Free Hushabye by Celina Grace

council-owned, it would be in better shape. She straightened her shoulders, locked the car and went up to the front door. She had timed this visit carefully. Too early, and her mum would be hungover and grumpy and unwelcoming, too late, and she’d be half-cut and sloppily sentimental. Now, at half past two in the afternoon, Mrs Redman would be as rational and as normal as she could be. So Kate hoped.
    She was halfway to the front door when it opened violently and someone came stampeding out, her mother’s screamed profanities following them. Kate flinched. The person running down the path was a teenage girl, hair teased up into a beehive, thick black eyeliner, stomping boots on the end of long legs. She pushed past Kate, scowling murderously. Kate’s mother stood at the door, screaming after her. “And don’t come back, you little whore!”
    “Mum!” said Kate. She grabbed her mother’s arm and wheeled her around, pushing her back into the house. She was rocketed back to her teenage years, feeling the neighbours’ scorn and disapproval beaming out from the surrounding houses as her mum embarrassed her yet again. “What on earth? What’s going on? Who was that?”
    Her mum looked at her with a disbelieving expression.
    “What d’you mean, who was that? That was Courtney , wasn’t it? Little whore. Who’d she think she is, coming round here and trying to hit me up for cash?”
    Kate felt a quick jab of shame. Courtney was one of her six half-siblings. Her own sister, and she hadn’t even recognised her. When had she last seen her? Over a year ago, at least.
    “Oh,” she said feebly. Then, collecting herself, “Well, Mum, here I am.”
    “Yeah.”
    “I was going to ask what’s been going on but I see that plenty has.”
    Her mother tottered off into the messy living room.
    “Where’s my fags?” she muttered, hunting amongst the detritus of the coffee table.
    “How about a cup of tea?” said Kate. She wanted to deflect the inevitable offering of “a glass of something.”
    Mary Redman had found her cigarettes and lit one. A thin ribbon of smoke rose towards the ceiling, stained ochre by twenty year’s worth of exhaled fumes. Kate turned towards the tiny galley kitchen that lay at the end of the hallway.
    She hunted for teabags and mugs amongst the chaos. Mary leant against the doorframe, watching her.
    “ That cupboard,” she said, eventually. Kate opened it and was nearly brained by a landslide of tins and cardboard boxes.
    “Oh, leave it,” said Mary, as Kate scrabbled about on the floor, picking things up. “What’s up with you, then? What you been up to?”
    Kate stood up. She mentioned the Fullman case, just the bare bones of it, all she was able to say.
    “Awful,” said Mary, taking a long drag. She shook her head. “Don’t know what I would have done if one of you had been taken. And that poor girl with her head smashed in!” Kate winced. “Poor little baby. His mum must be frantic.”
    Kate poured boiling water onto the teabags and nodded. She thought of Casey in her expensive prison, hemmed in by paparazzi, lost and alone in her glossy kitchen. A greater contrast to the one that she was in could scarcely be imagined.
    “Here you go,” she said, handing her mother a steaming mug.
    Mary placed it precariously on the counter.
    “Surprised you’re doing this case,” she said, watching Kate closely. “Thought it might bring back a few bad memories.”
    Kate felt her shoulders stiffen. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
    “Don’t you?” said Mary.
    “No,” said Kate. She could hear it in her voice: the shut-down, the freezing of emotion.
    There was a moment’s silence.
    “Oh, well,” said Mary. She picked up her tea and turned away. “Don’t know how you did it, myself. That was proper cold, Kelly, it weren’t natural. Couldn’t have done it myself. Don’t know how you–”
    “ That’s enough .”
    Kate’s voice made them both jump. She stood for a