Dark Spaces (16 page)

He moved towards the security door but stopped, hand over the keypad. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait here,’ he told Harry.

Lilly turned to Harry, she had told him to expect this, but his face gave nothing away.

‘I think you need me in there,’ he said.

‘A kind offer, but I’m told Chloe was perfectly calm on the way over here,’ Jack replied. ‘And we have an FME at hand if there are any problems.’

‘Nothing altruistic about my offer,’ said Harry. ‘In fact, it’s not an offer.’

‘No?’ Jack narrowed his eyes.

‘More a statement of fact,’ said Harry. ‘You need me in there with Chloe.’

Jack gave a polite nod. ‘I’m afraid I have to decline that offer.’

‘As I say, it’s not an offer.’

Lilly had to hand it to Harry, he was persistent. In other circumstances she would have sat back and enjoyed the show, but she needed to speak to Chloe. She needed to impress upon her that she must say absolutely nothing to the police.

‘Perhaps you could stay out here for now, Harry?’ she said. ‘If there’s any suggestion that Chloe needs medical attention, we could call you through.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Jack.

Harry rubbed the edge of his scalp with his thumbnail. ‘I’m obviously not making myself clear here, which is probably my fault, but the fact remains that I have to be given access to Chloe. The law is very straightforward in this regard.’

Lilly sighed. She’d advised Harry that the law stated doctors had no right to be with their clients. She understood how protective he felt about Chloe, but he needed to let this go and allow her to do her job.

‘I think Lilly and I are fairly au fait with the law in this regard,’ said Jack.

Harry clicked his finger and pointed at Jack. ‘Then you’ll know Chloe is a minor and as such requires an appropriate adult. You can’t speak to her without one.’ He opened his arms wide. ‘And here I am in all my appropriateness.’

Jack didn’t miss a beat. ‘The custody sergeant will be ringing Chloe’s parents as we speak. I’m sure one will arrive soon.’

Harry threw back his head and laughed. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘What?’ Jack asked.

Harry shook his head as if it were one of the funniest jokes he’d ever heard. ‘Chloe hasn’t had any contact with her parents in years.’

Lilly snapped up her head. In all the furore, she hadn’t had any time to discuss Chloe’s background. She’d assumed there would be a family worrying about her, much like Lydia’s.

‘Who looks after her?’ Lilly asked.

‘We do,’ Harry replied. ‘A social worker might visit her every six months, but I’ve never met the same one twice.’

Lilly felt her throat constrict at the thought of a child with no one in the world to rely on except doctors and nurses. How lost must the poor kid feel? Her nightmare was interrupted by Jack’s phone, which he snapped open.

‘Sarge,’ he said.

She couldn’t hear what was being said, but assumed by Jack’s expression that what Harry had told them was true. When he hung up, he didn’t speak to Harry but punched in the code and gestured him and Lilly through, before marching off ahead of them to the custody suite.

‘Is he always such a charmer?’ Harry whispered.

Gem pulls a clean pair of trousers over Tyler’s bum. He smiles up at her, jam round his chops.

‘You’re a messy little beggar.’ She tickles him, making him scream and laugh and hiccup all at the same time. ‘Do you hear me, messy beggar?’

‘You’ll make him sick,’ says Mum, searching through her dressing gown pockets for a fag. ‘Anyway, why aren’t you in school?’

Gem don’t answer and fishes through a pile of socks for a pair, then she smoothes each one over the baby’s little toes, rubbing them, making him laugh again. They both know Gem ain’t going to school today and they both know Mum ain’t really bothered. It’s just something she says ’cos she thinks she should. Like when she says she’ll take Tyler to the park. Just stuff they talk about at Sure Start.

‘School’s closed,’ says Gem. ‘Too much snow.’

Mums nods.

It ain’t Mum’s fault she’s like this. She ain’t like a normal person. It’s like she’s only half there, like a bit of her brain’s missing or something.

When Gem got taken into care the second time, some doctor wrote a report about Mum for the court hearing. She weren’t supposed to show it to Gem, but she did anyway, at the contact centre. It was pages and pages long, and Gem didn’t understand a lot of it, but basically the doctor said Mum had something called attachment disorder on account of what had happened to her when she were a kid. He said she can’t help being the way she is, but that she should never have had any kids.

Mum hates people like that. Doctors, social workers and what have you.

‘Think they’re so clever with their qualifications,’ she says. ‘Let’s see how clever they’d be living here. Their bits of paper wouldn’t do ’em any good in this shithole, would they?’

Mum talks a lot of rubbish, but she’s right about that. None of ’em would last five minutes on the Clayhill.

When Gem gets over to the house, Feyza buzzes her in. She’s already on the phone to a punter.

‘We got lovely girl in today,’ she says. ‘Very pretty. Genuine sixteen years old.’ She gives a raspy laugh, like a witch cackling. ‘I don’t bullshit, sir. This girl just have her birthday.’

On and on she goes, telling him whatever it is he wants to hear. Gem goes to the cupboard and pulls out a clean sheet and towel so she can do Misty’s room before she gets in. The less Gem sees of Misty’s miserable mug the better.

She lets herself in and chucks the sheet at the end of the bed. The whole place stinks of stale fags and Gem sees the overflowing ashtray on the dressing table. Misty must smoke a hundred a day or something. She dumps the dog-ends into the bin and reaches over for a can of deodorant and sprays it into the air. It don’t make much difference so she searches through the other stuff for some perfume. There’s mousse, hairspray, dry shampoo and endless tins of spray-on tan, but no perfume. She opens the top drawer and rummages through it. There’s condoms, half-used tubes of lube and four or five dildos.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Gem nearly jumps out of her skin and spins round on her toes. Misty is stood in the doorway, a proper scowl on her face.

‘Nothing.’ Gem pushes the drawer shut with her arse. ‘Just cleaning up and that.’

Misty takes a step towards Gem. Her hair is pulled back off her face and she ain’t wearing any make-up. There are dark circles under her eyes and the scars around her mouth look ugly.

‘You going through my shit?’

‘No,’ Gem answers. A bit too quickly.

‘You’d better fucking not be.’

‘I ain’t.’

Misty takes another step closer and, by the look on her face, Gem expects a punch on the nose. Thank fuck for Feyza, who calls for her from down the corridor.

‘What?’ Misty shouts over her shoulder.

‘Here,’ Feyza shouts back. ‘Now.’

Misty looks disgusted, but slopes away to find her boss, leaving Gem with her heart banging in her chest. She don’t waste another minute and gets the sheet on the bed and the bin emptied in double-quick time, then she slings her hook before Misty can get back.

When she starts making up the next room, Gem’s still shaking, and it ain’t just because Misty is a pure evil bitch. There’s also what she saw at the back of Misty’s drawer. Something anybody else might have missed. But Gem ain’t anybody else, is she? She’s lived her life on the Clayhill. And she knows a crack pipe when she sees one.

Chloe looked up from the table in the interview room, her facial muscles relaxed, her forehead free of sweat. Lilly had never seen her look so composed.

The WPC who had been at the Grove was sat opposite. She pushed a cup of tea across the table towards Chloe. ‘Drink up now,’ she said and stood to leave. ‘Can I get anyone else a drink?’

‘A jug of water and some glasses would be great,’ said Lilly.

The WPC smiled. Her lips were very plump, as if she rubbed them frequently with balm. Lilly ran an embarrassed finger over her own chapped mouth.

‘Water it is,’ said the WPC and left.

Harry, Lilly noticed, lingered just a little too long over the sight of her disappearing backside, firm and peachy against the material of her regulation trousers.

‘So.’ Lilly clapped her hands to break the spell. ‘Are you okay, Chloe?’

Her client gave a heavy-lidded nod.

‘You gave us a bit of a scare back at the Grove,’ said Lilly. ‘I thought Jack was a goner.’

‘I wouldn’t have hurt him.’ Chloe’s tone was easy. ‘I wouldn’t hurt anyone.’ She smiled at Lilly. ‘I just wanted him to bring me to the station.’

‘Why?’ Lilly asked. ‘I was trying to get him to see it wasn’t in your best interests to leave the Grove, and I think I was getting somewhere.’

‘I know it’s all very confusing, Chloe,’ said Harry. ‘But you must believe that Lilly is trying to help you here.’

‘Sorry.’ Chloe put her hand on Lilly’s, but this time there was no insistence in it, just a gesture of apology.

‘That’s okay,’ said Lilly. ‘I just wish I understood why you’re so desperate to be here.’

Chloe looked up at Lilly and something in her eyes was so magnetic, so intense, that Lilly couldn’t avert her gaze. Chloe wanted to tell her something. Needed to tell her something.

‘Harry,’ she said, her eyes still glued to Chloe’s, ‘could you chase up the water?’

‘Water?’ he asked.

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Lilly. ‘I’m absolutely parched.’

‘Okay,’ he said, and she felt rather than saw him get up and leave the room.

As the door closed behind him, Chloe let her head droop, and she melted forward until her face was pressed into the plastic of the table.

‘Why did you want to come here, Chloe?’ Lilly asked.

The girl’s cheek spread like a melting snowball and she closed her eyes, so that her face seemed to become featureless.

‘I need you to explain,’ Lilly said.

Chloe didn’t move or speak.

‘Please tell me you’re not intending to confess to Lydia’s murder,’ said Lilly. ‘Because I won’t let you do that.’

Chloe’s eyelid fluttered, like ripples moving across surface water. ‘Why would I do that?’ she murmured.

‘I dunno.’ Lilly shrugged. ‘I’m wondering what other motive there could be.’

‘I didn’t kill Lydia,’ Chloe said. ‘So I wouldn’t say I did.’

Lilly blew air through her mouth. If Chloe didn’t want to spill her guts to the police, what were they all doing here? Then again, maybe she was approaching this from the wrong angle. Maybe Chloe didn’t want to be at the station.

‘Okay, I get it,’ she said. ‘You were just determined to get yourself out of the Grove, and here’s as good a place as any.’

Chloe gave a long slow sigh of relief. Satisfied that, at last, someone understood.

‘Are you going to tell me why?’ Lilly asked.

The moments fell away and Chloe didn’t flicker. Lilly thought she could hear a clock tick, but knew it was her imagination.

‘I can understand you’re bored in there,’ said Lilly.

‘I’m not bored,’ Chloe whispered into the table.

‘Then what?’ Lilly tried to disguise her impatience.

At last Chloe raised her head. Haltingly, she drew her body upright, like a crane dragging a shipwreck from the depths. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ Lilly replied.

Chloe waited as if unconvinced.

‘Tell me why you wanted to get out of hospital,’ said Lilly.

Chloe waited three beats, giving a small nod at each as if in time to her internal rhythm. ‘They come for us at night,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘When everyone is supposed to be asleep, they come for us.’

Lilly felt a prickle of apprehension. It started at her jawline and seeped down her throat towards her chest.

‘They wait until they know it’s safe, then they creep into our rooms.’ Chloe walked her fingers across the table as if on tiptoe. ‘Like burglars.’

‘Who?’ Lilly asked.

Chloe shook her head. ‘Can’t say. The drugs they give us make it blurry.’

‘And what do these people do when they come into your room?’

‘They take us away, probably in a wheelchair because you can’t move your legs properly,’ said Chloe.

The prickle spread throughout Lilly’s body and she knew that under her clothes, every hair was standing on end. ‘Where do they take you?’

‘A small room, or a corner of a room, it’s hard to know for sure but it’s a …’ Chloe tapped her forehead for the word. ‘It’s a dark space.’

Lilly didn’t say anything more. Was this all just another one of Chloe’s delusions? A hideous nightmare that seemed as real as skin and bone and dirt?

‘I know you don’t believe me,’ said Chloe.

Lilly didn’t know what to believe.