Blind Fury Read Online Free PDF Page A

Strathmore Housing Association. Emerald had two children, so he was able to gain more information, as the children had been fostered out twice. Now that she had a council flat, the kids had been returned to her, and for the past two years, Social Services had seen no signs of neglect on their home visits.
    Anna did not make an appointment with Emerald but decided to call on her unannounced and see if she would agree to talk. She drove to Hackney and found the address on a high-rise council estate. Emerald lived on the third floor. The lift was not working, so Anna walked up. From the amount of garbage strewn in the corridors and urine stinking out the stairs, she didn’t think that by any standards this was a well-appointed flat, as Social Services had claimed.
    Emerald lived in number 34. Anna rang the bell, waited, and then rang it three more times before the door was finally inched open.
    “Emerald Turk?” Anna asked.
    “Yeah.”
    Anna showed her ID. “Can I come in and talk to you?”
    “What about?”
    “There’s no problem, Emerald. I’m simply attached to a team investigating the murder of Margaret Potts.”
    The chain was still on the door as the woman looked at Anna and grumbled, “Listen, I already told the cops every-thin’ I knew. I got nothin’ more to say, so piss off.”
    “Please, Emerald, I just want to talk. We’ve not been able to move the investigation forward, for lack of evidence. I’m new to the inquiry and just wanted to—”
    “Like I said, I got nothin’ to tell you.”
    “Just give me a few minutes, please. You knew Margaret, didn’t you?”
    “Yeah, and I told ’em everything, so fuck off.”
    Anna couldn’t even see what Emerald looked like, as the door was almost closed. She wedged her shoe inside the door frame. “She was murdered, Emerald. All I want to do is just try and find out who she really was. You knew her, so you can help me with this. Please let me in. I don’t want to have to come back.”
    There was a short silence. Anna would have given up, but then the chain was unlinked and the door opened wider.
    “All right, you’d better come in, then. If this place smells cops, they’ll get nasty, and I don’t want no trouble from me neighbors.”
    Emerald stood back to allow Anna to enter. She was tall and skinny with a pale, narrow face, and she was wearing an expensive-looking gray velvet tracksuit with large fluffy rabbit slippers. “You’ll have to come through to the kitchen,” she said. “I’m ironing.”
    Anna followed her along a toy-strewn hallway and into a modern, well-equipped kitchen. It was bright and clean, with long white blinds at the window. Dishes were stacked tidily on the draining board. Emerald picked up the iron and nodded for Anna to take a stool by a breakfast counter. There was a basket of clean clothes beside the ironing board.
    “This is very nice,” Anna said, looking around.
    “Yeah, all new mod cons, and I’m doin’ me best to keep the place spic-and-span. Those nosy cows from Social Services drop in whenever they feel like it, and I ain’t gonna give them any reasons for takin’ me kids off me again.”
    “Are they at school?”
    “Yeah, little local primary. They’re there, thank Christ, until three in the afternoon.”
    Anna looked at the fridge, which was covered with bright-colored plastic magnetic numbers and letters. There were also numerous children’s watercolor paintings stuck on a wall with Blu-Tack. One had big orange splashes of paint, and “Mummy” was painted as a stick figure with big feet.
    Anna shifted her weight. The high stool was uncomfortable, and her tight skirt kept riding up her thighs. Stashed beneath the breakfast bar was a big red plastic bucket full of dirty nappies, and it smelled, as the lid was left off. Emerald caught Anna looking at it and gestured for her to put the lid on. She explained that her youngest child was still a bed wetter and that these were nighttime Pull-Ups that had