‘Yeah,’ said the friend. ‘Facety bitch.’
‘What I’m sayin’. Nobody give a shit if she gone the same way as her mother, and that’s the truth, innit.’
Sixty-seven Ash Building was the second to last flat on the top floor of one of the older, red-brick blocks overshadowed by the towers, and distinguished only by its tattered, unloved exterior. You didn’t have to step a foot inside to know the place was a dump. Close up, everything about number sixty-seven exuded neglect. It was the only dwelling on that floor which hadn’t been customised with door gates, a window box or some cheerful paint. Where the number had once been attached to the door two rusted screws jutted from their holes. The letter box had fallen out and the hole in the door was duct-taped over. There was grime on the windows and the blue-painted windowsill was feathery with disrepair.
Ruby’s key was an awkward fit and got stuck in the barrel. The door rattled in the jamb but remained firmly shut. I was thinking about giving it a good kick when I became aware of a woman in her early thirties who was peering around the door of number sixty-nine, dressed in a pink onesie.
‘You want something?’ The door opened wider.
‘The little girl who lives here, Ruby Winter? I’m picking up some of her things but the key…’ The woman’s face softened. She said her name was Gloria. Eastern European accent. Something familiar about her that I couldn’t put my finger on.
She came over and, waving me away, pressed her shoulder to the door. ‘You got to push hard. Council said they sort it out, but they don’t. Lilly always waking me up.’ When the door gave, Gloria righted herself and stepped over the threshold. ‘Terrible what happen. And that kid, Ruby, she got no mother.’ When I hesitated, she beckoned me with her hand, saying, ‘Come on then.’
I followed her in. The place was filthy, the smell of stale tobacco overpowering. Damp marks on the walls did a bad job of disguising the thin sheen of grease underneath, and dust and hair had accumulated into dark brown hummocks where the lino had lifted in the corners. Two doors led off the hallway. The first opened into a cramped, dark space which must have been Lilly’s bedroom. Her body had been removed, but something in me resisted entering, afraid of what I might find. A mildewed shower was visible through the other door.
At the end of the hallway was a decent-sized living room, one side of which had been sectioned off and made into a galley kitchen. On the opposite side a door led off into a passageway, presumably to Ruby’s bedroom. The walls were featureless, unless you counted the yellow tar blossoms clambering up the paintwork. A cheap grey pleather sofa sat on the far side, nearest to Ruby’s room. On the other there was a TV stand, though it looked as if someone had been in and removed the TV, leaving the cables splayed over the floor. As I picked my way across old, stained carpet tiles littered with improvised ashtrays, the butts still in them, I found myself wondering whether Tom would have rescued Ruby from all this squalor and neglect if he’d known about her – and realised I wasn’t sure. Strange how you could spend more than a decade of your life with someone, have a child together, and yet discover in the moment it takes for a policewoman to ring a doorbell that you hardly know them at all.
I turned my attention back to the flat. Gloria was standing at the entrance to the kitchen.
‘Is same boiler as in my flat, combi. So is strange.’
‘Strange?’
‘Lilly is leaving window open a little bit. She put nail in the window frame, so no one can get in while she sleeping. But police tell me window was shut this one time.’
‘Is that what’s strange?’
‘No, I mean, is hot at night. So why is boiler on?’
‘The pilot light blew out, the police said.’
‘Oh.’
The death-boiler sat on one side of a long, narrow window in the kitchen. The cover had been removed, presumably by the police, exposing the interior, and it looked like the mechanism had been disabled. Evidently, the carbon monoxide had snaked its way undetected through the living room and down the hallway into Lilly’s room. The policewoman had said that the door leading into a small passageway which separated Ruby’s bedroom from the rest of the flat had probably saved her life. I thought about what Gloria had said and realised there was an undeniable logic to it. I was no expert in boilers but it seemed unlikely to me that a dead pilot light would have led to a massive leakage of carbon monoxide unless the boiler had been firing and the flue had been blocked. If that was the case, the policewoman hadn’t mentioned it. As Gloria said, it was hot, and everyone in the flat was asleep. No reason for the boiler to be on at all.
‘I see what you mean,’ I said. ‘It is odd, isn’t it?’
Gloria was standing at the window with her back to me, looking out across the view of tower blocks and tiled roofs. As she turned I realised where I’d seen her before.
‘You work at St John’s Primary. My daughter’s there.’ I’d seen Gloria after hours polishing the lino tiles.
I pulled Freya’s picture from my wallet.
Gloria’s eyes lit up. She seemed genuinely delighted. ‘Oh yes, I know. Very sweet girl. She want to be Pippi Long Something.’
‘Pippi Longstocking. Yes, she does!’ I smiled. We stood looking at one another for a moment, while the fine thread of female connection wove its spidery web between us.
‘You have any kids?’ I said.
Gloria pressed her lips into a tight line and my instincts told me to change the subject rather than pursue it.
‘Ruby, the girl who lived here? She’s Freya’s half-sister.’
‘They look completely different,’ Gloria said.
‘I’m guessing Ruby looked more like her mother?’ I said and Gloria nodded. ‘I never met Lilly. The police say it’s a miracle Ruby’s alive. It was that door over there and maybe the direction of the draught which saved her.’
‘Miracle,’ Gloria said.
I returned to the kitchen and went back to inspecting the boiler. Gloria followed.
‘Maybe the man make a mistake.’
I asked her what she meant.
‘Repair man, come to look boiler. I don’t know name or nothing. Maybe since two weeks? Lilly knock on my door to borrow twenty pounds to pay him.’
The breath caught in my throat. No one had mentioned a repairman. The policewoman had said only that the police inspection of the boiler revealed the pilot light had gone out – something which could have happened at any time – that there were no batteries in the carbon monoxide detector and that Lilly was dead drunk. According to police, it was a freak accident.
‘Did you report that to the police?’
Gloria let out a raw, indignant yelp. ‘Do I look like a person who talk to police?’ She looked me up and down and raised a finger to her lips. ‘Shh, immigrant like me or brown person like you is same. I don’t say nothing to no one. Pemberton has ears like elephant.’
‘All the same,’ I said, sounding like a judgemental idiot.
Gloria shot me the disapproving look I deserved and began to head for the door. I fumbled around in my pocket for something to write on, found an old receipt and a pen and scribbled down my mobile number.
‘You’re right. I wouldn’t have said anything either when I lived here. But listen, if you see the boiler man again, would you call me? Just as a favour? Or ask him to call me?’ A pause while I thought this through. ‘Best not say anything about Lilly. Just tell him I’ve got some work for him.’