The Red Road by Denise Mina Read Free Book Online

for life. That’s why he liked young offenders, they kept the office number and used it again later, and there nearly always was a later. He had clients he’d been representing for twenty years. But Rose Wilson didn’t look as if she could be bought by chocolate.
    ‘So, Rose, what’s the story here?’
    She looked at the wall. She raised a hand and scratched her cheek, flaking off a dusting of rust. He saw then that she wasn’t old, didn’t look old. She was nothing special, just a child. He picked up his pen.
    ‘What age are you?’
    She smiled at the wall but her smile looked bitter because of the lines on her face. ‘Fourteen,’ she said. ‘But I look sixteen.’
    She looked a hundred today.
    Julius wrote it down. ‘And where do you live?’
    ‘ Live? ’
    ‘ Stay ,’ he said, using the vernacular. ‘Where do you stay ?’
    ‘Turnberry.’ She watched his notebook, waiting for him to write it.
    ‘The kids’ home?’
    ‘Kids’ home, yeah.’
    He wrote it down for her. ‘And how long have you been staying there for?’
    ‘Two year.’
    These were questions he could answer with a glance at her file but he was trying to get her talking as a warm-up to the difficult events of the charge. When she got going he would be able to jot it down, put in a guilty plea, get out and think about this Dawood situation.
    ‘You like it there?’
    She raised a shoulder. She was looking at the wall again.
    ‘Is it OK?’
    ‘Mm.’
    ‘Like the staff?’
    She shook her head a fraction. ‘Mm.’
    ‘Chocolate?’ Julius put the Dairy Milk bar on the table and pushed it over to her with his fingertips.
    He watched her looking at it. She wanted it but didn’t take it. Instead she looked at the door, suspicious. He followed her eye-line. She was making sure the viewing slot was open. She looked at the chocolate again, wanted it again, but shook her head and shrank back from it.
    ‘I’ll leave it there in case you change your mind,’ said Julius casually. ‘Do you smoke?’
    She shook her head. ‘Makes me chuck.’ She was very suspicious now and sat further back in her chair. ‘You smoke. I can smell ye. Spark up if you want.’
    ‘So, what happened to you last night?’
    ‘Went out ...’
    McMillan didn’t say anything.
    ‘Went out ...’ she said again, waiting for an interruption that never came.
    ‘OK.’ He put his pen down. ‘Let’s start with what you have told the police about what happened last night.’
    Desolate, her mouth hanging open, she stared beyond him to the wall. ‘Nothing ...’
    ‘You’ve said nothing? They’ve questioned you, haven’t they? Brought you into an interview room and taped you talking?’
    ‘Found me in his car.’ She was shocked, drawling. ‘Haven’t been taped.’
    He knew then that they had so much overwhelming physical evidence against her that they didn’t need a confession. ‘Did you tell them you did it?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Did you do it?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘What did you do?’
    ‘Stabbed him.’
    ‘Where did you get the knife?’
    She fell back into shock. Slowly her forehead rose to meet the map of bloody wrinkles.
    Julius put his fingertips on the chocolate bar and pushed it closer to her. ‘Eat that now.’
    She picked it up and fumbled with the wrapper, her fingers unfocused. He took it off her and undid it, pulling the entire wrapper off and handing it over to her. ‘Eat at least half.’
    She did eat half and he watched her. She didn’t swallow because her mouth was dry but kept chewing, waiting for her saliva glands to start working. The habit of compliance. She had been ordered around a lot.
    ‘You’ve been in care for a few years since your mum died, haven’t you?’
    She looked up at that, dutifully chewing dry mud. ‘ Julius McMillan,’ she said, rolling her chocolate-stuck mouth around the strange name. She flicked a finger from him to herself. ‘What’s this?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘This.’ She flicked again, faster. ‘The point of