how she opened the box and all the bad things flew out, and she couldn’t get them back inside again, except for one – hope. And Vinnie had told her that it was something called an ‘allegory’, about how humans should know when to leave well alone. Should she have done that? She knew she shouldn’t but she felt that all the same. That a lot of bad things would come flying out. Having hope didn’t seem much of a consolation, either. Nothing she ever hoped for worked out.
She was glad to get home to a quiet empty house, and went straight to her bedroom without bothering with her tea. It was way too early for bed yet, so she spent some time trying to read but failing, so just lay in the gathering darkness, silently saying an ‘Our Father’ and hoping that tonight she would sleep without dreaming. She wasn’t a holy person but the nuns always said that you could pray to God for anything. She mused for a moment about why the nuns always looked so miserable and then threw in a ‘Hail Mary’ for good measure.
She thought of Robbo and what the nuns might think of someone like him, and how he might react when Lyndsey told him what she’d told her. How weird it was that it was him, of all people, who was going to put the frighteners on Mucky Melvin – when he’d tried doing almost the exact same thing himself. Well, kind of, in his pathetic, stoned, ineffectual way. Looking back, she decided she could have fought him off easily. He just thought he’d try it on and when he realised he wasn’t wanted … She wasn’t scared of Robbo. Not really. He was just what he was – a stupid idiot. And what he’d done was something she’d definitely not be telling Lyndsey – not at any time, ever. Which depressed her to think about – why did she have all this horrible shit to deal with? What was it about her that made these things happen?
It was because she never told. That’s what she kept coming back to – what the nuns would say. Because she didn’t tell in the first place. If she’d told then maybe someone would’ve got rid of Mucky Melvin. Maybe Saggy Tits Sally would have had him arrested. That was the sort of thing she was good at. And if she had told, Robbo would’ve known to keep his filthy druggy hands off her, and Melvin himself would be history. She so wished he was history right now.
She stared at the David Cassidy poster pinned to the back of her bedroom door, and tried to tell herself she’d done the right thing telling Lyndsey. That Carol was right – that it had made her feel a bit better, and that she could trust her sister to put him straight and scare him off. But though she could just about persuade herself that telling Lynds was better than having not told, she couldn’t see anything good coming out of that idiot Robbo being involved.
But she had told. So there was nothing she could do now either way.
The banging on the door had started as a distant, muted drumming. In a jungle somewhere, deadened by miles of dense and dripping foliage; a jungle in which June was currently hacking her way, in order to get to … now, where exactly was she headed? All she knew was that the sound was getting louder and louder, and that soon she’d be … Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!
Consciousness came all at once, hammering against her eardrums, and she yanked the eiderdown up round her ears. Where was Jock? Was it him? What the fuck was going on?
Bang, bang, bang! Finally it hit her. It was the front door.
‘All fucking right!’ she screamed down, at the top of her lungs. ‘Shut the fuck up! I’m coming, okay?’
She threw the covers back, shivering as the cold air hit her bare legs, and rose unsteadily to her feet, feeling groggy. Unable to locate anything warmer, she reached for the negligee that matched her new baby-doll black nightie, then padded downstairs, popping her head round the living-room door when she reached the bottom, to check the time on the guitar clock on the wall. Eleven thirty in the morning – Christ! She’d slept that late? How had that happened? And where was Jock?
‘Okay, okay, leave the fucking knocker on!’ she yelled as she approached the front door, only stopping in bewilderment as she pulled it open to reveal two uniformed policemen on the step.
‘Morning, June,’ said the tallest of the two – who appeared to be a sergeant. He grinned at his colleague before taking his time looking her appreciatively up and down. ‘Good,’ he said brightly. ‘I see you were expecting us.’
June scowled at him, in no mood for grinning cops on any morning, let alone one after the night she decided she must have had last night. Eleven thirty? What fucking time did she make it to bed?
‘In yer bleedin’ dreams, plod,’ she snapped. ‘What do you want anyway? Only I’m freezing me tits off stood here.’
‘Mind if we come in, June?’ the other copper said, equally brightly. What the fuck did these two have to be so cheerful about?
‘I do mind, as it goes,’ she said. ‘Our Vinnie’s still locked up, so we’ve got – let me see – about three more months before you start harassing us again. Now, what do you want?’
The tallest copper cleared his throat. ‘Well, June,’ he said, ‘it’s about these stolen club cheques – the ones that were taken from the site your Jock was working at a while back. We’ve been following a bit of a chain and it all seems to lead back to you, June. So again, shall we come in or do you want to conduct this on the doorstep?’
June managed to curl her lip into what she hoped was an innocent-looking smile. ‘Club cheques?’ she asked. ‘Club cheques? Are you right in the fucking head? I’ve no idea what you’re on about, mate. Now, is that it? Because from where I’m standing, you couldn’t conduct a fucking church choir, let alone an investigation.’
June glanced at the shorter of the two, who seemed to be staring at something on the floor. She followed his eyes to see her morning post scattered on the lino in the hallway. Just as her mind registered what it was he was staring at, the copper bent down and picked up a postcard. A postcard that might have meant nothing whatsoever, were it not for the ‘Greetings from Blackpool’ written in swirly writing diagonally across the front.
He was way too quick for her. Before she could reach out and snatch it up, he’d already done so and was now holding it out of arm’s reach to read. Typical Maureen, she thought, staring at the back of it, or rather the front of it: a cartoon couple, fat and sunburned, eating ice-creams on the beach. Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. He started reading aloud now.
‘Dear Jock and June,’ he read, addressing his words mostly to his sniggering colleague, and adopting a high-pitched posh lady’s voice, ‘cash the rest of our paper money in – wink, wink, nudge, nudge – because me and Steven might come back here with you and Jock. Wish you were here, love Mo.’
June made a second attempt to grab the postcard, but once again the copper was too quick for her. ‘Give it here, you lousy bastard. I’m sure that’s a fucking offence, that is – tampering with the Royal Mail!’
He held it above his head now, seeming amused to see her jumping up to try and get it. How dare he fucking laugh at her, he and his dumb fucking mate.
‘Sorry, June,’ he said pleasantly, ‘not when it’s evidence, it isn’t. Shouldn’t have been so greedy, love, should you?’
He slipped it into a pocket then, and patted it for good measure. ‘And just so you know, there’s no point in you putting on that “butter wouldn’t melt” face, either. This –’ he patted the pocket again ‘– just sort of seals it. We already knew most of the picture already. Them fuckers up Buttershaw are not as scared of you as you and your little gang like to think. Anyway, Jock around?’
‘No,’ said June, her mood growing as black as her expensive nightie. ‘He’s gone to Torre-fucking-molinos. What do you think?’
And how she wished that they really could. Ideally now.
Two months later, June was carefully cutting an article out of the Telegraph & Argus newspaper. ‘Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave’ read the headline, and beneath it was a black-and-white picture of June, Jock and eight others, all