The Shadows in the Street Read Online Free PDF

car, or if he had one, not letting them go in it, hated having to go into one of the shelters on the rec or break into a shed on the allotments. Once, it had been the cemetery, the place where they put stuff, mowers and bins for dead flowers. She’d been scared witless, terrified he’d want them to lie on a grave. She had never been past the cemetery again.
    Here, there were just wooden benches. It was cold. Too cold.
    Beanie Man.
    One of the girls had said he was mad, but Abi knew better, knew that it was an act. Sone punters did that. They put on an accent, Scottish or Irish, and they kept touching their hand to their face, half hiding it. As if you’d ever know them again in daylight, even if you walked into a shop where they stood behind the counter, or a pub where they were barman, or a bus and they were driving it. You didn’t look at them, tried not to, you blotted them from your mind even when you were with them, they left no trace. Except Beanie Man, because he was never without the black wool beanie, pulled low over his forehead, even in summer. He tried to act daft, but you could see through the act like you could see through the Scottish and Irish voices. They were thinking: if you ever see me you haven’t seen me, you don’t know me. And you wanted to say: don’t fucking flatter yourself.
    ‘Abi.’
    She stopped. There was a moon, washing the stone of the footbridge pale, making the canal black silk.
    Abi shrugged. ‘OK.’
    She put the carrier bag with the box of tea bags in it on the ground under the bench.
    Forty minutes later, letting herself in through the door of her room, she found Hayley smashed out on the bed and Liam throwing up for what looked like the twentieth time. She reached for the short bread tin on the top shelf, stuffed the money inside, put it back. The room smelled of dope and sick.
    She went over and started to pull at Hayley, by the arms, by the hair, to shake her until she mumbled and sat up, eyes all over the place.
    ‘Cow!’ Abi screamed at her. ‘Cow. What did you say, what did you promise me?’
    ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’
    ‘You are – what about them? Liam’s been sick everywhere, he’s crying, he’s filthy, he could have choked. Look at him.’
    Hayley rolled off the bed and half knelt on the floor. ‘I’m sorry, I’m OK, Abs, it’s OK …’
    ‘Oh, get out, go on, leave Liam here, you’re in no fit state.’
    ‘I’m sorry, it’s OK.’
    ‘Shut up.’
    The anger subsided as exhaustion hit her. But she cleaned Liam up, gave him a drink and an old clean T-shirt of her own to wear, then put him down again. His face was still white. Frankie and Mia had not stirred.
    She undressed, sluiced her face and hands in cold water. She’d put money into the meter tomorrow.
    ‘God, Hayley, I thought you wouldn’t do this to me. Now sleep it off.’
    She threw a cushion down. But it was cold. A cushion wasn’t enough. She got up again and found the knitted blanket.
    ‘Here.’
    ‘Thanks. Thanks, Abs. I’m OK.’
    Abi switched off the lamp and pushed her feet down into the bedclothes. It was only later, waking as a dawn like sour milk seeped into the room, that she remembered she had left behind the carrier with the tea bags.

Five
    The last patient left and Bronwen, the duty receptionist, tapped on the surgery door and came in.
    ‘Cat, here’s that note from the orthopaedic consultant and I’ll bring your coffee, only the thing is …’
    Cat groaned. Her surgery had booked double the usual numbers, and there were seven patients to ring – Lafferton’s norovirus epidemic was in full spate.
    ‘I know, I know, but can you see one more?’
    Bronwen had a sixth sense when it came to who to let in and who to send away, and Cat trusted it.
    As the girl entered, carrying one child and leading another by the hand, Cat thought: I’ve seen you, I know you.
    She glanced at her computer screen as the name and address came up, but they were not familiar.
    ‘Abi Righton?