‘Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, Challis Street Police Station,’ Wendy said.
‘A bit late, isn’t it? He’s dead.’ It was the reply of someone who didn’t care or was incapable, stupefied by the effects of one or another recreational drug.
‘I came to offer my condolences.’
‘Suit yourself. They’re in the other room.’ The young woman left and went back to the front room of the house, music blaring loudly. Inside the room, Wendy briefly saw an older man. Wendy held her handkerchief to her face, not to stifle the tears, but to lessen the smell of sweat mixed with marijuana and tobacco. In the back room of the house, a group of people sat or stood. Leaning with his back against the kitchen bench, the elder and violent brother of Sal Maynard.
‘You still here?’ the man said on seeing Wendy.
Wendy felt the urge to rebuke him and to tell him what she thought of him and his family, as well as what she thought of the Begleys, but did not. Ralphie and Sal Maynard had become friends out of a need to better themselves. Sal had become obsessed with celebrity to find her way out of her malaise. Ralphie had seen McDonald’s and its hamburgers as his salvation. Neither had stood a chance, and here in this kitchen, was all that Wendy despised. She wanted to turn around and leave, but there were questions to be asked; answers, if there were any, to be drawn from people who did not trust the police.
‘Mrs Begley,’ Wendy said. She could see Sal Maynard’s mother with her arm around a small woman, the tears rolling down her cheeks.’ I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘What are you doing here, tormenting this poor woman?’ Mrs Maynard said.
‘I liked Ralphie. He was a decent young man.’
‘He said you were alright,’ Ralphie’s mother said.
‘With some help, he may have achieved something.’
‘We’ll never know now, will we?’
Ralphie’s father leant against the far wall. In his right hand, he held a bottle of beer.
Wendy could see some worth in the mother, none in the father. The other drug-consumed brother of Sal Maynard was not present. The blaring music from the front room continued to impede the conversation.
‘Could that music be turned down?’ Wendy said.
‘No one dare interfere when she’s entertaining,’ Mrs Begley said.
‘Why?’
‘She does what she wants.’
‘How old is your daughter?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘And you, Mr Begley, allow your daughter to prostitute herself in your house?’
‘She’s not mine.’
‘We were separated for some years. Ralphie was ours, Rosy is mine,’ Ralphie’s mother said.
‘I came here to offer my condolences and to ask you a few questions.’
‘I’m not sure we can help.’
‘Very well. Could the Maynards leave us for half an hour?’
Sal Maynard’s brother opened the fridge door, took a can of beer and left soon enough. After a few more hugs and kind words from Mrs Maynard, she left as well.
Three remained in the back room, Wendy and the parents of Ralphie Begley. Fred Begley took another beer for himself, gave one to his wife. No sign of affection between the two was shown. In the other room, the music continued to blare, together with the sound of the daughter and the man she was with. To Wendy, the noises were not of an innocent fifteen-year-old female who should have been at school.
‘Excuse me,’ Wendy said. She left one room and walked down the narrow hallway and opened the door of the other; she did not knock. ‘Get your clothes on, and get him out of here. Your brother has just died, and you’re screwing around.’
‘It’s my house,’ Rosy said.
‘What business is it of yours?’ the man said.
‘Your name?’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘A female of fifteen, under the age of consent, and truant from school. There’s a police car outside, a couple of officers. They’ll have a few questions for you on the way out.’
‘She told me she was seventeen.’
‘Ignorance is no excuse.’
‘I’m not a tart, and Billy, he looks after me.’
‘And Billy is over thirty, and if he’s giving you clothes and money, taking you to fancy hotels and restaurants, that’s prostitution. You, young lady, need discipline, but I suppose there’s not much in this house.’
‘You’re not my mother.’
‘If I were, you’d feel the weight of my hand on your backside. Now get Billy out of here, and I’ll be pressing charges against him. You, Miss Begley, will come into the other room with your parents now.’
Wendy opened the front door of the house and beckoned one of the officers over. ‘Check out Billy here. Book him for having sexual relations with a minor, and then take him down to Challis Street, get him checked out. I want the book thrown at him.’
‘We know Billy Jepson,’ the officer said. ‘Smarmy individual, sells drugs around the back of the pub of a Saturday to minors. We’ll make something stick.’
‘This is police brutality,’ Jepson said.
‘It’s justice,’ Wendy said.
Wendy returned to the back room, Rosy with her.
Mrs Begley sat quietly sobbing, her husband stood, his back resting against a wall. Rosy crouched on the floor. Not one of the three spoke to the other.
‘Rosy, let me start with you,’ Wendy said.
‘Why me?’
‘Because I’ve not spoken to you yet. You were too busy with Billy Jepson before, but now I need to ask you a few questions.’
‘If you must.’
Wendy saw another lost soul, but she couldn’t feel the warmth for the young woman that she had for her brother. ‘What was your relationship like with Ralphie?’
‘We’d talk, that’s all.’
‘Is that it?’
‘He was alright, but we didn’t
