Dead To Me - [30]

Rachel considered the lads: older teenagers, their hoodies and tracksuits shabby, nothing new. Edging nearer, she could see a giant-sized bottle of cheap wine. A smoke was doing the rounds. Weed, maybe? Yes, she could detect the distinctive heady smell of cannabis. Sudden laughter. And Rosie kicked out at one of the lads.

‘Rosie?’

The group stilled, one of the lads jumped up. ‘What d’you want?’ he said. Rachel stared at his face, noted the jut of his chin, the slack expression, mouth breather. ‘A word with Rosie there, all right, pal?’ Not frightened of him.

Rosie got up, she stumbled, and Rachel saw she was very drunk.

‘You’re police?’ said one of them.

Rosie hesitated, Rachel was worried she’d topple in the canal if she didn’t move away from the edge. But the lads shuffled back and the girl walked past, skirting the fire.

‘Youse the cops?’ the lad said again.

‘Shut it, Dec,’ said his mate.

Rosie came closer, her eyes bleary, the bones of her cheeks and her clavicle jutting out.

Rachel walked her along a few metres to where there was a simple plank bench. ‘You remember me?’ she said. ‘Here,’ Rachel offered the girl a cigarette, took one herself. Lit them. ‘How’ve you been?’ Needing to start somewhere, though she could see the kid was half off her head.

‘’Kay.’ Looking back to her mates, to the fire. She shook with cold.

‘The assault, the rape…’ Rachel said, seeing the girl stiffen immediately. ‘It was someone you knew?’

‘No,’ the girl said quickly.

Rachel didn’t believe her. ‘I think it was,’ Rachel said. ‘That’s why you refused to make a statement, why you wouldn’t press charges. You were frightened of him. Frightened he would make you pay if you shopped him.’

The girl shook her head, then sucked hard on the cigarette.

A train rattled past somewhere close, making it difficult to hear anything else. As the racket faded away, Rachel said, ‘I’m investigating another case. It might be the same bloke.’ She studied the girl, who just sat shivering, staring across the canal, tapping nervously at the end of her cigarette with her thumbnail. ‘Does the name Sean Broughton mean anything to you?’

Rosie shook her head slowly. No reaction, no increase in stress as far as Rachel could see.

‘This other girl, she was in Ryelands, too.’ Rachel caught the flinch that the name of the home provoked and felt her own heartbeat quicken. ‘Was it someone you knew from Ryelands?’ Rachel asked. ‘Just tell me that. I don’t need a name, I can find out.’ Speaking fast, rushing to convince her.

Rosie turned. ‘No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t,’ she cried. ‘Why have you come back?’ Her face white with anxiety, eyes wide, the pupils huge from the drugs or the drink. She was shuddering, her breath catching and uneven. ‘I didn’t see his face. I just want to forget it, I told you before.’

‘How? Look at the state of you,’ Rachel said. ‘You’ve not forgotten. You let them get away with it. And now they might have hurt someone else.’ All things she should have kept to herself, unhelpful, unprofessional. ‘We can protect you,’ Rachel went on.

‘I never seen him,’ Rosie shouted. ‘Just go, will you, fuck off.’ She leapt to her feet and walked unsteadily back to her friends, and Rachel heard the hubbub of questions and remarks as she reached the tunnel.

Rachel lobbed her cigarette into the canal, retraced her steps. Rosie didn’t know Sean, she trusted her on that, but Ryelands? There was something there, but she needed to find a way to introduce it to the inquiry without getting a total bollocking or being laughed out of court.

16

JANET WAS SHATTERED at the start of the day. She’d arrived home the night before to find Elise and Taisie going at it like something off Jerry Springer. Ade out at a leaving do for someone at school. As Janet came through the door, she could hear thumping from upstairs and Taisie screaming, ‘Give it me back, you slag. You bitch. Give it me now.’

‘Oy!’ Janet called out. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Give it me!’

Janet got halfway upstairs in time to see Taisie land a kick on Elise’s bedroom door. Taisie was incandescent, her face red with exertion, eyes wild.

‘What’s going on?’ Janet said again.

Taisie, only now aware of her there, rounded on her mother, as though Janet was also to blame: ‘She’s got my phone and she won’t give it back!’

‘Elise?’ Janet called. ‘Open the door.’

‘She tried to hit me,’ Elise said, slightly muffled. ‘Tell her off.’

‘Why did you hit her?’ Janet asked Taisie, who was unable to stand still, seething with outrage.

‘I didn’t, I missed,’ snapped Taisie. ‘And she took my phone, I told you, dumbo.’

‘Hey!’ Janet glared at Taisie. ‘Open the door, Elise,’ she said again.

She heard Elise fumbling with the lock. She had seen it so many times before. Taisie wronged by her bigger brighter sister, going off like a warehouse full of firecrackers while Elise, sensible and clever and sometimes a little holier than thou, took the moral high ground.

Elise opened the door and Taisie lunged, but Janet caught her arm. ‘Cool it, lady,’ she said. Then turned to Elise, ‘Give her the phone.’