Penn picked up a pile of them and placed them on the arm of the other single chair before taking a seat himself.
Lyra regarded him suspiciously as she took a bite out of a chicken thigh. As the grease spread across her lips and a half inch of surrounding skin, Penn wondered if he’d ever be able to buy a KFC again.
‘I’m sorry to intrude on your grief,’ he repeated, although he suspected they were more annoyed that he’d intruded on their lunch.
‘Ask what you’ve come for,’ Warren said, shovelling a handful of fries into his mouth.
Yep, the fries were out for him now too, and he just prayed there wasn’t a carton of beans in that bucket. Looking around him, Penn could see signs of the three kids Stacey had told him about. He couldn’t help wondering if they were at school or part of the feral gangs he’d seen on his approach.
‘Mr Chance, could you tell me a bit about your sister?’
‘Stuck-up cow,’ Warren said, licking his fingers.
‘You weren’t close?’ he asked, already knowing the answer but keen to see the man’s take on the situation.
‘Nah, never. She always thought she was better than me. School, school, school was all she thought about. She had no friends. I was always out with my buddies, I had mates, but she had none. Just stayed in all the time with books. No one liked her,’ he said as though that strengthened his team somehow.
‘Got even worse when she left school and went to college. Stupid, she was, when she coulda gone on the dole and got money for nothing.’
Lyra nodded her agreement, drumstick in her hand.
With a look that said he felt he was being short-changed, Warren leaned over and retrieved a piece of chicken. A couple of chips that had missed his mouth fell off his lap onto the floor. He ignored them.
‘She always wanted more than she should have. After college, she went to bloody university. Thought she was everybody when she got her fancy job straight away. Tried to lord it over us.’
‘How did she do that?’ Penn asked.
‘Buying Mum and Dad expensive presents to show off. Trying to make me look bad. I couldn’t afford to do that, and she knew it. Trying to buy their love. Right up until they died in a car crash. Sickening it was,’ he said as the front door burst open.
Three young bodies tore into the room and stopped dead. The oldest looked accusingly at his parents. Penn guessed him to be around eight. He was sporting what looked like a fresh gash above his right eye.
Neither parent commented on it, as though him returning home with a new injury was nothing out of the ordinary.
‘Bugger off,’ Lyra said. ‘Yer dad and me haven’t had a treat for ages.’
The boy moved his longing gaze to the stranger in the room.
‘None of your business,’ Warren said. ‘Now either out to play or clean your room.’
Without speaking, they all turned and headed back out.
Lyra cackled, revealing the contents of her mouth. ‘Works every bloody time.’
There were so many things Penn would have liked to flag, not least the fact that three kids, likely being supervised by the boy with a cut above his eye, were being allowed to roam free on one of the worst estates in England.
There was no question he was giving child services a quick call after this visit… though he suspected his concern would go nowhere. He was sure the cases on their plate went deeper than being denied access to a bargain bucket and being allowed out unsupervised.
‘Mr Chance, did you see your sister often?’ he asked.
‘Oh yeah, she loved coming round here to slum it with us lowlifes.’
Lyra guffawed between mouthfuls.
‘Did you visit her?’
‘Wasn’t invited.’
‘So, the kids didn’t mix?’
