“What do you want with me?”
After the initial questions like were you and your sister close (yes, when we were little, but not when we got older), I asked him about Lorna. His features relaxed.
“I know her by reputation. She’s a tough lady. Good at what she does.”
“And, what’s that?” I asked, playing dumb.
Matt Henderson gave me a stony look. “You’re the one asking about her.”
I put up my hands. “Fair enough, but I’d just like to know what you make of her. She was helping Tanya.”
Matt Henderson dragged his fingers through his hair, giving us a preview of how he’d look in twenty years’ time. His dad had a widow’s peak in the newspaper photo. “Is she linked to my sister’s death?”
“We don’t think so.” Tommy was getting good at this lying lark.
Matt went on. “Lorna’s one of the good ones. She has to be to get women off the streets. It’s a pity…” He broke off and stared at a dent on his desk. “…that Suzy never got to meet Lorna Chanderpaul. She might have saved her.”
With those words ringing in our ears, we left Matt Henderson to his regrets.
Chapter 9
We waited until lunchtime and I was the one who made the call. “Donna, its Nancy Kerr. I know about the Healing Hands centre.”
There was a gasp on the other end of the phone. “I don’t know what you mean.” She said it in her stroppy teenager voice.
Picturing Donna finger poised, ready to disconnect the call, I jumped in with. “Which is it, Donna? Are you a street walker or a junkie?”
She had to be one or the other or how else would she know Lorna Chanderpaul?
A sob down the line, followed by a little girl voice. “Please don’t tell my mum.”
When I told Donna we wanted to see her, she didn’t resist. We arranged to meet at a nearby cafe where we could talk undisturbed.
When Tommy and I strolled into Sam’s cafe, Donna’s face was tight with worry. The place was busy, with workmen from a nearby building site, but she’d somehow managed to secure a table by herself; perhaps by the sheer dynamism of her personality. There was a mug of hot chocolate cupped between her hands as though she was trying to warm them. When she gazed up at us, her lips were set in a grimace and I felt a bit guilty. Bereft of make-up and wearing her school uniform of white blouse, tartan skirt and knee high socks, she looked about 14 and not like the stroppy 17-year-old we’d met earlier. We slid into the bench across from her and indicated to the waitress that we wanted two teas.
Being the one with the rapport with her – I think Tommy was being sarcastic when we’d discussed who’d try and pry her open like a can of sardines – I was the person who spoke first. “We talked to a pal of Tanya’s and she said she saw you at the drop in centre.”
The lies fell as easily from my lips as biscuit crumbs. We could hardly admit Tommy had hacked her phone. That sounded too stalkerish, not to mention being illegal. If she went to the police, the only crime we’d be investigating was which inmate had put glass in our food.
“Why were you there? Do you have a drug problem or are you selling your body?”
Donna had her head down. When she spoke, her words were almost a whisper. “It was only the once. I needed the cash, you know.”
Now I was confused. “What was only the once? What are you talking about?” I thought I knew, but I needed to hear the words from her own lips.
She stopped staring at her mug and slowly lifted her head. “I went with a man. Let him do things for money.” Her voice started to tremble. “It was horrible. He was old enough to be my dad.”
“Why would you do it?” I asked. And I meant it. She lived in a fancy house; had a doting mother. She couldn’t be short of pocket money. “Do you spend a lot of money on party pills? Have a druggy boyfriend like Sheena?”
She shook her head. “I like nice things, you know. My dad used to buy me lots of stuff; anything I wanted. But, then he left mum for his secretary.” She scrunched up her face. “What a fucking cliché. And, she’s not even that pretty. Or thin. She’s at least a size 12.”
Sitting there in my curvy size 14 clothes, I resisted the urge to give her a good shake. I’d never had any complaints from men including Tommy – they loved my curves. Then I remembered the way she looked when we first came in; like a child out of depth in an adult world and instead of letting her have a mouthful, I patted her hand. “Its okay, Donna. We all do things we later regret.”
Tommy made noises of agreement, trying to cover for the tittering he’d been doing at my reaction to the fat jibe. He’d pay for that later.
“This man, where did you meet him? Was it on the street, the same way Sheena met her clients?”
Our teas arrived, but the plump woman with a spray tan who put them on the table did so without appearing to ear wig. Maybe she was trying to be discreet or had heard worse. She’d already gone back to the counter when Donna almost spilled her hot chocolate and our teas by jumping up. “No, I would never do that.”
“Donna, please sit down.” Tommy’s voice was calm. “Anything you tell us is completely confidential. We won’t tell your mum or the police. We just want to find Tanya and Sheena.”
He’d no right to promise that, but I let him. The last thing we needed was for her to clam up.
Tommy’s words seemed to calm her and she sat back down.
I repeated my question. “How did you meet this man, Donna?”
“Someone set it up.”
“Who?”
Donna swallowed as though she was debating whether to tell us, then said. “Sheena’s friend Lorna.”
“The counsellor from the drop in centre introduced you?” Whatever I’d expected, it hadn’t been that. “I don’t get it. Isn’t she supposed to get girls off the streets?”
Donna shrugged as if it was no big deal. She couldn’t see the hypocrisy of this woman’s actions. “Lorna said we could earn a lot of money and we’d be safe.”
She made it sound like Saint Lorna had been looking out for her, not exploiting her.
“How did you meet Lorna?” said Tommy. “Did Sheena introduce you?”
Donna’s eyes moved towards her lap. “Yeah, she told me she was cool. That I’d like her, but…”
For the first time she looked uncertain.
“But, what Donna? What didn’t you like about her?”
“I didn’t think it was right what she was doing. She should have been getting Sheena to stop, you know. Having sex for money. Not doing what she was doing.” A muffled sob. “With me it was just the one time, but with Sheena it was loads of times.”
Straightening up in my chair, I said, “What do you mean? Did Lorna set Sheena up with other men?”
Donna nodded. “She said it’d be safer. That Sheena wouldn’t have to worry about ending up dead in a ditch or in some nutter’s basement.”
For all we knew that could have been her fate.
“Donna, when you went with this man, did he give you money? Or, did Lorna deal with that side of things?”
Donna tore open a sugar sachet and dumped it in her mug, stirring it in to her hot chocolate before she answered. As she stirred, her hands were shaking and I noticed her nails were chewed.
“Lorna dealt with that. She said that people were funny about money and it’d make it easier.”
Easier for who? Lorna to collect her share? The unscrupulous bitch wasn’t just pimping them out; she was profiting from vulnerable young women. Calling it an abuse of trust barely covered it. What chance did women have when one of the counsellors, who was there supposedly to get them off the streets, was making sure they remained in the sex industry?
As the words tripped out, Donna stared straight ahead, shoulders hunched. “After that one time when she set me up with that guy, I should have told Sheena to stay away from her. But, when she offered us 500 quid each just to put on a lesbo show, I said I’d do it. Unlike that other time…” She paused and finally ma
de eye contact. “I’d be safe because Sheena would be there and she knew how to boot a punter in the balls.” The small chuckle that erupted from Donna’s throat seemed out of place. “She had to do that once when a guy smacked her one and tried to get something for free.”
Sheena must have talked about her punters a lot because her friend spoke like this was normal. To me it was chilling. Strip away the confident outer shell and the adult clothes and make-up, and Sheena and Donna were just kids playing at being grown-ups.
“You didn’t go, did you?” I said it gently, not wanting to sound like I was blaming her. “Who was this man? Where were you to meet him?”
Donna didn’t seem to hear my question. “Lorna said we didn’t have to sleep with this guy. We just had to dress nice. Put on a girl on girl show for this man. She said he was nice. That he just wanted to watch us kiss; rub against one another. She said it was easy money.”
“What happened?”
Donna shook her head. “I don’t know. I got sick. Food poisoning. Sheena said not to worry. That she’d ask someone else to take my place.”
Her face crumpled. “She’s dead because of me. Isn’t she?”
“Donna, what happened is not your fault,” I said. “In fact, if you’d gone you’d probably be missing too. Or…” I didn’t finish the sentence. But, Donna knew what I’d been about to say.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Donna sobbed. “Oh, my god. She’s dead.”
I got up and sat down beside Donna, placing my arm around her shoulder as the woman behind the counter eyed us. “We don’t know that she’s dead.” It wasn’t a lie. Sheena was alive when her finger was bitten off. There was a chance, however slim, that she was alive. Until the police found a body, there was always a chance.
Donna began to shake. “I lied about the food poisoning. I didn’t want to go. Sheena said it’d be fun. That we’d have a laugh. Make a lot of cash so we could go on holiday together. But it’s not me. The time I did…” She broke down. “I felt so dirty afterwards. I scrubbed myself clean.”
“Donna,” I said gently. “Do you know who Sheena took instead?”
“No,” she said, “Sheena didn’t say who she was taking.”
“Who do you think she’d have gone with?” said Tommy, “was there anybody she’d talk about? Anybody she’d met on the streets that she was pally with? Someone she trusted?”
Donna shrugged. “No. Not really. We didn’t talk about that.” She paused as if she was thinking. “Oh, there was this one girl she mentioned a few times. Kim. She was called Kim. She met her when she first started.”
“Do you know her surname?” said Tommy.
Donna shook her head.
Inwardly, I groaned. There would be lots of girls with that name on the streets. I’d hoped Donna would give us the name of someone we could actually find.
“All I know is that she wasn’t from here. I think she was Russian or Romanian or something. She had an accent.”
I leaned in towards her. “Donna,” I said softly, “You do know that the police believe Kim has also gone missing?” It had to be the same girl.
Donna shuddered. “No, I didn’t. Honest. I stopped reading the papers after Sheena went missing. The things they said about her were horrible…I worried that if the same thing had happened to me they’d be saying those things about me too.”
Donna was so shaken up that when we offered to take her home, she agreed.
Before she got out the car, I urged her not to contact Lorna ever again. I promised her that once we were done, we’d tell the police all about Lorna’s little sideline.
She didn’t need any encouragement. “Because of her, Sheena’s probably dead and I could have been dead too. She’s an evil witch.”
She’d get no disagreement from me.
Chapter 10
“I’m sorry, but Ms. Chanderpaul can’t talk to you right now.”
We were back at the Helping Hands and it was the same receptionist from before and this time her smile was less than friendly. Luckily for us, there was no sign of the two security guards.
“Oh, I think she will,” said Tommy, flashing her a smile.
This time she was immune to his charms. “I can take your number and have her call you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, striding past reception, heading towards a corridor with rooms on either side. Her office had to be this way.
“Hoi, you can’t go down there,” a man shouted.
The figure of a security guard appeared. He must have been in the staff toilet because he was hitching up his trousers and buckling his belt. The desk where the other one usually sat had been empty.
He glared at us then turned to look at the receptionist who was trailing behind us. “Is there a problem here, Katie?”
The receptionist’s unlined face creased. “These two people want to see Ms. Chanderpaul. When I told them she was busy, this one…” She pointed a scarlet nail in my direction, “barged on through.”
At this point, two doors opened. A man with grey hair and glasses came out of his office with a bemused expression on his face as he took in the view. A tall, dark skinned woman appeared in another doorway. She walked the short distance down the hall towards us, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
“Can I help you?” She had a warm voice.
“Yes,” I said. “We’d like to talk to you about Sheena Andrews and Donna Di Marco.”
Any trace of a smile was gone. “Sorry, but I cannot discuss the people who come here.”
“Oh,” said Tommy with a smile. “That is a pity. We’ve just been talking to a friend of yours, Donna. She had some interesting things to say about you and she’s waived her right to client confidentiality.”
The counsellor’s smile didn’t even dim. “Okay, very well.” She beckoned us into her office. “I can spare five minutes.”
She nodded in the direction of the security guard. “It’s okay, Graham. I appreciate your diligence, but I can handle this from here.”
Although he didn’t look too happy about it, he did as he was told and padded back down the hall, muttering as he went.
In contrast to the reception area, Lorna’s office was more befitting a charity. There was a row of battered filing cabinets along one wall and posters warning about the dangers of HIV and hepatitis above the cabinets. Next to the big bay window was a battered wooden desk. Stacked neatly in two plastic trays were files and there was a World’s Greatest Mum mug filled with pens sitting next to a laptop computer. Somehow knowing that she had children made her actions seem worse; Sheena and Donna were just children.
Instead of chairs for visitors there was a dark blue beanbag sofa. Lorna motioned towards it and we sat down as she deposited herself in the chair behind her desk.
“Who are you and how can I help you?” She had a singsong voice that was a mixture of West Indian and Scots. The fuchsia suit she wore made the best of her mocha colouring. Monster or not, she was a striking woman and I could see why vulnerable young women would hang on her every word. She must have seemed glamorous and exotic to them.
Tommy’s face was set in hardened lines. “We know about your little sideline, Lorna.”
Lorna’s eyebrows slightly furrowed as though there was an item on the menu at a fancy restaurant that she wasn’t quite sure about.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she said, her steely gaze falling on Tommy and then moving onto me.
I leaned over towards her and said in a low voice, “If your security guard is standing outside you might want to ask him to step away from the door in case he hears something he shouldn’t.”
I’d heard someone creeping around outside the door and assumed it was him.
“Very well,” she said, pulling herself out of her chair and walking towards the door. There was a click as it opened and from our position on the couch we listened as Lorna spun Graham a line about us being the worried parents of a runaway. Then she asked him to leave
.
We heard him say something like, “If you’re sure, doctor.” Then the clump of footsteps as he tramped back down the hall.
Lorna came back into the room.
“Now, where were we?” she said, lips set in a thin line. “Oh, you were about to tell me who the hell you are and what you’re trying to imply.”
Lorna remained impassive as we introduced ourselves as Tanya Baker’s cousins. If we told her who we really were she’d probably have thrown us out of her office.
We’d already got her attention with our allegation, but it seemed wise to calm things down; for now.
I finished the introductions by saying, “we just want to find out what happened to Tanya.”
Lorna nodded. “That’s understandable, but I don’t think I ever met…” She paused for a moment as if she’d forgotten who were talking about. Maybe that’s how she dealt with the guilt; if she felt any guilt.
“Tanya. We have a picture of her if that’d help.” Taking out the small wallet I carried instead of a purse, I flicked to the photo of Tanya. Although she was 22, she looked years older thanks to her sunken cheeks and lanky hair. The photo had been taken for a bus pass.
Lorna shook her head. “I think I saw that picture in the newspapers, but I didn’t recognize her. A trace of sadness that might have been regret crossed her face; if people who pimp out kids can feel regret.
“I see so many young women in this place, you see. We try to help them, but it’s not easy. You think you’ve got through to them about how dangerous their behaviours are; how it can only end one way, but they keep coming back again time and time again. So many are addicted to drugs, others are pimped out by their own partners or by men they owe money to. We even had a client last year who was forced onto the streets by her own mother who was hooked on crack cocaine and needed her daughter to make the money to pay for it. Can you believe that?”
“Look,” said Tommy, “that’s all very tragic, but we’re not here to save every woman on the streets. We’re here to find our cousin and I think you can help us with that.”
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