unsteady steps down the dark hallway. Kay followed. The house smelt of stale food, of sweat, of unshifted filth. Terri led Kay through the first door on the left, into a tiny sitting room.
There were no books, no pictures, no photographs, no television; nothing except a pair of filthy old armchairs and a broken set of shelves. Debris littered the floor. A pile of brand-new cardboard boxes piled against the wall struck an incongruous note.
A bare-legged little boy was standing in the middle of the floor, dressed in a T-shirt and a bulging pull-up nappy. Kay knew from the file that he was three and a half. His whining seemed unconscious and unmotivated, a sort of engine noise to signal that he was there. He was clutching a miniature cereal packet.
‘So this must be Robbie?’ said Kay.
The boy looked at her when she said his name, but kept grizzling.
Terri shoved aside a scratched old biscuit tin, which had been sitting on one of the dirty frayed armchairs, and curled herself into the seat, watching Kay from beneath drooping eyelids. Kay took the other chair, on the arm of which was perched an overflowing ashtray. Cigarette ends had fallen into the seat of Kay’s chair; she could feel them beneath her thighs.
‘Hello, Robbie,’ said Kay, opening Terri’s file.
The little boy continued to whine, shaking the cereal packet; something inside it rattled.
‘What have you got in there?’ Kay asked.
He did not answer, but shook the packet more vigorously. A small plastic figure flew out of it, soared in an arc and fell down behind the cardboard boxes. Robbie began to wail. Kay watched Terri, who was staring at her son, blank-faced. Eventually, Terri murmured, ‘S’up, Robbie?’
‘Shall we see if we can get it out?’ said Kay, quite glad of a reason to stand up and brush down the back of her legs. ‘Let’s have a look.’
She put her head close to the wall to look into the gap behind the boxes. The little figure was wedged near the top. She forced her hand into the gap. The boxes were heavy and difficult to move. Kay managed to grasp the model, which, once she had it in her hand, she saw to be a squat, fat Buddha-like man, bright purple all over.
‘Here you are,’ she said.
Robbie’s wailing ceased; he took the figure and put it back inside the cereal packet, which he started to shake again.
Kay glanced around. Two small toy cars lay upside down under the broken shelves.
‘Do you like cars?’ Kay asked Robbie, pointing at them.
He did not follow the direction of her finger, but squinted at her with a mixture of calculation and curiosity. Then he trotted off and picked up a car and held it up for her to see.
‘Broom,’ he said. ‘Ca.’
‘That’s right,’ said Kay. ‘Very good. Car. Broom broom.’
She sat back down and took her notepad out of her bag.
‘So, Terri. How have things been going?’
There was a pause before Terri said, ‘All righ’.’
‘Just to explain: Mattie has been signed off sick, so I’m covering for her. I’ll need to go over some of the information she’s left me, to check that nothing’s changed since she saw you last week, all right?
‘So, let’s see: Robbie is in nursery now, isn’t he? Four mornings a week and two afternoons?’
Kay’s voice seemed to reach Terri only distantly. It was like talking to somebody sitting at the bottom of a well.
‘Yeah,’ she said, after a pause.
‘How’s that going? Is he enjoying it?’
Robbie crammed the matchbox car into the cereal box. He picked up one of the cigarette butts that had fallen off Kay’s trousers, and squashed it on top of the car and the purple Buddha.
‘Yeah,’ said Terri drowsily.
But Kay was poring over the last of the untidy notes Mattie had left before she had been signed off.
‘Shouldn’t he be there today, Terri? Isn’t Tuesday one of the days he goes?’
Terri seemed to be fighting a desire to sleep. Once or twice her head rocked a little on her shoulders. Finally she said, ‘Krystal was s’posed to drop him and she never.’
‘Krystal is your daughter, isn’t she? How old is she?’
‘Fourteen,’ said Terri dreamily, ‘’n’a half.’
Kay could see from her notes that Krystal was sixteen. There was a long pause.
Two chipped mugs stood at the foot of Terri’s armchair. The dirty liquid in one of them had a bloody look. Terri’s arms were folded across her flat breast.
‘I had him dressed,’ said Terri, dragging the words from deep in her