nervous. Her lips trembled. She looked like she’d had the stuffing kicked out of her.
‘Oh fuck,’ said Suze wearily. ‘Not you.’
‘Nice to see you too, Mummy dear,’ said Gracie, and pushed inside the hall with her case and bag.
‘I suppose Sandy phoned you.’
‘She did, that’s right. And the police called too. Said you’d notified them. Why didn’t you call me?’
Suze shrugged, as if it wasn’t worth dignifying Gracie’s comment with a reply. ‘I’m just surprised you actually bothered to turn up.’
Gracie turned a gimlet eye on her mother. ‘Yeah, well, I actually did,’ she said, refusing to rise to the challenge of a fight so soon. She was tired from the trip. She didn’t want arguments, she wanted tea, biscuits and answers – in that order. She went on through to the kitchen. So familiar, but all different – the units were new beech-effect, the worktops a shiny black granite.
Suze was busy refastening the defences at the front door. By the time she joined Gracie in the kitchen, Gracie had taken out the jiffy bag and decanted the hair inside it out on to the worktop.
‘Someone sent me this,’ she said, as her mother stopped dead in the doorway and let out a small cry.
‘Oh shit,’ Suze moaned, putting her hands to her mouth.
‘George is in hospital,’ said Gracie. ‘So Sandy told me.’
Her mother nodded. ‘Yeah. He is.’
‘Did someone cut his hair? Does this look like George’s hair to you?’
Her mother was shaking her head. She went over to the worktop and lightly touched the hair, her hand shaking violently. ‘No. I mean yes. They cut his hair, they had to, but George never wears his hair this long anyway. And look.’ Suze pulled a jiffy bag out of a drawer and tipped out the contents. More hair. And it was the same.
‘Was there a note with this?’ asked Gracie, feeling sick.
‘Yeah. Here.’
Gracie took the note Suze handed her. It said ‘Doyle scum. No cops.’
Gracie stiffened. ‘You haven’t. Have you? Told the police?’
Suze shook her head. ‘I was too frightened to.’
‘I guess this is Harry’s then,’ said Gracie.
‘He wears it long, like that,’ said Suze.
Gracie stared dumbly at the hair. George had been a mouthy little pain in the arse through most of his childhood, but Harry had never been any trouble. Gracie didn’t like to think of someone hacking Harry’s hair off like this. She didn’t like it at all. It spoke of a spiteful need to inflict visible damage.
Her mother was still fingering the hair. Gracie set her bag down on the floor, looking around her. The same old place. She hadn’t been happy here. Mum and Dad ranting and raving at each other, Harry and George sitting on the stairs in a state of terror and tears, her trying to reassure them . . .
Bad, old memories that she didn’t want to look at all over again. She didn’t even want to be here. But she was.
‘They still living here, with you?’ she asked.
Her mother looked up. ‘What?’
‘George and Harry? They live here?’
‘Nah, they moved out when Claude moved in. About a year ago.’
‘Who’s Claude?’ asked Gracie.
‘I am,’ said a masculine voice.
A man had just appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was tall with a beer gut, a receding hairline and blue eyes magnified by hugely thick rimless glasses. He looked in his fifties, and he had a smarmy smile on his face that put Gracie’s hackles up straight away.
‘This . . .’ Her mother looked at her with less than friendly eyes. ‘. . . This is my daughter Gracie, Claude.’
‘The famous missing daughter!’ Claude came forward, holding out a hand in greeting. ‘Well, I never.’
‘Hi,’ said Gracie, pulling back when he tried to kiss her cheek.
Claude noted it straight away. He turned a smile on her mother. ‘She’s a bit frosty, Suze,’ he said jokily.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said her mother sourly. Gracie saw her mother’s eyes snap to his hand, which was still holding hers. His grip felt soft and damp and Gracie pulled her hand away.
‘Bad business about your brother being in hospital,’ he said, twisting his face into an appropriate expression of sympathy.
Gracie could see why George and Harry had moved out. She’d taken against Claude on sight and she was willing to bet he’d driven them away.
‘Yeah, it’s bad all right.’ Gracie turned her attention to her mother. ‘What’s the latest on that? Is George any better?’
Suze shook her head. ‘Just the same.’
‘And what’s this?’ Claude was crossing the kitchen and was now prodding at the hair. ‘What on earth . . .? Is this another lot of hair?’
‘Yeah. Some was posted to me, too,’ said Gracie, not really wanting to discuss any of this with him. ‘It’s got to be Harry’s.’
‘Well, it’s got to be some sort of joke, don’t you think?’ asked Claude.
‘A joke?’ shot back Suze. ‘Well it ain’t very funny, is it?’
‘Yeah, but you know what these youngsters are like. One of their mates larking about, and maybe him and Harry thought it’d be a laugh.’
Gracie looked coldly at Claude. The man was an idiot. And clearly he didn’t know Harry at all. She could only dredge her memory, but what she did remember told her that Harry would never go in for a sick, demented prank like this.
Gracie wondered for a moment about showing her mother the note she’d got, but decided against it. Her mother could wail and shout for England, and Suze throwing a fit all over the bloody kitchen wasn’t going to get Harry out of bother.
Gracie reviewed the facts. Harry was in trouble, George was taking nil by mouth, her casino had damned near burned down and would have burned down if not for Brynn’s quick thinking. She was only surprised that something hadn’t yet happened to Suze or her live-in lover Claude.
‘You got a room I can stay in for the night?’ she asked wearily. She scooped the hair she’d been sent back into the bag and stuffed it into her holdall. ‘My old room will do.’
Her mother opened her mouth to speak – probably to say a flat no, but Claude, the oily bastard, chipped in.
‘Of course she has.’ He was beaming with bonhomie.
