"Big girl, intcha?"

"Fuck off."

"I 'eard you give it away free," said Obbo, closing in. "You could make better money'n yer mum."

"Fuck -"

His hand was on her left breast. She tried to knock it away; he seized her wrist in his other hand. Her lit cigarette grazed his face and he punched her, twice, to the side of the head; more plates shattered on the filthy floor and then, as they wrestled, she slipped and fell; the back of her head smacked on the floor, and he was on top of her: she could feel his hand at the waistband of her tracksuit bottoms, pulling.

"No - fuck - no!"

His knuckles in her belly as he undid his own fly - she tried to scream and he smacked her across the face - the smell of him was thick in her nostrils as he growled in her ear, "Fuckin' shout and I'll cut yer."

He was inside her and it hurt; she could hear him grunting and her own tiny whimper; she was ashamed of the noise she made, so frightened and so small.

He came and clambered off her. At once she pulled up her tracksuit bottoms and jumped up to face him, tears pouring down her face as he leered at her.

"I'll tell Mist' Fairbrother," she heard herself sob. She did not know where it came from. It was a stupid thing to say.

"The fuck's he?" Obbo tugged up his fly, lit a cigarette, taking his time, blocking her exit. "You fuckin' 'im too, are yeh? Little slapper."

He sauntered up the hall and was gone.

She was shaking as she had never done in her life. She thought she might be sick; she could smell him all over her. The back of her head throbbed; there was a pain inside her, and wetness seeping into her pants. She ran out of the room into the living room and stood, shivering, with her arms wrapped around herself; then she knew a moment of terror, that he would come back, and hurried to the front door to lock it.

Back in the sitting room she found a long stub in the ashtray and lit it. Smoking, shaking and sobbing, she sank into Terri's usual chair, then jumped up because she heard footsteps on the stairs: Terri had reappeared, looking confused and wary.

"Wha'ssa matter with you?"

Krystal gagged on the words.

"He jus' - he jus' fucked me."

"Wha'?" said Terri.

"Obbo - 'e jus' -"

"'E wouldn'."

It was the instinctive denial with which Terri met all of life: he wouldn't, no, I never, no, I didn't.

Krystal flew at her and pushed her; emaciated as she was, Terri crumpled backwards into the hall, shrieking and swearing; Krystal ran to the door she had just locked, fumbled to unfasten it and wrenched it open.

Still sobbing, she was twenty yards along the dark street before she realized that Obbo might be waiting out here, watching. She cut across a neighbor's garden at a run and took a zigzag route through back ways in the direction of Nikki's house, and all the time the wetness spread in her pants and she thought she might throw up.

Krystal knew that it was rape, what he had done. It had happened to Leanne's older sister in the car park of a nightclub in Bristol. Some people would have gone to the police, she knew that; but you did not invite the police into your life when your mother was Terri Weedon.

I'll tell Mist' Fairbrother.

Her sobs came faster and faster. She could have told Mr. Fairbrother. He had known what real life was like. One of his brothers had done time. He had told Krystal stories of his youth. It had not been like her youth - nobody was as low as her, she knew that - but like Nikki's, like Leanne's. Money had run out; his mother had bought her council house and then been unable to keep up the payments; they had lived for a while in a caravan lent by an uncle.

Mr. Fairbrother took care of things; he sorted things out. He had come to their house and talked to Terri about Krystal and rowing, because there had been an argument and Terri was refusing to sign forms for Krystal to go away with the team. He had not been disgusted, or he had not shown it, which came to the same thing. Terri, who liked and trusted nobody, had said, "'E seems all righ'," and she had signed.

Mr. Fairbrother had once said to her, "It'll be tougher for you than these others, Krys; it was tougher for me. But you can do better. You don't have to go the same way."

He had meant working hard at school and stuff, but it was too late for that and, anyway, it was all bollocks. How would reading help her now?

'Ow's me boy?

He ain' your fuckin' boy.

'Ow d'you know?

Leanne's sister had had to get the morning-after pill. Krystal would ask Leanne about the pill and go and get it. She could not have Obbo's baby. The thought of it made her retch.

I gotta get out of here.

She thought fleetingly of Kay, and then discarded her: as bad as the police, to tell a social worker that Obbo walked in and out of their house, raping people. She would take Robbie for sure, if she knew that.

A clear lucid voice in Krystal's head was speaking to Mr. Fairbrother, who was the only adult who had ever talked to her the way she needed, unlike Mrs. Wall, so well-intentioned and so blinkered, and Nana Cath, refusing to hear the whole truth.

I gotta get Robbie out of here. How can I get away? I gotta get away.

Her one sure refuge, the little house in Hope Street, was already being gobbled up by squabbling relatives...

She scurried around a corner underneath a streetlamp, looking over her shoulder in case he was watching her, following.

And then the answer came to her, as though Mr. Fairbrother had shown her the way.

If she got knocked up by Fats Wall, she would be able to get her own place from the council. She would be able to take Robbie to live with her and the baby if Terri used again. And Obbo would never enter her house, not ever. There would be bolts and chains and locks on the door, and her house would be clean, always clean, like Nana Cath's house.

Half running along the dark street, Krystal's sobs slowed and subsided.

The Walls would probably give her money. They were like that. She could imagine Tessa's plain, concerned face, bending over a cot. Krystal would have their grandchild.

She would lose Fats in getting pregnant; they always went, once you were expecting; she had watched it happen nearly every time in the Fields. But perhaps he would be interested; he was so strange. It did not much matter to her either way. Her interest in him, except as the essential component in her plan, had dwindled to almost nothing. What she wanted was the baby: the baby was more than a means to an end. She liked babies; she had always loved Robbie. She would keep the two of them safe, together; she would be like a better, kinder, younger Nana Cath to her family.

Anne-Marie might come and visit, once she was away from Terri. Their children would be cousins. A very vivid image of herself and Anne-Marie came to Krystal; they were standing at the school gates of St. Thomas's in Pagford, waving off two little girls in pale blue dresses and ankle socks.

The lights were on in Nikki's house, as they always were. Krystal broke into a run.

Lunacy.

5.11 At common law, idiots are subject to a permanent legal incapacity to vote, but persons of unsound mind may vote during lucid intervals.

Charles Arnold-Baker.

Local Council Administration,

Seventh Edition.

I.

Samantha Mollison had now bought herself all three of the DVDs released by Libby's favorite boy band. She kept them hidden in her socks and tights drawer, beside her diaphragm. She had her story ready, if Miles spotted them: they were a gift for Libby. Sometimes at work, where business was slower than ever, she searched the Internet for pictures of Jake. It was during one of these trawling sessions - Jake in a suit but with no shirt, Jake in jeans and a white vest - that she discovered that the band was playing at Wembley in a fortnight's time.

She had a friend from university who lived in West Ealing. She could stay over, sell it to Libby as a treat, a chance to spend time together. With more genuine excitement than she had felt in a long time, Samantha managed to buy two very expensive tickets for the concert. When she let herself into the house that evening, she glowed with a delicious secret, almost as though she were coming home from a date.

Miles was already in the kitchen, still in his work suit, with the phone in his hand. He stared at her as she entered, and his expression was strange, difficult to read.

"What?" said Samantha, a little defensively.

"I can't get hold of Dad," said Miles. "His bloody phone's engaged. There's been another post."

And when Samantha looked nonplussed, he said with a trace of impatience, "Barry Fairbrother's Ghost! Another message! On the council website!"

"Oh," said Samantha, unwinding her scarf. "Right."

"Yeah, I met Betty Rossiter just now, coming up the street; she was full of it. I've checked the message board, but I can't see it. Mum must've taken it down already - well, I bloody hope she has, she'll be in the firing line if Bends-Your-Ear goes to a lawyer."

"About Parminder Jawanda, was it?" asked Samantha, her tone deliberately casual. She did not ask what the accusation had been, first, because she was determined not to be a nosy, gossiping old bag like Shirley and Maureen, and secondly, because she thought she already knew: that Parminder had caused the death of old Cath Weedon. After a moment or two, she asked, sounding vaguely amused, "Did you say your mother might be in the firing line?"

"Well, she's the site administrator, so she's liable if she doesn't get rid of defamatory or potentially defamatory statements. I'm not sure she and Dad understand how serious this could be."

"You could defend your mother, she'd like that."

But Miles had not heard; he was pressing redial and scowling, because his father's mobile was still engaged.

"This is getting serious," he said.

"You were all quite happy when it was Simon Price who was getting attacked. Why's this any different?"

"If it's a campaign against anyone on the council, or standing for council..."

Samantha turned away to hide her grin. His concern was not about Shirley after all.

"But why would anyone write stuff about you?" she asked innocently. "You haven't got any guilty secrets."

You might be more bloody interesting if you had.

"What about that letter?"

"What letter?"

"For God's - Mum and Dad said there was a letter, an anonymous letter about me! Saying I wasn't fit to fill Barry Fairbrother's shoes!"

Samantha opened the freezer and stared at the unappetizing contents, aware that Miles could no longer see her expression with the door open.

"You don't think anyone's got anything on you, do you?" she asked.

"No - but I'm a lawyer, aren't I? There might be people with a grudge. I don't think this kind of anonymous stuff...I mean, so far it's all about the other side, but there could be reprisals...I don't like the way this thing's going."

"Well, that's politics, Miles," said Samantha, openly amused. "Dirty business."

Miles stalked out of the room, but she did not care; her thoughts had already returned to chiseled cheekbones, winged eyebrows and taut, tight abdominal muscles. She could sing along with most of the songs now. She would buy a band T-shirt to wear - and one for Libby too. Jake would be undulating mere yards away from her. It would be more fun than she had had in years.

Howard, meanwhile, was pacing up and down the closed delicatessen with his mobile phone clamped to his ear. The blinds were down, the lights were on, and through the archway in the wall Shirley and Maureen were busy in the soon-to-be-opened cafe, unpacking china and glasses, talking in excited undertones and half listening to Howard's almost monosyllabic contributions to his conversation.

"Yes...mm, hmm...yes..."

"Screaming at me," said Shirley. "Screaming and swearing. 'Take it bloody down,' she said. I said, 'I'm taking it down, Dr. Jawanda, and I'll thank you not to swear at me.'"

"I'd've left it up there for another couple of hours if she'd sworn at me," said Maureen.

Shirley smiled. As it happened, she had chosen to go and make herself a cup of tea, leaving the anonymous post about Parminder up on the site for an extra forty-five minutes before removing it. She and Maureen had already picked over the topic of the post until it was ragged and bare; there was plenty of scope for further dissection, but the immediate urge was sated. Instead, Shirley looked ahead, greedily, to Parminder's reaction to having her secret spilled in public.

"It can't have been her who did that post about Simon Price, after all," said Maureen.

"No, obviously not," said Shirley, as she wiped over the pretty blue and white china that she had chosen, overruling Maureen's preference for pink. Sometimes, though not directly involved in the business, Shirley liked to remind Maureen that she still had huge influence, as Howard's wife.

"Yes," said Howard, on the telephone. "But wouldn't it be better to...? Mm, hmm..."

"So who do you think it is?" asked Maureen.

"I really don't know," said Shirley, in a genteel voice, as though such knowledge or suspicions were beneath her.

"Someone who knows the Prices and the Jawandas," said Maureen.

"Obviously," said Shirley again.

Howard hung up at last.

"Aubrey agrees," he told the two women, waddling through into the cafe. He was clutching today's edition of the Yarvil and District Gazette. "Very weak piece. Very weak indeed."

It took the two women several seconds to recollect that they were supposed to be interested in the posthumous article by Barry Fairbrother in the local newspaper. His ghost was so much more interesting.

"Oh, yes; well, I thought it was very poor when I read it," said Shirley, hurriedly catching up.

"The interview with Krystal Weedon was funny," guffawed Maureen. "Making out she enjoyed art. I suppose that's what she calls graffitiing the desks."

Howard laughed. As an excuse to turn her back, Shirley picked up Andrew Price's spare EpiPen from the counter, which Ruth had dropped into the delicatessen that morning. Shirley had looked up EpiPens on her favorite medical website, and felt fully competent to explain how Adrenalin worked. Nobody asked, though, so she put the small white tube away in the cupboard and closed the door as noisily as she could to try and disrupt Maureen's further witticisms.