In Guilty Night

by Alison Taylor

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ The girl frowned. ‘Where are you from, did you say?’

  ‘North Wales.’

  ‘And you drove down this morning? It must’ve taken you hours. You should see the taxi bills for admissions from your area. And, of course, there’s no money left for the kids to have home leave, is there? Not on top of our fees.’ Placing a mug of weak tea in front of him, she prattled on, voice monotonous with the sing-song accent of the South. ‘Darren was an emergency admission a few days ago.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Jack gulped the watery liquid.

  ‘We get a lot of emergency admissions.’ She sat down, legs carefully crossed so not a whisper of thigh beguiled his fancy. ‘I used to work in a Cardiff community home, and we always had admissions just before Easter, just after schools start back in September, and just after Christmas.’ She smiled knowingly. ‘Christmas is worst, of course, because bad families only get worse with the drink inside them. Things get so nasty when people drink too much, don’t they?’

  ‘That’s our experience.’

  ‘What d’you want from Darren?’ Her eyes, vague and watery as the tea, turned sharp and dark. ‘What’s he done? Nobody said he’s wanted by the police.’

  ‘He isn’t “wanted”.’ Jack felt irritation rouse itself. ‘I need to talk to him.’

  ‘Because juveniles in care must have a friendly adult present at police interviews.’ She droned on as if he had not spoken. ‘We must protect their interests.’

  Jack smiled disarmingly. ‘I’m here protecting the interests of juveniles, Darren’s included.’

  She rose, again modestly, and went to the door. Hand resting lightly on the handle, pose deliberate, she said, ‘His social worker didn’t say you were coming. They always tell us.’

  ‘Perhaps they forgot. A lot’s happened in the past few days.’

  Restless, irritable, Janet stood at the large bay window of the manse drawing-room, listening to her father rehearse his sermon. Watching a small robin peck jerkily at the lawn and twitter away with a wriggling bit of worm in its beak, she wondered if the chapel congregation would heed a word of Edwin Evans’s discourse on the true meaning of Christmas when they hurried away to the superstores and clothing markets trading on Sunday tedium.

  ‘You’re not listening,’ her father said tetchily.

  ‘There’s nothing I haven’t heard a hundred times before.’

  ‘You haven’t been on the earth a hundred Christmases, Janet, so you haven’t heard a hundred of my sermons.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so pedantic!’

  ‘And don’t you be so impudent!’

  She leaned her forehead against glass cold and damp with condensation. At the bottom of the garden, a dark glossy laurel hedge bound the glebe and its smooth lawns, the borders colourful with variegated erica even on the most dismal day, and the empty beds, like fresh little graves, where her father’s prize pansies would bloom in the spring. Fronds of pampas grass grew tall and graceful at each side of the wide gate.

  ‘D’you know any closet perverts?’ she asked. ‘Does the chapel shelter the wayward like the Roman Catholic church?’ Turning to face him, she added, ‘Is there another Hafodty where the truly wicked hide from justice?’

  ‘You’re being insolent.’

  ‘I’m asking legitimate questions,’ she insisted. ‘You tried to put me off the scent by dropping Christmas Morgan under my nose, and you only did that because I’d already heard the rumours.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Her father stood up, snatching the scattered pages of his sermon. ‘You’re becoming quite unbearable! You judge half the men in the world perverts of one kind or another, and if this is what so-called liberation does to women, I can only thank God your mother was never deluded by it!’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with women’s liberation,’ Janet muttered, heart thudding, as always when she roused her father’s anger. ‘One boy is dead, and God alone – truly God alone – knows how many others are abused every single day.’ The tears of her own anger spilled down her cheeks. ‘And people like you make me so sick, because you pretend everything’s all right, and you’ll go on pretending as long as you damned well can!’ She gulped, rage rising in her gorge. ‘You might have to stop before long, when one of your holier-than-thou colleagues gets a cold which won’t go away, and comes out in nasty black sores!’ She walked to the door, legs stiff and unyielding. ‘Arwel Thomas was buggered by any number of men, so he was probably HIV positive. He may have developed AIDS. You may not like what I say, and you may object to the way I say it, but none of that alters the facts.’

  ‘He won’t talk to you. He says he hasn’t done anything.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Jack exploded. ‘What did you tell him?’

  The young woman bridled prettily. ‘I just said the police wanted to see him.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In his room. They have separate rooms here.’

  ‘I’m not interested in the sleeping arrangements!’

  She shrugged. ‘He’s got the right to refuse. You can’t just barge in. He’s entitled to his privacy.’

  ‘You call this social work?’ Jack demanded, his voice rising. ‘Letting these yobbos call the shots?’

  ‘We’re encouraging self-determination.’ Her cheeks flushed. ‘Don’t be so nasty! We get enough of that from the kids!’ She glanced anxiously at the door. ‘And stop shouting. The others can hear you.’

  Four faces gaped at the office door, and one boy let out a bray of near-hysterical mirth.

  ‘Be quiet! Go away!’

  The boy giggled. ‘Darren’s shitting bricks ’cos he thinks he’s off to the slammer.’

  ‘Why should he think that?’ Jack asked.

  ‘The man said, didn’t he?’

  Leaning against the door-frame, hands deep in his pockets and the tension of long hours behind the wheel of a car in his arms and shoulders, Jack watched Darren Pritchard stare sullenly at the floor, and thought the boy would be almost handsome without his misery. ‘You can’t wish me away.’

  Darren began opening the drawers of a small chest under the barred window. ‘Where am I going? Which nick?’ Underclothing and T-shirts were thrown on the bed, a holdall dragged from underneath, and Jack saw four massive steel brackets bolting the bed to the floor. Stuffing clothes willy-nilly in the bag, Darren added, ‘Hogg is a sodding liar like the rest of them. I haven’t said a bloody word.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Why are you packing?’

  ‘I’m going to prison, like Hogg said.’ He zipped the bag closed, the sound as harsh as his breath. ‘As if this dump isn’t a bloody prison, anyway.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Why did I believe him? Stupid, or what? People say I’ll never learn. They must be right, mustn’t they?’

  Jack sat on a cube-like contraption bolted to wall and floor, a thin cushion shifting under his buttocks. ‘You’re talking riddles, and I’m too tired and too hungry to play games.’

  ‘Ask the pretty screw for some sarnies, then.’

  ‘D’you want some?’

  Darren banged on the cell door. ‘Mr Policeman wants some food before he takes me away!’

  ‘Stop shouting, Darren Pritchard!’ The girl’s voice was muffled, like her footsteps as she clicked away along the tiled floor.

  ‘They always listen at the door,’ Darren said. ‘Then they write down what you didn’t want them to hear. Everybody reads it, and the shrink hums and hahs, then decides if you’re a headcase.’ His face grew bleak. ‘They map out your whole life, on gossip and second-hand opinion, and nobody ever asks how you feel about it.’

  ‘You’re very cynical for a teenager,’ Jack observed.

  ‘I’m not a teenager. I’m a problem, a burden on society.’

  ‘Did you go to school at Blodwel?’

  Darren sat on the edge of the bed, hands loose between his knees. Jack saw ‘A.C.A.B.’ roughly tattooed on the knuckles of one hand, and four dots inked on the
knuckles of the other. ‘I had the benefit of that crap-artist they call a teacher. He’s a bigger bastard than Hogg.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Darren laughed. ‘Why, Mr Policeman, I’m not telling you! Your sarnies’ll come in a minute, so why not eat them all up like a good copper then take me wherever we’re going?’

  Inept in the face of adolescence, too old to recall the triumphs and terrors of his own youth, Jack rose. Darren stood up, and dragged his bag off the bed, rumpling the cover.

  ‘Sit down,’ Jack said. ‘I came to talk to you, that’s all, but you’ve nothing to say, so I’ll bugger off.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About Blodwel. About the Hoggs. About Arwel Thomas.’

  ‘Arwel?’ Darren smiled. ‘We were good mates. He’s a good kid. How is he?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ Darren slumped on to the bed, the bag on his knees. ‘Oh, Jesus!’

  ‘He was found in one of the railway tunnels late on Sunday night, stark naked, with a broken neck and his head smashed in. And—’ He stopped speaking as the door swung open, and the girl walked in with a plastic tray of coffee and sandwiches.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Jack said. ‘When you go out, d’you mind making sure nobody’s listening at the door? Like you said, Darren’s entitled to his privacy.’

  She stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard the window bars rattled.

  ‘You know how to make friends, don’t you?’ Darren commented.

  ‘I’ve made lots more like her in the past week, especially at Blodwel.’ Jack offered the plate of sandwiches, and picked up one of the plastic beakers. ‘Arwel’d been on the run for several days before he turned up dead, so Social Services don’t want to know about him.’

  ‘He went before I left.’

  Jack chewed the sandwich, surprised by the tasty filling. ‘Social Services don’t want to know about us, either, so we’re not making much progress towards finding out who killed him.’ The coffee was strong and hot. ‘We only found you because your Nain knows somebody else’s. Social Services don’t know I’m here, and there’ll probably be all hell let loose when they find out.’ Taking another sandwich from the plate, he added, ‘I was hoping your statement might help point us in the right direction.’

  ‘You take statements about crimes. Blodwel’s a shit-hole, but that’s not a crime, is it? People don’t go to gaol for running a shit-hole. You can’t do anything. Nobody can.’

  ‘And what exactly makes it like that? Why do kids run away at every opportunity?’

  Darren shrugged, then rubbed his eyes. Jack saw the sheen of tears on his cheeks.

  ‘What goes on there, Darren? Is it bad enough to kill Arwel?’

  ‘You’re always hungry, always dirty, always shit-scared. Kids wet the beds out of fright, then get beaten up for doing it. Hogg gobs in your food for fun, and Doris pisses herself laughing.’ He looked up, eyes haunted. ‘They’re bad enough to kill Arwel, but you’ll never know if they did, ’cos nobody cares. Hogg’s boss doesn’t give a shit. Look what happened to me? Why d’you think I’m here?’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Jack said. ‘Weren’t you moved for legging it with Arwel? You went out at night, like him and Gary Hughes, and came back with money and cigarettes, and Hogg didn’t want us to talk to you.’

  ‘I was moved because Hogg can do any bloody thing he wants. He said he’ll have me locked up for good if I ever open my mouth, and he will. He reckons to know coppers all over the country who’ll jump whenever he shouts. But I didn’t leg it with Arwel, and I never went out at night.’

  ‘A girl from Blodwel said you and Arwel and Gary went out at night!’

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It matters a lot to me.’

  ‘Mandy Minx said: “Arwel and Gary and the one they sent to South Wales”.’

  Darren chewed at his lower lip. ‘Arwel was already out on one of his jaunts when the others legged it, and I don’t know if he ever went back.’ He stood up and walked to the window, gazing through the bars at a simpleton’s jigsaw of scrubby wind-blown bushes and distant foggy hills. ‘I took a beating off the teacher, while Hogg stood by, laughing and egging him on. It wasn’t the first time, and the other kids just watched, thanking God Almighty it was me and not them. Anyway,’ he went on, turning to face Jack, ‘when he’d finished with me, there was a lot of blood threatening to muck up the floor, so Hogg kicked me all the way down to the bogs to clean up. I legged it and hitched a ride to Caernarfon.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I told Hogg’s boss everything, and fair play to him, he listened. He gave me a cup of coffee and a couple of fags and a promise, then put me in a taxi and said: “Darren, I want you to go back to Blodwel and put all this unpleasantness behind you, and I promise it won’t happen again”. He even patted me on the shoulder, in a fatherly kind of way.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The taxi stopped in front of Blodwel, and I got out, then out came Doris, screaming like a sodding banshee. She threw my bags in the taxi, pushed me in after, and screeched: “Go!”, like they do in American police films, thumping on the roof. “Go! Go! Go!’ And he went, and he didn’t stop ’til we got here.’ Darren sat again on the bed, his eyes cloudy with memory. ‘But I can tell you who legged it.’ He recited a list of first names and nick-names, ages and potted histories.

  ‘Out of how many?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Shut up in places like Blodwel and this dump, your world’s so small you know everything. Which staff’s on duty, what’s going on in all the meetings they have….’ He flexed his fingers, and massaged his disfigured knuckles. ‘You wouldn’t survive if you didn’t.’ He paused, struggling to give voice to instinct. ‘Nobody ever tells you anything, nobody ever tells you the truth, so you’re forced to live on your wits.’

  ‘There are eight children left at Blodwel,’ Jack said. ‘Who’s been moved?’

  ‘Who’s still there?’

  Jack read a list of names from his file.

  ‘You want Tony. Tony Jones, from Llandudno.’ Darren sighed. ‘Not that you’ll find him there. God knows where Hogg sent him. Are you going to bugger off now? It’ll be dark very soon.’

  ‘We haven’t talked about Gary Hughes yet, or this Tony Jones.’

  ‘You must be a glutton for punishment. They say the same about me.’ Darren smiled again, and Jack wondered if others ever saw the person behind the label. ‘Gary went out, like Arwel and Tony, in the evening, and when I boldly asked Hogg why some could go out but not others, he booted me in the guts. I’m still pissing blood.’ Sighing again, he added, ‘I don’t know if Gary and Arwel and Tony liked going out, because they never talked about it, but Gary threw a wobbly one night. He’d been away all weekend, so we reckoned he’d sucked up to Hogg for home leave, and needed a talking to. We went to his room after Dilys fart-face’d gone to sleep.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Poor bugger!’ Darren shivered, wrapping his arms around his body. ‘Poor sod! Somebody’d painted purple varnish on his toe-nails. He was sitting on the floor trying to scrape it off with a penknife, crying so much he couldn’t see, and saying he wasn’t a bum boy, no matter what anybody said, or anybody did.’

  Stopped in his tracks south of Dinas Mawddwy by a blizzard of awesome magnitude screaming with demon force from the mountains, Jack pulled into the car-park of a roadside inn, struggled out of the car against a wind threatening to tear the door from its mounting, and ran, head down, into the bar. Lodged for the night, he telephoned Emma.

  ‘The weather forecast was bad before you left. Why didn’t you stay in South Wales?’

  ‘Because I wanted to get away!’ Jack shivered, sounds of the battering wind outside banging against his skull. ‘It’s a dreadful place, Em. Bare as a barn, and it costs two and a half grand a we
ek for each kid! My God, what a racket!’

  ‘Talking of barns, a farmer near Pentir found someone in his barn this morning. Whoever it was ran away. It was on the local news.’

  ‘At least the place wasn’t torched.’ He coughed. ‘How are the girls? What did they do today?’

  ‘Cleaned out their room.’

  ‘About time, too.’

  ‘And they tried on Denise’s clothes. They’re only clothes, after all, and the twins look very smart.’

  ‘I’m too tired to argue, and you’ve made up your mind anyway. Only next time she brings her cast-off finery, say no, will you? I’d rather you all wore rags than clothes off her back. She’s little better than a tart.’

  8

  ‘Jack Tuttle ran into a blizzard in Meirionydd on the way home last night,’ McKenna said. ‘His journey was rather a waste of time, as Mandy Minx neglected to tell us Tony Jones and not Darren Pritchard is the boy we want. Dewi Prys is out round Pentir, on the assumption Gary may be the barnstormer.’

  Janet ground out her cigarette and immediately lit another.

  ‘Why didn’t you go to chapel this morning?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘I didn’t want to. I’m not a child. I don’t have to go every Sunday.’

  ‘The congregation might think something’s amiss if the minister’s family suddenly breaks the habit of a lifetime. Defaults on an obligation, as it were.’

  ‘They can think what they like!’

  ‘Is this a bid for independence, or is there a problem at home?’

  ‘There’s my father, so there’s a problem. He’s very uncomfortable about what I’m doing.’

  ‘This isn’t a pleasant job for anyone’s daughter.’

  ‘I mean he’s uncomfortable with himself. I asked him yesterday if he’s anything to tell us, and he got rather spiteful, like he does when you hit a sore spot.’

  ‘He can be uneasy without having compromising knowledge,’ McKenna said. ‘Child abuse provokes suspicion. Some innocuous incident in the past, which seemed trivial at the time, can suddenly appear significant. Perhaps he’s simply being cautious.’