The Alibi Girl. C.J. Skuse

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      He’s touched her. He’s touched my baby. They have a connection now. He’s growing to love her like his own, I’m sure of it.

      Long after he’s left, I’m still staring out at the distant mountains he’d watched so lovingly. We’ll go there someday, Kaden, Emily and me. We’ll go there on holiday. Be one of those fit families that hikes in North Face coats and big boots. Emily will sit in one of those baby backpacks, peeking out over her daddy’s shoulder. Our Family.

      ‘Helloo, Earth to Genevieve?’ A voice filters through my private imaginings. Vanda from work stands beside my table, face full of make-up, big red lips and carrying two large shopping bags. She’s surrounded by children all whining for ice cream.

      ‘Oh, hi Vanda. Hi boys. And girl.’ They’re not interested in saying hello – they race to the counter and start choosing Freakshakes from the menu.

      ‘I saw you from outside. Why you not work yesterday and today?’

      ‘I called in. I told Trevor that Emily had a bug.’

      She frowns at the papoose. ‘She got bug now?’

      ‘Uh no. She’s much better today thanks.’

      ‘So you be in tomorrow, yes? I need to know or else I get cover. You don’t let me know again, I give your job to someone else.’

      ‘I’ll be in at eight, I promise.’

      She bats her enormous spider-lash eyes. ‘You better be there or I come down on you like ton of fucking bricks, yes?’

      ‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

      Her children are obstructing two paying customers at the till but as Vanda shrieks ‘Kids move!’ at them, they quickly disperse and fall into line in silence.

3

       Thursday, 24th October

      I leave a little tube of Smarties behind the front gate for Alfie the paper boy and drop Emily off at the childminder’s on my way to work, passing by the arcades to see if Matthew’s there at the bus stop, playing the grabbers outside while waiting for his school bus, but he’s not. It’s half term, of course. He’ll be with his family.

      Being outdoors with Kaden yesterday has made me feel braver, bolder, and the three men from the hairdressers seem a distant memory now. I’m expecting a normal day at The Lalique. The past fifty-odd days have been excruciatingly normal – bed-changing, vacuuming, bleaching, replacing creamers, sugars, sachets of tea. Then back along the seafront to bed and waking up again and it starts all over. The highlight of any shift is usually when I catch a child coming back to the room by themselves to get something. Then we have a chat and they tell me what they’re doing for the day.

      But today, there are no children about and Vanda’s in an awful mood. She’s always in an awful mood with me. She’s like a Russian Cruella de Vil and she scares me twice as much. I’m hanging up my coat in the staff office when she storms in. No Hellos or How are yous, just: ‘There’s a shit in the pipe Genevieve, so you lucky I don’t throw you through fucking window today. Floor 2. Go help Trevor.’

      ‘A “shit in the pipe”?’ I say.

      ‘A blockage. A stiff in Room 29. Means we’re going to cordon off whole floor so the police can come and then we have to wait around and clean when they have gone. We’re short-staffed as well because Fat Faith’s brat has the conjunctivitis.’

      ‘Okay.’ I’m not quite sure what she means by ‘a stiff’ at this point but if it’s Russian for poo, I better make sure my plunger’s on the cart.

      ‘Baby not got bug today?’ she says as I wheel to the service elevators.

      ‘No, she’s fine today, thanks. The doctor said it could be colic.’

      ‘She tit or bottle?’

      ‘I’m breastfeeding her.’

      ‘So she may be allergic to you.’ It’s not a question.

      ‘She seems okay. Thanks.’

      ‘So you express when you’re not with her?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘She’s young to be left with childminder. What is she, a month?’

      ‘Five weeks. I can’t afford not to work, Vanda.’ The lift finally bing!s open.

      ‘How much she charge, childminder?’

      I’m in the lift and the doors close before I can answer. I always breathe a sigh of relief after Vanda’s firing squad of questions. She interrogates where other people enquire and is always picking me up on what I’m doing right and wrong for Emily, just because she has four children herself. She thinks she knows everything there is to know about anything, she’s one of those people. Anything you have, she has double. You have a kid, she has four. You have money worries, she’s broke. You have a row with your boyfriend? Her ex-husband stabbed her. Twice.

      When I get to Floor 2, Trevor the porter stands guard outside Room 29.

      ‘Alright Gen? Any sign of the police and coroner?’

      ‘A stiff?’ I say, finally realising what that means. ‘You mean there’s a dead person in there?’

      ‘Yeah,’ says Trevor. ‘A young lass.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘She’s in bed,’ he sniffs. ‘Shit herself too, by the smell of it.’

      ‘Oh my god.’

      ‘Oh this is nothing,’ he says, leaning on the end of my trolley. ‘I’ve been here fourteen years. Seen eleven deaths in that time. You must have seen your fair share, working in a hospital?’

      My mouth is wide. I click back into Genevieve mode. ‘Oh yeah. Loads. Every shift in fact. How did she die?’

      ‘Dunno. No sign of pills or booze. Have a look, if you want.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Nobody’s around. Go and have a butcher’s, before they get here.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Be my guest,’ he says, sweeping aside like the candle out of Beauty and the Beast, leaving the door open for me to enter. My mind is already whirring. Trevor hands me a white square of cloth. ‘I’d take this in if I were you. Don’t worry, it’s clean.’

      I don’t know whether he means the handkerchief or the stiff, but in I go before I can talk myself out of it. I’m at the bathroom door when I smell her. I bundle the hanky against my nose and mouth. I’d only ever seen one dead body in my life. And it looked nothing like that. She looks asleep. Her sheets are pulled up to her chin.

      ‘Could СКАЧАТЬ