‘I don't want you playing with pikeys. They'll rob the shirt off your backs.’ She pushed Skunk and Jed into the house and slammed the door behind them. Skunk was going to tell her how Dillon had already robbed some bloke's bike, but Jed stopped her by raising his eyebrows. The two of them went up to Skunk's bedroom. Outside, the square was empty again. Jed pointed towards the Buckley house.
‘I reckon he's been killing babies.’
‘Who? Dillon?’
‘Nah. Broken Buckley. I reckon that's what the police wanted him for. They'll come back in a minute and put up a tent in the garden. Then they'll start digging up bodies.’
Skunk stared over the road. ‘There'll be TV cameras,’ she said.
‘And helicopters,’ Jed told her.
She put her hand to her bedroom window. ‘Wonder if it was anyone we knew?’
Jed shrugged. ‘The Oswalds are missing.’
‘They're at the seaside.’
‘So we think.’ Jed put his hands on Skunk's shoulders. ‘Wouldn't it be brilliant if Broken Buckley's murdered the Oswalds?’ He paused a moment, then relented. ‘Maybe not Susan Oswald. But all the others. Wouldn't that be cool?’
Skunk had to admit the idea had its attractions. Sunrise Oswald was in her form class at Drummond Primary. Skunk, like the rest of the class, had been paying her two pounds fifty protection money each week. In return for this protection money, Sunrise made half-hearted attempts to keep her sisters at bay: two of them – Saskia and Saraya – were too old for school now, but that didn't stop them hanging around the school gates and robbing pupils as they made their way home. Even worse than Saskia and Saraya, Susan Oswald often broke into the playground from the secondary-school playground next door. Protection money or not, if Susan Oswald decided to rob you, fighting back was stupid, and complaining was suicidal.
They discovered this at the start of the spring term in 2002, when Fiona Torby complained.
Fiona Torby, who had just started at Drummond Primary because her mum and dad were spending the money they had set aside for her private school fees on a divorce, complained when Susan Oswald nicked the iPod Fiona's dad had bought her to say sorry for leaving her mother. Distraught by the theft of her iPod, Fiona Torby told Mrs Willet, who, as one of the more sensible teachers, ignored her. Unimpressed with Mrs Willet and refusing to be a victim, Fiona Torby told her mother, who was already in a foul mood because her bastard husband had left her.
Mrs Torby complained to the headmaster, Mr Christy, a thin, balding dust jacket of a man who reminded Mrs Torby of her bastard soon-to-be-ex-husband. She slammed the door on her way into his office, then slammed a fist down hard on his desk. ‘What sort of school are you running here?’ she demanded. ‘You've had my happy, balanced daughter for less than a week and she's an emotional wreck already. You'd better sort this situation out, you balding little man, or I'll have your bollocks for earrings, and that's nothing compared to what the PTA will do to you once I've finished. I'll have you out of this job before you can say unfair dismissal. And you won't get another. Not after the mess you've made of this one.’
Mrs Torby made several other threats, then slammed the door on her way out. It was the happiest she'd felt in weeks. Mr Christy, on the other hand, took umbrage at being threatened in his own office, and took it out on Mrs Willet.
‘What sort of class are you running there? You've had that happy, balanced little girl for less than a week and she's an emotional wreck already. You'd better sort this situation out or I'll… I'll… I'll…’
He never actually thought of anything to do, but Mrs Willet got the picture. The Oswalds were picking on one of her pupils. She had to be seen to do something. Being an adult of more than average intelligence, she ran down the list of Oswalds she could complain to and went for the weakest one. In front of a form class of terrified Year 2 students, she called Sunrise Oswald to her desk and asked her to turn her bag out. Sunrise did so. There was an iPod in her bag. It was Fiona Torby's. Sunrise had no idea what an iPod was or what it did, but on a scouting expedition under Susan Oswald's bed, Sunrise had seen this bright and shiny thing and decided that finders were keepers.
Mrs Willet picked the iPod up. Engraved across the back were the words, Dear Fiona, just because I don't love your mother any more doesn't mean I don't love you. The music's never ending. Dad.
‘Fiona. Is this your iPod?’
Fiona Torby looked at Sunrise Oswald and remembered the way Susan Oswald had threatened to kill her if she didn't hand over her fucking iPod. Suddenly grasping the consequences of getting an Oswald into trouble – all of the Oswalds would kill her – she decided losing her iPod to the Oswalds wasn't as bad as being murdered by them.
‘No, Miss. I don't think so.’
‘Yes it is. It's got your name engraved on the back. Come up here and get it.’
Fiona Torby went up and got her iPod. Mrs Willet turned to Sunrise Oswald.
‘Do you think stealing's clever?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think stealing's big?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think it's big or clever to be a thief? Mrs Torby's ex-husband worked hard to afford this iPod for Fiona. Do you think it's fair that you just came along and took it?’
‘Nuh-nuh-no.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No, Miss. It ain't fair.’
‘No, it isn't fair, Sunrise. It's cowardly and it's wrong and let me tell you that older children who steal get taken away from their families and locked up in horrible prisons and terrible things get done to them. Is that what you want to happen?’
‘Nuh-nuh-no.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No, Miss. It ain't.’
Sunrise started to cry. Mrs Willet pounced.
‘Well, then, everybody. Look at the big brave thief now. Not so clever now, is she? Not so big now, is she? Sunrise, I want you to write some lines for me. A hundred lines. I want you to write, I will not be a thief. Now sit back down and stop crying.’
Sunrise Oswald sat down but she didn't stop crying. She went home in tears. Bob Oswald said, Jesus, baby, what's the matter with you? Sunrise Oswald told him. Bob Oswald said, She called you a thief? Sunrise Oswald nodded. Bob Oswald bent down before her. Honey, he said, I'm going to teach you two words now, and if anyone ever calls you a thief again, I want you to stand up straight and look them in the eye and use them. These two words are, Prove it. You get me? Prove it. You think I'm a thief? Prove it. What did I tell you to say?
Prove it.
That's my girl. Prove it. Now, give me a hug, then get me a pen and some paper. I'll write your lines out for you. Don't you worry about a thing.
The next day, Sunrise Oswald handed her lines in. Mrs Willet paled.
‘Sunrise. Come to the front of the class. Right now.’
Sunrise got up and approached the front of the class.
‘What's the meaning of this?’ Mrs Willet held the lines up. The handwriting was huge and spidery, but all the words were joined up, so it was obvious Sunrise hadn't written them. Sunrise stared at Mrs Willet.
‘My lines, Miss.’
‘You didn't write these lines.’
Sunrise folded her arms and gazed at Mrs Willet and followed her father's instructions. ‘You calling me a liar?’
Mrs Willet hesitated, then opted to