The Lipstick Killers

the matter with you? They had to get in touch with Sharon, then she called me. We had to sort out the kids and get here, identify the body, all that old bollocks. This is the first chance I’ve had.’
    ‘Sorry. What about Roxie?’
    ‘I haven’t told anyone else. I’ll get in touch with her tomorrow.’
    Margaret lit a Silk Cut and breathed out smoke. ‘You’re not going to wake her up then.’
    ‘She’s in bloody Spain, you’re in London. She’s probably out on the razz, knowing her and what can she do tonight anyway? Next thing you’ll be asking why Sharon didn’t call you first.’
    ‘OK, OK.’
    ‘It’s always about you isn’t it? You bitch when I call you, and you’d have bitched more if I hadn’t. Same old Mags.’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said Margaret. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to snap at you. I am really shocked at what’s happened to Monty. It’s just that I haven’t been sleeping.’
    ‘You never did. Not even as a baby, mum said.’
    Mags didn’t want to think about the memories her sister’s words dredged up. ‘Do you want me to come down?’
    ‘If you want.’ Frankie’s voice was flat.
    ‘Don’t be so enthusiastic will you. She is my sister too.’
    ‘And when did you last see her? Or the kids?’ said Frankie, pointedly.
    ‘I dunno. Christmas I suppose. Let’s not start all that.’ Mags felt the familiar animosity rising towards her sister and worked at keeping it in check. ‘I’ll get dressed, and come down. I’ll go to… Where you going to be?’
    ‘At Sharon’s. Do you remember the address?’
    ‘Cut it out, will you. Now’s not the time. I’ll be down in a few hours.’
    ‘You all right to drive?’ said Frances, her tone softening .
    ‘I’ll manage.’
    ‘Well, take it easy, sis. We don’t want another accident tonight, do we?’
    ‘I’ll be okay. I’ll see you soon,’ and with that Margaret put down the phone, her heart full of sympathy for Sharon and her two fatherless children.

2
     
     
     
    Frankie winced as the phone banged down at the other end. Bitch, she thought. But our bitch, and she was used to it. As the eldest of the four sisters, she’d taken over as mother when Queenie had succumbed to the breast cancer she’d hidden for so long. Roxie, the youngest of her daughters, was just six years old. Frankie had married, but the experience was short lived, and after the divorce she’d moved to Guildford to be close to Sharon, her husband Monty and their two young children – Peter and Susan, the same two kids who were now in the care of a neighbour. Jesus, would the Doyles ever be happy? she thought as she dropped her cigarette end and crushed it under her foot before straightening her shoulders and heading towards the main doors of the hospital, the sound of the siren from an incoming emergency blatting off the walls. The sound reminded her of one of her many fallings out with her sister. Two years after Queenie’s death, Mags, then just thirteen years old, had done a runner one Saturday afternoon. She was in big trouble at school, but that was nothing new. Mags was precociously attractive, and one day she’d got dolled up in short skirt, black tights, high heels and a low-cut top and headed for the West End. Though she looked five years older than her age in the get-up, she was still an innocent, in a place that fed on innocence . Mickey was useless, but that was becoming a regular thing, and Frankie had to take charge. She headed for Soho and scoured the streets, searching the seedy backstreet dives for her young sister, but when she still hadn’t found her after a day of looking, Frankie went to the nearest police station and explained her predicament. For once, the name Doyle didn’t ring any bells. But south London was a long way away, and her obvious distress got her a ride in a police car with a constable driving, and a WPC in the back seat with Frankie next to her, through the narrow, busy streets between Oxford Street and Shaftesbury Avenue. Then she spotted Mags outside a record shop that specialised in urban music. She was smoking, and chatting to two boys, one black, one white, both in their late teens and dressed in baggy jeans, hoods pulled down over their eyes and swamped in oversized basketball shirts. ‘Thirteen, you say?’ said the driver of the car. ‘Looks a lot older,’ he said, looking at her long legs in her short skirt. He hit a switch on the dashboard and the lights and siren came on, the sound