The Girl in the Rug

by K Leitch

  ‘Oh well…we are both kind then,’ laughed Maya, as she moved back to the sink and the huge pile of washing up.

  Helen thought for a moment, ‘What will happen to him Maya, Andy I mean, will he be fostered or something?’

  Maya pulled a face, ‘Brenda says that they will have to see what happens with the mother. Who knows, you may be right she might mend her ways, maybe she is waiting until she is sorted before she sees Andy…then of course Andy will go back with her, they are always trying to keep families together Brenda says.’

  ‘Hang on though…I thought he was being abused by his mother…wasn’t that what Carla said, so surely he shouldn’t go back there should he?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know Helen,’ said Maya with a grimace, ‘I think the drinking, that was the problem, she abused when she was drunk…and despite everything, Andy has such a strong loyalty to his mother. Like I say, he talks of her all the time; he will want to be with her I think.’

  Helen just shook her head, ‘Well until that happens let’s have him over here again…maybe we could take him out next time, would we be allowed do you think?’

  ‘Yes…I think that would be fine,’ Maya said rolling her eyes and smiling as a loud screams were followed by pounding footsteps coming down the stairs, and Benji, Abby and Lena rushed into the kitchen all desperately hunting round for a hiding places. Maya helped Benji to hide under the table while Helen shoved Abby into the larder. Then after a moment of sheer panic Lena threw herself under a pile of washing, and Maya stood in front of it hiding her from view, just as Andy came down the stairs shouting, ‘One hundred…coming ready or not!’

  CHAPTER 43 - 1987

  Franklin had learnt his lesson; he had learnt never to be left on his own anywhere in the house, and he had learnt that he didn’t want to be here anymore.

  He hated it!

  He hated everybody in it!

  He now knew the name of the man that had violated him, Robert Gray the caretaker.

  His heart had jumped into his mouth the first time he’d seen him after his attack. He had spotted him in the garden, a short scruffy man with pale blue piggy eyes.

  He remembered the pervasive smell of B.O. that had hung over the man as he had sweated behind him, that smell had lingered on him for days after.

  But if Robert Gray remembered what he had done to him, he gave no indication of it, looking right through Franklin whenever he encountered him in the house.

  Franklin on the other hand would never forget the pain and humiliation that had been inflicted on him, and he took precautions so that it would never happen again. A small, but incredibly sharp penknife that he kept on himself at all times…he often fantasised about plunging into Gray’s fat neck.

  So Franklin kept to himself, he did not make friends or speak to anyone except when it was necessary to do so.

  The only time that he could feel normal again was when Gillian and Paul Hill came to visit. Gillian Hill had rescued him from his room, and also she had been one of the few neighbours that had given Debbie (Franklin’s mother) the time of day. A kindly woman of middle age, who always seemed to have a smile on her face, her husband Paul was much the same. He was a policeman…one of the old school who believed in discipline tempered with caring and evenhandedness. They were a popular couple in the street and were often the first port of call for any of their neighbours with problems.

  Franklin looked forward to their visits, and was always upset when they had to leave, counting down the days till they would come again.

  Gillian Hill had been the only person to notice that Franklin was not himself after his attack, asking him gently probing questions…begging him to trust her.

  But even to her Franklin said nothing…he was so desperately ashamed of what had happened to him, he would never tell…never.

  It wasn’t long before Franklin found out that Mr Gray wasn’t the only man who inflicted himself on the children in the home. One afternoon, as he was wandering round the garden by himself, he heard one of the younger girls crying and went to investigate. He saw her struggling to free herself from the grip of a man who was holding her tight on his knee…he had his hand down her panties and was telling her to keep quiet, laughing at her struggles. Franklin saw red and rushed at the man shouting at him to let the girl go. The man, shocked at the intrusion practically threw the little girl off his knee and ran after Franklin who, after his moment of bravery, had taken to his heels through the garden. He easily caught Franklin and held him roughly up against a tree.

  ‘And just what do you think you’re doing boy?’ the man said angrily towering over Franklin as he struggled to free himself, ‘sneaking around and prying into things that don’t concern you…don’t you be thinking about running and telling tales to anyone about this you hear me. You’ll be in a lot of trouble if you do…you don’t know who I am do you boy?’

  Franklin shook his head terrified.

  ‘Well I’m a policeman son and I can cause you a lot of trouble if you go telling tales…you wouldn’t want to end up in prison would you?’

  Franklin gulped and shook his head again.

  ‘No of course you wouldn’t…so you just forget what you saw ok, and we’ll say no more about it.’

  Franklin dropped his head and nodded, and the man, after staring hard at Franklin for a moment or two finally loosened his grip and let him run back into the house.

  He never told anyone, not about Mr Gray or about the policeman. He had learnt his lesson you see, it was not one he was likely to forget.

  CHAPTER 44 - TRACY

  Autumn was stealing a day from summer with wall to wall blue skies and warm sunshine. Tracy breathed in the earthy scents around her as she pushed Tilly’s buggy down the hill towards the common and the Glory Woods. She had Buster in tow and he was scampering on ahead, occasionally stopping when an interesting smell hit his nose, but all too eager for the run that he knew lay ahead on the common.

  Tilly was sitting up in her pushchair gurgling happily at all that she could see around her.

  ‘Look Tilly…look at the little bird,’ Tracy cooed as a robin trilled on the branch of a tree as they walked past.

  She crossed the single track road that led up towards the common; the Glory Wood was up ahead, it’s canopy of trees a vision to behold in their late autumn finery of reds and golds. Tracy unclipped Buster’s lead once they were onto the common and he raced off towards the trees, she slowed her pace, wandering after him and turning her face up towards the warm sunshine. Once she had walked Buster Tracy had decided that she would go into Kenley and try and see Carla. She had worried all night about the children she had seen at the big house, but not only that she was a bit concerned about Louisa. It just didn’t make sense that she had gone off to do some concert at a moment’s notice; for one thing she had invited Tracy and Simon for dinner one evening this week, surely she would have phoned Tracy to let her know that the dinner was cancelled. And then there was the little matter of her wheelchair still being in the kitchen….

  Tracy was jolted out of her daydreaming, when she suddenly became aware of the thud thud thud of running feet behind her seconds before something hit her hard on the back of the head, and everything went black.

  She woke up shivering with cold and surrounded by darkness…it was so dark in fact that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. There was the metallic taste of blood in her mouth where she had bitten her tongue; Tracy shook her head trying to clear it, trying to make sense of what was happening to her. Disorientated she tried to sit up causing a blinding pain in the back of her head, she touched her head with her hand…it came away wet with blood. Her brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly, she had no idea how she came to be in this place. She appeared to be lying on a hard mud packed floor, she tried to stand once more, gritting her teeth against the pain as she raised herself slowly only to cry out in pain again as she hit her head against the roof which wasn’t even as tall as she was. Tracy sank down again hu
gging her arms around herself against the cold, trying to force herself to remember how she had got here.

  She had been walking, she knew that much…it had been sunny she had been thinking how lovely the day was, a bird had been singing…TILLY…TILLEEEEE!

  Shaking with fear, Tracy stood up as tall as she could and started blindly feeling her way round the walls of her prison, her panic pushing her on to find a way out, she was shaking and sobbing thinking about her baby left alone in her pushchair on the common. Or had she been left…another thought took hold, Tilly being taken by some stranger, terrified and crying for her mummy.

  ‘Ooooh god….TILLY….TILLEEEEE,’ she began screaming, ‘HELP…HELP, SOMEONE PLEASE …HELP ME!’ Tracy was sobbing and gulping as her panic again took hold, she had no idea who could have done this or why. But she knew she had to get out of here and find her baby daughter. With shaking hands she began to rummage through her jacket pockets looking for her mobile phone, nothing…she let out a groan of frustration as she remembered plugging it in to recharge before going out for her walk. Whimpering and fearful Tracy again began trying to feel her way along the walls to a door or window or any sort of escape route.

  The walls were solid…bricks Tracy thought as she ran her fingers along the cement in between each one, she continued round until she came to a wooden door frame with a round metal handle, she grabbed at the handle and shook the door violently, it was tightly locked.

  Tracy put her mouth up to the door and screamed as loud as she could, ‘HEELLPP….PLEEASE SOMEBODEEE HEELLP ME…PLEEAASE…’ she carried on shouting and pounding on the door until her throat was sore and she could barely make a sound, sinking back to the ground she put her head in her hands and gave way to her desolation.

  There must have been a chink of light coming in from somewhere and, as her eyes began to get used to the darkness, she began to make out shapes around her. It appeared to be a storage room of some description, there were a few boxes in one corner and some old plastic flower pots and what looked like tins of paint. Tracy scanned the room trying to get her bearings, when suddenly the air seemed to rush out of her lungs and her heart nearly stopped…someone was there…in the room with her…sitting in the corner. Someone had been watching her all the time that she had been screaming in desperation and clawing at the door.

  Tracy moved towards the figure, ‘Who are you?’ she asked in barely a whisper, ‘What do you want with me, why don’t you let me go…I...I left my baby…’ Tracy could barely go on, ‘Pleeeease …my baby, she’ll be needing me…’

  The figure in the corner didn’t respond, didn’t even seem to acknowledge Tracy. Tracy shuffled over nearer to her captor, she could make out the outline of a face quite clearly now…but whoever it was wouldn’t look Tracy’s way, just kept staring ahead as if in a trance.

  Maybe this was another prisoner who was in shock Tracy thought. ‘Are you ok…do you know where we are?’ she tried edging still closer…she thought she must be quite close to whoever it was now, although it was so dark she could still only make out shapes and shadows, her silent companion just kept her profile to her… seemingly unaware of Tracy’s presence.

  Suddenly Tracy remembered she had Maggie’s lighter in her jeans pocket, she had confiscated it at the last cauldron meeting saying Maggie had smoked far too much for one evening. Maggie had tried every trick in the book to get it back from her but Tracy had held firm. The crafty cow had just ended up getting one from Hank the barman though and sneaking outside for another fag whilst Tracy was on the loo. Thinking about Maggie and the witches nearly set Tracy off again but she took a deep breath and started hunting through her pockets again…she was certain these were the jeans she had worn because she had put them away when she got home to wear another day. Yes there it was in her back pocket; Tracy carefully held it up in front of her.

  ‘I’ve got a lighter here,’ she said to the figure in the corner,’ it might help us if we can see what we’re doing.’

  She flicked the lighter…it burst into a weak flame which illuminated just the small area in front of her…she could see the figure before her…Tracy moved closer, holding the light closer to see her face. ‘Nooooo!’ Tracy let out a wail of terror as Louisa’s frozen, lifeless eyes stared back at her…she stumbled backwards falling against the door…just as the door itself began to open.

  Cowering on the floor in terror, Tracy looked up from where she lay at the huge silhouette that was framed inside the door way, he was carrying a torch which lit up his face eerily, but even without the light it was a face that would strike fear into most hearts. Covered in tattoo’s it looked like it had been split open on one side by the huge scar that ran from eye to mouth. Tracy let out another piercing scream of terror before sinking into unconsciousness onto the dirt floor below.

  CHAPTER 45 - CARLA

  ‘Ok so we are all agreed that the big house needs to be watched,’ Frank was saying, ‘but how do we know when anything is going to happen? It could be days, weeks even before they hold another ‘party’ there must be a way of finding out when the next one is.’

  ‘Well actually I might have an idea about that,’ said Carla getting up and going over to the living room to get her bag, ‘what if that is what all these letters and dates are in Nellie’s little book.’ She found the book in her bag and opened it up on the table.

  Frank was looking at her in amazement.

  ‘What?’ she said to him when she clocked his expression.

  ‘Um…evidence,’ said Frank shortly, ‘how did that end up in your bag?’

  ‘Oh don’t worry, I signed for it,’ Carla said shaking her head, ‘anyway the more I looked at it the more I started seeing a pattern. See if M = Marshall Street and G= Glendon House then it all begins to fit. G=girl obviously and B=boy. You see I got to thinking, Nellie’s not that bright is he, so I think we were reading much too much into what was in actual fact just a sort of short hand…’

  ‘Oh my god yes you’re right Carla,’ said Linda grasping the book and looking at it, ‘see here it says 27th May- 4B 2G and that’s under the M column, so that means he need to provide four boys and two girls on that date and he’s even made a note of how much he will earn for that £1200,’ Linda whistled, ‘two hundred for each one, not bad for a night’s work.’

  ‘Yes that’s all very well but he must have had help inside the homes,’ Frank said. ‘Gray…I mean Tutt obviously, but surely he couldn’t take six children out in the dead of night without somebody noticing.’

  ‘Well that is what we need to find out isn’t it?’ Carla said grimly. ‘Let’s look carefully through Nellie’s book again, see if he has dates relating to now and if so we will know when to watch the house won’t we, and then hopefully we will be able to catch them at it.’

  They spent the next hour or so looking through the little note book, sure enough it seemed as though there was a ‘party’ coming up in a few days, that is of course if Nellie had been referring to this year as there were no years on his dates, just days and months. But they thought it was worth watching the house on that day anyway and just hope that they got lucky.

  ‘We will have to be very, very careful girls and boys,’ Carla said as the little meeting was breaking up, ‘some of the people attending these parties carry a lot of clout, if your photos are to be believed Linda, so we must be sure of our facts before we go in all guns blazing ok? Linda I want as many photos as you can get, and I want pictures of the men with the children. It’s no good just getting shots of the men enjoying a convivial evening…we will need hard evidence before we can go any further with this. You both know what’s at stake here…we will probably only get one chance, the minute they catch on that we are investigating I can guarantee it will all stop. If there are children from these homes being used for sex in that house I want it on film okay?’

  ‘What about Nellie?’ Frank asked, ‘If I spot him…should I try and arrest him?’

  ‘Well we’ve got no evidence to suggest tha
t he is still involved have we?’ said Carla collecting up the cups, ‘I would have thought he would have stayed well clear. No I think he is deep in hiding, surely he wouldn’t be so stupid as to carry on when he knows half the force is looking for him.’

  ‘Yeh well you said it yourself Carla…he is a bit thick, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled just in case,’ Frank said handing Linda her coat.

  ‘I don’t think you should do anything if you do see him Frank,’ Carla said thoughtfully, ‘it might just blow the whole thing…no I think…’ she broke off as her mobile rang.

  ‘Oh hi Simon…what? What do you mean left the baby…ok, ok calm down. Now try and tell me what’s happened…when did she go out…and she’s still not back…well she wouldn’t have gone off somewhere with Tilly would she…oh and Buster. Listen Simon, have you called the station…well call them now and I will be over as soon as I can…I know…I know alright just sit tight, I’m sure there will be a perfectly good explanation…alright see you soon, call the station ok?’

  Carla ended the call and just looked at Frank, ‘Tracy’s not come home…she went out for a walk with Tilly and Buster this morning and hasn’t been seen since, Simon’s hysterical we need to get over there Frank.’

  Frank gave Linda an apologetic look, ‘I’ll have to go honey soz…I’ll ring you tomorrow.’

  ‘Um I don’t think so,’ Linda said walking to the door, ‘you’ll need every pair of hands you can muster out looking for her so I’m coming too.’

  They took separate cars up to Tracy’s house; Simon had the door open and was waiting on the doorstep for them, he looked grey with dread in his eyes.

  Maggie was there too, she ran over to Carla, ‘Boy am I glad to see you love, poor Simon is out of his mind with worry. He didn’t ring you until later because he assumed she was at mine, but I haven’t seen her at all today.’ She turned a worried face to Carla, ‘Where can she be Carla…and Tilly…where’s the baby?’