Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (15 page)

Though she didn’t mention the extra bottles each of them put away at the weekends. Nor the Bacardi Breezers Jackie knocked back before beginning her proper drinking.

And, anyway, Joanne and Jackie each having a bottle of wine was a world away from what Joanne saw at closing time on the streets of Kendal: women falling out of pubs, puking into rubbish bins, most, if not all, claiming to have had their
drinks spiked when, in reality, they were just really, really pissed.

Joanne put it down to women having more money nowadays. Women of her mother’s generation hadn’t gone out boozing in the same way, because there was no money to go out boozing with.

The doctor on the telly asked the reporter how many units she thought was in a bottle of wine, and the reporter answered, ‘Six?’ He shook his head. ‘There are ten units of alcohol in a bottle of wine.’ And Joanne had shot a look at Jackie.

That meant they were actually drinking … she lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she totted up the numbers … shit, seventy units a week. Minimum.

Jackie said sheepishly, ‘We’ll start cutting back.’

Joanne says to Ron Quigley now, ‘How much d’you drink, Ron?’

‘Not much,’ he answers. ‘Same as anyone else, really. Never been that much of a boozer.’

‘Rough estimate?’

‘Five or six pints of an evenin’. Bottle of wine with the missus at the weekend. Although I had a few extra scoops last night, that’s why I need a bit o’ stodge to mop it up.’ He shoves the rest of his Steak Bake into his mouth. A few flakes of pastry hang on to his tash, fluttering as he breathes.

No wonder the doctors are on at us, she thinks. We’re all lying to ourselves. The nation’s pickled and no one’s admitting it.

She pulls a right off the A6 and heads towards Silverdale. They’re scheduled to talk to Molly Rigg. See if she can’t come up with any more details about the man who took her.

Bless her, Molly had tried her best during questioning the first time around, but she was what Joanne would call unworldly. Naïve. She’d been taken to a bedsit, she said; she didn’t know where. She’d been drugged, raped, and dumped, and she couldn’t even tell the police the make of car her attacker
had driven. Nor the colour. Asked why she’d got into his car in the first place, she’d said she didn’t know. She knew it was wrong, but she’d done it anyway.

Which set Joanne thinking that this guy, this kidnapper, must have something appealing about him. Joanne thought they were looking for not a loner, not your average paedo, but someone with a bit of charisma. Someone with a bit of charm. She was on her own with this theory, though. Her boss, Detective Inspector Pete McAleese, who was running the investigation, was more intent on them following up any leads on casual workers new to the area.

‘What d’you make of this
Darling Buds of May
theory, Ron?’

‘Waste o’ time.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, this kid, Molly Rigg. You interviewed her, right?’

‘Briefly.’

‘And all she’s said so far is the guy talks like Pop Larkin. Well, I didn’t even know that was
supposed
to be a Kent accent David Jason was doing. I thought the programme was set in Devon or Dorset … so how’s she supposed to know the difference? It’s a non-starter.’

Joanne agrees with him. ‘It is a bit thin.’

‘I didn’t think anyone still watched that crap, anyway. Do you think you might do better with this girl on your own?’ he asks, shuffling around in his seat, trying to get something out of his pocket.

‘Maybe. She’s a shy little thing. Might be better without you in the room. D’you want to question the mother, see if she’s got anything new to say?’

‘Fine by me. What tack you going to take?’

‘I want to know how he managed to get her back to his place, and out again, without anyone seeing. Or hearing them. That’s the part that’s bugging me most. I think if I can
shed some light on that, we might start getting somewhere.’

Ron nods, offers Joanne a mint Tic Tac.

‘And how is someone who lives in a bedsit able to afford to run a car?’ she says. ‘That doesn’t add up either.’

‘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?’