Runaway Girl

by Casey Watson

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘She didn’t have to.’

  ‘And the baby. What about the baby?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there. She’d already got herself in such a state, bless her, and became almost hysterical pretty much as soon as I asked her about the baby. Sobbing and wailing – absolutely terrified she was going to die.’

  ‘But you managed to get something out of her.’

  Sister Skaja nodded. ‘Oh, yes, a few things, as your daughter probably already told you. Only the bare bones as yet. That she’s 16 – that was pretty much the first thing she told me. I think she was worried that if she lied about it she’d be in trouble. Particularly when she admitted what she thought was probably wrong with her. So, yes, 16. And that she ran away from home a couple of years back.’

  ‘From home?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Not from a home? Like a children’s home?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, those were her exact words – that she’d run away from home two years ago …’

  From home. So there was a home. And presumably living, breathing parents. Or parent singular. ‘So when she was 14. Oh, God love her … What else? Did she tell you why she ran away?’

  ‘To escape a stepfather – she came back to that – him – a couple of times. That, and that she must not be sent back there.’

  ‘What about the mother?’

  She nodded again. ‘Yup, she’s definitely got one of those. Well, if you could call her that. By all accounts it was the mother who told her to sling her hook.’

  ‘So they chucked her out?’ So far, I thought, so bloody wretched.

  ‘I’m not clear, to be honest. She was rambling a little. Either way, it seemed clear there was no “home” as such to return to.’

  I could feel my shoulders sagging. Another thing that was universal. I sighed. ‘Is there a real dad, do you know?’

  ‘Dead. Quite a while back. That was all I managed to get out of her about him.’

  ‘And the stepdad?’ I had a sudden thought. A grim one. One I wished hadn’t struck me quite so readily. And then another one, hot on the heels of it. Two years. Well, in theory. And who knew what had happened since then. ‘There’s no way the baby is his, is there?’

  Sister Skaja shook her head. ‘No. That was my thought too, as it happens. But no. Nothing like that. She’s been in the UK for over a year now.’

  I felt my brows lift. ‘A year? Really?’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘Doing what? Living where? Did she say?’

  ‘No, she didn’t. She said she’d been moving around a lot in Poland, and came over with a man she’d met through a girl she knew.’

  ‘A boyfriend? The father?’

  ‘Not sure. She was gabbling on about him lying to her. How there was supposed to be a job with his family – in some sort of shop. But naturally, there wasn’t. And a home for her, and all the usual bloody enticements …’

  She sounded like she knew what they were, too. ‘None of which materialised?’ I had another thought. ‘You said “naturally”. Did she tell you something else?’

  Sister Skaja sighed and checked her fob watch. ‘No. That was pretty much all of it. For now, anyway.’ She then stood up, so I did too. She obviously had to get back to the ward. And I couldn’t keep interrogating her for ever. ‘Well, except that she was living with some other girls. All Polish, like her,’ she added. She turned and looked at me through narrowed eyes as she pulled open the dayroom door. ‘You do know where this is probably going, don’t you?’

  I didn’t. I said so. I told her I was still too busy trying to take everything else in. ‘So what do you think is going on, then?’ I asked her.

  ‘They’ll all be runaways,’ she said, as I followed her back to the nurses’ station. ‘Pound to a penny they will be. All trafficked.’ She paused. ‘Sickening, isn’t it? God, there aren’t words to cover it. Scum of the bloody earth.’ She turned around again, shaking her head sadly. ‘That’s what’ll have happened. She’ll have been trafficked, for sure. Well, that’s my reading of things, anyway. He’ll – or rather they, because I’ve no doubt there’s probably a gang of them – they’ll have been working the lot of them as prostitutes.’

  ‘And the baby …’

  It was more of a statement than a question. Sister Skaja answered it anyway.

  ‘Collateral damage. Pound to a penny. Poor girl.’

  Chapter 8

  So there it was. The whole mystery of Adrianna’s background laid bare. The whole reason for that haunted, frightened look in her eyes. The whole reason, I didn’t doubt, why she’d not let the doctor near her. Why she’d reveal nothing, say nothing, admit nothing about her past. There it was. All come back, now, to haunt her. But after what? After she’d hoped it would simply all go away? Was that what this was about? That she’d hoped to reinvent herself somehow? As a 14-year-old, washed up in a faraway country? To begin again, go to school, start completely afresh? To erase the past, and the baby that went with it? As a version of the truth, I had to concede that it certainly had legs.

  But that was all it was – a version. I still had no idea what she’d been thinking. Much less what she was thinking right this minute, now her untruths had been exposed. And there was still, clearly, much more to know.

  Yes, Adrianna had admitted to having had a baby, but where was that baby? From the snatches of information Sister Skaja had been able to extract from her, that little detail was still up for grabs. She’d been distressed, sister Skaja had reminded me as I left. And she had also been given a powerful sedative in the ambulance, so was drifting, incoherent and gabbling to boot. And what she had apparently said – that she had ‘lost it’ – could mean anything. Well, in reality, more than likely one of just three things – that it had died naturally, or she’d abandoned it, or that someone else was now taking care of it.

  In my view, in any case, and it was one I was keen to stick to, because Sister Skaja’s view – that, just possibly, there was another scenario up for grabs – was one I couldn’t bring myself to consider. Not that she had any evidence for it. She’d been extremely keen to stress that. But she’d also, as she’d put it, ‘been around the block a few times’ and knew more than she wished she did ‘about girls who get trafficked’. And she didn’t think it inconceivable that Adrianna, desperate, alone and all too aware of her baby’s grim paternity, could have made the decision to take its life.

  No, not that. I couldn’t see it. Or, more accurately, wouldn’t. I too had ‘been around the block’, and knew a great deal more than I wished to, but I simply didn’t think she’d be capable.

  ‘Who am I kidding, though?’ I asked Mike, once I’d gone back down to the main hospital concourse and phoned him again. ‘We hardly know her. Yes, we think we do, but how much do we really know about her? She could be capable of anything, couldn’t she? With everything that’s happened to her, God only knows where her head is. Anyway, I’m going to stay here till she’s back from her scan, because I’m told I’ll probably get a chance to see her before she’s taken to surgery. Which I think I must – don’t you? Just to let her know we’re here for her. See if there’s anything she’d like me to bring in.’

  Like me, Mike was shocked, but at the same time he wasn’t. A contradiction in terms, perhaps, but true nonetheless. Much as it was shocking to hear about the birth of the baby, it was also true that children came into the care system for one reason, pretty much – because their childhoods thus far had been some kind of train-wreck, their care non-existent, their mental state fragile, their ‘backstory’ invariably the same miserable cocktail of neglect and/or abandonment and/or cruelty and/or abuse.

  And, by the sound of it, when writing up my log on Adrianna later, I could probably just put ‘all of the above’.

  ‘Why don’t I just bring some things up now?’ Mike said. ‘Save you going back and forth, won’t it? Tyler’s happy to wait for tea, a
nd it won’t take me long.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ I said, grateful. ‘You know what to bring. Night things. The usual toiletries. Oh, and why don’t you bring her book in for her too? The one Tyler bought her? If she’s going to be in for a few days, she’ll probably be glad of it …’

  There was a catch in my throat; saying that, I actually felt tearful. But if he noticed, Mike politely refrained from ribbing me about it. Instead, he noted down what was needed and promised he’d be up within the hour. So, having rung off and grabbed myself a super-heated hospital vending-machine ‘coffee’, I found a seat in a quiet corner and sat down to call John.

  He was as unsurprised as Mike, perhaps even less so. ‘Well, that all sounds pretty much the sort of thing we expected,’ he commented. ‘Though her being 16 makes a bit of a difference to how we proceed, obviously. I’ll have to get in touch with my line manager and see where we need to go from here. The poor kid. What’s she been doing all this time? Where’s she been living since she got away? When did she get away, for that matter? I can’t quite see them offering her up for business when she was heavily pregnant. Though …’ He paused. ‘No, I think I’ll just unthink that thought.’

  I had my own thought. ‘D’you think he – they – whoever – will have been looking for her?’

  ‘Maybe, but maybe not. If this is what I think it is, i.e. trafficking, then a missing girl or an escapee could be simply seen as collateral damage. On the other hand, if she was valuable to them, then perhaps they may have someone on the lookout for her. She’d be able to identify them, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Except would she do that? I’ve always had the impression she wants to disappear off the radar. Lying about her age. Coming so far. Keeping quiet about the baby. Which does make sense, if she’s been terrified of being arrested, doesn’t it? But it was lucky, then, wasn’t it? That she got transferred to here.’

  ‘Not necessarily. She might have travelled from here – or somewhere near here – to put distance between them, mightn’t she? She might, in fact, have been brought back to where she least wants to be.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. God, we so need her to tell us everything, don’t we?’

  ‘That we do,’ said John. ‘So I’ll put a call in. See if we can get the interpreter pencilled in again sooner rather than later. We’ll obviously need to have a more formal discussion with Adrianna now, and –’

  I had another thought. ‘Is there anyone else? You know, in terms of interpreters? I know beggars can’t be choosers, but I just feel she’ll open up more if it’s a woman she’s speaking to. Particularly now we know what we know, don’t you think? Because if it’s all true, I can see why she’d be wary …’

  ‘Good point,’ John said. ‘Much as I hate to say it, you might be right. Particularly if she’s anxious about someone finding out where she is. Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do. And if anything else comes up, don’t worry about calling me over the weekend, will you? I’ve got absolutely nothing in the social diary for a change. The wife’s obviously slipping …’

  He chuckled. I did too, as I agreed that she must be. It was a pertinent reminder that normal life trundled on. ‘Seriously,’ he finished. ‘We’ll get all this sorted. And no all-night vigils, you hear? I know what you’re like.’

  Which couldn’t have been truer, because it had already crossed my mind that if Adrianna did go down to surgery, which seemed likely, she’d presumably come round, late this evening, in a strange hospital bed, with no familiar face to reassure her. So just perhaps …

  I ticked myself off as I binned my empty coffee cup. There was no way I could sleep on a camp bed in a parents’ room. For one thing (I ticked items off my fingers as I walked) it would be late, she’d be sedated, there would be nothing I could do for her, and for another, she wasn’t on a ward with a parents’ room. Beds were short. She was on an adult medical ward. And for another – and this was the clincher, I decided – there was no way in the world Mike would let me.

  That established, at least provisionally – much would depend on how she was – I made my way up to the ward. A good half hour had passed now, so I assumed she’d have had her scan done, and this was confirmed when I noted the nurses’ station board, which had obviously been updated. Adrianna – just Adrianna still; no surname given – was apparently the patient in bed six.

  Sister Skaja was now seated at the nurses’ station, writing. She looked up and smiled when she saw me. I sensed an ally, and felt reassured that she was on a late shift.

  ‘How is she?’ I asked her.

  ‘As expected. Tired and weepy. And she’s likely to be going down to theatre in a matter of minutes now, so you might want to just say a quick hello for the moment, and come back tomorrow for a proper debrief. She’ll be a different girl by tomorrow lunchtime, you’ll see.’

  ‘Has she said anything else to you?’

  Sister Skaja shook her head. ‘But that’s because I haven’t asked her. There’s no rush. She isn’t going anywhere, is she?’ Then seeing my expression, which I knew conveyed the guilt I felt for asking, added, ‘But if she does, I’ll let you know, I promise.’

  The curtains were drawn around the bed, because Adrianna had already been prepped for surgery – pre-op, bloods taken, attractive, bottom-revealing paper gown – and she didn’t stir as I slipped between the gap. She was facing away from me, and I suspected she might be dozing – she must have been exhausted, after all. I wondered at her health again; how much of a brave face she might have been putting on for us. How I’d not properly registered how pale she always was.

  I touched her lightly on the shoulder, and at first there was no response. But then she moved slightly and turned her head, and, in answer to my smile, her face crumpled and she immediately burst into tears.

  I pulled the adjacent armchair across. It was surprisingly heavy. And noisy, as I dragged it across the hard hospital floor. It also took the curtain with it, revealing at least one patient who’d had a rude awakening. I made an apologetic face before pulling the curtain back.

  ‘Oh, love,’ I said, sinking down into the chair and taking Adrianna’s nearest hand in my own. ‘I wish you’d told me. I so wish you’d told me.’

  She looked ghostly. Insubstantial. A wraith on the bed. And knowing what I now knew made me realise just how much worse-looking she could have been. No wonder she’d not been eating. No wonder she’d always been so pale, what with all the stress of her secret, and the anaemia and the infection. But the much greater pain that I knew she must have suffered. Was still suffering now. How could she not be? I remembered those first post-partum weeks as a time of both great joy and euphoria but also as a fog of anxiety and chronic, dragging pain.

  All that. And among strangers. Perhaps terrified for her safety. Living with her heart in her mouth, and her nerves torn to shreds. And no baby. The trauma when Riley had suffered her miscarriage a couple of years previously was still vivid in my mind, and I knew it was in both Riley and David’s too, so whatever had happened to this young girl I could definitely empathise.

  No wonder she was wrung out. She certainly couldn’t seem to stop herself crying right now. It was like a flood, all the tears she should already have shed having been finally been undammed. But for what? She’d had a baby. That we already knew. But what had become of it?

  I plucked a tissue from the generic hospital box on the bedside cabinet and passed it to her, then let her hand go as she grabbed it and pressed it against her eyes. Her shoulders were still quivering.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Let it out. You’re safe here. It’s okay now. It’s okay. Nothing bad’s going to happen to you, sweetheart. You’ll be down to theatre soon, and they’ll make you better. Then you’ll feel so much better. You wait and see. Everything will feel so much brighter in the morning.’

  It didn’t escape my notice that it was the sort of thing you’d say to a child who broke their dolly. But it was the best I could come up with in the face of
her distress. And it was also true, for all that. She would.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she finally managed to articulate. ‘I’m so sorry I lied to you, Casey. I was just so scared.’

  ‘Shh …’ I said. ‘Shh … that’s in the past now, okay? The important thing –’

  ‘But I am. I am not a liar. I’m so sorry.’ Then the tears again, the shoulders. It was heartbreaking to watch.

  I leaned across and kissed her forehead. It was clammy. Soft and damp. ‘Sweetheart, it’s done now. You did what you thought you had to do. But it’s done now. The important thing is for you to have your op and get better. No need to talk now. I’ll be back tomorrow. We can talk then. No need to now. There’s no rush …’

  She gripped my hands. Both of them. Tightly. Almost violently. Just as I’d done the first day I’d met her. ‘But my baby!’ she whispered, tugging at me, urging me closer. ‘Casey, my baby. I cannot bear it any more. I can’t. I cannot go on. I have to find my little boy!’

  Sister Skaja wasn’t going to be on duty on Saturday morning but assured me that if I called at eight someone would be able to update me. In all likelihood it would be as she’d suggested would happen earlier; that Adrianna would have her op and her transfusion, and she’d feel a great deal better when she woke up. And I could return on Saturday lunchtime to see her. In fact, a porter was already on his way up to the ward to fetch her.

  ‘And don’t you worry,’ she reassured me. ‘She’ll sleep like the proverbial dead tonight.’

  Which I was pretty damned sure was going to be more than I’d do, I thought, as I hurried back down to the main concourse to hopefully stop Mike from coming out. There was no point. She needed nothing bar the skills of the medics. That, and sleep. I’d bring her stuff for her tomorrow. Much as I hated leaving her in such an emotional state, there was nothing I could do right now to help.

  And in the meantime I could do little else but ruminate on the fact that everything we thought we knew about Adrianna wasn’t so. And as I left the hospital two things immediately struck me. The first was that even if I couldn’t sleep, I could at least now rest reasonably easy. Adrianna’s baby was clearly out there somewhere and it was odds-on that we’d be able to find him.