‘Cath’ he called. ‘I think there’s someone inside.’
She hurried across to join him.
‘I thought I saw someone moving in there’ he assured her.
She could see nothing.
‘I think they saw me looking in’ Cross continued.
Cath returned to the front door and knocked again. Harder this time.
‘Why don’t you leave them alone?’
The voice came from behind her.
‘You’re reporters, aren’t you?’ the voice said, and now Cath turned to find its source.
The woman standing in the garden of the house next door was in her early thirties, long reddish-brown hair reaching past her shoulders. She had both hands tucked in the pockets of her jeans.
‘I just wanted to speak to Mr and Mrs O’Brian and-‘ Cath began.
‘And what?’ the woman snapped. ‘Stick your fucking nose in where it’s not wanted. Why don’t you just piss off?’
‘Take it easy’ Cross interjected.
‘You want some pictures?’ the woman said, raising two fingers. ‘Take one of that.’
‘How well do you know the O’Brians?’ Cath asked.
‘Don’t expect me to talk to you. I’m not answering any of your fucking questions.’
‘Did you have children taken this morning?’ Cath persisted.
The woman took a step towards the low hedge which separated the two gardens, her expression dark.
‘I told you,’ she hissed, ‘I’m not going to talk to you, I’m not going to help you write your fucking lies.’
I’m just trying to find out the truth’ Cath told her.
‘Jesus. Since when have newspapers been interested in the truth? You couldn’t care less what you write about people, how you hurt them, could you? As long as you get a story. You’re all the same. You’re scum.’
The front door suddenly opened and Cath turned to find herself looking into the haggard features of Doug O’Brian.
‘Fucking reporters, Doug,’ said the red-haired woman, scathingly.
‘What do you want?’ O’Brian said, looking at Cath with red-rimmed eyes.
Cross snapped off a couple of shots of him.
‘Bastard,’ snapped the redhead.
‘My wife’s indoors crying, would you rather get a picture of that?’ O’Brian said, turning his attention to the photographer.
‘I just wanted to speak to you, Mr O’Brian, just a quick word,’ Cath said. ‘I wondered if you knew why your children had been taken away. What reasons could the police and Social Services have for taking them?’
‘Just go, will you?’ said O’Brian, half closing the door.
‘Yeah, piss off,’ shouted the redhead.
‘You’ve got a right to give your side of the story,’ Cath told him.
‘And that’s what you’re here for, is it? To let me have my say?’
‘People will make up their own minds from what they read. You deserve a chance to put your point of view forward.’
‘I don’t know what I hate about you people the most, your lies or your hypocrisy,’ said O’Brian and slammed the door.
‘Just fuck off’ the redhead continued.
Cath shot her a withering glance, then turned and headed back towards the car, Cross close behind her.
As she slid behind the wheel of the Fiat she noticed that the red-haired woman had retreated to her front step. From there she was still shouting, gesturing angrily towards the car, but Cath could barely hear her furious exhortations.
Just before she pulled away, Cath saw a figure peering from behind a curtain in an upstairs room of the O’Brian house.
Watching.
Then, like an apparition, the shape was gone.
Fifty-three
Nikki Parsons was shaking.
As she tried to light the cigarette the twenty-nine-year-old found that she could scarcely keep the tip steady in the flame of the match. She took a heavy drag and blew out a stream of smoke.
Beside her, Janice Hedden, a year younger, merely kept both hands clasped around her mug of coffee and gazed vacantly ahead of her, occasionally glancing at her companions.
Besides herself and Nikki, there were three other women in the room, all seated around a large table. The walls of the room were dotted with a variety of leaflets distributed at various times by Hackney Council and Social Services. Leaflets on giving blood, on how to cope with multiple sclerosis, AIDS, suicide, drugs.
It was their daily routine.
Janice and her companions were used to dealing with suffering.
With pain.
She had wondered if she would ever become immune to it. Able to distance herself from some of the frightful tales of deprivation and suffering which she heard on a daily basis. Like her companions, she walked a fine line between compassion and efficiency, solace and practicality. She, like her colleagues, walked that line every day, rarely touched by what they heard, able to walk away from it at the end of the working day. It was, after all, a job.
Until today.
Maria Goldman was the senior official amongst them: senior in experience if not in years. At thirty, she’d worked in Brixton and Islington before moving to Hackney.
She’d found no resentment from her older colleagues.
One of them was in the room now.
Valerie Weston swept her short brown hair away from her forehead in a gesture that implied habit rather than necessity.
A nervous habit perhaps.
At the moment she had plenty to be nervous about.
Juliana Procon chewed the end of her pen, her eyes fixed on a sheaf of papers spread before her. There were drawings on some of them. She swallowed hard and pushed one of the drawings out of sight beneath more paper, her attention drawn towards the head of the table where Maria Goldman coughed, kept her hand over her mouth for a moment, then finally raised her gaze to look at her companions. She could feel the beginnings of a headache gnawing at the base of her skull.
It was almost 1.46 p.m.
It had already been a long day and she feared there was much more to come.
She took a sip of coffee, wincing when she found it was cold; then she cleared her throat again and glanced around the table at the other women.
She found it hard to disguise the weary look on her face.
1 thought it best to call a break,’ Maria said, looking at her colleagues. ‘I think we all need it.’
Nikki Parsons nodded, her hand still shaking slightly.
‘I wondered if anyone had any comments to make before we examine the first set of statements,’ Maria continued.
The women seemed reluctant to speak, but it was Janice Hedden who finally broke the uneasy silence.
‘How many more children are there to interview?’
‘Eight,’ Maria told her.
‘Same age range?’
Maria nodded.
‘The ones I spoke to seemed very afraid’ Janice continued. ‘Mainly that they weren’t going to see their parents again. The younger ones in particular.’
‘That’s only natural’ Maria said.
‘It seems to be about the only thing concerned with this case that is’ Val Weston offered.
‘I’ve never seen or heard anything like it’ Nikki Parsons echoed, her voice
low.
‘Do you think any of them are lying?’ Maria asked.
‘It’s possible, but most of the stories seem too complex to have been invented’ Nikki continued. ‘Especially by children so young.’
‘Janice, you said the children you spoke to seemed afraid’ Juliana interjected. ‘I noticed that too, but not so much afraid of their parents as of …’ she shrugged, struggling to find the words. ‘Of what might happen to their parents. They didn’t seem afraid for themselves, just puzzled by what had happened to them.’
‘Some of them spoke out without too much prompting’ Val Weston said. ‘The others were difficult, some still haven’t spoken.’