The Fall by Claire McGowan Page B

fucker.
    Desperate to go somewhere he wouldn’t know, she’d ended up in Swiss Cottage library. Her mother used to take her there sometimes for story groups, Keisha as a kid already ashamed of how her mum nodded and um-hummed her way through the lady’s stories. She wished Mercy understood you didn’t join in with things in this country.
    It was hushed in the library, and she liked how it smelled of clean, of books. You could go in without ID or some twat of a bouncer up in your face. Best of all she liked how she could be about ninety-five per cent sure Chris would never find her here. Still, she crept in with her hood up, paranoid.
    The lady behind the desk was really quite glam, not like a librarian. She had on glasses, but they were kind of funky, and purple knee-boots. ‘All right there?’
    Keisha flushed. ‘Er – is it OK to come in? D’you have to pay?’
    The woman laughed a bit – nicely. ‘Nope. You pay for it in your taxes.’
    No need to say she didn’t think she paid taxes out of the brown envelopes she got at the nursing home.
    Keisha stayed in the library until it was getting dark and the lights from cars on the ring road started to sweep in the long narrow windows. It was so nice there, all the books on their shelves, all the people working so quiet you knew someone would say shhh if a phone rang or you rustled the page. In the toilets she washed the blood off her face, carefully, like a bruised piece of fruit.
    There was even a café, and she bought the cheapest thing off the grumpy girl there so she didn’t have to go outside. She wondered what her mum would say if she knew they charged four pounds fifty for a bowl of broccoli and Stilton soup. You make it from gold, this soup? Mercy would say, misting the glass cover with her hot breath, wanting to poke and prod the ciabattas and haggle them down. Two pound fifty, OK?
    There was a dish by the counter that said TIPS , with a little heart over the ‘i’. A tip for passing you a bowl of soup! Some bits of London were mad.
    The day passed in a bubble. So long as she stayed there, she’d be safe. Keisha got a whole pile of books, so she looked busy. You could even go on the internet, so she put her name down for it – not her real one, she gave the name of a girl she’d been at school with, Shondra Potts, right bitch. When it was her turn she didn’t know what to look for but her fingers twitched, taking her to news websites. There were a few bits about the Johnson case. Everyone was saying about how the banker’s office was racist and they all bullied people and got stressed, so no wonder he’d done it. It was over, as far as everyone was concerned. So why did she care, what did she owe them, this white couple, when they had everything, and she had nothing, less than nothing, nowhere to live now, not even – not even her own kid.
    Thinking the words nothing, less than nothing in her head made her want to cry, but she snuffled the tears back inside, pulling her hood up so no one could see. Eventually it was ten to six, and she realised she’d have to do something. Could she risk going back, would he have calmed down? No. This Chris was someone she didn’t know any more. He might do anything. Had done.
    She sat hunched at her desk for as long as she could, pretending she didn’t see them pulling the blinds and turning off the lights. But eventually someone was standing over her. It was the librarian – Julie, her badge said. ‘You know we’re closing now.’
    ‘Are you?’ She pretended to be surprised. ‘I was – studying.’ The book in front of her was Jordan’s autobiography.
    Julie laughed again. ‘It’s Shondra, is it? You put down Shondra for the computer.’
    She hesitated. ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Well, whatever your name is, here’s what I think. I think you’ve nowhere to go, because whoever did that to your face is there.’
    Keisha’s hand went up to her eye before she could stop it. ‘I’m all right.’
    ‘That’s