The Casual Vacancy

Square.
    She had nearly fifty pounds in her pocket, which represented her wages from the café and the party, and the razor blade. She had wanted to take her building society pass book, which resided in a little filing cabinet in her father’s study, but Vikram had been at his desk. She had waited for a while at the bus stop where you could catch a bus into Yarvil, but then she had spotted Shirley and Lexie Mollison coming down the road, and dived out of sight.
    Gaia’s betrayal had been brutal and unexpected. Pulling Fats Wall … he would drop Krystal now that he had Gaia. Any boy would drop any girl for Gaia, she knew that. But she could not bear to go to work and hear her one ally trying to tell her that Fats was all right, really.
    Her mobile buzzed. Gaia had already texted her twice.
    How pissed was I last nite?
    R u going 2 work?
    Nothing about Fats Wall. Nothing about snogging Sukhvinder’s torturer. The new message said, R u OK?
    Sukhvinder put the mobile back into her pocket. She might walk towards Yarvil and catch a bus outside town, where nobody would see her. Her parents would not miss her until five thirty, when they expected her home from the café.
    A desperate plan formed as she walked, hot and tired: if she could find a place to stay that cost less than fifty pounds … all she wanted was to be alone and ply her razor blade.
    She was on the river road with the Orr flowing beside her. If she crossed the bridge, she would be able to take a back street all the way round to the start of the bypass.
    ‘Robbie!
Robbie!
Where are you?’
    It was Krystal Weedon, running up and down the river bank. Fats Wall was smoking, with one hand in his pocket, watching Krystal run.
    Sukhvinder took a sharp right onto the bridge, terrified that one of them might notice her. Krystal’s yells were echoing off the rushing water.
    Sukhvinder caught sight of something in the river below.
    Her hands were already on the hot stone ledge before she had thought about what she was doing, and then she had hoisted herself onto the edge of the bridge; she yelled, ‘
He’s in the river, Krys!
’ and dropped, feet first, into the water. Her leg was sliced open by a broken computer monitor as she was pulled under by the current.

XIV
    When Shirley opened the bedroom door, she saw nothing but two empty beds. Justice required a sleeping Howard; she would have to advise him to return to bed.
    But there was no sound from either the kitchen or the bathroom. Shirley was worried that, by taking the river road home, she had missed him. He must have got dressed and set off for work; he might already be with Maureen in the back room, discussing Shirley; planning, perhaps, to divorce her and marry Maureen instead, now that the game was up, and pretence was ended.
    She half ran into the sitting room, intending to telephone the Copper Kettle. Howard was lying on the carpet in his pyjamas.
    His face was purple and his eyes were popping. A faint wheezing noise came from his lips. One hand was clutching feebly at his chest. His pyjama top had ridden up. Shirley could see the very patch of scabbed raw skin where she had planned to plunge the needle.
    Howard’s eyes met hers in mute appeal.
    Shirley stared at him, terrified, then darted out of the room. At first she hid the EpiPen in the biscuit barrel; then she retrieved it and shoved it down the back of the cookery books.
    She ran back into the sitting room, seized the telephone receiver and dialled 999.
    ‘Pagford? This is for Orrbank Cottage, is it? There’s one on the way.’
    ‘Oh, thank you, thank God,’ said Shirley, and she had almost hung up when she realized what she had said and screamed, ‘no, no, not Orrbank Cottage …’
    But the operator had gone and she had to dial again. She was panicking so much that she dropped the receiver. On the carpet beside her, Howard’s wheezing was becoming fainter and fainter.
    ‘Not Orrbank Cottage,’ she shouted. ‘Thirty-six Evertree Crescent, Pagford – my husband’s having a heart attack …’

XV
    In Church Row, Miles Mollison came tearing out of his house in bedroom slippers and sprinted down the steep sloping pavement to the Old Vicarage on the corner. He banged on the thick oak door with his left hand, while trying to dial his wife’s number with his right.
    ‘Yes?’ said Parminder, opening the door.
    ‘My dad,’ gasped Miles ‘… another heart attack … Mum’s called an ambulance … will you come? Please, will you