fucking Angels, and no one was telling her a thing. They’d waited in the lobby while the hearing went on, and when the blonde girl from the club came rushing out all crying and choking, Rachel and Mel followed her to the loos.
    Chris had nudged Keisha. ‘You. Go in the court, see what they said.’
    ‘What? What’re you on about?’ She couldn’t understand why they were all here, the posh blonde girl from the club, Rachel and Mel, her and Chris . . .
    He shoved her, quite hard. ‘Just fucking go. I wanna know did he get sent down.’
    Keisha started walking to the door of the court. She had a wobbly lurching feeling in her stomach. There was a noise from the toilet, a squealing frightened sound. She looked back at Chris but then she was veering away from the court, into the toilets. By the time she’d got in there, the blonde girl was on the floor, and the noise – it was pathetic. They were kicking her and she couldn’t fight back to a fly, anyone could see it. And the blood . . .
    She snapped back to their kitchen. Chris was saying, ‘Oi, did you hear? What’s up with you?’
    ‘Why did we go there?’ She was standing in the kitchen holding the sleeve of the macaroni cheese meal, ninety-nine pee from Sainsbury’s. The returned microwave whirred round. It had been cleaned of its spaghetti hoop stains and she hardly recognised it. ‘I don’t get it – is he dead, that club guy? The guy we saw?’
    Chris came in and looked in the fridge, took out a beer. ‘You need to do some shopping, there’s only one left.’
    ‘What? No, listen. Why did we go there, to that court?’
    He cracked the bottle open on the table. ‘Friend of the family, aren’t I? Pay my respects, see the fella get done for it.’
    ‘Since when? I thought you went to get money out of that Anthony. Is that not why you went down to the club?’
    ‘He was a business colleague, right.’
    Keisha felt a slow volcano of rage erupt in her stomach. ‘Your fucking business – what’s that? Beating up some clueless blonde girl? I know you told them to do it, that Rachel and her mate.’
    He shrugged. ‘Fella tapped her brother, stands to reason they’d be upset with his missus.’
    ‘That girl – fuck, I mean – her tooth got knocked out.’ Keisha’d seen fights, of course, been in plenty too, but not where one person was crying and groping on the floor like that, blood rushing out of their mouth like a fucking tap. She didn’t think anyone had ever hit the white girl in her life before. Why else would she look so damn surprised? Like she was actually shocked anyone would hurt her. Did she not see it coming? And then there was the tooth in the pool of blood, and those two girls had scarpered and guess who was left to face the music with that nosy-parker policeman. And he’d showed her a picture of Chris (with that slut Rachel)! Why did he have a picture of Chris?
    She thought about the shoes, and the stain on the bathroom rug. ‘What’s going on, Chris? You said you didn’t trust me – why’d you make me go?’
    Chris opened the last beer on the side of the table, where the veneer was all chipped away. They’d lose that off their deposit but he never gave a shit. The microwave pinged. ‘You getting that?’
    ‘Why’d you want her purse?’
    Suddenly his calm was thrown off like a coat. ‘Did you get it? Give it to me.’
    ‘No, I—’
    ‘You got it. Don’t fucking lie to me.’
    She couldn’t. ‘Well, she dropped it when I went in – Johnson’s sister, fucking idiot she is – but it’s just library cards and shit like that—’
    He snatched Keisha’s bag off the counter and emptied it all on the table, bus tickets, bits of old crisps, tissues falling out everywhere.
    ‘Hey!’
    ‘Where is it? I mean it, fucking give it to me.’
    ‘For fuck’s sake.’ She had tears in her eyes. ‘Your food’s done.’
    He grabbed her arm.
    ‘Oh, all right. Fucking hell. I’ll get it.’
    ‘Tell me where.’ His grip