‘Mummy, Mummy, look at this,’ I cry, holding out my arm. I am trying to hold back the tears, but one droplet escapes and rolls over my cheek. I am relieved I have caught her at the front door.
‘Not now, sweetie, I’m late for work,’ she replies, not even looking my way.
‘Please, Mummy, look, it hurts,’ I say, thrusting it at her. ‘There’s even a red mark, here, on my arm.’
She puts down her handbag and grabs my arm roughly. Her face has hardened. She is annoyed with me. That hurts me too, but in a different way.
‘Where?’ she snaps, causing me to shrink back from her.
‘Th… there.’ I point.
She looks more closely. ‘There’s nothing there. Stop being such a silly baby.’
Now the tears break free and the sobbing starts. I want to wrap my arms around her legs and stop her from leaving. There is something there. The skin is still smarting from the fingers twisting my flesh.
She gives me back my arm and with it a gentle shove away.
‘And don’t disturb Daddy with your silliness. He has an important conference call this morning.’
She regards me for just a minute, as though weighing up whether to lean down and kiss me before she leaves. My heart hammers with hope.
I wait.
The urge passes and I see a dozen thoughts about the day ahead enter her mind. She smiles weakly, as though she knows that there is more she should do.
She turns and leaves, closing the door with finality.
I go back to my room with an empty feeling; it’s as if someone has scooped out my insides.
It won’t be long until fresh marks appear. How many more times will I try to explain?
Because she doesn’t listen.
No one ever does.
One
‘Oh, Bryant, make them turn it off,’ Kim moaned, covering her eyes with her hands. Just ten minutes she’d wanted. She’d told Bryant to pull up in front of the café so that he could buy her a much-needed latte after their Diversity Awareness refresher at Brierley Hill.
Treating people differently because of colour, age, race or gender was not something she needed a morning of death by PowerPoint presentation to understand. She had no bias towards or against anyone and was generally rude to everyone.
‘Bryant, I’m begging,’ she said to the detective sergeant, glancing back at the television. It seemed that wherever she went, there was no escaping the impending visit of the celebrity Z-lister, Tyra Brooks, famous for sleeping with a prominent, married footballer and then writing a kiss-and-tell book about it.
Every local news programme or bulletin mentioned her book tour and signing at the imaginatively named The Book Store, in the shopping centre in Halesowen, at the end of the week.
Even here, at a half-filled, back-street café in Brierley Hill, the small television was repeating the girl’s history, interspersed with clips of Superintendent Lena Wiley from West Mercia urging peace and order across the nine scheduled events in the Midlands.
‘New Age celeb, guv,’ Bryant said, trying to get the attention of the café owner, who had his back turned and was watching the news himself. ‘It’s all wags, shags and reality TV these days. I remember when you had to be skilled at something to be—’
‘Okay, let’s get out of here,’ she said, finishing her drink. She didn’t disagree with her colleague, but she wasn’t wearing the right shoes for a trip down memory lane.
Bryant looked dolefully at the rest of his sandwich before following her out the door.
‘What the?…’ Kim said as she collided with a uniformed security guard from one of the stores. Another was running across the road, radio in hand.
She knew many of the stores were members of a Retail Watch Scheme where they shared information and intelligence on local criminals. Sightings of known shoplifters and troublemakers were communicated between the small network so that each could be on the lookout for trouble in their individual stores.
She turned to follow.
‘Guv…’
‘Police business, Bryant,’ she said, quickening her step.
In her experience, store security would only leave their own premises if someone on the network had called for urgent assistance, normally for a shoplifter getting violent, some other kind of public order offence or something involving children.
Kim followed the security officers into the Shop N Save store nestled between a bank and a Blue Cross charity shop. She navigated the long, narrow aisles filled with bargains and low-priced items, ranging from home furnishings to toys to food products.
A row of tills was located right at the back of the store. She