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Authors: Paul Wallington

Tags: #Mystery, #Suspense, #Crime, #Romance, #Thriller, #Adventure, #killer, #danger, #scared, #hunt, #serial, #hope

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BOOK: Shaping the Ripples
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The point of the centre is to be the immediate response point to victims of domestic abuse. Women (often with children) come to us, and we aim to help them with whatever they need. Very occasionally they want us to try and help keep the relationship together, so we provide advice, counselling and support. Most often though, it’s finding emergency accommodation, and we have good links with both the local woman’s refuge and the Council’s housing department.

Where we differ from most other agencies, and for me the best part of the job, is in providing continuing support. We help with finding jobs and childcare, claiming benefits and so on, and try to be a friendly ear and support for as long as it’s needed. Along with the constant reminder of human brutality that we see with every new contact, we have the privilege of seeing some incredible people rebuild their lives. I started working at the Centre five years ago, and can’t imagine ever doing anything else.

I pushed open the front door, which leads into the reception area. It’s a smallish room, containing a few comfy chairs, a box of children’s toys and books and a desk with a phone on it. Until six months ago it would also have contained a receptionist, but she’d been the victim in our latest round of cutbacks. We’re an independent charitable trust, which gives us a fair amount of freedom, but also means that we never have any money. The paid staff now numbers four; three front-line “advisors” – of which I’m one – and George. George Bantry founded the centre after having to take early retirement from his job in local government and, now in his early 60’s, is Chair of the Board of Trustees and runs everything, although he prefers to describe his job as “Chief Beggar”.

From Reception there are three doors. They lead respectively to a small kitchen, a toilet, and a narrow hall off which are our two private consulting rooms, furnished almost exactly the same as the reception area, and a small office which serves as both a file storage area and as George’s base. The door to the kitchen opened, and Barbara Wilkinson came out, holding a cup of coffee.

“Good morning, Jack,” she smiled. “ready for another action packed day?”

Barbara was George’s first appointment before the Centre opened for business, and it must have been one of the easiest decisions he’s had to make. She has a presence about her that makes you feel calmer just by being in the same room as her. She looks like everyone’s idea of the ideal grandmother, slightly plump with grey hair and smiling eyes, but I’ve heard one or two of the Council housing staff describe her as “the Rotweiler” after meetings when she felt they weren’t being as helpful as they could.

Each day one of the three advisors deals with emergency calls and visits, while the other two co-ordinate our appointments to make sure that someone is always by the phone. Barbara and I sat down now to plan out the day. She had quite a few home visits to make, so I agreed to have a day guarding the phone, updating the files and handling any visitors who called in. In truth, after my meeting with Jennifer, I wasn’t at all sorry to be having a rather lighter day.

Barbara finished her coffee and headed off to begin her appointments. I poured myself a glass of mineral water from the bottle which I always keep in the fridge and wandered down the hallway to collect the files I needed from the office. There was no sign of George which almost certainly meant he was off somewhere trying to get a donation, but the door to consulting room one was closed, and the soft murmur of voices came from behind it. Katie had obviously picked up an early emergency.

I spent the next hour and a half on the riveting task of writing all the details of my most recent visits into the relevant files. “Keeping proper records” is one of George’s great themes, because we can’t always ensure that the same person sees someone every time. The door behind me opened and I caught a glimpse of the back of a small dark-haired woman as she went out into the city. After another minute or two, Katie came out into the reception area.

The decoration of the centre is increasingly worn and shabby. I once teased George that he had chosen to appoint Katie Dixon as the third counsellor at the centre because she made the place seem much brighter just by being in it, without him having to pay for paint. She’s the youngest of our team at 28, and has only been working here for four months, but it’s already hard to remember, or imagine, the place without her.

She was wearing her usual outfit of a T-shirt and blue jeans, and sighed slightly as she looked at the front door.

“Another one who isn’t going to leave until she gets badly hurt.” She observed, running her fingers distractedly through her shoulder length light brown hair. Her green eyes, which usually sparkled with life, were somehow paler.

“You can only help someone as much as they want to let you.” I said, as if this old cliché was going to make everything alright.

“I know,” she responded, “but it doesn’t stop you feeling you should have done more when you know something terrible is going to happen to them.”

I tried a different line;

“A book I read once described two parents were watching their daughter in the sea jumping over some big waves. The father noticed how anxious the mother was as she watched and said to her, “You can’t jump over every wave for her, you know”. The same thing’s true for our clients”

She looked at me with a quizzical expression and smiled. “Yes, O wise one. Of course, I’d be even more impressed if I didn’t know that you get just as churned up abut the ones we don’t manage to help.”

I couldn’t help but smile back at her, “Clear off and get yourself some lunch before you corrupt me completely.”

She span around, and headed for the door. “You don’t have to tell me twice. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

About 20 minutes later, the front door opened again. In came a slightly nervous looking woman with short blonde streaked hair. I recognised her as someone who had arrived at the centre in great distress, about a fortnight previously. I’d managed to get her a bed in the woman’s refuge, and some emergency money from social services. My brain whirred, and managed to come up with her name – Ali Jackson.

“Hi, Ali,” I greeted her, “How’s it going?”

She managed a tentative smile.

“Not too bad.” She replied, “They’ve been great at the refuge, but I guess it’s time for me to start getting on with life on my own.” She fell silent for a moment and then continued, “You said that when I was ready to look for work you could help me.”

I tried my most reassuring look. “No problem. We’ll ring round and see what’s available.”

The phone in reception only works for incoming calls on our crisis line, so I lead her down the corridor and into the second consulting room. One of the benefits of York’s current boom is that there’s quite a lot of businesses and shops looking for extra staff, and over time quite a few of them have learned that the people they get from us tend to be very dedicated and reliable. An hour or so and quite a few phone calls later, Ali left for the first of her three interviews, considerably happier than when she had arrived.

Katie was obviously back and occupied in the other consulting room, but a rather dejected George was sitting in reception.

“No luck?” I asked him.

“No.” he sighed “Five businesses and not a penny out of any of them. They all seem to be working off the same script – “I’m sorry but we already have a number of charities that we support and we’re not looking to add to the list at this time, particularly with the economy as it is”. What we need is some sort of way in.” He looked as tired and dispirited as I’d ever seen him.

“I keep trying to get someone from the Executive’s Club to sponsor us, but no-one wants to know,” He continued. “If things don’t turn around soon, we’re going to have to seriously think about whether we can afford to keep going with three counsellors.”

The Executive’s Club is a little out of my social circle. Membership is by invitation only, and invitations only go to the most prominent of the city’s businessmen and women. George’s theory was that if he could convince one of the leading members to endorse the Crisis Centre, he’d find it much easier convincing businesses to send some of their charitable donations our way. Unfortunately, nearly every other local charity had exactly the same idea.

George saw my concerned expression and did his best to sound more positive,

“Don’t worry, Jack – it won’t come to that. You know I always manage to come up with some more money at the eleventh hour. I’ve got three more appointments this afternoon and evening; maybe one of those will be the one. See you later – and please don’t mention this to the others.”

With that he was gone. The rest of the afternoon passed fairly uneventfully. Barbara returned from her visits and I managed to persuade her that as it was her turn to be on call that evening and night, she should go home early to try and get a few hours with her family. Best of all, Ali Jackson called back in, wearing an enormous smile, to tell me that she’d got a job working in one of the big bookshops in the city.

Just before six, Katie came out of the consulting room, and put on her coat. I said goodnight, and watched her go. It occurred to me that I had no idea whether she was going home to someone, or anything at all about her life outside work. I could have asked George, I suppose, but I knew that would guarantee me weeks of being teased.

As I was about to get ready to follow her out, the door was thrown open with some force. A youngish, stocky man in a leather jacket and jeans rushed in.

“Where’s my wife?” he demanded. His fists were clenched, and his eyes wild and staring.

These sorts of visits happen from time to time, and in my experience the first moments are always critical. “Either sit down and calm down,” I responded evenly “or get out.”

The internal struggle was clearly visible on his face, and for a split second I thought I’d misread him and was about to get thumped. Suddenly, he let out a huge breath, deflated like a leaky tyre, and almost fell into the armchair next to him.

“Tell me what’s happened.” I invited.

Over the next minutes he told me that his name was Ryan Clarke, and that he had been married for almost 18 months. His job as a self-employed haulier had become more and more difficult over recent years as fuel costs kept on climbing. More firms were trying to use other forms of transport, and the jobs he did get made almost no money. His answer had been to try and blot everything out, drinking more and more, while his wife Linda had tried to juggle the ever-growing pile of final demands.

He continued the story, “About three months ago, something snapped. I’d been at the pub, and when I got home, Linda was waiting. She’d got all the bills out, and started on about what was I doing wasting our money on booze, when they were threatening to throw us out of the house.”

He stopped, clearly finding the next words difficult ones to get out. “Anyway, I just lost it. I told her to shut up, but she wouldn’t – she just went on and on,” he paused again, looking very uncomfortable, “so then I hit her. I knew what I’d done as soon as it happened, but it was too late. I kept saying sorry over and over again, but she just cried. I slept on the couch and had to go to work early the next day. I thought we’d sort it out that night but when I got home, she’d gone.”

His voice rose in volume again, “It was just a mistake, I lost it for a second. I’d never do it again.”

I knew he was underplaying the damage that he had done to his wife, as I’d been on duty when Linda Clarke had arrived at the Crisis Centre, carrying a small suitcase. She had the most enormous swollen and split lip, and both her eyes were heavily bruised. She had steadfastly refused to let us contact the police, which is fairly common, but he’d obviously hit her several times.

Ryan’s version of events continued, “I was drunk most of the next week, but then I realised I had to get some help. I went to the doctor, and he passed me on to a specialist. They’ve been helping me with my drinking and with what they call “anger management”. Then this week, this arrived.”

He held up a letter, “It’s from Linda. She says that she still loves me but that she’s never coming back, that you lot have helped her start a new life.” His voice became more desperate, “But I know that if she knew I’d changed, she’d give me another chance. I’ve written a letter back to her, asking her to let me try again – but she didn’t put her address on the letter. So I need you to tell me where you’ve put her.”

His voice had hardened with the last sentence, but then broke slightly, “I need her back. I can’t manage without her. You’ve got to tell me where she is.”

He sat forwards in his chair, his eyes fixed on mine, waiting for my reply. I let him wait for a moment and then spoke;

“You’ve got to understand that there’s no way I can tell you where Linda’s living now. If she’d wanted you to know, she would have told you.” The fire behind his eyes seemed to relight at these words, but before he could interrupt, I continued, “But if you want to give me the letter you’ve written to her, I’ll make sure that she gets it.”

There was silence for a time as he considered this offer. Eventually, he obviously decided that this was the best he was going to get and, reaching into his pocket, held out a white envelope to me.

“When you give her this, you’ll tell her?” he asked. “ You’ll tell her that things are different now – that I’m getting help and so on?”

“I’ll tell her what you’ve said.” I promised as I took the envelope off him. “But what happens next will be up to her. If she decides not to see you, then there’s nothing I can do.”

He nodded, and walked abruptly to the door. He turned briefly, muttered “You’d better hope that she does.”, and was gone. I put away the files I had been working on, and then locked all the internal doors, before setting the alarm. Locking the front door behind me, I stepped out onto the already dark street, and began my walk home.

Chapter Three

My flat is almost directly opposite the Crisis Centre, on the other side of the river. The walk home takes me through a small park area, called St. George’s Gardens, and over the Skeldergate Bridge, and is usually a good way of relaxing and letting go of the events of the day. Today though, I was still wound tightly as I got to the entrance of the apartment block and went up the stairs to my home.

BOOK: Shaping the Ripples
6.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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