Page 3 of Cruel Games

“How much?”

“You can discuss that with the headmaster when you see him.”

My hand containing the smartphone dropped to the side. “And I suppose you’re about to hand me a one-way ticket to Scotland.”

She frowned. “There’s no need for an attitude.”

I clenched my teeth and glanced away, my gaze settling on a lorry trundling past the industrial estate going in the opposite direction.

If my conversation with Ms. Reddy was my very first encounter with social services, she’d be right. On the surface, it looked like the woman was trying to help me. But ever since Mother turfed me out of Billy’s house at the age of thirteen, I’d encountered one social worker after another, each as disappointing as the last.

Social workers were great at first, often starting meetings full of promises and eager to listen, leaving their ‘clients’ on a high. Then weeks after, when none of the discussed improvements materialized, they became curt and defensive on the phone as though struck by selective amnesia.

If my life was a fairytale and I was Cinderella, then a social worker would be the fairy godmother who handed out the Emperor’s new clothes in place of ball gowns. Totally unfit for purpose and a complete let-down.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

My thumb hovered over the UberX option. “Getting a cab.”

“I can give you a lift into Richley town center,” she said.

It was safe to assume that Sammy and I were finished. A knifing and an arrest for the production of a controlled drug would do that to a bloke. And with no steady income, I needed to keep my eye on the pennies. Clicking the home button, I slipped the smartphone back into my bag.

“Alright, then.” I looked over her shoulder at the vehicles parked on the road beyond the steel fence. “Where’s your car?”

Chapter 2

Ms. Reddy stopped her car outside Sammy’s place on Beddington Road. It was a detached, four-bedroom house with the usual Victorian architecture such as huge bay windows, a stained-glass front door, and a basement with adequate space to install enough hydroponics and grow lamps to produce a fortune in weed.

Our cars stood in the off-street parking outside the house. Someone had smashed the headlights of his black BMW and spray painted over his 5AMMY 99 license plate. Likely an upper-middle-class neighbor outraged to be living on the same street as a drug dealer.

Thanking the social worker for the ride, I opened the door and stepped into the paved courtyard.

The opening of a car window hummed from behind. “Will it be safe to return to Mr. Kettering’s house?”

I turned and frowned at the worry lines marring her forehead. “He’s still at the University Hospital, right?”

“I believe so,” Ms. Reddy shouted over the sound of a supermarket delivery van starting its engine.

“It’s not like I’ll be staying long.” I rushed past the BMWs to the house’s front entrance and pulled out my keys.

The door swung open, and I could immediately tell the difference. Gone were the spicy scents of the incense we burned to disguise the sweet, musky smell of cannabis growing beneath us. Instead, the combined scents of strangers filled my nostrils. I locked the door behind me and sighed. The police had probably removed the farm and confiscated it as evidence.

I shook my head and walked down the hallway. Sammy and I had a good thing going until he’d ruined things with his fists, and I’d lashed out. The living room was untouched save for remnants of fingerprint dust on one of the door handles.

My phone rang. I reached into my pocket and glanced at the screen. It was Mother.

“You’re out, then?” she said in a deadpan voice.

“The CPS dropped all charges against me.”

“Where are you?”

“Why?”

“Sammy’s awake.” She paused, waiting for a response. When I didn’t answer, she added, “His associates know you stabbed—”

“It was a slash,” I snapped. “He’s in hospital with a head injury.”