‘Hi.’ A girl who looked to be a little older than Tina came into the room.
‘Ruth, this is Leanne. Leanne, this is Ruth. She’s—’
‘A friend of the family,’ said Ruth.
‘Christina, we have a date to go to the gym,’ said Leanne.
‘Oh, I hadn’t realised the time.’
‘It’s just over an hour to lock up.’
Tina looked at Ruth.
‘Go,’ Ruth said. ‘I’ll be back soon, we can talk more then.’
‘Thanks, Ruth.’ Tina hugged her, then grabbed a bag from the floor and went out with Leanne.
***
‘Tell me about Leanne,’ Ruth said to Mary McCluskey. ‘What’s she in for?’
‘Shoplifting,’ said Mary. ‘But on a pretty big scale. She wasn’t just taking things for her own use, she was part of a gang that stole to order.’
‘How did she get into it?’
‘It was the family business. She was just following in everyone else’s footsteps. Catching Leanne with such a big haul last time gave the police the lever they needed to bring the whole thing down. Leanne and her brother went into Young Offender Institutions, and her older sister, parents, auntie and granny got prison. Granny got the shortest sentence, followed by the brother, who’s a juvenile. They’re the only two currently out.’
‘Jesus, must have been one hell of an operation.’
Mary nodded. ‘Massive. As well as all the stuff they had in the house and in a lockup, would you believe they had boxes of cash in the cupboard under the stairs?’
‘What’s Leanne like as a person?’
‘She seems to have been okay here. She’s buckled down and got on with things, and she seems to have been a positive influence on Christina. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was Leanne who suggested she started using her full name and gave herself a fresh start.’
‘I sense a “but” coming,’ said Ruth.
Mary nodded. ‘She came here from another institution. She’d become very unpopular there in a short space of time and was moved for her own safety.’
‘Do you know what she did to warrant it?’
‘I haven’t found out any details,’ said Mary, ‘although I haven’t given up hope yet. All I know so far is that there seems to have been some trouble between her and the other girls, one of them in particular.’
‘Well, that’s not necessarily so surprising,’ said Ruth. ‘These places can be pressure cookers. Keep an eye on things, though, won’t you? Tina’s had enough to cope with in her life. She seems as though she’s on a high now. I’d hate for her to come crashing down.’
***
A week later, Ruth was back at Weardale. She had read up on Leanne and her family of thieves and was interested to see just how much influence she held over Tina.
Checking in with Mary McCluskey, she discovered that she had got no further in her attempts to find out what had happened in the last YOI Leanne had been held in. ‘To be honest,’ said Mary, ‘I’ve been so busy this past week, that all I’ve done is send a follow up email to my contact there. I’ll get on the phone when I get the chance.’
Ruth visited Tina in her room again, and this time took more notice of the surroundings. She appeared to have quite a few of her things from home, including the bunny toy that Ruth would forever associate with Annie’s disappearance, so she assumed Penny must have made something of an effort.
The room was a basic rectangle with blue walls, and white ceiling and woodwork. There was also a cupboard with shelves and a hanging rail, and a tiny bathroom containing a lavatory and a wash basin. The single bed had a metal frame and the barred window had curtains that matched the faded duvet cover. Tina had covered the walls with photographs and pictures of actors and musicians that she had cut from magazines. Pride of place was reserved for a poster of MC Boyz, the band after whose concert she and Annie had got in such difficulties. Ruth was bemused: she would have thought that the memories attached to that would have put Tina off them for life, and yet her fondness for them endured.
The space, or one very like it, would be her home for three years, after which she would move to an adult prison wing. Ruth didn’t expect that, even taking into account her young age, the unusual circumstances, and Cotter’s survival, Tina would have her freedom in time to avoid that.
‘I hear you’ve got your trial date,’ Ruth said, once they had greeted each other.
Tina nodded. ‘It’s in five months’ time.’ She frowned. ‘It seems like ages. I didn’t think it would all take so long.’
‘That’s actually not too bad,’ said Ruth. ‘I’ve known it take a year or more. I appreciate that nothing seems to happen very quickly, but that’s because people want to make sure they get everything right. If you can, put it out of your mind and get on with your life. When you do get sentenced, however long you’ve spent in here will be taken into account. It’s not like you have to wait and then start your time again following the trial.’
Tina nodded. ‘I’m trying, I really am. Focusing on the positive, keeping up with the work in the salon, thinking about my exams.’
‘Good girl,’ said Ruth. ‘What about the other girls in here? How are you getting on with them?’
‘Fine, with most of them. Leanne’s my best friend. I do most things with her.’ Ruth noticed that Tina looked away and blushed slightly, but before she could question her further, Leanne popped up in the doorway.
‘Oh, hello again,’ she said, when she saw Ruth. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks, Leanne. How about you?’
Leanne nodded. ‘I’m good. I’ve just come to call for Christina. It’s time for our trip to the library. We go there to study.’
Ruth smiled. ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to stop you doing that,’ she said to Tina. ‘Not with your exams on the horizon.’
Tina hugged her. ‘Thanks for coming to see me, Ruth. I really appreciate it.’
‘I’ll see you again soon,’ Ruth told her. Leanne scowled briefly, then Tina picked up her books and things and the two girls headed off down the corridor. Ruth watched them go, arms linked and heads close together as they strode toward the library.
***
Later in the day, Ruth headed to the Snowdon house to see Penny. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised when she found Penny had company and was sober.
‘This is my sister, Samantha,’ she told Ruth as she joined the women at the kitchen table.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Samantha. ‘Would you like some tea? It’s freshly made.’
Yes, please,’ said Ruth. ‘You live in Liverpool, don’t you?
Samantha poured the tea and passed a mug to Ruth. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I decided to pop over to see Penny for a long weekend. My husband’s looking after the kids.’
‘We’re going to have a girlie time,’ said Penny. ‘Shopping, the cinema, clubbing on Saturday night.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ said Ruth, adding milk to her tea from the jug on the table.
‘So, what brings you here?’ asked Penny.
‘I came to let you know that Tina’s trial date has been set.’
‘Don’t you mean “Christina”?’ Penny rolled her eyes. ‘What’s that all about?’
‘As far as I can tell, she wants to make a fresh start, put all the bad stuff behind her.’
‘I wish I could,’ said Penny, her mood changing suddenly.
Samantha squeezed her hand. ‘There, now. Don’t get wound up about it.’
‘It’s that little cow, Leanne, that gets me. She’s like smoke. One minute I’m having a conversation with my daughter, next she’s materialised alongside us in the visitors’ room. She’s like a bloody ghost or something. Little freak.’
‘She does seem to be having a positive influence on Tina,’ said Ruth. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Let’s wait and see,’ said Penny. ‘It’s early days yet and that little sod gives me the creeps.’
***
‘Thanks, Mrs McCluskey.’ Tina smiled as Mary McCluskey headed out of her room. She was replaced almost instantly by Leanne.
‘What did Irish Mary want?’
‘Just a pep talk about my exams,’ said Tina. ‘I like her. She’s really helped me since I’ve been in here.’
Leanne rolled her eyes. ‘She’s paid to help you. Don’t get to thinking she cares, you soft cow.’ She sat on the bed next to Tina and put her arm around her shoulders. ‘You know who cares about you, don’t you?’
Tina snuggled into Leanne and rested her head on her shoulder. ‘Yes, I know.’ She smiled. ‘You’re so good to me, Leanne.’
Leanne snaked a hand into her jeans pocket. ‘I’ve got something nice for you, if you want it.’
‘What is it?’
‘Red Devils.’
Tina grinned. ‘Fantastic! They make me feel so …’
‘Alive?’
‘Glad to be alive.’
Leanne shook the small wrap of pills in front of Tina, then dropped them on the bedside table. Tina put her MP3 player into the docking station and selected ‘random play’ as Leanne closed the door and put the chair from the desk behind it, wedging it under the handle. When she turned back, Tina was holding a pill and a glass of water out to her. Leanne took them and each girl put a Red Devil on her tongue and washed it down.
Tina held her arms out to Leanne and the girls danced for a short time, then Leanne broke the embrace and pulled her T-shirt over her head.
Tina smiled and followed suit.
Ruth spent the best part of the next few weeks acting as liaison officer for a family whose thirteen-year-old son had gone missing. He had left his friend’s house after spending the Saturday afternoon playing computer games and arranging to go to the cinema the next day, but had never arrived home. Unusually, for the most watched nation in Europe, there was no sign of him on CCTV footage. To all intents and purposes, the boy had simply vanished into thin air.
Outside of a very small circle of people, everything went on as normal without him, the vacuum he left behind filling up quietly but completely. Television appeals had been made, houses searched, people questioned, with particular attention paid to known sex offenders, but there was no sign of him anywhere. It reminded Ruth of Annie Snowdon, who had also been plucked out of the world and had left little behind to suggest she had even been there.
Ruth had long since stopped wondering how such things could happen, and why they happened to certain people. She had a simple philosophy: some people were bad, and some people were unlucky. When the bad and the unlucky came together, terrible things happened. People died or were killed, were maimed or scarred in some way, sometimes in full view of horrified witnesses. At other times such things happened in secret, the victims discarded and then discovered at some future time by people who wished they had chosen a different path through the woods. Ruth didn’t waste her time believing in such concepts as angels or demons. There was nothing but people, and those people would behave as their essential nature demanded.
While the search for Ben Addams went on, a student was killed in a hit and run accident, the driver turning out to be an angry fourteen-year-old girl who had stolen her father’s car following a family row; two drunks went back to the woman’s flat after meeting in a bar and, when she ridiculed his inability to perform, he obliged her with a broken bottle, resulting in her, perhaps merciful by that stage, death from blood loss; and a bank worker, having been pushed too far once too often by his supervisor, received a round of applause from his colleagues and a suspended sentence from a magistrate after punching the woman concerned in the face and breaking her nose.
Life went on. And, eventually, life would recommence for those people for whom it was now frozen. Ben would show up or be found, either alive or dead, or his disappearance would begin to be accepted and a new way of life would start for the family. That way of life might incorporate the continuance of the search, efforts to keep his name alive and the case in the public eye, or might take the form of waiting, preserving his room and his things just as they were when he was taken, in the hope that it would act as a talisman, a beacon, that would somehow bring him home safe. Ruth knew of one family who had left their daughter’s room untouched, including the bed unmade, for seven or eight years. Other families fractured: unable to heal or restructure without their missing element, they fragmented, each finding in the faces of the others unbearable traces of what they had lost, evidence of failure and despair, and in the eyes a reflection of the pain and suffering, the sense of futility, that they themselves were struggling with.
When a child was taken, it was only one element of what the eventual cost would be in terms of human suffering. Few relationships survived the pain. And heartbreakingly few children returned to their families to open the Christmas and birthday presents that accumulated in their absence, to look at the clothes that they had grown out of and laugh at their childish tastes, to wonder at the music they had chosen to listen to. They were trapped in the photographs in the family album as insects were in amber, unchanging, preserved for all time just as they had been when they went out into the world in all innocence and were unlucky enough to meet up with someone bad.
A couple of weeks before Tina’s trial, Ruth once more pulled her car to a halt outside the YOI and headed in to see first Mary McCluskey and then Tina.