Little Girl Lost

by Brian McGilloway

  Lucy nodded, having expected the news since her father’s arrival. Still, it did not mean she would necessarily follow the advice just yet.

  ‘Thanks for looking after him,’ she said.

  She helped dress her father and, carrying his bag, walked beside him while one of the porters pushed him in a wheelchair down to the car park. The man helped to lift him into the car. ‘Don’t want you slipping and having to be wheeled straight back in again now, do we?’ he said.

  The old man looked blankly at him as he spoke and, though he shared his smile, he did not seem to understand the source of his humour.

  Lucy phoned Sarah on the way home and told her that her father was out of hospital and would require her help again. The woman promised to be at the house by lunchtime.

  It was only as she passed Prehen woods on the way home that Lucy remembered she had meant to call in on Alice.

  CHAPTER 38

  Just as she had got her father settled into the house again, Robbie called her. Social Services were satisfied that Melanie Kent had acted appropriately with regards to Alice. The doctor had felt that being back home with her mother would be best for her; the girl had been discharged before 11 a.m. Lucy thanked him for calling, trying hard to disguise the sense of hurt she felt that, after all she had done, she was no longer a part of Alice’s life. She would have liked to see her once more, if only to say goodbye. Despite her best efforts, Robbie still sensed her disappointment.

  ‘It stings, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Knowing you did so much, and getting no thanks for it.’

  Lucy coughed away the emotion. ‘You don’t do it for thanks.’

  ‘True. But you still make a connection with some of these kids and then they’re gone. It’s hard to get used to.’

  ‘I’m happy she’s home with her mother,’ Lucy said honestly.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Robbie said. ‘Any luck with Janet?’

  Lucy realized that she had not seen her either since she had gone into hospital. Having the day off might give her the opportunity to do so.

  ‘We found her sleeping rough. She was very ill,’ Lucy said. ‘Thanks again for your help with her.’

  ‘No problem. I passed on the name of that child you mentioned, Mary Quigg. Someone will visit the home as soon as we can and see what can be done for her.’

  ‘Thanks, Robbie,’ Lucy said. She felt a sudden lethargy, could not face the thought of explaining to him about Cunningham. Instead she said, ‘It was good to work with you.’

  ‘You too, Lucy. Maybe I’ll be in touch about getting that bite to eat sometime.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Lucy said.

  She made tea while her father got himself comfortable in the living room. When she went in, he had one of his boxes opened and was working his way through a notebook.

  ‘What are you doing, Daddy?’ Lucy asked, handing him the mug.

  He muttered to himself, half closing the notebook, so that Lucy could not see what he was reading.

  Sarah arrived just as she had finished clearing up the dishes. She was effusive in her greeting for Lucy’s father despite the fact that the old man’s reception of her was rather more muted. Lucy explained that she had a short visit to make and would be back later.

  When she went up to the ward, Janet was sitting up in bed. Her hair was brushed back severely from her face, though it still hung in straggles across her shoulders. She had been washed since Lucy saw her last and wore a hospital gown, which was open at the side revealing the withered skin of her side and haunches. A long, thick scar traversed her chest, ending just below her left breast. Lucy glanced quickly, then looked away, mentally having to remind herself that this woman would be no more than in her early thirties.

  Her face was heart-shaped, her features small, her eyes wide. Small patches of old scar tissue on her face shone under the fluorescence of the hospital lighting.

  She turned in the bed and stared at Lucy accusingly when she entered. The IV feed connected to her hand restricted her movement, as did the bandage on her arm further above the drip. A darkish fluid had seeped through the dressing slightly and, as Lucy approached, the smell of infection caught in her throat, causing her to breathe through her mouth.

  ‘What?’ Janet snapped.

  ‘I wanted to … my name’s Lucy Black.’ She waited to see if the name elicited any reaction, then realized that it would not.

  ‘My father is Jim Black.’

  If she had expected some instant response, she was disappointed.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘I believe you knew my father. He’s sick at the moment and he’s been talking about you.’

  A laugh rattled deep in the woman’s chest, building to a spluttering crescendo which caused her shoulders to shudder, then dissolved into a cough.

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Jim Black.’

  The woman squinted slightly as if struggling to remember.

  ‘I’m not sure I know him,’ she decided finally.

  Lucy tried to hide her disappointment. She was not entirely sure what she had been hoping for anyway. She had set out looking for Janet telling herself it was for her father. Now she realized it was for herself, first and foremost. She wanted to understand what made this woman so important she should feature in her father’s addled thoughts for almost two decades – so far as Lucy knew, since he last saw her.

  Janet smacked her lips several times and Lucy suspected she was beginning to feel the effects of her enforced drying out. She leaned across for a glass of water on the side cabinet and, in so doing, her gown fell open further, revealing the full extent of the scarring Lucy had seen. The scar was almost six inches long, running across her breasts. The skin was puckered and livid red.

  ‘Was you the one that brought me in?’

  Lucy nodded.

  The woman leaned towards her. ‘You wouldn’t have a few pound on you, would you, love, for when I get out again?’

  Lucy rummaged in her pocket and produced a twenty-pound note.

  ‘God bless you, love.’

  ‘Is there anyone you’d like me to call? Have you any relatives that might be wondering about you?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘None that want to know me,’ Janet said, sipping again from the water glass, spilling water down her front as she did so.

  Lucy was about to excuse herself and leave when the woman put down the glass and began to speak.

  ‘I saw you looking,’ she said. ‘At me scars.’

  Lucy began to protest, but Janet continued.

  ‘The Provos burnt me,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was sixteen. Three men came to my house one evening. I’d only been home a few weeks. I was upstairs doing my homework. I heard them downstairs, talking with my da. I heard their thuds on the stairs. One of them came into my room; I was still in my uniform. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me off the bed. The other one grabbed my legs and they carried me downstairs. My ma and da stood in the doorway of the living room, watching. They did nothing.’

  Lucy felt she should offer some words of comfort to the woman but could think of no adequate expression.

  ‘They took me out into the street. A lot of the local boys were standing around, laughing. They took me over to one of the lamp posts and, before they tied me up, they took off my clothes. Everything. One of them laid them in a neat pile on the kerb, like he was careful not to get them dirty. They stripped me right down in front of all those boys, standing sniggering and pointing at me. Then my hands were tied; I couldn’t cover myself.’

  Lucy sat by the bed, listening.

  ‘One of them had scissors and they cut clumps of my hair off. I had such nice hair then; long blonde hair. “Goldilocks” he called me as he cut. The second wrote a sign on a piece of card. “Brit loving slut.” He hung it round my neck. He stopped long enough to roll up the bottom of his mask, just up to here.’

  She pointed to the base o
f her nose. Her voice had softened and dropped in tone.

  ‘Then the third man went down the alley by our house and came back with a bucket. They’d been heating tar. I could smell it. It was so hot he had to hold the bucket with two bits of wood. Someone put a milk crate beside me so he could stand up on it. Then he poured it over my chest. He’d promised my ma he’d not do my face, he said. “We’ll burn your tits instead” he said. “See how the Brits like them then.” He went back for a second bucket to do down there too.’ She gestured towards her crotch and Lucy was struck at the dignity she attempted to retain in describing such a violation.

  Lucy sat in silence for a moment. She placed her hand on the woman’s arm. ‘Why?’

  The woman stared at her grimly. ‘I was a Brit-loving slut.’

  ‘My God, Janet. That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I should have known someone would find out. They were right. I went into the barracks at the top of Bishop Street every week, played around with some of the Brits. A cop too.’

  Her comments caused Lucy to draw back. ‘A cop?’

  Janet nodded as she took another sip of water.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘8th June, 1994. I was studying for my GCSEs.’

  ‘The cop that got involved? Do you remember his name.’

  The woman shook her head. ‘He was an inspector.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about him?’

  ‘He had a kid. He talked about his daughter.’

  Lucy felt herself unsteady, had to grip the edge of the seat on which she sat to hold herself upright. She felt a burning in her throat and the growing taste of bile.

  ‘What age were you?’

  Janet stared at her. ‘Fourteen when it started,’ she said. ‘Sixteen when they burned me.’

  Lucy groaned, and lowered her head. The floor seemed to move beneath her and she had to place her hand against the cold plastic seat of the chair to steady herself.

  ‘There was a Land Rover sat at the end of the street while the Provos did me,’ Janet continued. ‘They sat and watched.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy mumbled. ‘I have to go. I’m really sorry.’

  Numbed, Lucy wandered up the corridor towards the entrance of the ward. To her immediate left she saw the Ladies’ toilet and rushed in, just making it before her stomach twisted and she vomited noisily into the bowl. She knelt, resting her head against the seat, and began to cry.

  She stayed that way for some time, until someone began knocking on the door, looking to use the toilet. Rinsing her face with cold water, Lucy studied herself in the small, rust-dappled mirror screwed to the wall. Her eyes were shadowed with lack of sleep, her skin red and raw.

  She unlocked the door and uttered an apology, keeping her head down until she was out of the ward. She stood waiting for the lift, looking out of the windows. The height of the hospital afforded a wide view of the city. From here, the river was hidden, the separation between east and west bank invisible.

  The pinging of the lift door opening roused her from her reveries and forced her to consider where she was going next. She dared not go home yet, dared not face her father. What could she say to him? How could she look at him again? Instead she took out her phone and called Sarah, explained that she’d been held up at work and would be home as soon as she could.

  She felt the urge to talk to someone, to feel some form of connection with another adult. She couldn’t speak to her mother, couldn’t face the thought of the pleasure her mother would take in her vindication. ‘Don’t deify him just because he’s sick,’ she’d said. Had she known all along? Was that the cause of their separation, of the end of Lucy’s childhood? Her father started drinking after that, lost his sense of who he was.

  Finally, because she had nowhere else to go, she pressed for the lift again and, when it arrived, travelled up to the children’s ward.

  CHAPTER 39

  ‘I’m sorry for bothering you,’ she said as Margaret filled the kettle and switched it on.

  ‘It’s no bother, love,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit early for my tea, but that’s the perk of being boss.’

  Lucy smiled quickly, glanced at her hands, twisting one around the other. Having felt like talking, she now found she had nothing to say, couldn’t think where to start.

  ‘So what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  Margaret looked at her sceptically.

  ‘Alice has gone home,’ she said.

  Lucy nodded.

  ‘You did a great job with her, you know.’

  Lucy nodded again.

  ‘How is work?’

  ‘Fine. We found a shed where Kate McLaughlin was being held. The police helicopter actually did a fly-by when she was in there, but she’d gone by the time we got there.’

  Margaret tutted as she set out the cups.

  ‘God, I shouldn’t have told you that. You’ll not tell anyone will you?’ Lucy said, then regretted doing so, in case the woman should think she didn’t trust her.

  ‘Who would I tell?’ she replied. ‘Besides, God love him, but that man McLaughlin’s never had to look far for misfortune.’

  ‘You mean his wife?’

  ‘Everything. He bought a bar and his wife is killed in it. By the time the land gets out of the courts, the value of the place has collapsed. He has no luck.’

  ‘Why was it in court?’

  ‘The buildings were all listed; that’s why he got so much of the land so cheap. If he’d wanted to renovate, he’d have needed to work within the existing structure apparently and it would have cost a fortune to do. The Planning Department wouldn’t authorize him to raze the place after the bombing, even though the buildings were unsound. It’s been going through the courts for the best part of a decade. He got the all clear last year and got planning permission and everything, but by that stage the value of the land dropped with the recession. Then all this happens with his daughter.’

  Lucy nodded, took the proffered cup of tea with thanks.

  ‘So what really brings you up here, then?’

  ‘I … you … you’re one of the few people I can talk to. Isn’t that weird?’

  Lucy could tell she was disarmed by her frankness.

  ‘I’m sorry for landing on you like this. I … my dad talked about a woman he knew when he was younger. I found her.’

  Margaret grimaced. ‘Not a good idea?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘I think I’ve found out something about him.’

  ‘An affair?’

  Lucy nodded, unable to look her fully in the face in case she could read that there was more to it than that.

  ‘When he was still with your mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Margaret laid her hand on her shoulder, kneaded gently. ‘You must be feeling awful.’

  Lucy looked up at her. ‘I brought him home today. The doctor says he has Alzheimer’s. He suggested I put him in a home. The way I feel at the moment, I’d do it tonight if I could find somewhere.’

  Margaret nodded silently.

  ‘I am sorry for landing this on you,’ Lucy said again, putting down the tea and standing. ‘I wanted to thank you for being so good to me when Alice was here.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Margaret said. ‘You helped us out, keeping an eye on her. Are you going to visit her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d like to, in one way, but it’s not really appropriate.’

  Margaret pushed back from her desk and opened the drawer. ‘She left this here,’ she said, removing the teddy bear Lucy had brought down to Alice from her home. ‘Someone would need to return it to her, at some stage.’

  Lucy took the toy, felt its softness give to her touch.

  ‘Thank you, Margaret,’ she managed. ‘You’re a good friend.’

  ‘Well, one’s a start,’ the woman said, standing. ‘Good luck whatever you decide. Maybe we’ll see you again.’

  Lucy was leaving the ward when she felt her mobile vibrate in her
pocket. It was Sarah King.

  ‘I’m on my way home, Sarah,’ she said on answering.

  ‘You need to hurry,’ Sarah said. ‘There’s been an incident.’

  One of the street lamps outside the house had blown, leaving the entire street subdued and dull. Consequently, she didn’t see the writing until she pulled into the driveway of her house and the headlamps raked across the gable wall.

  ‘Lucy Black. PSNI Scum’ was written in red letters, each a foot high, along the side of the wall. Below it was the registration number of her car. On entering the house, she saw where the congealed yolks of the eggs thrown at the house had slid halfway down the PVC door.

  Sarah King stood in the hallway, her coat already on.

  ‘They done it when we were in the house and I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘Is everyone all right? Is Dad OK?’

  ‘He’s fine. I’m more shocked than he is.’

  ‘I’m sorry for being late, Sarah. I really appreciate your help. I’ll get someone to clean it off tomorrow.’

  ‘I need to think things through, Lucy,’ the woman said, her voice shaken, the wattles of skin at her throat trembling slightly as she spoke. ‘What if they did something worse to the house when I was in here with your father?’

  Lucy nodded. ‘That’s understandable, Sarah,’ she said. ‘I really appreciate what you do for Dad, but whatever you think is for the best.’

  The woman nodded curtly. ‘I don’t want to cause you problems, Lucy. I’ll not see you stuck. But at the same time …’

  The thought hung unfinished between them. Lucy pulled out a few crumpled notes from her pocket and gathered together enough to cover the woman’s daily wage.

  ‘That should cover today,’ she said. ‘You can let me know what your plans are tomorrow.’

  The woman took the money with mumbled thanks and shuffled past Lucy and out of the house.

  Lucy went upstairs and glanced in quickly at her father, who seemed to be asleep. Closing his door gently, she padded into her own room. Boxes of her father’s old notebooks and files were still piled against the far wall. Lucy had had to move them when she first moved in, just to make room for her bed. She placed Alice’s teddy bear on top of one of the boxes, then changed her clothes, grateful for the comfort of a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms.