CHAPTER 15
The young copper looked confused.
“Never heard of her. You able to wait a bit while I ask one of the older lads?”
I pushed back hard on my instinctive reaction to being in a police station and nodded.
“Aye, please. I’ve got the time”
He was back in less than five minutes, with a broad smile.
“Now, this is going to sound silly, but bear with me: she retired a few years ago, but she’s in today”
“Eh?”
“She retired from the police as such, but she came back as a civilian worker. An advisor, actually. Works in our Community Policing unit”
“You say she’s in, then?”
“Yes. Would you like me to give her a shout?”
“Please. That would be great”
“Who shall I say is calling?”
“Just say… Just tell her it’s Debbie”
He looked at me with a much sharper expression.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound a little uncertain. There’s a private room over there, so if you want to sit out of public view, feel free to use it”
The back of my mind was shouting ‘trap’, but I knew it was just a reflex. The room held the usual set of four chairs and a table, all fixed solidly to the floor. I had expected a longer wait, so was halfway through the latest edition of ‘Bike’ when there was a tap at the door.
I looked up, and she shook her head.
“Bloody hell. I did wonder ‘which Debbie?’, then had a flashback, and, well, bloody hell! It is you, isn’t it?”
“Who are you thinking of?”
“Child absconder turned eighteen and so none of my business, according to your minders”
“My parents, you mean”
“Not the ones you started with, but I take your point. No offence meant”
“I’ll let you know later if I’m offended. You’ve retired?”
“I have. Too old for walking the streets, now. I work in the Communities team”
“What’s that mean?”
“Sort of glorified local officer. We used to have beat bobbies, but what people meant by that was someone walking round the same circuit every day. Not got the staff for that, and cars are quicker, but there’s still a need for someone who knows an area”
She paused, cocking her head to one side.
“You didn’t look me up to talk about the application of the Peel Principles to policing the streets of our capital city. So why did you look me up? Why are you here? I don’t remember you being quite that fond of coppers”
Before I could speak, she stood up again.
“Silly question, Debbie. Is this going to be a long one, and if it is, should I get us a brew in?”
It was a clear attempt to get me on side, but I decided to run with it. Ten minutes later, she was back with a couple of mugs and some paper wraps of sugar and plastic tubs of milk. She laid the bits and pieces on the table, pushing one of the mugs towards me.
“Canteen tea, or ‘tea-flavoured drink’, as some alleged comedian called it. You want something from me, or perhaps need it. You want to start? Oh, and how are you doing? Your parents? Oh. I am sorry, love”
My face had clearly given me away, as it always did when someone reminded me of Mam and Dad.
“Both of them? I am so sorry. Your Mam was a formidable woman”
You don’t know the half of it was my immediate thought, but I swallowed the words.
“Yes, both of them. Long time ago, now. I moved down here not long after. Got friends in the area, so it made sense. Anyway, you were right. I do want something from your lot, and I remembered your name, so thought it would be a good start. I… I do some charity work, sort of. Mam and Dad left me well off, and so did my mother and father”
I almost heard her mind click as she worked out the meaning, and then she smiled.
“Helping the homeless, by any chance? Would you have a white Transit with a tea urn in it?”
I nodded, and she smiled with real warmth, for the very first time.
“I know about you, Debbie, or at least I’ve heard things about the woman who hands out hot drinks when they’re most needed. You have saved more than a few lives, in my opinion. Chwarae teg, love. I am not going to ask why you do it, because I think I already know the answer to that one. Not many people willing to put themselves out for those people”
I felt myself snarling at that term, but once again fought back my discomfort at being in the country of the Filth. I needed this woman, or at least someone like her.
“And what do you think of ‘those people’, Sergeant Harris?”
“Please, call me ‘Nita. Not a sergeant anymore. What do I think? Two things, really. No, three. First one is that it is a shitty place to end up in, and those people are just that: people. They don’t stop being creatures of Our Lord just because they ran out of luck”
“You a godbotherer?”
“I don’t shout about it. Anyway, nobody can bother God, as he’s above all that. I just have firm beliefs, and I do my best to live up to them. People are people”
“The other two bits?”
“Ah. First one is selfish, and I mean selfish in speaking as a copper, and thinking of my colleagues. I have dealt with six deaths with no suspicious circumstances, six people found in an alley when the weather’s been poor, whose bodies had nothing left, who didn’t have some woman in a Transit with a hot drink and a smile. Selfish, because I don’t want my mates to have to go through such an experience. It is not pleasant in any way at all. And the third, before you ask, is down to you. I remember what you went through before your Mam and Dad found you, and I do my best to say ‘never again’, not on my watch. Those are my reasons, and it’s a big part of what we do in Communities”
“All very upright and praiseworthy, then?”
She grinned, in a cheekier way.
“There’s also the simple fact that there is a measurable drop in opportunistic theft and shoplifting when the homeless are given a bit of help! Keeps the City off our backs”
I found myself grinning back, as I finally started to relax, and she hit me with a direct question.
“What do you want, Debbie?”
I fiddled with my cup for a few seconds, then smiled at her.
“I can remember those days, too. I see a lot of kids on my rounds, a lot of runaways. Speaking from fucking experience---sorry. ‘Unfortunate’ experience, I meant, a lot of those have left home for very, very good reasons, and they either can’t go home, as it would be dangerous, or their families want them gone and forgotten about. You will understand that I do not exactly have a high opinion of children’s homes, and I don’t just mean Runcorn, or Carlisle, but Bryn fucking Estyn and all the others. What I want from you is an idea about whether I will pick up a load of shit from your mates if I start a shelter for the younger ones”
She started to speak, and I held up a hand.
“My turn. I will do what I can to help the kids, because the adults are safe from people like the Parsons or Cunninghams. I just want to know if any shelter will just be used by the police as first point of call for runaways”
She stared at me, her expression one of forced blankness.
“Do you have a criminal record of any kind, Debbie?”
“Apart from being a ‘child absconder’? Not at all”
“Can I have your address?”
“No. Not yet, anyway”
“Ponty, Merthyr, Penarth, Llantrisant or Cwm Parc?”
“What?”
“Whichever runaway you’ve got under cover, Debbie, that I don’t know about. No. Please sit down”
I settled back down again.
“Debbie, my promise, OK? I recognise that anyone that may or may not be keeping warm under your roof might have strong ideas about being taken back home, or ending up in care. I appreciate what I think it is that you are offering us. It just needs a little bit of official safeguarding work. If you decide to go ahead with something I officially don’t know you’ve already started doing, it needs an official scrutiny. I know enough about you to run the background checks, or at least I know where to dig out the details I would need. I will have to run it past my oppo in Social Services first”
“Not getting them involved”
“Not what I meant. I have… we are a multi-agency team. I have a couple working with me that I have housebroken. As long as you pass the background checks, they will go along with my opinion”
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Still so spiky, aren’t you?”
“You blame me?”
“Not at all. You’re right. I want a liaison officer, from my side, to work with you”
“Not letting coppers past my door, Nita. Not while I have the choice”
“I’m not a copper anymore, Debbie. This isn’t a job I would trust many of my old colleagues to give the right approach, the right consideration. Bit black and white, they are”
“So it would be you?”
“Yup. I do have another reason”
“Which is?”
She sighed, and started piling the detritus of our drinks into her empty mug.
“Four of those dead people I dealt with were children, Debbie. If you decide to do this, I’d really like to be able to send you some kids while they are still breathing”
Comments
In for a penny, in for a pound
This is certainly going in a direction I didn't see coming. It's been a great story all along too.
STAY AWAY from social workers!
There are bastards; fucking bastards and social workers.
social workers
The people I knew in college majoring in social services were good caring people. After too many years on the job they stop asking the right question: "What do you need?" and start asking "what pigeonhole can I fit you into". Maybe because they know that in the end that's the only answer the system will accept. Maybe because they just don't have any other resources.
Social Services, Mission vs Bureaucracy
All too often the one who rocks the boat gets tossed overboard. I've worked with a company that has a core value of providing housing for those in need. Investors take advantage of the 'tax credit' aspect, and the management company strives for consistency, so when a person joins their mission, and points out ways they could improve (but it would take internal change) that person is often found without a job any longer; even though they solicit ideas and changes to make the system better, they really don't want to know any such exist.
"Thanks for saving $500,000 this year, you're fired."
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
There are always good people trying to do nearly impossible jobs and then there are those to whom a job is just a job, a paycheck that they receive whether or not they do it well or badly and they will just take the easy way out and say "Yes, Sir, No, Sir" as required. I think most people fall into that category. That's why we're always hearing about poor conditions in child-care homes and aged-care homes. Not enough staff, too many to care for and underpaid to boot. There aren't many votes in those places.
Then there are the ugly who thrive on the misery and having helpless people, young or old, to bully, mistreat and exploit. And they can usually make a profit of some kind out of it, whether it be money or power or influence. They may even start out with good intentions but power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. Such people can be found in all walks of life and often claw their way to the top of the heap.
Debbie has had extremely personal experience of those and is quite properly wary and suspicious of the systems that allow them to flourish.
What she is trying to establish is a "boutique" caring system which won't get big enough to be corrupted, if I'm reading this right. You can't rescue the whole world but you can help a few who may then help others. I'll leave things there as I don't want to commit any spoilers and Steph will develop the story in her own impeccable way.
Care homes--a digression
A few years ago, I started reading a memoir called 'Storming the Falklands', which sold itself as a memoir of reconciliation between the UK author and an Argentine former soldier.
I didn't much like the style, and when I arrived at his account of how his business running a care home was hamstrung by the government insisting on minimum wages being paid to his staff, and obstructing his god-given right to import poor people from the Far East to work for him for peanuts, I put the book down and gave it to a charity shop.
Care homes vary. I have encountered a number that are wonderful, as are their staff, and others I hope to avoid until after I am dead. I have encountered a similar split in social workers. Those familiar with my work will remember Polly Armitage, the social worker who helped rescue Darren Eyres in 'Ride On', but there are also the ones in 'Lifeline', 'Sweat and Tears' and, of course, Polly's own colleagues. On the other side, there is the care home and its staff at the end of 'Sisters'.
As a conscientious social worker, especially in child protection, you are in a no-win situation. If a child is removed from harm before serious damage is done, you are breaking up a loving family.
If a child is left there until the damage is serious, or terminal, then you have failed to act properly. In the end, all too many of the SS pull in their horns, take what looks like the safest option, and look for ways to avoid any responsibility if it all goes to ratshit.
Then again, of course, there are the venal and/or lazy, such as the the ones in this awful case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Victoria_Climbi%C3%A....
I try to write reality, but sometimes I feel a need to push it in a better direction.
oh, I like her idea
very good!
Happy to see Debbie going official
Though official is hard it does offer some protection of a sort. Looking forward to reading more.
>>> Kay
Ain't quite the other shoe, but close, or might be
Wanting to house homeless kids is a noble want, but might it get real messy when the police are looking for a kid?
If they know Deb's housing runaways or homeless, they'll claim they can search her home anytime they need or want.
Plus, what's to stop hunters from parents from doing the same? Anita wanting to help kids on the street is also noble, for her own reasons. But as an ex police officer what keeps her from having to notify parents when she finds a kid who ran from an actual hellish home life?
Both women need to examine everything outside of the box before putting a stamp of approval on Deb's idea.
Others have feelings too.