What Came Before He Shot Her by Elizabeth George Read Free Book Online Page A

afternoon when Kendra returned. The fact that Ness was not present in Edenham Way during the intervening hours escaped Kendra’s notice, and the two boys made no mention of this. Joel said nothing because he knew what the outcome would be for him if he passed this information to his aunt.
    Toby said nothing because he did not notice. As long as the television was on, he could retreat into Sose.
    Thus, Ness had ten days in which to meld into life in North Kensington, and she had no difficulty in doing so. Six and Natasha being unrepentant truants from their own school, they made a threesome with Ness and they were only too happy to show her what was what in the area: from the quickest route down to Queensway where they could loiter in Whiteley’s till they were run off, to the best spot where they could chat up boys. When the two girls weren’t initiating her into those sorts of delights, they were passing along to her the various substances that would make her life more blissful. With this, however, Ness was careful. She knew the wisdom of being in possession of all of her facul-ties when her aunt returned from her day’s work.
    Joel watched all this and longed to say something. But he was caught between warring loyalties: to his sister whom he no longer quite recognised let alone understood and to his aunt who had taken them into her home instead of delivering them elsewhere. So he said nothing. He just watched Ness leave and return—careful to wash herself, her hair, and if necessary her clothing prior to Kendra’s arrival—and he waited for what was surely to come.
    What came first was Holland Park School, the third of the comprehensives that Kendra contacted hoping for Joel and Ness to be admitted. If she couldn’t get them into a school that was relatively local, they would be forced to return to East Acton each day, which wasn’t what she wanted for them, nor for herself. She’d tried an RC comprehensive first, thinking that a quasireligious and, one hoped, disciplined environment might be just the ticket to set Ness on the straight and narrow that she needed. There were no places available, so she’d gone on to an Anglican comprehensive next, with the same result. She moved on to Holland Park School third, and there she finally had success. There were several places, and all that would be necessary—aside from taking the admissions test—was purchasing the necessary uniforms.
    Joel was easy to fit into the grey-upon-unrelieved-even-darker-grey of the required school kit. Ness was not so accommodating. She declared that she wasn’t about to “wear dat shit nowheres.” Kendra corrected her grammar, established a fine of fifty pence henceforth for linguistic crudities, and told her she most certainly was.
    They could have embarked upon a battle of wills at that point, but Ness gave in. Kendra allowed herself to be pleased and foolishly thought she had won a round with the girl, little knowing that Ness’s plans for herself didn’t include going to Holland Park School for love or money, so—reflecting on this fact—she’d quickly realised that it didn’t matter whether her aunt purchased the uniform for her to wear or not.
    With Joel and Ness taken care of, there remained the matter of Toby.
    Wherever he went to school, it had to be somewhere along the route Joel and Ness would follow to get to the number 52 bus, which would ferry them to Holland Park. Although none of them spoke of the subject openly, all of them knew that Toby could not be allowed to wander to school on his own, and Kendra could not hope to get back to her massage salon plans—which had been lying fallow since the night she’d arrived home to find the boys on her doorstep—while simultaneously keeping up her employment at the charity shop and either driving or walking Toby to and from school.
    So for another ten days, she worked upon the problem. It should have been simple: There were primary schools in every direction from