Southsiders by Nigel Bird Read Free Book Online Page B

There was something familiar about it, but it took him a while to place it. Rupert Wallace, Social Work. “I see you’re feeling a bit better now. That’s good.” Wallace always managed to sound sarcastic even when he was trying to be nice.
    Jesse turned to face him. He wore a black duffel coat with polished wooden pegs for buttons, drainpipe jeans and a pair of shiny brown brogues.
    “Yeah. I’m quite a bit better.” What the hell was Wallace doing there? And how the hell was Jesse going to get out of this one?
    “I’ve been waiting for a while. The nice man on the ground floor let me in.” Nice? In this block? Must be someone new.
    “Did you want to see me?” Jesse asked.
    “You and your parents really. Can I come in?”
    Questions like this from people like Wallace were never really questions at all. They were more like instructions or orders made to sound like something else. “Suppose so,” Jesse told him and went over to pick up his bags again. He struggled over to the door with his load and opened up.
    When they got inside and Jesse turned the lights on, Wallace gasped. “Is something wrong?”
    “Course not.”
    “It doesn’t look right. Like it’s someone else’s house. What the hell’s happened?”
    Jesse shrugged his shoulders in reply.
    “It’s...” Wallace paused for a moment. “...tidy. The place is tidy. There must be something wrong.”
    It was nice of him to notice. And, yes, it was tidy.
    Jesse led Wallace through into the kitchen. The floor tiles shone and there was nothing but a clean plastic table-top where the piles of mess usually lived. There was even the whiff of cleaning materials and soap about the place. No wonder Wallace was freaking out.
    “Mum’s gone sober. Hasn’t had a drink for weeks. It suits her. Makes her gentle and kind. I don’t think you’d recognise her.”
    The social worker rubbed at his forehead with his sleeve. “No, I bloody well wouldn’t.”
    Swearing was another of those things people like Wallace could get away with. Like using words like damned and buggered made him an all right guy. Just like the people he was sent to work with except for the job, the clothes, the posh accent and the lifetime of opportunities.
    “Are your parents around?”
    “They must have popped out. Said something about picking up a Christmas tree when I went out shopping.”
    “It’s funny. I got a call from the school today about your attendance. They mentioned that you’d been off again. Too ill to get in. They also said that there was something unusual about the calls they’d had from your dad.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Something about the voice. Like it was someone pretending to be him. Do you have any idea what that might be about?”
    “He’s had a bit of a cold an’ all,” Jesse said, the body-swerve being about as natural to him as it was to a footballer in the SPL. It might have been better if he’d been able to dive like one, then he’d have been able to jump from the window and get away from it all.
    “That’s a shame.” The tone suggested that Wallace didn’t mean it. His words dripped with sarcasm the way syrup slid from toast. “But at least you’re better.”
    There was no hiding the fact that he wasn’t ill, so Jesse didn’t even bother. “Must have been one of those twenty-four hour bugs. I was all better just after lunch.”
    “Must be nice, you having your mum around. I mean, really around.”
    The guy was fishing, Jesse knew. Being a social worker seemed to be more about detective work than looking after folk as far as Jesse could tell. Problem was, Wallace was good with a line and a hook and Jesse needed to be careful he didn’t swallow the bait. “Aye. It is.”
    “Looks like she’s able to look after you and cook and clean and do all the things she might forget when she’s had a couple of gin and tonics.” Wallace got up and went over to the sink. He took a glass from the drainer and held it up to the light and