by Paula Daly
‘Probably not his bedsit.’
The satnav tells Joanne she’s arrived at her destination, so she pulls the car over and cuts the engine. They’re outside a bungalow, neatly kept, but it could do with a fresh coat of buttermilk paint.
There’s not nearly as much snow here, it being by the coast, but someone’s gritted the front driveway and chucked an extra load down by the gate. Thoughtful, thinks Joanne, as her shoes crunch on the salmon-coloured gravel.
Five minutes later, and Joanne sits with Molly in the kitchen next to an old boiler. It’s turned up to maximum but the room is still cold. The floor is covered with maroon carpet tiles. One’s been replaced recently, the one in front of the cooker; it’s deeper in colour than the rest.
Joanne starts by apologizing. ‘I’m sorry to bother you with this, Molly, but you’ve been told another girl about your age has gone missing?’
Molly nods without looking at Joanne. She’s such a skinny little thing. She’s like a Disney character. All big eyes, big lashes, tiny body.
‘The reason I’m here is to see if I can jog your memory a bit. We really want to catch the man who abducted you, Molly, and at the moment you’re the only person—’
‘You want to catch him before he hurts someone else,’ she states bluntly.
‘Yes, that’s true.’
Joanne’s careful how she phrases the next part. ‘But, really, the most important thing is to punish him for what he did to you.’ Joanne doesn’t want Molly thinking she’s not the priority here. ‘What did he look like? Can you remember?’
Molly shakes her head. ‘He’s blurry,’ she says sadly. ‘That drink he gave me made him blurry.’
‘I know, honey. Is the whole thing blurry, or is it more that you can’t remember some parts? More like when you’ve had a dream, and you know the memory is there, but you can’t quite get to it?’
Molly looks directly at Joanne for the first time. ‘That’s exactly what it’s like,’ she says. ‘I said he was blurry, but really I couldn’t explain it very well. It’s like I’ve got the feeling of what happened but I don’t know what happened.’
‘That’s good,’ says Joanne, encouraged. ‘How about if I don’t ask you specific questions but more how you feel about something? How would that be?’ She sees Molly’s not sure about this idea, so she adds, ‘Not about what he did to you. We don’t need to go through that again. What I’d really like to know is where he took you. Can I ask you about that?’
Molly begins biting her lip. ‘Okay,’ she says.
‘Think back for me and try to tell me if the place felt dirty or smelly.’
‘No,’ says Molly automatically. And she looks startled for a second, surprised at how definite she is about this. ‘No, it was clean. The sheets smelled of—’ She looks off, over towards the kitchen window, as if trying to find the right word.
‘Fabric conditioner?’ Joanne offers.
‘No. Not that type of smell, not washing powder. They smelled like heat, does that make sense?’
‘Like they’d been burned?’
She screws her eyes up as she tries to retrieve the memory. ‘When my mum dries the bath towels on the radiator – they smell kind of heated but I don’t know how else to explain it.’
‘Like laundered?’ Joanne says. ‘Like they’ve been to a laundry?’
‘Yes. Like that.’
‘Good,’ says Joanne. ‘And what about the room itself, can you remember if there were any pictures on the walls?’
‘It was cream.’
‘Just cream?’
‘Bare. Not like a proper room.’
‘Like a hotel room?’
‘I’ve never stayed in a hotel.’
‘But did it feel like a person lived there? Do you think the man who took you there lived there?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I just am.’
‘Okay,’ says Joanne. ‘You’re doing brilliantly. All this is really helpful, but this next question is a tough one. And I don’t want you to feel bad about it, but I really need you to answer it honestly. Is that okay?’
Molly tries not to look scared.
‘When you first saw him, when the man first came to your school, did you … did you get into the car because you liked how he looked?’
She doesn’t answer. Just drops her head.
‘No one blames you, Molly. I just need to know what sort of person he is, and it would really help me if you told me. Did you fancy him … even if it’s only a little?’
Her head still bowed, Molly nods. A single tear drops down on to her jeans. ‘He looked nice. I don’t really remember how he looked, but he looked nice …’
After a few moments, she adds, ‘Don’t tell my mum,’ as she cries quietly.
Joanne reaches forwards and puts her hand on Molly’s shoulder. ‘Promise I won’t.’
18
I’VE BEEN AT WORK less than half an hour when a scruffy woman in her early twenties with no coat on walks into my office. She’s got a Staffordshire Bull Terrier with a length of blue nylon washing line around its neck that she’s using as a lead.
‘I don’t want this dog.’
She’s standing about two feet away and can’t look me in the face. She’s fidgeting. It’s clear she’s some sort of addict, because her pupils are pinpoints and she’s skittish and jumpy, like the methadone patients at the local chemist. The ones who call the pharmacist by his first name, who act as if they haven’t noticed all the other patrons giving them a wide berth.
‘Is it your dog?’ I have to ask this, because you wouldn’t believe how many people bring in animals that are not theirs to give away. I’ve innocently rehomed dogs belonging to cheating, philandering husbands more than once.
‘It’s me dad’s,’ says the young woman, ‘but he’s not well. He can’t look after it n’more.’
Inside, my heart sinks. Another Staffy. We probably won’t get rid of it; we’re overrun with them. I’ve been doing some work with the RSPCA recently: they’re trying to get a law passed whereby a breeder must be nineteen and hold a licence. But they’re barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. We need to be neutering these dogs en masse, because the problem is already out of control.
‘He’s got cats as well.’
‘How many?’ I ask.
‘More than two.’
‘Where are they?’
‘In his flat. It’s a bit of a dump. He’s not really tidied up since me mam died. I woulda brought ’em in with me … but they’ve gone sorta feral.’
‘Where’s your dad now?’
‘Helm Chase.’
Helm Chase is the local hospital.
‘Will he be going back home again?’
‘Doesn’t look like. He’s got a few problems. The flat’s probably bein’ sold.’
‘Okay,’ I say, passing her a pen and paper. ‘Write down the address.’
She holds the pen in her fist – just like my middle child, James, used to. She writes using a mixture of upper- and lowercase letters.
‘Will there be someone there to let me in? So I can get to the cats?’ She removes a key from a heavy bunch she has clipped to her jeans and hands it to me. ‘What do I do with the key once I’ve finished?’ I ask.
‘Bin it,’ she says, and hands me the washing line with the dog attached. ‘He’s called Tyson,’ she goes on, and I nod. Staffies usually are. I’ll have to change his name, or we definitely won’t find him a home.
And then she’s gone. Doesn’t want to fill in the paperwork, and there’s not a lot I can do about it. I don’t get too hung up on bureaucracy. I look down at the dog. ‘Think we’ll call you Banjo,’ I say, and he seems okay with that. I have a list of about twelve, nice, soft-natured-sounding names that I use for the Staffies.
We replace the Tysons, Hatchets, Badasses and Tarantinos with the likes of Teddy, Alfie and Percy. A dog’s name
is only important to the owner. The dog will answer to anything and couldn’t care less what you call it.
I squat next to Banjo, knowing he won’t be neutered but hoping so all the same.
He’s not. A scrotum the size of a pomegranate is hanging under there, and I sigh because, just once, just every once in a while, I’d like to be surprised by what I find. I give his head a little tickle, and say, ‘C’mon, let’s go get you settled in.’
Through in the kennel block the girls are busy hosing down and cleaning up. We open for rehoming at 9.30 a.m. so we like to be spick and span by then. Turds tend to put people off. You can understand.
Lorna, one of my two kennel girls, stops with the hose when she spots me come in with Banjo. ‘Number seven’s free,’ she shouts above the barking. She gestures to Banjo. ‘What’s he like?’
‘No history, seems calm enough. He was fine passing the others when I came in, so he should be okay.’
‘Any news?’
‘You mean about Lucinda Riverty?’ I say, and she nods.
‘None. You manage okay here yesterday? Any problems?’
‘No, all quiet really. Clive was in, and I gave him the list that was on your desk. He picked up some timber for those fence posts that need replacing—’
‘Did you pay him from the petty cash?’
Lorna smiles, and her eyes twinkle. ‘He had some going spare—’
Clive Peasgood is what we in the trade call a godsend. He’s a retired schoolteacher who can make anything, mend anything, build anything. His way of giving back, he says, and I take full advantage of him on a daily basis.
Occasionally, he’ll help with the dog walking and kennel cleaning if I’m short-staffed, but mostly he keeps the buildings watertight and secure. When I try to pay him for materials, he’s usually got some going spare.
His wife’s a lovely woman who does a bit of fundraising for us – car-boot sales and whatnot – and whenever I see her I apologize for stealing away her husband when they should be enjoying their retirement together. Invariably, she answers me with the same line: Stop Clive coming here, and you’ll stop him living. She’s probably right, but that doesn’t stop me feeling bad about how much he does for us. He put a new felt roof on the cattery last year and wouldn’t take a penny.
‘I need to do a pick-up later,’ I tell Lorna. ‘Cats … how much space have we got?’
Lorna pulls a face. ‘Hardly any. We got those drop-offs yesterday, remember?’
‘Oh, yes, I forgot. Shit. Maybe I’ll have to ring Bill at West Cumbria, see if he can take any.’
‘How many are there?’
‘The woman didn’t know. More than two—’
‘Never a good sign,’ says Lorna.
At first I think I must be at the wrong place. I’m outside a big old manor that’s been converted into apartments. Not the usual type of dwelling I pick up wild cats from. I check the scrap of paper with the address: Apartment 6, Helm Priory, Bowness. Yes, this is it.
The snow has been cleared and I open up the boot of my car and get three cat baskets out. There’s a woman watching me from the window of one of the ground-floor apartments. She’s young, mid-twenties, looks a bit sad.
I retrieve my Bitemaster handling gauntlets from the flap behind the driver’s seat and at the last second slip an odour mask in my pocket, just in case. I buy them from the painter’s suppliers in Kendal. I’ve found them to be the best. If they can block out the smell of oil-based gloss, they can usually block out cat shit. In all the years I’ve been doing this job it’s the one thing I’ve never got used to.
I smile at the woman, but she looks down as I approach the building, makes it obvious she’s washing up by lifting her elbows in an exaggerated manner. She’s possibly Polish.
For a time, they were everywhere around these parts, the Poles. Thin, pleasant girls, all dressed identically. All in just-a-bit-too-short black skirts and toffee-coloured tights, a colour my mother would have worn back in her twenties. I remember going to Asda one time, standing in the section marked ‘Polish’ and, after staring for a while at the borscht and kielbasa, it hit me that I wasn’t going to find the Pledge or Mr Sheen there.
I lean into the front door, which opens into a porch area lined with letterboxes. The internal door beyond that is locked. I locate the Yale – the most likely-looking key on the bunch the girl gave me – and I’m relieved when it works without a hitch.
The entrance hall is pretty grand; plush, hotel-type carpet. There’s a huge window at the top of the first flight of stairs, original leaded glass sending light bouncing every which way. A jasmine fragrance is discharged from a plug-in air freshener, and I find myself thinking for the second time in five minutes that I can’t possibly be in the right place. It’s too nice.
Apartment six must be upstairs. I take care as I climb, so as not to bang the paintwork with the cat baskets. At the top of the second flight there are two doors. On the right is apartment five. Flanking both sides of the entrance are two neatly trimmed bay trees, and on the floor is a pretty red floor mat, the message ‘HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS’ printed on it.
I look to the left. Apartment six has a desiccated plant outside, its soil covered over with cigarette dimps, along with a few joints that have been smoked down to the roach. This is more like it, I think, as I put the key in the lock.
I open the door, and the stench hits me, so I close it while affixing my mask. I feel for the light switch and flick it, but nothing happens. The electric’s been cut off. Cursing, I realize I’ve no torch with me and the hallway to the flat is dark; the doors to each room leading off are closed shut.
I think about heading in blind, just get it done as quickly as possible, but then I stop. Two years ago, I was removing a starving dog from a house in Troutbeck Bridge. The poor thing was yelping so much I wasn’t thinking and I went straight on in. Treading on a needle. Which, if you can believe it, went straight through the sole of my trainer and punctured my foot. A needle-stick injury they call it, and I spent the next six months convinced I was HIV positive. Not something I want to repeat if I can help it.
I leave the baskets and the gauntlets outside the flat, pull the mask down around my neck and knock on the door of number five. No answer, so I nip back downstairs to the ground-floor apartment where I saw the woman earlier.
I knock lightly. She opens the door immediately, just a couple of inches, and eyes me warily. ‘Hi, I’m from an animal-rescue charity and—’
‘I don’t have money,’ she says in heavily accented English.
‘No, I don’t want money. I need a torch.’
‘Torch? But is daylight.’
I gesture up the stairs. ‘The man in number six, he is in hospital, I come to take his cats.’ I am speaking with almost the same accent as her, I realize.
‘You wait. I look.’
She shuts the door.
When she returns a minute later she has a baby on her hip. A big, bonny, blond boy about twelve months old. You would never put them together as mother and son if your life depended on it. I reach out to touch his hair, an automatic reflex I acquired on becoming a mother myself and say, ‘He’s beautiful. What’s his name?’
‘Nika.’
‘That’s nice – is it Polish?’
‘Is from Georgia.’
I go to speak and at the last second realize she means the country below Russia, not the state next to Alabama.
She hands me the torch, a small black-and-yellow one made by Stanley and, as always happens when I see that particular brand name, I’m whipped right back to the day my father’s wife slit her wrists with the Stanley blade in our living room.
‘Leave outside,’ the woman says, and I look at her, confused.
‘Leave torch outside door when finished,’ and I say, ‘Ah, yes, okay, I will.’
I stand in the kitchen doorway and take a long, unsteady breath.
More than two, the woman said. I’ve spotted four adult cats already, and the
re’s a litter of kittens in a cupboard over by the sink. I can hear them mewing pitifully. To be frank, this is really an RSPCA job. In instances like this, I usually make a phone call and they turn up with a local vet, ready to certify it’s a case of cruelty. They gather all the evidence they need to move forward with a prosecution. But that takes time. And the owner’s in hospital. Probably not coming out, from what the daughter said, so it’s a pointless exercise.
I decide to gather up the cats in the kitchen first before checking the rest of the flat. One step at a time, or it’ll be overwhelming.
The cats are a bit wild. They’re really stringy things, all legs and claws. I pick up one female, a mangy tortoiseshell with three white paws, and feel a pregnant bellyful of kittens inside her.
One female cat is capable of producing twenty thousand kittens if all her offspring go on to breed. That’s why a huge bulk of our budget goes on neutering – to prevent scenes like this. If owners would neuter their pets at six months, instead of ‘letting them have one season’, we could almost put an end to unwanted pups and kittens. Of course we’d still have to deal with the fallout of those who believe neutering is interfering with nature, but I tend to think if that crowd weren’t causing trouble for the likes of me, they’d just be causing it elsewhere. Cock-fighting probably. Maybe wife-beating.
I double up, putting two cats in each basket, then I go to the sink. I’m guessing the guy who lived here was a drinker because, even though the place is a cesspit, there’s not much food around. Just empties. I say a silent prayer of thanks, because I don’t think I could have faced moulding scraps and rancid meat today.
There must be over sixty tins of Special Brew scattered about the work surfaces, as well as countless empty bottles of gin. I don’t recognize the brand so I turn it over in my hand and look at the label on the back. It reads: ‘Specially produced for Aldi stores’. An image of the drinker pushing his trolley filled with gin forms in my mind: thin as his cats, with yellowed corneas and that hypermobile lower jaw alcoholics seem to develop. I hear another tiny, strangled meow from the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink.
