Bad Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page A

drivers, waiting outside their small office, swivelled to stare at her blatantly. She’d tried to dress down, but as she caught her reflection in the window of a WH Smith and compared herself to the locals bustling past, she had the perfect visual image of how far she’d come since her days here. Deeley’s idea of dressing down was a slim pair of jeans tucked into soft suede boots, a feather-light black merino wool sweater under a belted leather jacket. Hair pulled back into a smooth ponytail, sunglasses propped on her head, diamond studs in her ears her only jewellery. Simple, discreet, what a woman in LA or New York would wear when going out to do errands.
    And the girls on the street, who had bought the magazines with photos of celebrities out during the day, had tried to copy their clothes as much as possible. They looked like cheaper versions of Deeley – they might even have modelled themselves on a photo of Deeley herself, shopping on Rodeo Drive. Plenty of girls here had cheap copies of Deeley’s Fendi bag, made from vinyl rather than patent leather, the buckles over-shiny and already tarnishing, bought from Primark or Asda for a tiny fraction of the $650 Deeley had paid for hers. Their boots were microfibre rather than butter-soft suede, their jeans thin Dorothy Perkins imitations of her Seven for All Mankind skinnies, their highlights skunk stripes rather than her hand-painted, delicately blended ones: but their look was unmistakeably Deeley’s.
    And their glances, as they noticed her, were distinctly unfriendly.
    Realizing that the grey day wasn’t remotely bright enough to warrant her wearing sunglasses, and getting a little nervous that someone might mug her for her YSLs, Deeley pulled hers off the crown of her head and slipped them into her bag. She was walking now past a line of chippies and takeaways, which gave her a first blast of familiarity. The tarted-up parade, with its brave efforts to prettify the grotty little town, its hanging baskets with sprays of flowers, and its low-grade chain stores, hadn’t rung any bells; all these regeneration efforts had happened years after the McKenna sisters had left. But the kebab shops, the smell of stale frying oil and curry powder and malt vinegar sharp in her nostrils, the way the litter bins were already brimming with discarded chip boxes and drinks cans – that Deeley remembered all too well. She found herself trying to recall which their favourite chippy had been, the one where the owner scooped up extra crunchy bits to drizzle over their newspaper cones full of the chips that had often been the only dinner they had.
    Mum thought ketchup really was a vegetable
, Deeley thought, her mouth twisting. She tried not to remember her mother, who had overdosed when Deeley was twelve, three years after Bill’s death. Maureen McKenna had come out of prison, and headed straight for her old druggie friends. They’d found Maureen’s body a week later, in the squat where she’d holed up with her fellow addicts. Neighbours had begun to complain about the smell.
    Bill’s old house on Thompson Road wasn’t far from the station, only two more streets away. Deeley’s footsteps were slowing down, she realized, as she approached the turn.
    This is where I thought I was safest. Where we thought we finally had a home, with someone who wanted to be our dad.
    Bill hadn’t been a drinker or a druggie; his worst vice was a couple of Dunhills and a pint or so of stout when he got home from work. He’d met their mother in a pub, drunk, high, a ruin of her former self, but still undeniably attractive, and, like a lot of men before him, had thought he could help her. Get her back on the straight and narrow. And look after her three kids into the bargain.
    Well, no one managed to help Mum. Not that she’d have let them
. It was hard even now for Deeley to remember that Maureen McKenna hadn’t even come to find her daughters when she’d finished her last stretch in prison;