Moth Girls Read online

  ‘There are no ghosts. You’ll have to trust me about this but I know the old man who lives here is going to get robbed by someone. That’s why I’m going in there: to warn him. There were never any ghosts.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We can go in and come out in less than five minutes. Tell him to ring the police. He won’t know who we are but it might stop him losing his money.’

  And it might stop Dad committing a crime.

  She took Tina’s hand. They should go in there now before she completely lost her nerve. She stepped inside, pulling Tina a few steps along with her. They were standing in a kitchen. Her eyes got used to the dark and she could see that it was a big room with a large table in the middle. Around the side were cupboards and there was a sink by the window. The door into the rest of the house was half open and there was a faint sheen of light coming from further up the hallway. She looked round to see Tina’s face frozen, her mouth in a straight line. She squeezed her hand and walked forward.

  There was a sound, a thump. Low and muffled, as if someone had punched a cushion. She felt Tina’s hand gripping hers. Then there was a bang like something dropping from a height.

  She felt Tina twist and pull her hand away. Without a word she backed off until she was at the door to the garden. She paused for a moment and stared at Petra, her face screwed up with worry. She shook her head rapidly then turned away. A second later the doorway was empty and Tina was gone. Petra was on her own. She felt unstable, light-headed. She wanted to run after Tina but she’d come here to do something and it was important that she stayed. Maybe the noises she’d heard were made by the old man, dropping things.

  Her legs felt weak but she walked forward and stepped into the hallway. Opposite were the stairs. To her left the living room door was partially open and threw a strip of light onto the hall floor. It was perfectly quiet. She tiptoed across the lit floor and into the dark stairwell by the front door. A hat stand was there, heavy with coats. There was a narrow space between it and the front door and she slipped into it. Now she could see a sliver through the opening of the living room door but not much else. She glanced up the stairs. It was black. She would catch her breath and then go into the living room and face Mr Merchant.

  There was a sudden movement from the living room. A set of footsteps seemed to go from one side to the other. Then there was the sound of a different set of footsteps.

  Mr Merchant wasn’t alone.

  She stayed still and quiet, hardly drawing breath. A voice sounded.

  ‘We just want what’s owed! That’s all. Why are you being so secretive? It’s not even your money, old man. It belongs to someone else.’

  A voice mumbled something but Petra couldn’t quite catch the words. There were footsteps. There was definitely more than one person moving around. A figure came to the door. It opened fully and the light fell into the hall and stairwell. Her chest contracted. A man was standing with his back to her. She sunk in beside a coat and pulled the front of it across her body and face. It was thick with dust and smelt. She closed her eyes and heard the sound of talk.

  ‘How long are we going to keep asking him? Constantine wants his money now! How long?’

  There was a reply from somewhere else in the room. She opened her eyes and peeped out of the side of the coat. She knew the voice immediately. It was her dad. Fingers tightened inside her chest. She’d known he was involved but she hadn’t wanted to actually see him there. If she could just slip away, get out. She was too late to do any good for Mr Merchant. The robbery would go ahead and she was stuck behind the coats. The first man turned round then, pulling his mobile out of his pocket and pressing buttons. The sight of him gave her a start. His face was covered with a balaclava. Only his eyes and mouth could be seen. It made her feel sick. It suddenly felt dangerous. He was listening to someone talking and saying, ‘Yeah, I know. Yeah … I know …’ Then he went back into the living room.

  She saw Mr Merchant then. The old man was tied to a chair. There was a belt fastened around his chest and arms, and his legs were held with strips of cloth. He looked weak, his head lolling. He was wearing a shirt and tie as he had been on the day he waved to her through the window. The collar looked tight and his skin was puckered up around it. He appeared bewildered, as if he had no idea what was happening. Her dad was standing beside him. He was also wearing a balaclava but she’d have known him anywhere. The old man’s face turned from her dad to the other man and back again.

  Petra wanted to shout out but her throat was clamped tight.

  The man on the phone said something and her dad seemed to sigh or shrug. Then he knelt down beside the old man and began to speak right into his ear. Petra couldn’t hear his words but she saw that one of his hands was resting on the old man’s chest as if he was about to pat him gently. Petra looked away. Something was in the air, something terrible. The front door was beside her. What if she opened it and ran out and cried out for help? She saw then that it was bolted at the top and bottom and she wouldn’t be able to reach.

  Her dad’s voice got louder, angrier.

  She could run along the hallway and out through the kitchen. There was too much light though. She would be seen and she might not even get very far. Her dad would rage at her. She looked back to the living room and she saw her dad’s hand move closer to the throat of the old man. She felt faint, as if she might fold up on the spot. The other man spoke.

  ‘Just tell us where it is! Just open your mouth and say the words. It’s only money! And it’s not yours! Otherwise he will hurt you! Why would you want him to do that?’

  Mr Merchant’s head seemed to slump. Her dad swore loudly. Then he took the sides of the chair and pushed it away from him. Petra watched in terror as the chair fell over, dragging Mr Merchant with it. It lay on its side on the floor, the old man still attached. He was facing away from her but she could see his head falling to the side. Her leg moved as if she would step out of her hiding place and go and help him, show her face so that her dad would stop.

  She couldn’t move though.

  Her dad walked round the other side and she could see him pull a strip of material out of his pocket. He knelt down and tied it round Mr Merchant’s mouth. Then he stood up and aimed a kick at the chair, making it skewer off. There was a gurgling sound coming from Mr Merchant but Petra couldn’t watch any more. She crept out from the coats, stepped round the beam of light from the living room and up the stairs, taking them two at a time until she was three-quarters of the way up, out of sight. She sat down and huddled into the bannisters, her arms around her knees as she stared through the gaps. She heard banging and scraping. She pressed her thumbs against her eyelids because she didn’t want to picture the chair being dragged around the room. There was shouting and thumping and she made herself as small as she could, shrinking into the corner of the stair. She was trembling with fright, her hands shaking in front of her face.

  Then it stopped and there was silence.

  A voice spoke. Petra didn’t want to hear so she put her fingers in her ears, but it didn’t block the sound out.

  ‘Did you have to do that? Now we’ll never find the money.’

  ‘You said to make it real. To scare him.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you to kill him. He’s no good to us dead.’

  There was swearing. Her dad was mumbling, his words unclear as if he was far across the room.

  ‘OK, let’s trash the place. We might find it ourselves.’

  ‘No, no … Let’s get out …’

  The other man appeared at the door and went down the hallway below where Petra was sitting. Her dad came to the door. He pulled his balaclava off and she saw his face. He looked hot and flustered, like someone she didn’t know. He walked along the hall. She heard the footsteps go through the kitchen and then the back door slamming. When she was sure they’d gone she stood up and walked down the stairs. She went to the door of the living room. She gasped when she saw Mr Merchant lying under the upturned chair, h
is head at an odd angle, his face turned away from her.

  This was her dad’s work.

  There was blood and she turned away from it, not wanting to look at him. She saw the room of an old sick man. Her eyes took in the single bed along the wall and beside it the oxygen tank, its feeds and mask still attached. Opposite the fireplace and television was the red velvet armchair that she’d heard Nathan Ball talking about. Behind it was wooden panelling that had been pulled away. She felt her head drop with shame. If she had come in earlier, this afternoon, when she first saw Nathan Ball hanging around, she could have told Mr Merchant. He would have rung the police and none of this would have happened. But she’d left it until it was too late.

  There was a noise.

  It was the sound of the back door opening. They were coming back.

  She looked round the room in panic. She couldn’t let them find her here. She stepped across to the red velvet chair and knelt down behind it. Footsteps came up the hallway, hurrying. Her dad came back into the room alone. He was mumbling under his breath. He went across to Mr Merchant’s body and squatted down.

  ‘You stupid old man,’ he whispered.

  Was he checking that he was really dead? Was he ashamed and going to try to help him in some way? She could see he was struggling with the belt that had been fastened around the old man’s chest. It came free and he pulled it out inch by inch. Mr Merchant fell forward. Her dad stood up and began to thread the belt through the loops on his own jeans. She’d seen him do that at home. When she’d been ironing his shirt and he’d been getting reading to go out. ‘How do I look?’ he’d said. Now he did up the buckle and looked round. His eye paused on the place where she was hiding.

  Had he seen her?

  A moan escaped from her lips.

  ‘Petra?’ he said.

  He stared at her in horror. She focused on his face. How could the sight of his daughter affect him more than the body of a dead old man? He seemed frozen. She stood up and walked around the edge of the room slowly. He came towards her, putting his hands out as if he wanted her to hold them.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘You killed him.’

  He shook his head and came closer to her. He glanced at the door and back as if he wanted to stop her going there. She stood still and put her two hands out. His face relaxed and he stepped towards her but she launched herself towards him and gave him a fierce push so that he stumbled backwards onto the floor.

  Then she staggered out of the room.

  Twenty-Six

  Petra ran. She raced along Princess Street. She took breaths in great mouthfuls and turned into the next road and kept going. She didn’t dare stop to see if her dad was coming after her. She passed by her school which was in darkness and slipped round the side of it to the path that she and Tina sometimes used to get to the park. There were lights dotted along it but she stepped into a recess and stood behind a tree. From where she was she could see the street beyond and she focused on it intently, expecting to see her dad passing, perhaps stopping, trying to find her.

  But he didn’t come. She waited for what seemed like a long time.

  Then she stepped out of her hiding place and walked back to the street. Looking right and left, making sure he was nowhere to be seen, she began to walk. It had started to rain and she moved quicker, striding swiftly along as if she had to be somewhere. She left her school behind and headed towards Holloway Road. She continued walking, not sure of which direction she was heading. The street was busy with people coming home from work, getting off buses and struggling with umbrellas. The traffic was queueing, the lights of the cars illuminating the rain. As she passed each vehicle she could hear snatches of music or voices from the radio inside.

  She was wet and cold. Her hands were trembling.

  She stopped at a small van that sold drinks by the tube station. She bought a hot chocolate and then stood in the doorway of an empty shop and drank it slowly, feeling the burning liquid on her tongue and letting it lie there before swallowing. She didn’t know what she was doing there. She had no idea where she was heading. She had no notion of what she was going to do. When she finished she walked out of the doorway and headed towards Angel. The shopping centre would be warm and would stay open until late. She could stay there while she worked out what to do.

  What to do.

  She faltered in her step. Her dad had just killed a man.

  The memory made her stomach lurch and she thought, for a moment, that she was going to be sick. She steadied herself though and caused a couple of people to sidestep her, to make irate comments, to look back crossly at her for holding them up. But she could only think of Mr Merchant lying on the floor of his living room, partly tied to a chair. The image made something in her stomach claw at her. She remembered her dad unclasping the belt from around the old man’s arms and chest and calmly threading it through his own trousers.

  What about Nathan Ball? He hadn’t been there but he’d been driving a white van around. Had he been waiting for a text to say that they’d found the money? Had he picked up her dad and the other man outside number fifty-three Princess Street, expecting one of them to be holding a bag of cash? Instead they’d got into the van with murder on their hands.

  She stopped and leant against a shop window. It was wet and the water soaked into her shoulder and arm. She didn’t care. She preferred to be uncomfortable than to dwell on what had happened. She thought of Tina. At least she hadn’t been there to see it. She’d run off frightened and was probably sitting at home right now or possibly she’d gone to Mandy’s house and Mandy’s mother was fussing over her. Then Tina would go back home where her own mum would be waiting. Her dad would be miles away in South London with his beautician, but at least he wouldn’t have any blood on his hands.

  Would her dad go round to Tina’s to look for her?

  She walked on. It was a long way to Angel but she kept going.

  The shopping centre wasn’t so busy. It had a weary air about it as though people were longing to get their purchases and just go home. She walked aimlessly around, pretending to look into shop windows, but really she wasn’t focusing on anything. In her mind she was still seeing Mr Merchant tied to a chair in his bedsit living room. Her dad was there wearing a balaclava, trying to persuade the old man to tell them where the money was.

  What was she going to do about it?

  Go to the police?

  She began to cry and found it difficult to catch her breath in her throat. A couple of people were looking her way. She had to get out of there. She needed to go somewhere where she could sit and think. She left the shopping centre and headed off into the dark streets. It took a while to get to Zofia’s because she’d only ever walked there from Angel once before. The house was in darkness but Petra could see, through the front-door glass, a hint of light from the back of the hallway. She pressed the bell and felt the sound vibrate. Moments later the hall light came on and footsteps sounded. The door flew open and Zofia stood there, her face stern.

  ‘My God, it’s nearly ten. Your father has been here looking for you!’

  Of course her dad would go to Zofia’s house. He knew how close they were.

  Zofia stepped forward and looked out into the street.

  ‘And your friend? Where is she?’ Zofia said. ‘The police have been called to look for both of you.’

  ‘The police?’

  The police? Her dad had called the police? After what had happened? She began to shake her head. Zofia had her by the hand and pulled her into the house.

  ‘I get you nice towel and get you warm, then I call your father.’

  ‘No, no, no, please, Zofia. Don’t call my dad. Please, I beg you, don’t call him. I don’t want him to know where I am.’

  ‘You rowed with him?’

  ‘No. It’s worse than that. It’s much worse … Please, Zofia, don’t call him. Don’t call anyone.’