Free Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama by Dreda Say Mitchell Page B

it anymore. ‘Why would she be hanging around with her; we don’t talk to that lot, do we?’
    Her mum took another slug. ‘Exactly. The thing is, I bumped into Ma Ingram earlier and we had words. Stacey and your sister must have a habit of hanging about together because the Satanic old bitch was moaning off about it.’
    Jen shook her head. ‘Well, you know what Tiffany’s like. Stacey will probably end up as her BFF – anything to wind up the rest of us.’ She topped up her drink and became curious. ‘Mum, why is it we don’t get on with the Ingrams?’
    ‘Because they’re a bunch of bastards, that’s why.’ When Babs saw the look on her daughter’s face, she took another sip and went on. ‘Oh, I dunno. I think it was something to do with your dad . . .’
    ‘Our dad . . . ?’
    So rarely was Stanley Miller’s name mentioned in the flat that Jen was quite shocked to hear him mentioned twice in one day. First of all, when Bex had been fishing for info and now it seemed he was to blame for the feud with the Ingrams. Her strongest memory of him wasn’t a face – she’d been too young to remember that – but a smell. Old Spice, his aftershave of choice. It was a hazy memory of him leaning over her bed, clouding her in a delicious aroma – Bay Rum jumbled up with fruits and spices. A dad who’d smelt good but who was, from all accounts, a right bastard. As a little girl, when she’d asked her mum where Daddy was, she’d been told that he was ‘away’ or sometimes that he’d ‘gone to heaven’. Eventually, she accepted it. When she’d become a teenager, she’d taken a renewed interest in her father but any questions to her mother about him were met with, ‘I dunno . . . Can’t remember . . . Who cares?’ When she put the same questions to relatives, she was told, ‘Don’t worry about him . . . Be grateful he’s gone . . . Bad business.’
    No one talked. After her husband’s mysterious departure, Babs had seen various other guys from time to time but she never seemed to have any luck with men. But then, women on The Devil’s Estate rarely did.
    Jen attempted to sound offhand as she tried to lure her mother into a chat about Stanley Miller. ‘Why would our old man have got into a ruck with the Ingrams?’
    But her mum made it clear she wasn’t taking the bait, and smartly changed the subject. ‘Who was that lad who brought you home?’
    ‘Some spiv I met in Soho,’ Jen replied, giving Babs a cold stare, which said, You’ll tell me one day.
    ‘He seemed like a nice enough boy . . .’ Babs suddenly remembered what she’d seen downstairs and cheered up. ‘Eh – was that his fancy motor parked outside? Here! Look at you!’
    ‘Possibly. I think he thieved it actually.’
    ‘He must have liked you to drive on to this estate with a car like that. He’ll have been lucky if he got downstairs and found it wasn’t on bricks. Hope you’re seeing him again?’
    ‘No. He’s not my type.’
    Her mum’s brief moment of cheer disappeared. Jen was only eighteen but her mum took an obsessive interest in her love life. She was happy as Larry when her daughter dated and hit the bottle when she split with someone, which wasn’t usually long after. There would be pointed reminders that nice blokes don’t grow on trees and that she wasn’t Princess Di. It took a while for Jen to realise that her mother was trying to compensate for her own disastrous love life through her oldest daughter’s. Perhaps that was why Jen was so determined to avoid her mum’s mistakes and all those other women lumbered with dead-beat blokes.
    Babs’ disappointment shone through. ‘You never give a boy an even break, do you?’

Ten
    ‘Will your wife be happy about you buying another woman clothes?’ Dee Clark asked coyly, reaching for a wad of cash on her boss’s desk, first thing Monday morning.
    John’s office was much classier than Dee had expected – cushioned carpet;