Between Two Evils by Eva Dolan

Author:Eva Dolan [Dolan, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408886427
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-12-07T09:55:59+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY

Haven House was at the northern end of Lincoln Road, beyond the rows of grand old houses carved up into bedsits, the beauty parlours and solicitors specialising in immigration law, the employment agencies and language schools, the B & Bs and hostels that seemed to spring up weekly and change their names once a year. Portuguese cafes and Polish delis, Turkish restaurants and endless takeaway places. Different ones to when Ferreira had lived there but in the same buildings with the same cramped flats above them.

It was always a disconcerting sensation, returning there, to the place she’d spent her teens and much of her twenties, seeing how everything and nothing had changed.

She slowed as she passed the white stucco front of her parents’ pub, saw that the car park wasn’t as busy as it should have been, fewer smokers outside too. Her mother’s hand was evident in a chalkboard sign offering a full English breakfast and a beer for £4.95. There was no way they could do it for that price, Ferreira thought. Things must be getting desperate.

Why hadn’t they said something, she wondered angrily. Asked for her help.

With a twinge of guilt she realised she hadn’t been to visit them for weeks. Months maybe, if she was honest with herself. Made plans that got blown by work or she used work as excuse to blow them because she had other things she’d rather do with her scant free time. She could blame Billy but knew she’d only been lying to herself. He’d been dropping subtle hints about meeting them for a while now, long enough that she knew he’d probably go in there and introduce himself if she didn’t arrange something soon.

The thought of it sent a ripple of unease across her shoulders.

‘Alright, girl?’ Murray asked.

‘I’m good.’

She pulled up in front of Haven House, a double-fronted Edwardian villa with large bay windows edged in stone and a steep-pitched roof. It had an austere quality from the road despite the well-stuffed flower beds and the pillar-box-red front door, which had been recently reglossed. It wasn’t until they were on the front step ringing for entry that Ferreira noticed the ghost of a swastika showing faintly through the paintwork.

They’d had trouble, she knew, more in the last twelve months than the previous ten years. Dog shit pushed through the letter box and windows smashed, spurious complaints anonymously called in about the place being used by sex workers and drug dealers, anything to cause them inconvenience. Helping refugees and asylum seekers drew as much hatred as it did admiration. Hence the new security measures.

‘Sergeant Ferreira for Mr Daya,’ she said to the intercom.

The door buzzed and they went into the Minton-tiled hallway where children’s drawings had been framed on one wall. Boxes of food donated by local businesses sat underneath them, waiting to be taken into the kitchen where something aromatic was cooking, the scents of ginger and garlic filling the air.

Overhead a vacuum cleaner was running back and forth at speed, poppy music playing above it and somebody singing along.

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