Ok,” Fatboy’s jaw was set. “Sit still, the lot of you. You remember the rules. Whoever wins gets a sweetie. Whoever loses gets duffed up next door

Cross Purpose (£8.99) is the first in Claire MacLeary’s Harcus & Laird crime trilogy, featuring an unlikely pair of middle aged female private investigators. The second, Burn Out, and the third, Runaway, are available now. All published by Saraband Publishing https:// saraband.net

Maggie was convinced that something was afoot. Her suspicions were confirmed when a steady stream of teenage lads, punctuated by the odd girl and a couple of underage mums pushing buggies, rolled up to the tower block entrance. She’d seen enough of these young guys around Seaton.

They tended to congregate at the heavily shuttered convenience store: lads not skilled enough to find work, not moneyed enough to own a car, not motivated enough to get involved in the community centre or play five-a-side football in the park. Poor sods, Maggie’s heart went out to them. Compared with her own son, what chance did they have? They’d scant hope of finding a worthwhile job. Spent their days playing computer games or just hanging out. Small wonder they turned to dope.

They might pick up a handful of poppers for the weekend, she’d divined. Didn’t seem to touch the hard stuff, heroin and the like. Not yet.

Waste

As for the girls, some of them would have had sex at 14, got in the family way at 15 or 16, used their pregnancy to get on the housing list. They’d be stuck now in their high-rise flats, living on benefits. Maggie sighed.

What a waste of young lives. Still... as she snapped furiously, she wondered how those young folk found the money to buy drugs when she could barely make ends meet.

The stream of callers slowed to a trickle. Maggie carried on taking photos. Every time the door swung open, she could have sworn she caught Ryan in frame. She was just lining up another shot when a figure loomed at the car window.

“What ye daein?”

Maggie’s head whipped round.

“I was just… having a rest.” She slid the camera out of sight.

“Nae point daein that.” The woman’s face was framed in the driver’s window, the eyes darting right, left, right again in a sequence that was all too familiar. “Ah’ve bin watchin ye.”

Maggie swore under her breath.

“Open the windae, wull ye?” The woman rapped on the glass. No way. Vigorously, Maggie shook her head. “Ye fae the Social?” the woman spat.

“No.”

“Bailiffs?”

Maggie’s eyes widened. “No.”

“Ye’re nae the filth?”

Maggie shook her head once more.

“Then whit ye sittin here fur?”

Maggie felt the car rock. Hold your nerve. “I told you I was just…”

“Takkin photies o’ wee weans.”

“No. Really.”

“Dinna gie me that. Ah seen ye fae up there.” Maggie followed the woman’s finger to a first-floor flat with neat net curtains.

“Ye can get lost, d’ye hear me?” Chastened, Maggie nodded. She turned the key in the ignition. Put the car into gear.

Sod it! She hadn’t factored in twitchers. Not in Seaton.

Games

Fatboy shuffled the kids into a circle. There were five of them today: three boys and two girls. They sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Fatboy,” one of the girls waved her hand in the air, “what game are we going to play?”

“Dunno.” He assumed a fierce expression. “You tell me.”

There was a chorus of: “Pass the parcel, blind man’s bluff, hide and seek!”

The kids jumped up and down, jostling for attention.

“One at a time,” he shushed.

“Hide and seek. We haven’t played that for ages.” After the chaos of the previous occasion, he knew the reason why.

“Pass the parcel.”

“Naw. We done that last time.”

“Pin the tail on the donkey, then.”

That had been another disaster. The donkey Fatboy cut out of an old copy of The Sun was too floppy by far, and one of the wee boys decided to use the pin as a weapon instead.

He lunged and jabbed at the others until he managed to draw blood. There were tears, and Fatboy had to bribe them with sweets to calm them down.

After that debacle, he reverted to the old games, the tried and tested ones, sometimes a round or two of Snap to ring the changes. But after a few weeks, the children got fed up with all of those, so Fatboy was forced into making up games of his own.

Tickle Tackle

He looked down at the expectant faces. “How about one of my games?” he suggested with a sly grin. Two of the boys nudged one another.

Fatboy wiped the grin off his face. “What’s up with you pair?”

“We don’t want to play.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t like your games,” one of the boys offered. “Aw,” Fatboy wheedled. “Come on.”

“Naw.” The other child’s eyes slid away.

“Why can’t we play hide and seek?” said the wee girl again.

Fatboy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Because you can’t, that’s why.”

“But…”

“Right, you lot,’ he held up his hands, “settle down now. We’re going to play Tickle Tackle.”

“Aw…”

“OK,” Fatboy’s jaw was set. “Sit still, the lot of you. You remember the rules. Whoever wins gets a sweetie. Whoever loses gets duffed up next door.”

He flexed his muscles. The wee girls sniggered behind their hands. They weren’t quite sure what was involved in a duffing up. They knew it was something only boys did, but they weren’t that bothered.

On the odd occasion one of them lost, they’d get a goodie bag instead.

In Kym’s bedroom, clothes were strewn over the stained carpet. Among them, empty cider bottles and crumpled beer cans kept company with discarded cigarette cartons and ancient crusts of bread.

Thin curtains were drawn against the daylight, the air in the small room fetid with a cocktail of liquor and smoke and sweat.

On the rumpled bed, Kyle Brebner lay curled, Fatboy stretched out alongside him.

That day’s game of Tickle Tackle had ended up with the wee lad losing out, and it had fallen to Kyle to be duffed up.

Not that Kyle minded.

The other four kids were settled now on the manky rug, CBeebies belting out on the telly.

More tomorrow.