Part Six Chapter IV

IVThe police had picked up Krystal Weedon at last as she ran hopelessly along the river bank on the very edge of Pagford, still calling her brother in a cracked voice. The policewoman who approached her addressed her by name, and tried to break the intelligence agency to her gently, solely she still tried to beat the woman out from her, and in the end the policewoman had almost to wrestle her into the car. Krystal had non noticed Fats warming away into the trees he did not exist to her any more.The police lot Krystal home, but when they knocked on the front accession Terri refused to answer. She had glimpsed them through an upstairs window, and pattern that Krystal had done the one unthinkable and unforgivable thing, and terstwhile(a) the pigs about the hold-alls full of Obbos hash. She dragged the unsounded bags upstairs while the police hammered at the door, and however subject up when she considered that it had be tot unavoidable.Whatcha wan? she shouted, through an inch -wide gap in the door.The policewoman asked to come in three times and Terri refused, still demanding to know what they wanted. A few neighbours had begun to peer through windows. Even when the policewoman verbalize, Its about your son, Robbie, Terri did not realize.Es fine. Theres nuthin incorrectly with im. Krystals got im.But then she saw Krystal, who had refused to stay in the car, and had walked halfway up the garden path. Terris gaze trickled down her daughters body to the place where Robbie should have been clinging to her, panicked by the strange men.Terri flew from her theater of operations like a fury, with her hands outstretched like claws, and the policewoman had to catch her round the middle and swing her away from Krystal, whose face she was trying to lacerate.Yeh subaltern bitch, yeh little bitch, whatve yeh done ter Robbie?Krystal dodged the struggling pair, darted into the house and slammed the front door behind her.For fucks sake, muttered the policeman under h is breath.Miles away in Hope Street, Kay and germanium Bawden faced each other in the crepuscular hallway. Neither of them was tall enough to replace the light bulb that had been breathless for days, and they had no ladder. All day long, they had argued and almost made up, then argued again. Finally, at the moment when reconciliation seemed within touching distance, when Kay had agreed that she too hated Pagford, that it had all been a mistake, and that she would try and get them both back to London, her liquid had rung.Krystal Weedons brothers drowned, whispered Kay, as she cut Tessas call.Oh, tell Gaia. Knowing that she ought to express pity, but frightened to let discussion of London drop before she had her mothers rigid commitment, she added, in a tight little voice, Thats sad.It happened here in Pagford, said Kay. Along the road. Krystal was with Tessa Walls son. Gaia felt even more ashamed of let Fats Wall kiss her. He had tasted horrible, of lager and cigarettes, and he had tried to tone of voice her up. She was worth much more than Fats Wall, she knew that. If it had even been Andy Price, she would have felt intermit about it. Sukhvinder had not returned one of her calls, all day long.Shell be perfectly broken up, said Kay, her eyes unfocused.But theres nothing you can do, said Gaia. Is there?Well said Kay.Not again cried Gaia. Its always, always the same(p) Youre not her social worker any more What, she shouted, stamping her foot as she had done when she was a little girl, about me?The police officer in Foley Road had already called a duty social worker. Terri was writhing and cry and trying to beat at the front door, while from behind it came the sounds of furniture being dragged to form a barricade. Neighbours were coming out onto their doorsteps, a hypnotised audience to Terris meltdown. Somehow the cause of it was transmitted through the watchers, from Terris incoherent shouts and the attitudes of the ill police.The boys dead, they t old each other. Nobody stepped forward to comfort or calm. Terri Weedon had no friends. take after with me, Kay begged her mutinous daughter. Ill go to the house and see if I can do anything. I got on with Krystal. Shes got nobody.I bet she was shagging Fats Wall when it happened shouted Gaia but it was her final protest, and a few minutes later she was buckling herself into Kays old Vauxhall, glad, in spite of everything, that Kay had asked her along.But by the time they had reached the bypass, Krystal had found what she was look for a bag of heroin concealed in the airing cupboard the second of two that Obbo had given Terri in payment for Tessa Walls watch. She took it, with Terris works, into the bath means, the only room that had a lock on the door.Her aunt Cheryl must have perceive what had happened, because Krystal could hear her distinctive raucous yell, added to Terris screams, even through the two doors.You little bitch, open the door Letcha mother see yaAnd the police s houting, trying to leave off the two women up.Krystal had never shot up before, but she had watched it happen umpteen times. She knew about longboats, and how to make a model volcano, and she knew how to heat the spoon, and about the piffling little ball of cotton wool you used to soak up the dissolved smack, and act as a filter when you were filling the syringe. She knew that the kink of the arm was the best place to find a vein, and she knew to lay the beset as flat as possible against the skin. She knew, because she had heard it said, many times, that first-timers could not take what addicts could manage, and that was good, because she did not want to take it.Robbie was dead, and it was her fault. In trying to excuse him, she had killed him. Flickering images filled her mind as her fingers worked to achieve what must be done. Mr Fairbrother, running alongside the canal bank in his tracksuit as the confederacy rowed. Nana Caths face, fierce with pain and love. Robbie, waiti ng for her at the window of his foster home, unnaturally clean, jumping up and down with excitement as she approached the front door She could hear the policeman calling to her through the letter box not to be a silly girl, and the policewoman trying to quieten Terri and Cheryl.The spur slid easily into Krystals vein. She pressed the plunger down hard, in hope and without regret.By the time Kay and Gaia arrived, and the police decided to force their way in, Krystal Weedon had achieved her only ambition she had joined her brother where nobody could part them.