‘“Hey!” I said and the figure spun around and snarled at me. I thought it was a boy at first, only it wasn’t a boy, it was a girl. She had a knife pressed to her chest, over her heart.
‘The sight of her … I’ll never forget. Her skin was so pale that the smudges of dirt on her cheeks looked like bruises; and her eyelashes and eyebrows were dark and doll-like. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans with a hole in one knee, and a woollen jumper with a polar bear woven on to the chest. I thought she was seven, maybe eight, possibly younger.
‘I was shocked by the state of her and by the knife. What sort of child threatens to stab herself ?’
I don’t answer. Sacha’s eyes are closed, as though she’s replaying the scene in her mind.
‘“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “My name is Sacha. What’s yours?” She didn’t answer. When I reached into my pocket, she dug the point of the knife harder into her chest.’
‘“No, please don’t,” I said. “Are you hungry?” I pulled out the half-eaten chocolate bar. She didn’t move. I broke off a piece and popped it into my mouth.
‘“I love chocolate. It’s the only thing in the world I could never give up. Every Lent my mother makes me give up one of my favourite things as a sacrifice, you know. I’d happily choose Facebook or caffeine or gossiping, but my mother says it has to be chocolate. She’s very religious.”
‘We were ten feet apart. She was crouched in the fireplace. I was kneeling on the floor. I asked her if I could get up because my knees were hurting. I eased backwards and sat against the wall. Then I broke off another piece of chocolate before wrapping the bar and sliding it towards her across the floor. We stared at each for a while before she edged out her right foot and dragged the chocolate bar closer. She tore open the wrapping and stuffed so much chocolate into her mouth all at once, I thought she might choke.
‘I had so many questions. How long had she been there? Did she witness the murder? Did she hide from it? I remember making a sign of the cross and she mimicked me. I thought maybe she was raised a Catholic.’
‘That wasn’t in the file,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘There’s no mention of her making a sign of the cross.’
‘Is that important?’
‘It’s new information.’
I ask her to go on. Sacha glances out of the window. The sun is fully up, and fishing boats are returning to the bay, trailing seagulls behind them like white kites.
‘We must have sat there for more than an hour. I did all the talking. I told her about the talcum powder and the latch on the kitchen window. She gave me nothing. I took out my warrant card and held it up. I said it proved I was a special constable, which was almost the same as being a trainee police officer. I said I could protect her.’
Sacha looks up from her empty bowl. ‘Do you know what she did?’
I shake my head.
‘She gave me this look that laid me to waste inside. It was so full of despair, so bereft of hope. It was like dropping a stone into a dark well, waiting for it to hit the bottom, but it never does, it just keeps falling. That’s what frightened me. That and her voice, which came out all raspy and hoarse. She said, “Nobody can protect me.”’
2
Evie
Two dozen old codgers and blue-haired biddies are crowded around an upright piano singing ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ like there’s no tomorrow. They’re clapping their hands and tapping their feet, belting out the chorus:
Knees up, knees up, never let the breeze up
Knees up Mother Brown
What does that even mean? Maybe Mrs Brown isn’t wearing knickers. Maybe she’s gone commando. That’s enough to make me puke a little in my mouth.
One old duck, who is browner than a pickled onion, dances towards me and tries to take my hand, wanting me to join in, but I pull away as though her age might be contagious.
This is supposed to be our regular weekly outing from Langford Hall, but instead of going to the cinema or the shopping centre or ice-skating at the National Ice Centre, they’re making us visit a bunch of coffin-dodgers at a retirement home.
‘We’re giving back to the community,’ says Davina, who is chaperoning us for the day.
‘What did we take?’ I ask.
‘Nothing. We’re being nice to old people.’
‘And by nice, you mean?’
‘You should talk to them.’
‘What about?’
‘Anything.’
‘Dying?’
‘Don’t be cruel.’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘I can’t smell anything.’
‘Colostomy bags and pot-pourri. Eau de grandma.’
Davina stifles a giggle, which makes it hard for her to get angry at me. She’s like our house-mother if we were from a boarding school, but Langford Hall is more institution than institute. They call it a secure children’s home because it’s full of delinquents, runaways and head cases: the cutters, biters, burners, pill-poppers, sociopaths and psychopaths. Tomorrow’s serial killers or CEOs.
Ruby is one of them. She nudges me with her elbow, swapping chewing gum from one cheek to the other. ‘What are we supposed to do?’
‘Talk to them.’
‘I don’t even talk to my gran.’
‘Ask them about their childhoods,’ suggests Davina.
‘When they had pet dinosaurs,’ I say.
Ruby thinks this is funny. She’s my best mate at Langford Hall. My only mate. She’s sixteen but looks older on account of her piercings and the fact that half her head is shaved tight to her scalp. Side-on, she can be two different people: either bald or with a full head of shoulder-length hair.
‘Hey! Check out Nathan,’ she says.
On the far side of the room, Nathan is kneeling next to an old woman with a pudding-bowl haircut, who is holding her knitting across his shoulders, measuring it for size.
The piano player launches into another song. ‘Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun.’ They all join in, jiggling their gammy knees and clapping their wrinkled hands. Some of the nurses are pulling people up to dance. A cute-looking black orderly is doing ‘the twist’ with a grandma who knows all the moves.
An old guy appears in front of me. He’s dressed in a baggy suit with a blue silk handkerchief in the breast pocket.
‘What’s your name, young lady?’
‘Evie.’
‘I’m Duncan. Would you like to dance, Evie?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t dance.’
‘Everybody can dance. You just need the right teacher.’
Ruby cups her hand over my ear and whispers, ‘Watch out for his hands.’ She makes a groping motion.
Davina interrupts. ‘Evie would love to dance.’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘Yes, you would.’ She gives me the stink eye, letting me know it’s not optional.
Ruby thinks it’s funny until she gets asked to dance by someone even more ancient, wearing baggy corduroy trousers and a cravat. Why do old men have no bums? Where do they go?