his head, not quite believing his eyes. The girl sat on the floor of the day nursery, bouncing a baby on her knee. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, and when she raised her head and smiled at Harry he’d had to turn away and chew his tongue. The likeness was uncanny. She looked just like Carmel. After he had finished his work he rushed home to scrabble in the shoebox of photos he kept in the back of a cupboard and had found the faded picture of her along with the other girls. It was her. Thirty years on she had come back for him and she hadn’t changed one bit, hadn’t decayed at all. This time he swore there would be a happy ending. This time she would stay and love him. He was sure of it.
Next time Harry saw Mitchell he told him about Carmel. How he wanted to love her. To marry her. He showed him a photograph. Mitchell grabbed the picture and laughed. Said she looked tight. Said she looked like a good fuck. Said he could help Harry with a girl like that. Harry knew then Mitchell didn’t understand. Not about love. Mitchell only understood about power and destroying people. Harry wished he hadn’t opened his mouth.
A few weeks later he had seen Carmel again. It had been nine months ago, just after Christmas, when Harry had gone to Mitchell’s festive get-together. She had been tied to Mitchell’s big bed. Harry walked into the room and she was lying there spread-eagled with ropes binding her legs and arms. Mitchell was checking the leather gag and blindfold and RT was setting up some lines of Charlie on the dressing room table.
‘Nice, isn’t she?’ Mitchell said. ‘Just like you told me. Happy Christmas, Harry!’
‘Oh God,’ Harry mumbled. He put his tongue in the corner of his mouth and chewed. Carmel. Carmel!
‘She’s a kitten,’ RT said. ‘Took a while to find her but I finally managed to pick her up at Flamingos. Lots of pretty pink in there, hah, hah!’
RT was a little shit, Harry thought. One of the people with the big words. Too clever. But then RT was the guy who got the girls and took the risks. He’d offer to buy a girl a drink and then drop a couple of tabs in on the way back from the bar. The girls were usually too drunk to notice. By the time they had finished the freebie they were too wired to care.
Harry didn’t know what to do next. Couldn’t figure it. He tried not to look at Carmel twisting and pulling against the restraints. She didn’t seem to like it much, but they never did. Harry had learnt that by now. And he had learnt not to care as well. Tonight though he did care. Carmel should have been for him alone. Now she was going to be soiled. Used goods. He wasn’t sure he could live with that.
‘Get the video, Harry. You won’t want to miss this.’ Mitchell was naked now, moving onto the bed and beginning to use his fingers on the girl. Mitchell’s expensive, broadcast quality video camera sat on a tripod to the left of the bed. Usually Harry shot the material and got to join in later, but now he just stood unmoving, and stared at Mitchell as he defiled the girl.
RT began to strip too and kicked his clothes into the corner of the room, eager to get started.
‘Not joining us, Harry?’ RT said. ‘Campanu not for you?’
He didn’t know what RT was talking about, but he didn’t want to shoot the video, didn’t want to fuck the girl. Not Carmel. Not here. Carmel had cared for him like the others had. She didn’t deserve this.
‘I feel ill,’ Harry said. ‘Sorry.’
Harry did feel ill now. Sick. Too many cocktails earlier on. What a stupid word. The walls of the room began to move and RT’s face became all teeth.
‘For God’s sake, Harry, what has got into you? If you don’t want to do the videos anymore we can find someone else.’
‘Richard’s right.’ Mitchell, from the bed, angry. ‘If you are not interested then you might as well just fuck off out of here. Understand?’
An unstoppable spasm gagged in the back of Harry’s throat. He was going to vomit. He rushed out of the room and down the corridor to the bathroom. First the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl and then painful empty retching followed by bile and mucus. He was on his knees now with his face resting on the white rim, on his knees like a sinner on the edge of hell.
He clutched the toilet for support, only half-aware of the sticky residue of vomit on his hands and face. As he knelt he could hear the voices from down the corridor. Mitchell and RT. Raping Carmel.
Chapter 14
North Prospect, Plymouth. Thursday 28th October. 11.00 am
Riley and Enders were trying to get to grips with North Prospect’s particular brand of children. Savage had designated their next action should be to try and find out what Forester had been up to before he disappeared, and according to a report filed by one of the area’s Police Community Support Officers he had often hung around one particular playground. One of the kids at the regular football nights they held had mentioned Forester, and Savage had suggested they should get over to North Prospect and see what they could find out. The PCSO said there were always a lot of kids hanging around and had figured some of them might know something.
‘I think you two will have more street cred with them. I am old enough to be their mother,’ Savage said.
‘Grandmother in some cases, ma’am,’ Riley said.
‘I’ll take that as a comment on social deprivation and teenage pregnancy rates rather than anything to do with my age or appearance shall I?’
‘Of cause, ma’am,’ Riley smiled.
They pulled into Grassendale Avenue and parked next to a small park. Out of the car and Riley was thinking that although the day felt colder, at least the rain had stopped.
‘Sleet and snow,’ Enders said, looking up at the sky. ‘According to the guys in Wet Orifice. Rain off the Atlantic meeting cold air from the north. If the idiots are correct.’
The headquarters of the Met Office was only a few miles away in Exeter, but the scientists seemed incapable of predicting the weather for Devon and Cornwall. Riley still hadn’t got used to the local practice of ignoring the forecast and as a result he’d spent many an uncomfortable day wet, cold or sweaty.
The park was bordered with large boulders — presumably intended to stop joyriders or boy-racers from wheel-spinning their way across the turf — and had a fenced-off playground for the tots, a basketball court and a larger, grassy area where four older boys in football gear were having a kick around, a coke can and a foam burger container acting as goalposts. Only one wore the dark green shirt of the Pilgrims, the local team, the other three’s loyalties were divided between the deep blue of Chelsea, the claret and sky blue of West Ham and the vertical red and blue stripes of Barcelona. None appeared to be aged above nine or ten. The two detectives strolled across the muddy grass to the boys who were trying their best to stay upright as they skidded around chasing a toddler’s Thomas the Tank Engine football.
‘Shouldn’t you lot be in school?’ Riley said.
‘What do you care?’ The blond lad in the Chelsea strip answered.
‘They’re the pigs and they are going to bang us up.’
‘Nah, they’re paedos. My mum said I had to look out ’cos they are always sniffing around.’
‘They’re paedo pigs, that’s what they is.’
Riley and Enders stood still and the boys danced around them laughing, full of spirit and life, without a care in the whole of their limited world.
‘What’s your name?’ Riley asked the blond haired boy.
‘Ewan,’ the boy replied. ‘What’s yours?’
‘He’s a ninky nonk,’ one of the others shouted out. ‘I know that’s what they’re called cos my nanna told me.’
‘He’s not a fucking ninky nonk, Kyle, you daft cunt,’ Ewan said. ‘Ninky nonks are like those people in the takeaway.’
‘He is too! Hey can you sell me some crack you black mothafucka?’
The other boys burst into fits of laughter and began jiving around, giving each other high-fives and mimicking a troop of bad-ass rappers. Riley took the opportunity to step forward and kick the ball, lifting it with his foot and performing a clever little flick up to Enders. Enders used his head and a knee, before dropping the ball to the ground and hoofing it high into the air for Riley to chase. Riley raced along, out-pacing the kids screaming behind him. The ball bounced a couple of times and he trapped it with his foot. He stood with his hands on his hips challenging the
