Throwaways

by Jenny Thomson

  Donna shook her head.

  “How did Sheena end up working on the streets, Donna?”

  “I dunno.”

  Her body stiffened; she was lying.

  “Come on, Donna there’s got to be a reason. I’ve seen where she lives. I know her parents are loaded.”

  She looked down at her lap. “She needed money. She met this guy called Jake. He was a lot of fun, always partying. He was good looking too. She was hurting after Freaky Fredericks stopped answering her calls. Jake started asking her for money so he could buy coke.”

  Sheena’s story was starting to fall along similar lines. So many women were pimped out by their partners. “At first, she got money from her parents, but they stopped giving her any when they found out she was shacked up with him and Jake said he’d this good looking pal who’d pay Sheena 50 quid if she was nice to him, got dolled up. He said if she did that he wouldn’t have to move back to Aberdeen so he could get money from his gran.”

  Christ, this guy was a right piece of work who got the death he deserved. Everybody but Sheena could tell where the story ended: with Sheena selling her body on the streets to pay for his drugs. But, as vile as he was, he was long dead by the time Sheena was grabbed.

  “Was there anyone Sheena met that she was afraid of? Someone the other girls might have mentioned?”

  From the cases I’d read I knew that prostitutes were usually killed by people they knew: punters and even their own boyfriends or husbands.

  Donna stared off into the distance.

  “Someone out of place, weird?” I leaned in closer so I was almost in her face. “Sheena’s missing and there’s still a chance she’s alive. But, she might not stay alive if you mess me about.” Then, I added for effect. “And, my cousin might not be either.”

  No reaction. Still playing dumb.

  “If you know anything, you need to tell me now. You’re not helping Sheena by holding anything back.” A pause. “If you’re really Sheena’s friend, you’ll help me. Tell me everything you know.”

  For the first time Donna was rattled and the spell was broken. Then her mum called through from the kitchen that she’d be in soon and was buttering some scones.

  “I don’t need to tell you anything, you know.” There was that phrase again; it made me want to reach over and slap her. That’d go down well with her ma.

  Forcing myself to rein in my inner psycho, I spoke calmly. “You’re right, Donna. You don’t have to tell me a thing. And before you say it, I know I’m not the police. But, I’ll tell you this. If Sheena is still alive, and you didn’t tell me something that could have saved her, you will regret it for the rest of your life.” Pausing to let my words sink in, I added, “I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. How about you?”

  At last I got a reaction. Donna blinked and her lips crumpled. “I…”

  She’d got the word out when her mum appeared in the doorway carrying a tray. Donna clammed up faster than a miser’s purse. As hospitable as Mrs. Di Marco was, at that moment I could have throttled the woman.

  Without even looking my way, Donna sniffed, “I don’t want to speak to you any more,” as she wiped an imaginary tear from her eye with the knuckles of one hand.

  Her mum’s smile dimmed. “I’m sorry, but I think you should leave. Donna’s too upset to carry on. This has been so hard on her.”

  Putting the card with my phone number on it down on the coffee table, I addressed them both. “If there’s anything you do remember, Donna, please call me. I really want to find out what happened to my cousin and to Sheena.” Then meeting Mrs. Di Marco’s gaze, I smiled and thanked her for her hospitality and told her I’d see myself out.

  As I headed out the door, I heard Donna’s mum say, “Are you sure you couldn’t tell that nice woman something? I know you’re upset, but she must be distraught.”

  Donna’s voice was shrill. “Mum, why would I lie? Sheena’s my best pal.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” said her mum. And, I had to agree. Sheena’s pal was definitely hiding something. The question was what?

  I’d have to find a way of making her talk, preferably far away from her mother.

  Tommy was cursing away to a Radiohead track on the radio when I climbed in the car. When he hadn’t turned it off after a few minutes, I leaned over and did it myself.

  “Hey, I was listening to that,” he said. “So, how did you get on with little Miss D? Did she dish up all the goss?”

  I shook my head. “It’s good that you’re still getting down with the kids.” My voice dripped with sarcasm. “But, that’s not gonna help us here.”

  Tommy fluttered his eyelashes. “Oh, I don’t know. While you were in there chatting away to the sunshine girl, I was pairing my phone with hers.”

  “What?” I genuinely had no idea what he meant.

  Tommy showed me his pearly whites. “I saw it in Person of Interest.”

  Like that made sense.

  Tommy carried on. “It’s where you pair one mobile device with another, so you can synchronize data between them. Say between your tablet PC and phone.”

  My brother Shug had tried to show me how to do that once, but it was over my head.

  “That’s to do with Bluetooth, right?” It was the only thing I did remember.

  “Aye. Anyway, it means I can read Little Miss Sunny D’s text messages.”

  He paused as if he was waiting for a drum roll. He’d have a very long wait. My session with Donna had tired me out.

  “Christ, Nancy, if we’re gonna do this you’ll need to know this kind of stuff.”

  Still no reaction from me.

  “Okay,” he said, eyes twinkling. “After you left, Donna sent a text message to someone called Lorna, saying, and I’m quoting this…” He looked down at his phone. “They know about Sheena. Assuming they mean us, what do you think they’re on about?”

  “It could only be that Sheena lied about Fredericks coming onto her,” I said, “But, how’s that linked to Sheena’s disappearance?”

  There was one way to find out who Lorna was.

  Tommy dialled using a cheap disposable phone he’d bought from Tesco. “We don’t want the number being tracked back to us,” he explained. He was turning into a proper spy.

  He outlined his plan. He’d pretend to be from Lorna’s bank and say that her account had been accessed illegally and been emptied of funds. Hopefully, she’d be too flustered to be suspicious and she’d give out her details, including home address.

  It wasn’t until the sixth ring that he got an answer. Tommy reeled off his lies, hoping the person on the end of the line wouldn’t think it was strange he referred to her by her first name.

  A woman’s voice came over the line. “I’m sorry but I’m not Lorna. This is her phone though. She must have dropped it when she was last here.”

  “Hold on.” The woman sounded harassed. “I need to take this.”

  There was a click but she hadn’t ended Tommy’s call, so we heard her when she said, “Helping Hands Outreach, how can I help you?”

  She must have realised he could hear because the connection went dead.

  We’d never heard of the place, so I looked it up on my phone. It was a centre that specialized in helping sex workers and drug addicts.

  “How would Donna Di Marco know someone from a place like that?” I said.

  Tommy thought about it for a minute, then said, “I think our mysterious Lorna must work there. Why else would they know her name? I bet most of the people who visit those places use aliases.”

  He was right. We were onto something.

  “What are the chances Sheena visited this place?”

  Tommy grinned. “Let’s head over there and see if Lorna comes back for her phone.”

  Chapter 7

  The outreach centre wasn’t what we’d expected. When we walked through the doors we were met not by hospital grey or that ugly olive colour everyone used to paint their bathroom
in until they realised it looked awful, but by a calming sky blue. Along the walls there were black and white photographs depicting happy scenes: picture postcard children playing on the beach, a family walking in the snow with their two black Labradors and a happy young couple strolling along a Glasgow street, arm in arm. From what I could tell, there were no puke stains on the dark blue and white swirl patterned carpet. And the place didn’t reek of desperation either.

  If it weren’t for the posters on the wall advertising the centre’s services – emergency contraception, condoms and clean needles – I’d have thought we’d walked into a hotel lobby by mistake.

  Over in one corner of the room was a seated area consisting of a comfy three-seater couch and four plush comfy chairs, as well as two child-sized beanbags. The couch was occupied by a girl in her 20s with shoulder length brown hair tied back with the ponytail poking out of the hole on her Yankees baseball cap. There was a wee boy with her of mixed race who giggled as he played choo-choo with a wooden plane along the plastic table. He was dressed in little man dungarees and a GAP sweater. On the seats across from them, sat a smiling but tired looking middle-aged woman with her hair in a bun. She was wearing a suit and speaking to the girl in hushed tones as she jotted down notes in a binder.

  She must be the social worker. On a poster above the couch, it said the centre did supervised access visits.

  I felt a pang of sympathy for the young mum at being forced to have some stranger watch as she played with her own child. But then I didn’t know what the story was.

  There were two security men in bright blue uniforms in the foyer; both of them looked reasonably fit unlike the ones you see in shopping malls. One was positioned at a cubicle next to the door and the other stood in a corner across from reception, poised to deal with any trouble.

  A young receptionist with way too bright pink lipstick beamed up at us from her IKEA desk.

  “How can I help you?” she said, lips puckering when she saw Tommy. He had that effect on women. When we went out I’d catch women visibly drooling. For now, he was mine. Who knew if it’d be a long-term thing? We were just having fun.

  Tommy took the lead, asking if Lorna was in because we needed to speak to her urgently. At first the receptionist looked confused then understanding dawned.

  “Lorna has left for the day, I’m afraid. Perhaps I can take your number and get her to call you?”

  Bingo, she did work here.

  We told her we’d come back.

  As we were heading out the door there was a list on the wall of all the staff at the centre. We must have missed it on the way in.

  Lorna Chanderpaul was listed as a counsellor.

  Chapter 8

  We decided that there wasn’t much point in going back to the Di Marco house and being stonewalled by little miss pants on fire. We’d wait until tomorrow and try and catch her alone at school away from her mum. In the meantime, I made a quick phone call to Sheena’s parents to ask them if Sheena had ever mentioned someone called Lorna. Her dad answered in a weary voice and I wondered if the media had been bothering him and his wife again.

  “Did Sheena ever mention a woman called Lorna Chanderpaul to you?” I asked him. “My cousin mentioned her and I wondered if you’d ever heard of her?” By now I was getting good at lying and I wasn’t proud of it. My dad told me never to become a liar and I worried that he’d be disappointed in me.

  There was silence down the end of the phone, then, “Yes, I do remember that name. The surname stood out because there’s a West Indian cricketer by that name. I like my cricket. Sheena mentioned the woman to her mother. She said she was someone she’d met who was trying to help her. Get her to go back to college. I thought she was a social worker.”

  A pause then a deep breath. “Sheena expressed an interest in going into that line of work, so she could help people. She’s a good girl. If she hadn’t fallen into Fredericks’ clutches she’d be at veterinary college by now. Not…”

  He broke off talking to compose himself. There was a beat then he said, “If you find anything out, no matter how unpalatable it is, please let us know.”

  After I’d promised him that I would, I turned to Tommy. “Why would Donna Di Marco be texting Lorna saying we know about Sheena? It can’t be that Sheena was a sex worker: everybody knows that.”

  There had to be something we were missing. Something occurred to me.

  “Did your policeman pal check to see if the delectable Donna had a record for soliciting?” How else would she know Lorna Chanderpaul? Posh little rich girls don’t move in the same circles as those who work with sex workers and drug addicts. It didn’t seem likely that Sheena would have introduced them.

  Tommy eyed me evenly. “They did and she’s clean.”

  “It doesn’t mean she didn’t give prostitution a go. Just that she was never caught.”

  Tommy grinned. “My, Miss Kerr. What a bleak outlook you have on humanity.”

  That might be so, but thus far I’d been proved right.

  * * *

  When we pulled up across from the villa Suzy Henderson had once lived in with her parents in the leafy Glasgow suburb of Hyndland, there were two removal vans outside. When we got out of the car, a balding man in a suit and a red checked tie, walked over to us looking all officious.

  “Hello, there. Can I help you?”

  He looked like the one who needed help. Too many liquid lunches had given him a paunch and his suit jacket strained to contain the bulge that resembled an over-stuffed pillow.

  “We’re looking for Mr. and Mrs. Henderson,” said Tommy.

  The man smiled, exposing nicotine-stained teeth. “Sorry,” he said, “but that won’t be possible. They’re no longer in the country.”

  His expression darkened. “You probably know about this business with their daughter.” We nodded. “They couldn’t stay here after that. Not with the memories and the media hounding them. I’d be moving to New Zealand too if that happened to one of my girls.”

  A pause, then a worried frown crossed his chubby chops. “You’re not journalists are you?” We shook our heads and walked back to the car.

  “Great, our first dead end,” I said to Tommy as he snapped on his seatbelt.

  Even if we knew where they’d gone, our resources didn’t stretch to going overseas to speak to them.

  Tommy had a glint in his eye.

  “Well, it would be if Suzy didn’t have a brother.”

  I slapped him on the arm. This was the first time he’d mentioned a brother.

  “Who’s to say he hasn’t flown out with his parents?”

  Tommy tapped his nose. “My source tells me Suzy’s brother Matt’s estranged from his parents.”

  “Okay, smarty pants. And did your source tell you why?”

  Tommy looked smarmy. “The Hendersons are typical pushy parents. They set high standards for their kids who of course rebelled. Apparently, the son’s smart enough to pass the entrance exams for Oxford University, but he refused to go. Ended up working as a youth worker instead. And we know what happened to Suzy.”

  Once they discovered what she was up to, dear mum and dad must have washed their hands of her.

  “Where does he work?”

  “A youth centre in Easterhouse.”

  I sucked in some breath through my teeth. “Wow, that’ll cheese off the parents.”

  Easterhouse was in one of Glasgow’s worst neighbourhoods. With high unemployment and a gang problem, it wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect to see a clever clogs rich boy. If you reached the age of 16 without losing a parent or sibling to drink, drugs or gangs, you were doing well.

  The youth centre was located across from a newly built housing estate in a non-descript square building with a flat roof ominously covered with barbed wire. I wasn’t sure whether it was there – to scare away the pigeons or the locals. When we reached the main door and walked through, there was a short carpeted hallway with two doors on either side. The one on the le
ft was for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and the other for the youth centre.

  We turned right and into a large hall decked out like a sports hall.

  “Can I help you?”

  We’d barely walked in the building when a tall, handsome Rastafarian spoke to us in a part Afro-Caribbean, part Glasgow accent.

  “We’re looking for Matt Henderson.”

  The big man’s forehead creased. “Who wants to know?” The friendliness had gone.

  There was no point in lying.

  “We want to ask him about his sister because we think whoever killed her took our cousin too.”

  “Bull shit.” It sounded like bull sheet and I suppressed a smile. “You parasites will sink as low as rattlesnakes to get a story.”

  Two teenagers who’d been playing table tennis nearby stopped to glare at us. A second man in faded jeans and a hooded top appeared at Dreadlock’s back. He was much shorter than his friend, but carried himself with confidence. I’d no doubt he could break up a fight.

  Chances were we were going to get chased, or worse. Then the man who’d appeared spoke.

  “Thanks for looking out for me, Daz, but maybe I should talk to them first. They don’t look like press to me.”

  He eyed us both in turn as he spoke. Matt Henderson couldn’t have been much older than his early 20s. He had a boyish face and his hair was the same colour as his sister’s.

  “The pond scum who’ve been hassling me haven’t even been bothering with lies any more.”

  This time he was addressing us. We were making progress. “What’s your cousin’s name?” He’d dropped the attitude.

  When we told him his features relaxed. “That’s tough.”

  There wasn’t much he could say. He assumed Tanya was dead just like his sister.

  “Okay. I can spare five minutes.”

  We followed him through into an office where there was barely enough space for a desk and two chairs and a filing cabinet. I took the visitor’s chair whilst Tommy stood. Matt Henderson swiped a concertina of bright coloured files off his chair and plonked himself down; body arched forward with one hand placed on his chin.