CHAPTER 48
Three days after that, on a rest day from work, there was a hammering at the back door. When I looked through the spyhole, Sparky was standing outside in the light rain that had made the last few days a miserable experience. I quickly unlocked everything and waved him into the warmth of the kitchen, but before I could offer him a cuppa he was holding up a hand for silence.

“You got a number for that copper of yours, Debbie?”

“Paul? Yes. What’s up, love?”

“It’s Paula, sort of. I know he’s soft on her, so I want to keep her out of things for now”

I turned to the kettle on a sudden wave of fear. Get Sparky warmed up, call Paul, find out what…

“Is she hurt?”

“No, not her. She found someone who was, though, and as she was off her face at the time, I don’t want her anywhere near the usual filth. Paul’s got some common in him. He’ll understand. That tea you’re doing?”

“Yes. You can warm up while you explain”

“Phone first, please. Or ring him first, then I can explain while you do the brew”

I pulled out my mobile, pressing the speed dial for PC Welby, and he answered after the fourth ring.

“Hiya Debbie. What do you need?”

Sparky was just holding his hand out for the phone, so after a quick “Sparky needs a word”, I handed it over, and of course I only got half the conversation.

“Copper”

“No, she’s fine. Got a problem, though”

“Found a deader”

“Skip out by East Moors. I called an ambulance twenty minutes ago”

“No. Cold, but not stiff. Been dead at least a couple of hours”

“Because your girl found them, mate. And sg’s higher than a fucking kite right now, cause Mo’s been round playing Mister Fucking Concerned Owner”

“Yeah, I can wait here. Debbie’s done me a cuppa, and it is a shitty day outside”

“How do I know? You’re the bloody community plod, son!”

“Yeah. See you in a few minutes”

He ended the call and passed the mobile to me with a sigh.

“He’s coming here to pick me up, Deb. I need to give him something for his notebook, and then we’ll be off. He’s letting his boss know, sort of, and then he’ll be here. Asks if the pot will be warm”

“Talk to me, mate?”

He wrapped both hands around the mug before settling onto one of the two stools I kept in the kitchen.

“Ah, pile of crap in a skip that looked as if it hasn’t been moved since the last war. Paula was looking for customers around the industrial estate, fuck knows why, but as she was on Planet Smack, she probably had no idea herself. Says she was holding onto the skip to save herself a tumble. Looked in the skip, saw some old carpet, with a trainer sticking out from underneath. Then she realises there’s a foot in it, and someone’s under the carpets. Moira was looking for her; at least she wasn’t as headfucked as Paula. Been a user longer, I suppose. Anyway, she finds someone with a phone who doesn’t just tell her to fuck off, fourth or fifth she asks, isn’t it? Calls an ambulance, then gets Paula and herself away”

I had just finished filling the tea pot when there was another bang at the back door, and after a nod from me, Sparky let Paul in, then turned a hard look on me.

“You need to sit in the front room for a while, girl, while we talk. Just to be safe”

Paul nodded, with a tight grin, as he pulled out his notebook.

“I think we know how to pour tea, Debbie. We’ll be as quick as we can”

They took fifteen minutes in the end, before Sparky put his head around the door.

“Taking him down there, love, but we’ll be back. Any chance of a meal tonight: Sorry to be so blunt”

“I’ll warn the girls, mate. And you know what my answer will always be to that question”

A grin even more artificial than Paul’s had been, and they were gone. I picked up the phone to call Ruth, and she offered to send Kim home after work with another tray of lasagne. Before then, I had a steady flow of girls in from school, and once they were settled, I called a house meeting in the other dining room.

“Girls, I need to warn you that we will have a couple of men in the House for tea tonight. You know them both: Sparky and PC Welby. They want to eat with us tonight, but if any of you want to stay out of the way, then we can set up the table in the other house. There’s a bit of a nasty one they are dealing with, I have no details, but it does sound like they’ll need some smiles. Can we do our best for them? Kim’s bringing one of those tray lasagnes home, so if a couple of you can sort a bowl of salad, that would be a real help”

Maisie looked around the group before turning back to me.

“Debbie… It’s a death, isn’t it?”

I just nodded, and once more she checked with the others.

“Then yes. We do our best for them. Right, you lot? These are the good guys, so it’s our turn to do some looking after”

I left them to sort out the division of duties and returned to the living room, setting a Martin Simpson instrumental disc playing as something to bring my anxiety level down. There was something unsaid going on, some detail that Sparky was keeping from me, and I was struggling to keep myself from riding out after them. The girls, they were my concern, my priority. Look after the boys when they got in, and let the girls find their own ways of helping.

It was two hours before they returned, and Paul looked grimmer than Sparky.

“A word, Deb? In private?”

Stomach churning, we went into the kitchen that I was now starting to think of as an airlock, where he made me sit down.

“You missing anyone, Debbie? Lost a resident?”

Oh shit; I realised immediately why he had sat me down.

“Yes. Couple or three days ago, she went off with our little telly, small hours, out of the fire escape door at the back”

“What details do you have on them?”

“Not much, apart from the name she was using. Andrea. Heidi would have more details”

“Sent Anita a text, so she’ll be on it. I want… No. The Central nick had sent someone down, and the body is in the hospital morgue. Looks like the two girls showed the bloke with the phone what was in the skip and then legged it. He was sound enough to stay on for the ambulance, so unless someone gets pushy, Moira and Paula are out of the loop. Can we get the meal I know you’ve got for us out of the way first?”

My stomach was almost cramping by then.

“You want me to go to the hospital, don’t you?”

He nodded, looking down at his feet as he spoke.

“Just confirm she was the one with you, Deb. Heidi can do the rest of it. Sorry, but if we can confirm it’s not another runaway, we can avoid all the door-knocking. As long as you are up to it, of course”

So we went to the other room, and we ate our meal, and then Paul drove me there.

Andrea looked about twelve years old on the slab, where a chirpy medic or mortician or technician or whatever, who wouldn’t fucking shut up, rambled on about the ligature mark and needle wound by her left bicep and elbow, until I told him plainly to shut the fuck up and Paul steered me sharply away.

We drove back to the House in silence, as I wondered what I was going to do. I had lost a girl, really lost one, and I had let down Heidi and Nita, and my failure was lying grey and cold while a dickhead chuckled over her. If it hadn’t neem for the other girls waiting for me, I would have walked directly into Harry’s place, do not pass home. Do not collect sobriety. Paul collected Sparky, who left me after a hug, and I was alone with my charges.

“Girls, I have some news, so can we all have a little chat?”

Kim looked green.

“It was Andrea, wasn’t it?”

I nodded, and she leant forward, a finger to my lips.

“No. Not your fault, and no crap about locked doors. That’s the thing about this place: if you locked us in, we’d just leave, most of us. That’s what this place is, a home, a real one, not a Home, not a prison. You lost one, WE lost one, but the rest of us, those two off to Uni, you did that. So shut it. What did they say, about how she went and that?”

“Um, needle stuff”

Maisie made an odd sound, almost a snarl.

“That’ll have been Mo, or one of the others like him”

Heads turned to look at her, and she grimaced.

“Look, I know I was stupid, what I thought, yeah? Bit of gobbling, keep it to that? Well, I got my lesson, didn’t I, and I did talk to some of the girls, and I got some warnings. Always looking for new merchandise, those bastards, and they get the kids to think they’re bloody Santa. Somewhere to hang out, some booze, then it’s ‘try a bit of this, love, it’s really good stuff”

I shook my head.

“Only three days, Maisie”

“Yeah, but what was she doing before Mrs Milton’s lot got her?”

Kim turned a smile onto Maisie.

“You are coming along, girl!”

“Yeah, but got a lot to live up to, haven’t I?”

She looked around the room, then back at me.

“This going to sound silly, but it might work. Can someone clear the table?”

Once everything was out of the way, she went to the sideboard and rummaged through the collection of board games and jigsaw puzzles that had accumulated over the years, returning with the Monopoly set.

“We do this, and we leave the bad stuff alone tonight. Everyone in?”

We ended up playing as a mixture of solos and pairs, as we outnumbered the playing pieces, and as Maisie had clearly intended, the game sucked up or attention long enough to take us all to bedtime.

In the end, my worries about Heidi and Nita were unfulfilled, Heidi in particular muttering something about lazy bastards who couldn’t be bothered to write a full referral, and although there was an inquest, the little I had to offer in the way of evidence was given directly to the coroner or whatever he was called, in private. It turned out that the autopsy had shown other needle marks, and the referring social worker had somehow failed to mention that the poor runaway she had passed on to her colleagues was a known heroin user.

I found myself comparing my three friends, Paul, Heidi and Nita, with other coppers I had met, other social workers I had met, and the phrase rose in my mind before I could slap it down, as it hadn’t been a hospital pass bur a mortuary one.

All sounds so simple, so quick, but it was neither; more than anything, though, it showed me how much I needed the girls for my own sanity. That was confirmed when our two students, after what turned out to have been an e-mail from Kim, simply drove home from Aberystwyth to make sure I was safe.

It still bloody hurt, though, and I could never shake off that feeling of being a failure, never lose that memory of Andrea, grey and cold. On the end, I rang Pat for advice, and she actually laughed down the phone.

Laughed, that is, after I had spent far too long sobbing.

“What do I do, Pat? Got to get out, but there’s too many of them now to bring up in the van!”

“Plas y Brenin, Debbie. They’ll sort you the space”

“Eh?”

“You know the Twin Lakes, up from the Mole pub?”

“I do”

“National Outdoor Centre, or Mountain Sports, whatever. Bunkbeds and outdoor courses. You got a bus licence?”

“Eh? PSV? No”

“But you can drive a minibus, twelve seats, can’t you? Hire one of them, speak to the Brenin, and I will meet you there. Bring Nell and Kim, please! Let your girls go out with the Brenin staff, and, well, you and I both know what will heal you. Fancy an overnight in the shelter?”

She paused, then continued a lot more softly.

“Be nice to make another good memory in that place, love. Do we have a deal?”

“You sure, love?”

“Absolutely. Can you give me a few minutes, and I’ll call you back? Oh: how many would it be?”

I did a quick headcount.

“Um, ten girls here with me at the moment, so that would fit the bus. Nell and Cathy are at University, Aberystwyth”

“Early Easter, then, but not that weekend. It’ll fit with school breaks and stuff, and we can avoid the bank holidays. Call you back in a bit”

As good as her word, the phone rang again forty minutes later.

“Debbie?”

“Yup?”

“Got a friend who works there part-time, woman called Sue. She’s got some dates and prices to offer you, and they can fit all twelve of them in. Can I give her your e-mail?”

“Go ahead, please. I can let Bert, my boss, I can let him know, and he’ll sort me a bus. Just got to confirm it with my girls first”

“I shall await your call, then. Be good. Oh, and bugger sleeping in a bunk bed. I know a two-bedroom cottage that I can rent”

“But you were talking about sleeping on top of Foel Grach!”

She laughed, and it was a happy sound.

“I am happy in a sleeping bag, I am happy in a tent, bit dormitories are the work of Satan! If I am sleeping in a bed, it will be alone”

There was a short silence at the other end of the line, before she spoke again.

“I really ought to think about what I’m saying before it leaves my mouth. Do the rounds, Deb, and let me know. I will see you there”