Dark Mirror Read Online Free PDF

seen better days, its brickwork stained, concrete flaking. There was no reply to Kathy’s knock at the front door. A small dark woman rugged up with headscarf and quilted parka approached along the deck carrying bags of shopping.
    ‘Excuse me, do you know Mrs Rafferty?’ Kathy asked.
    The woman looked at her warily and made to move on.
    ‘Sheena?’ Kathy persisted. ‘Mrs Sheena Rafferty?’
    The woman nodded back over her shoulder. ‘Supermarket.’
    Kathy followed her glance and saw the grey box in a gap between two blocks of flats. ‘She’s shopping?’
    ‘She work there.’ The woman shuffled on.
    ‘Thanks.’
    The supermarket was of the cut-price variety, bare concrete floors, industrial shelving and battered trolleys. Kathy found themanager, and saw the look on his face when she showed her identity and said she wanted to speak to Mrs Rafferty.
    He pointed to one of the checkouts. ‘What’s she been up to now then?’
    ‘It’s nothing like that. I have some bad news about her daughter. Is there somewhere quiet I can talk to her?’
    The man nodded and turned to speak to a woman stocking shelves, then led Kathy to a small office. Behind them Kathy saw the woman taking Sheena’s place behind her till.
    ‘Has she been in trouble?’ Kathy asked.
    ‘Nothing too serious, as far as I know. Borrowing from the other women and not paying them back. We think she and another girl have a quiet line in writing off items at the end of the day and taking them home.’ He sounded bored. ‘Ah, Sheena, come in, close the door. This is a police officer.’
    Kathy suspected he knew exactly the reaction that would provoke. A look of panic crossed Sheena’s face. If she had once had red hair like her daughter it was a desperate blonde now, and Kathy could make out no resemblance to Marion in the worn face.
    ‘I’m DI Kathy Kolla, Sheena. Please take a seat.’ She turned to the manager. ‘I’d like to speak to Mrs Rafferty in private, if you don’t mind.’
    He shrugged and left.
    Everyone responds to the first impact of shocking news in their own way, Kathy thought. Sheena Rafferty blinked wildly, shook her head and looked bewildered. Kathy suspected this was a learned response, her way of postponing a blow by pretending she couldn’t understand what was going on. Eventually there were tears. Kathy always carried a small packet of tissues in her pocket for just such moments. She had no idea how many she’d gone through over the years.
    ‘She was such a darlin’.’ It was a Scottish voice all right, but not the attractive soft accent the librarian had described in Marion; this one had a smoker’s rasp. ‘Such a treasure.’
    ‘Is there someone I can call to be with you, Sheena? A friend, perhaps?’
    ‘Well, there’s ma husband, Keith . . .’ She said it with a doubtful frown. ‘But he’s at work. I don’t know if he’ll get away.’
    Keith was a driver for a company on the nearby industrial estate, she explained. Kathy called them and they said Keith was out on a delivery, and that they’d contact him and send him home.
    The packet of tissues was exhausted before they reached Sheena’s flat, scattered in damp shreds along the route of their walk back together. By the time they sat down in the kitchen and the kettle was plugged in and a second cigarette on the go, an element of realism had crept into Sheena’s account.
    ‘Och, we didnae always see eye to eye, ye ken. In fact she could be a stubborn wee bitch, but I loved her aw the same.’
    Kathy wondered if she was displacing her memories to an early time, because Marion was a good bit taller than her mother, and could hardly be described as ‘wee’.
    ‘We had our fights, but deep down we were so close.’
    ‘Can you give me Marion’s latest address, Sheena?’
    ‘Aye, sure. It’s a student flat in Southwark. I’ve got it somewhere.’
    ‘Would that be Stamford Street?’
    ‘Aye, that’s it.’
    ‘I believe she moved from there three