1983

reckon they know any better, do they? They’re lucky that way. Must be nice to be always smiling. Bet you wish you could say same, don’t you? Makes you wonder what this world is bloody coming to though, doesn’t it? Just popped down road for some bloody sweets, next door said. Broad bloody daylight. Terrible. But you think you’ll find her, don’t you? You think she’s all right, don’t you?’

‘Terrible,’ says Mr Dixon, the man in the cornershop. ‘We open at three, rain or shine, and there’s always a queue of them and Jeanette’s always among them, rain or shine. Have to watch her with her money mind, being as she is.’

‘But not yesterday, you say?’

‘No,’ he shakes his head. ‘Not yesterday.’

‘The other kids,’ I ask him. ‘How are they with her, being as she is?’

‘Right kind they are,’ he nods to himself. ‘Lived on street since day she was born, Jeanette has.’

‘And yourself, you didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious yesterday?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing out the ordinary?’

‘Nowt much happens round here, Inspector.’

I nod.

‘Not till this.’

There’s a familiar figure leaning against the Jensen parked outside the shop:

‘Jack?’ I say -

Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter for the Yorkshire Post.

He offers me his open packet of Everest: ‘Maurice, any news?’

I take a cigarette. I shake my head: ‘You tell me, you’re the paperboy.’

Jack lights mine then his.

The gentle Sunday afternoon wind is tugging at the tails of his raincoat, its fingers through his thin hair.

He hasn’t shaved and he stinks of whiskey.

‘Late night?’ I ask.

He smiles: ‘Aren’t they all?’

‘How’s your Carol these days?’ I ask, just to let him know I know.

He’s not smiling now: ‘You tell me?’

‘How would I know?’

‘You’re the copper, aren’t you?’

I look back across the road through the skeletons of half-built semis, the tarpaulin flapping in the breeze, watching the lines of black figures beating their way up the hills through the empty spaces with their big sticks and downward glances, the silent police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, the white ambulance parked at the top of the street, still waiting, and I say:

‘For my sins.’

Back inside number 11, Brunt Street:

George, Jack, and me -

Mr and Mrs Garland -

Geoff Garland holding the framed school portrait, wiping the tears from the glass with the cuffs of his shirt; Paula Garland wrapping her arms around herself, biting her bottom lip -

‘I just don’t understand it,’ she’s saying. ‘Like she just vanished into thin air.’

Jack, notebook out, softly-softly -

Writing down her words, softly-softly -

Repeating her words: ‘Thin air.’

‘But she can’t have just vanished, can she?’

Behind the curtains, there’s the sudden sound of a summer shower, the noise of children’s feet running for home, leaving the park and the swings, the chalk on the pavement, the wickets on the wall -

Mr and Mrs Garland are staring at the back of their red front door, their mouths half-open on the edge of their seats.

There’s the sound of coins on the pavement, a child’s voice shouting after the fading feet of her friends:

‘Hang on! Wait for us!’

But the door stays shut, the curtains drawn, their little girl nowhere to be seen, the rain blowing through the skeletons of the half-built semis across the road, the tarpaulin flapping in the night, the lines of black figures beating their way back down the hills through the empty spaces with their big sticks and downward glances, the silent police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, the white ambulance at the top of the street, leaving empty and silent, the little girl never to be seen again, rain or shine, the door shut, the curtains drawn to the sun, open to the moon -

‘Wait!’

– for the Little Girl Who Never Came Home.

Chapter 14

She was falling backwards into enormous depths, away from this place, her mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, the animal sound of a mother trapped and forced to watch the slaughter of her young, contorted and screaming and howling, prone upon the linoleum floor, on the white squares and the grey squares, on the marks made by boots and the marks made by chairs, contorted and screaming and howling under the dull and yellow lights blinking on and off, on and off, the faded poster warning against the perils of drinking and driving at Christmas, contorted and screaming and howling, the smell of dirty dogs and overcooked vegetables, contorted and screaming and howling as you took down their names and their numbers, telling them all the things you were going to do to them, all the shit that they were in, how fucked they really were, but they were just stood there silent, waiting for the Brass to come and take you both downstairs, the whole station silent but for her, her mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, one young gun at the back, rocking on his chair, hands behind his head, noisily chewing his gum until you flew through them, tried to reach across and grab him, choke him, but his brother officers were holding you back, telling you all the things they were going to do to you, all the shit you were in, how fucked you truly were, her back on her feet, mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, the sound of her glasses breaking under police boots, and then the Brass came, came to take you downstairs, down to the cells, and at the bottom of the stairs you turned the corner and they opened the door to Room 4 and there he was, his boots still turning as they struggled to cut him down, the stink of piss among the suds, his body attached to the ventilation grille, a belt holding him there by his neck, hanging in a jacket that said Saxon and Angelwitch between a pair of swan’s wings, his tongue swollen and eyes as big as plates, still struggling to cut him down and take him away, to put him in a hole in the ground and make it go away, but it wouldn’t and it never will, not for her, her mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, crawling up the walls and back up the stairs on her nails and her knees, the smell of overcooked dogs and dirty vegetables, the dull and yellow lights that blinked off and on, off and on, the faded poster promoting the pleasures of drinking and driving at Christmas, the white squares and the grey squares, the marks made by boots and the marks made by chairs, the linoleum, and these men that walked these stairs, these linoleum floors, these policemen in their suits and big size ten boots, and then it was all gone; the walls, the stairs, the smell of dirty dogs and overcooked vegetables, the dull and yellow lights, the faded poster warning against the perils of drinking and driving at Christmas, the white squares and the grey squares, the marks made by boots and the marks made by chairs, the linoleum and policemen in suits and new boots, all gone as you fall backwards on a tiny plastic chair through the enormous depths of time, away from this place, this rotten un- fresh linoleum place, and you are alone, terrified and hysterical and screeching, your mouth open, contorted and