Acid Row Read Online Free

Cattrell  

Two.
    20-26 July 2001
    SUSPICION IN HUMBERT Street focused on number 23, not because the occupant had a Polish name but because an adult man had recently moved in. It had been Mary Fallen's house until one of her five children died of pneumonia while awaiting surgery for heart problems. The council denied liability but moved the family hastily to the healthier climes of the newer Portisfield Estate, which was twenty miles away on the other side of the city and a great deal more attractive, having benefited from lessons learnt in Acid Row.
    After that, number 23 had stood empty for months with its windows boarded over until council workers turned up unexpectedly to air the place with some warm July sun, and paint over the cracks and mould in the plaster. Shortly afterwards, the new tenant moved in. Or tenants?
    There was some confusion about how many were in there. The neighbours at 25 said it was two men they could hear the rumble of deep conversation through the walls but only one ever came out to do the shopping. A middle-aged fellow with sandy hair, pale skin and a shy smile.
    There was also confusion about how and when they arrived, as no one remembered seeing a pantechnicon in the street. A rumour spread that the police had escorted them there at dead of night along with their furniture, but old Mrs. Carthew at number 9, who sat at her window all day, said they came in a van on a Monday morning and helped the driver unload it themselves. No one believed her because her bad- days outweighed her good days, and it seemed unlikely that she was lucid enough to know it was a Monday or even remember the event afterwards.
    Police involvement was more appealing because it made sense.
    Particularly to the young, who lived on conspiracy theory. Why were the men brought in under cover of darkness? Why did the second one never emerge in the daytime? Why was the shopper's face so pale? It was a contamination. Like something out of The X-Files. Vampire perverts hunting in packs.
    Mrs. Carthew said they were father and son, claiming she'd opened her window to ask them. No one believed her because there wasn't a window in Acid Row that a senile old fool could open. It took hammers and chisels to prise them loose from their frames. And even if she could her house was too far away from 23 for that sort of idle chit-chat.
    The preferred interpretation was that they were gay doubly sick therefore and mothers with daughters breathed quiet sighs of relief while warning their lads to be careful. Youngsters hung around outside the house for a couple of days, shouting insults and baring their bottoms, but, when nothing happened and no one appeared at the windows they grew bored and went back to the amusement arcades.
    The women were less easily diverted. They continued to gossip among themselves and keep a watchful eye on the comings and goings in Humbert Street. Some of the social workers responded to their questions but few of the women believed the answers, which were unspecific and open to interpretation.
    "Of course they aren't going to dump perverts on you just because it's a sink estate. Trust me, if there was a dangerous paedophile in the area, Pd be the first to know .. ."
    "Perhaps it's a dastardly plot to get you to keep an eye on your kids .. :
    " Look, these days, convicted paedophiles are under constant supervision. It's the wannabe psychos who come in from outside you really want to worry about.. ."
    These answers were repeated endlessly around the community, so no one knew how accurate the reported speech was. However, the fact that there appeared to be no outright denials was seized upon as evidence of what they had always believed.
    There was one set of rules for Acid Row and another for everyone else.
    Thursday 26 July 2001 - 21 Humbert Street, Bassindale Estate Melanie offered Sophie Morrison a cup of tea after the doctor had let Rosie and Ben listen to the baby's heartbeat through her stethoscope.
    She was lying