By the time Grace had been at her own desk for several hours, the need for a decent cup of tea became tinged by obsession. She popped out to the Spar nearby for Earl Grey, was gone less than ten minutes. But the first thing she saw when she walked back into reception at Hunter Lane was the forlorn figure of Edith Airey sitting under the crime prevention posters.
The girl was wearing a dreary cardigan, the wool thickened from machine washing. It hung unflatteringly on her thin frame, bagged at the front pockets. She’d teamed it with an ugly skirt over scuffed old-fashioned shoes with a single strap and buckle.
Who dresses her? She looks more seven than seventeen…
Grace paused, holding the door, until someone cleared their throat behind her and she stood aside with an apologetic smile. Edith was staring into the middle distance, locked in her own little world, but she looked up with a flicker of annoyance as Grace took the chair alongside her, as if she’d been interrupted from something important.
“Hello, Edith. I don’t know if you remember me, but we met—”
“I know,” Edith mumbled, looking away quickly, colour blotching her cheeks. “I’m not simple.”
“I didn’t think for a moment that you were.” Grace waited a beat. “Actually, I’ve been looking for you.”
Edith flushed unbecomingly. “Why’s that?”
“To see how you were.”
Edith raised a bony shoulder. “I’m all right,” she said, lapsed back into silence.
“You got your rifle back all right, did you?”
“Yeah.” Edith gave her a withering look. “Needed re-zeroing.”
“Are you on your own?” Grace looked round. “Or are you waiting for someone?”
Another shrug. She sat hunkered down into herself, not making eye contact when people came in.
“Would you like a drink, perhaps?” Grace went on, as if she’d started up a chatty conversation, mentally pushing aside the mountain of data waiting on her desk to be correlated. “It’s a bit warm for coffee, although there’s a little place in the middle of town that does nice latte. Or would you prefer a Coke or an ice cream?”
For a moment the girl frowned as if trying to decide, then she shook her head with another uncertain little flick of her eyes.
“Mm, I suppose you’re right. We are a little busy to be taking time out.” She pulled a casually rueful face. “You’ve heard about what happened yesterday at the show, I imagine?”
Her eyes were on Edith’s bowed head as she spoke, and she saw the tiny shiver that ran through the girl, quickly stifled. Ah. Something she’s interested in. A chance for a connection…
“Actually, I wondered if you had any light to shed on the subject?” Grace asked then, apparently engrossed in refastening the strap of her watch.
“What?” Edith’s head jerked up, meeting Grace’s eye more fully now, and there was fear where it had no right or reason to be. “Why would I?”
Grace watched the swirl of emotions the girl wasn’t sophisticated enough to hide. “Well, you’re quite a shot with a rifle yourself, aren’t you?” She ignored the bitter taste at the back of her throat, kept her tone pleasant. “I thought you could offer an expert opinion about this man, whoever he is.”
For a moment she saw the war going on inside Edith’s head. Surprise swamping the caution, conceit swamping that. The girl straightened, playing with the matted corner of the cardigan, brow furrowed as though deep in thought. “You think it’s a bloke?”
Grace let her eyebrows rise. “Well…we try never to make assumptions without evidence, but…yes, I suppose we do. Why?”
“There was this Russian woman during the Second World War, see—Lyudmila Pavlichenko.” She stumbled a little over the pronunciation. “She was Ukrainian, actually. By the end of the war, she’d had three hundred and nine confirmed kills.” No mistaking the awe in her voice.
Grace forced an admiring look onto her face. “You’re very well informed.”
Edith scowled, still retaining a child’s sensitivity to any sign of being patronised. “Saw a documentary about her and I’ve been on the Internet at the library,” she said with dignity. “Looked it all up.”
“You’re a bright girl.” Grace put her head on one side, considering. “You must have done well at school.”
“You reckon.” She scowled all the harder. “Nobody likes a smart-arse.”
“They used to tease me at school. I was too tall, too awkward. Too buried in my books.”
The girl gave another listless shrug, face going slack. “S’pose.”
Grace waited but Edith didn’t follow up. The light had gone out again, her animation dulling as her interest faded.
“My father died when I was fourteen,” Grace said then, almost remotely, staring at a bluebottle that was flipping itself at the far window, only catching the way Edith’s head came up again out of the corner of her eye. “I felt as though my world had collapsed. I had no control over anything. Do you know what it’s like to feel so helpless? So utterly at sea?”
Edith started to nod, stalled, so all she gave was a stilted jerk of her head.
Grace took a breath. “I stopped eating. It seemed the only thing I could do. It gave me back control.” She switched her gaze back to the girl. “For a time.”
Edith’s mouth opened, wavered a little, then firmed. “What happened?” It came out as a croak, as though she hadn’t wanted to ask but couldn’t help herself.
“I had people around me who saw how unhealthy I was making myself.” Now it was Grace’s turn to shrug. “Not everyone’s so lucky. Left to my own devices, I believe I would have developed full-blown anorexia.”
Edith’s gaze swept over her, almost dismissive. “You don’t know what it’s like to be fat and ugly,” she said in a knotted little voice. “Fat and ugly and stupid.”
“You’re far from any of those things,” Grace said, gently. “Except, I never got as far as making myself throw up. Now, that is a stupid thing to do.”
Edith’s colour rose another notch, but she said nothing.
“And the worst thing is, it doesn’t work.” Grace’s voice was perfectly even, detached. “All making yourself vomit does is give you bad breath and makes your teeth fall out. The acid from your stomach weakens the enamel, you see. Not very attractive prospect, is it? False teeth before you’re twenty.”
She glanced across, knowing she was taking a risk, but wondering if anyone had voiced the dangers. She doubted Edith’s parents had even realised their daughter had a problem.
“The body goes into famine mode. It starts to process what little food it gets higher up the digestive tract, holds it in the stomach for longer. You burn lean tissue instead of fat, your sodium and potassium levels plummet, and your kidneys start to fail. Eventually, you end up on dialysis. You’d have no control there, Edith. None at all.”
Edith’s downcast expression never altered. She sat with her teeth closed over her trembling lower lip as a single fat tear welled in the corner of her eye and ran down her pale cheek. She dashed it away fiercely, like it was the annoying fly at the window.
Grace watched and waited. “What happened, Edith? You have to tell somebody. You won’t be in any trouble.”
Edith jerked up to meet her eyes again, let her breath out fast through her nose, almost a snort at this very adult lie. As her head came up, Grace saw the marks on her neck for the first time.
“Oh, Edith,” she murmured, agonised. “What did he do to you?”
“He didn’t mean—”
“Oy! What d’you think you’re up to?”
Jim Airey shouldered through the inner door from the station, all bristle and bluster.
Grace eyed him calmly as she got to her feet, refusing to be intimidated. “Edith and I were just having a chat,” she said pleasantly. “It looks like it’s going to be another hot day. I thought she might like an ice cream.”
“She wants one, she can get it herself,” Airey said, truculent. “You’ve no right to go bothering her. You just leave her alone, you hear me?”
Grace heard desperation rasping through his voice and, knowing she’d never get permission from either of them to take it further, made an instant decision. She stepped in close and pushed a deliberately insolent finger into his chest. “I will if you will, James,” she murmured.
Airey’s face flooded with furious colour. Almost experimentally, Grace prodded again, harder this time. His arm came up, swept hers aside, grabbed at her, hand closing around her bare arm, gripping tight.
Grace pulled back instantly and swatted at his fingers where they overlapped under her forearm. The unexpectedness of the move surprised him. The realisation of what he’d come close to doing made him release her abruptly. He almost stumbled back, mortified, the anger dropping clean out of his face.
“Sorry,” he muttered, voice hollow. “I’m sorry, but just you leave her be, all right?”
Grace clutched her arm, her own fingers where his had been, as though he’d hurt her. She ignored Airey, glanced over to find his daughter watching the exchange intently. “It was nice talking to you again, Edith. You know where I am if ever you need me.”