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she’d been dragged into this, but she was not irresponsible. Anna led Charlie out the front door and scribbled a message on Helen’s notepad that was still in the meter box. She wedged the note into the screen door.
    By the time Anna settled Charlie onto her couch, the girl’s eyes were drooping. She ate two more Iced VoVos and a handful of dried apricots. The toy rabbit tucked under her arm smelt of beer.
    Anna sat beside her but didn’t try to make conversation. What did you say to a child whose parents have disappeared? If the mother or father didn’t turn up by morning, Anna guessed she’d have to call the police. Charlie fell asleep, a half-eaten apricot in her hand.
    Anna removed the apricot and lifted the girl’s feet to lie her flat on the couch. God, she reeked of cigarette smoke. The poor kid. And her legs were spotted with bruises. What had she been doing? The pyjama shorts rode up her thigh and Anna saw it: a dark purple circle, no, two half-circles that nearly joined. Teeth marks and a small scab. A bite mark.
    Anna fell back on her heels, blood thumping in her ears. Was it a human bite? Someone or something had bitten the girl hard enough to draw blood. She gently bit her own forearm and compared the size of the marks. They looked the same.
    She pressed her fingers hard onto her eyelids for a moment, her mind whirling. Then she retrieved a cotton blanket from the linen closet and laid it over the girl, and knelt on the floor for what felt like a long time, watching Charlie’s chest rise and fall, wondering if it could really be a human bite.
    In fifth grade, Anna had bitten a boy. Gordon Patterson had teased her all year, and one day, as he flicked her cheek, she grabbed his arm and sank her teeth in. There was no doubting the savagery of biting. It was not something that happened accidentally; you had to decide to bite someone, and you had to keep biting for a while to draw blood.
    A car door slammed outside, and Anna pulled back her front curtain. A car pulled away and Gabby opened her own gate. Anna stood on the porch and called, ‘I’ve got Charlie here.’
    Gabby wore all black, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. ‘Oh? How did that happen?’ she drawled.
    Anna could smell her cheap perfume from a few metres away. Gabby crossed to the low paling fence between them, wobbling on her high heels. Was she out of it? How Anna wished that it was still Helen living next door.
    ‘She knocked on my door.’
    Gabby grimaced and tottered about on her stilettos. ‘Sorry about that.’ A truck’s air brakes blurted on the main road at the end of the street. ‘She’s normally fine on her own for a little while.’
    Who the hell leaves a five-year-old on their own? And who the hell bit her?
Gabby must know about the bite; it simply wasn’t possible she’d missed it. What if it was Gabby who’d bitten her? Oh, what a nightmare this was.
    ‘Is she asleep?’ asked Gabby. Her eyes were heavily lined in black, which made her look even more wan than earlier.
    ‘Yes.’ Three teenagers walked down the footpath on the other side of the road, laughing loudly.
    Gabby scrabbled in her little handbag and moaned, ‘Shit. You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?’ She was definitely stoned.
    ‘No, I don’t.’
    Gabby tried to close her bag. ‘Just pass her over the fence.’ Her voice was flat. ‘Or will I come ’round and get her?’
    The air between them felt jangled.
    Anna turned back to the house. ‘I’ll bring her out.’
    Charlie didn’t stir when Anna picked her up from the couch; she was warm and floppy limbed. As Anna reached the front door, the girl jerked awake and sat up in Anna’s arms.
    ‘It’s okay,’ Anna said. ‘I’m just taking you to your mummy. She’s home.’
    ‘Okay,’ the girl whispered. Charlie’s breath was bad, not just sour but slightly rotten. Anna trod carefully down the steps in the dark, Charlie’s arms tight around her neck. She walked in the front gate