Parts of Aston were better now, they said. The red lines of Birmingham’s two most feared twenty-first century gangs, the Burger Boys and the Johnsons, were beginning to fade in the wake of the gangs’ banishment from the city in 2017. Gang warfare had once cut the heart from the impoverished communities in Aston. Things were better now, they said. Peaceful.

They would shake hands and congratulate one another as they said it. They never actually went to Aston, through which cars still drove with bolted doors and wound-up windows.

The roads were quiet today, adding to the eerie silence of the streets. Through the quiet, loud noises sliced the air in clear tones, audible from several roads away. A baby screamed from within the thin walls of a traveller’s caravan, pitched up on a sad patch of grass presumably designated as parkland; women bickered in carrying tones from a doorway, their accents a mirror of Sapphy’s, a cigarette dangling in their hands; far away, a car alarm wailed. At one point several unidentifiable bangs caused a flock of pigeons to fly from the rooves. Sapphy didn’t bat an eyelid at any of it. She strode forward with a healthy mix of confidence and caution, arms by her sides, leading Torram down several more streets. The houses seemed to deteriorate as they went, while the pungent odours of rotting litter, urine, cigarette smoke and the smoke of stronger substances grew more powerful. Outside the door of the house Sapphy stopped at, they were almost overpowering.

It was an unremarkable mid-terrace, reminiscent of the old thin-walled back-to-backs. The front door had been kicked down at some point and re-bolted on at an angle; one of the upper windows was smashed. Broken glass and decaying takeaway boxes crunched under Sapphy’s feet as she stepped up to the door and pressed the side of her arm against the peeling paint. She shoved it with appropriate force and expertly caught the handle when it subsequently flew off, her manner so practised it was clear she’d done this before. She pushed the door open and yelled to make her presence known, her voice lifted with hope.

The stench of damp, drugs and cigarettes slapped them the moment the door opened. Sapphy didn’t appear to notice the aroma, nor the unclean, stripped-wood floor and the jagged hole in front of the staircase. The narrow hallway was dark, windowless; the open door cast a rare beam of light which made the spiders shrink away.

Footsteps thundered audibly upstairs and a split second later a girl in her late teens appeared on the landing. She was halfway down the stairs before she paused, staring at them with brown eyes the same size and shape as Sapphy’s. Her hair, which was bleach-blonde and had been straightened to within an inch of its life, fell forward over her shoulders as she took another step.

“Saph?” She said incredulously, her accent and bold verbal manner equal to her sister’s. “The fuck are you doing here?”

Sapphy’s eyes narrowed a fraction, her eyebrows inching together. The fuck are you doing here was a very different question to where the fuck have you been, which was the one she’d been expecting.

“Who the fuck is that?” Carla demanded to know, glaring at Torram.

“Shut up, Carla.” Sapphy shot back. “That’s my – ”

“You know, I don’t even fucking care.” Carla rested her hands on the stair-rails, her stance combative, her pretty mouth twisted into a nasty, downturned shape. She was wearing heavy make-up which was clearly designed for a smiling face; in the absence of a cheerful expression, the contours looked out of place. “If you ain’t outta this house in ten seconds I’m gonna fucking pummel you, Saph. It’s your fault they took Callum.”

While her sister had been talking, Sapphy had been squaring her shoulders and planting her feet, preparing for a fight. Now she deflated a little as though she’d been dealt a sharp blow. “What, social services?”

“What do you think?” Carla snarled back, tossing her hair and turning around to make her way back up the stairs. “I’m gonna get him back, though, once I’m outta this hellhole. Go fuck yourself, Saph.”

“Nice!” Sapphy scoffed back as her sister vanished round the turn in the staircase. She raised her voice to a yell. “I coulda been hit by a fuckin’ car for all you fuckin’ knew!”

“Wish you had!” Carla’s muffled voice screamed back down the staircase. There was a thud which sounded like a door slamming and the whole house shook slightly.

Sapphy scoffed non-verbally. Without sparing a word or a glance at Torram, she turned and marched down the hallway, shoving open the first door on the right opposite the staircase. The room revealed was bare save for the peeling wallpaper, patches of black mould clinging to the walls, and the apparently comatose occupant. The woman lying on the floor with her upper back and head wedged against the skirting board looked far too young to be a grandmother. Her blonde hair was thin and scraggly; some of it had broken away altogether and fallen to the floor to form a kind of nest beneath her thin, bony form. Her gaunt, white face was aged beyond its years. Most of her frail body was barely visible under a sea of empty bottles and self-administering medical apparatus. The stench of weed and stronger substances was so powerful in here that it made Sapphy’s eyes water slightly.

“Mum?” She asked, an uncharacteristic hint of caution in her voice. The figure didn’t stir immediately; Sapphy had to repeat herself at a louder volume.

“Fuck off, Carla.” The woman snapped back in a harsh, guttural voice, her blue eyes staring, unfocused, at the ceiling.

“Mum, it’s Sapphy.”

There was a delay in the woman’s reactions while her drug-addled brain visibly processed every new sound and sensation. She turned her head slightly towards Sapphy, who had stepped into the room and crouched next to her. Her eyes were still unfocused.

“Who?” She asked blankly.

“Sapphy,” she spelled it out syllable by syllable, reaching over to check the needle embedded into her mother’s arm. “Your other daughter.”

Another delay. Then, “oh, fuck Sapphy, darling.” Her mother croaked dismissively, waving a hand. “It’s her fault bloody Kennedy left. Fuck off with that!”

Her tone had been almost conversational until the final exclamation, which was surprisingly harsh and forceful for someone bedridden. Or floor-ridden. Sapphy immediately let go of the medical apparatus and pulled her hands back, holding them up in the universal gesture of surrender.

“I think that’s enough, mum.” Sapphy gestured to the needle. Her mother stared at her, her gaze drifting gradually from Sapphy’s face to a vague point over her shoulder. She jumped suddenly.

“Who are you?” She repeated, her voice small and weak once more.