‘It’s not your fault,’ says Peter as he hugs her shoulders, reading over the top of her head. ‘We can’t save them all.’
‘But he was on our waiting list.’ She swipes a man-size tissue from Peter’s freckly hand and blows hard into it.
‘You couldn’t have known,’ he says, pulling a chair towards her and sitting down. ‘We interviewed seven people yesterday for one room. This could have happened to any one of them. And they’re not saying it was definitely deliberate. People accidently overdose all the time. Even if he was living here, it still could have happened.’
‘Yes, but at least it wouldn’t have happened on the floor of a grotty public toilet in the park.’ She thumps the desk in front of her and realises that she’s shouting. She tries to still her thoughts and then closes the paper. She shouldn’t take it out on Peter, it’s not his fault and his night shift finished half an hour ago.
‘Lorna should be here any minute, it’s her day to run the activities. I’ll wait until she gets here,’ he says when she tells him to go. ‘I can’t leave you on your own like this. You’d be better taking the day off, you’ve had a big shock. Why don’t you take yourself off home?’
Home sounds appealing. She could have a big wardrobe clear-out. She’ll do some yoga – that one on YouTube led by the woman with the weirdly long toes. Exercise always calms her. Yoga, running, stretching. Just keep yourself moving, her mum would tell her. When life goes to shit, it doesn’t mean you have to.
‘I can’t, the police are coming up soon to take statements. We might have been the last people to speak to him as he phoned the office yesterday to check on his application.’ Her voice wobbles again. ‘And you’ve been here all night already.’
‘I’m fine,’ he assures. ‘It was a quiet night. I slept. No incidents.’
Peter is still in the office even after Lorna has turned up, twenty minutes late as usual. Beads of sweat cling to her grey spiky hair and she peels off a layer of her signature high-spec sports gear before disappearing downstairs with Peter to put on an activity for the residents so Grace can speak to the police in private.
‘A large amount of heroin was found in his system,’ they tell her once she’s written her statement. ‘Probably too much to be considered recreational, unless he’d been a regular user for a considerable amount of time.’
‘It wasn’t on his referral form that he had a drug issue.’ Grace shakes her head. ‘We always ask and let them know they can be open with us; that it wouldn’t stop them from getting a place here. We only ask so we know how to support them best when they move in.’
‘People aren’t always honest, Grace,’ Detective Jeffries says, glancing at her statement. ‘Sometimes people just get trapped inside the lies they tell themselves, and the truth can’t squeeze back in.’
Grace opens the shutter after he’s gone, and pokes her head through the gap, listening to the silence of the foyer. Everyone must still be downstairs playing ‘backwards-bingo’, a favourite group activity whenever Lorna’s working.
‘Have you been crying, Miss?’ Jack from number four appears in front of the hatch, making Grace jump. He always calls her Miss, even though he’s two years older than her twenty-five. She keeps telling him she’s not a primary school teacher. Peter says it’s because he spent his youth in detention centres and has never got out of the habit.
‘I’m fine,’ she smiles. ‘Just a touch of hay fever. What can I do for you?’
‘I can’t face spending another day of my life playing backwards-bingo.’
Grace laughs at his scrunched-up face. ‘Can’t say I blame you.’ The sunshine hits her shoulder blade from the office window, reminding her of the sunny morning and the cloudless sky outside. ‘How about a walk along the cliffs when Lorna comes back up?’
Jack grins and his bright eyes twinkle. Before Jack moved in, Grace had always thought of dark eyes as being the most soulful. But his light green ones always look like they have stories in them that will make her laugh.
‘I’ll go and get my trainers,’ he says, flashing a cheeky dimple.
Grace begins to feel lighter as she whips her scarf on and clips her pedometer into place around her wrist. Daily steps are daily steps after all, and every one of them deserves to be counted. She says goodbye to Lorna, assuring her that her phone will be on if she needs anything. She blinks away the image of the park toilets and steers her mind towards the people she can help. Jack has been with them for a few months now and not once has he had a letter or a phone call from anyone who wasn’t the TV licensing people.
‘How are things going?’ Grace says to Jack as they wander down the footpath. She keeps glancing back at St Jude’s and wondering how the outside would look to the inspectors. The building had once been a fisherman’s cottage and it’s been stretched and strained, built upon and extended to accommodate the ever-growing waiting list of Dover’s needy and without. It proudly sprawls across the very top of the cliff, surrounded by a low pebbledashed wall that could do with a bit of TLC.
‘All good, ta. Best I’ve been in a long while. Peter reckons I’ll be ready to start viewing flats and moving on soon.’ He stops walking and there’s a note of panic in his voice. ‘I know there’s loads of people waiting to move in.’
‘We don’t want you to feel rushed,’ Grace says, briefly touching his forearm in reassurance, before retracting her hand. They’re supposed to be careful with showing physical affection, but she forgets sometimes. ‘We usually suggest anywhere up to a six-month stay before resettlement into more permanent accommodation – and even then, we wouldn’t kick you out until we’d helped you find somewhere to live. I just wanted to check you were doing okay?’
‘Mostly,’ he says after walking in silence for a few moments. ‘Peter’s been a great keyworker. I’m starting that course tomorrow – the one he helped get me signed up for. When I’ve finished that I should be able to get some building work. Put these muscles to good use.’ He grins as he flexes his arms as well as the dimple in his left cheek.
‘That’s great.’
He flops to the ground and stretches his long legs out in front of him. The breeze blows his sandy-blonde hair across his face. ‘I’m just a bit freaked,’ he admits, pushing it from his eyes. Grace resists the urge to tell him he needs a haircut. She’ll suggest to Peter that he adds it to Jack’s to-do list. Grace has one for each of her key clients and gets them to tick off the tasks with her at the end of each day. That way they can all share the satisfaction of productivity.
‘This course will be the first thing I’ve stuck to in a long time. It will be so great to actually have something to fill my days up properly. Boredom’s not good for me and I can’t end up back inside. Not now I’ve come so far. I can’t let Peter down after all he’s done.’
‘Well then don’t,’ she shrugs. ‘Only you’re in charge of that, no one else. We only get one life—’ Grace breaks off as the image from the morning’s newspaper pushes its way back into her mind.