In Guilty Night

by Alison Taylor

‘Are they speaking to Emma?’

  ‘Only when necessary, like when they want clean clothes or money. They don’t need us, you see.’

  ‘I see.’ McKenna pulled on his cigarette, throat still sore, lungs still tight.

  ‘You’re wheezing,’ Jack pointed out. ‘You’ll be down with bronchitis next.’

  Ice as thick as snow whitened the mountain slopes, dingy under gathering cloud moving sluggishly north-east, and wreathing around the summit of Snowdon. Sitting in the car outside the school gates, waiting for the pupils to emerge for morning break, McKenna scanned the tiny clusters of habitation straggling across the mountain foothills, wondering where, in that huge frozen wasteland, the missing youngsters might be. Hundreds of manpower hours had been wasted searching empty dwellings around Caernarfon and Bangor, scouring back yards and sheds and outhouses and boarded-up shops and farm buildings, invading squats, questioning anyone who came to hand, and in the absence of finding them alive in any of the logical places, McKenna feared they could only be found dead. He lit a cigarette, seeing in his mind’s eye Gary’s hair frosted with ice, eyelashes rimed with hoar, eyes dulled and dead beneath; and Mandy Minx, lips blue with cold, ratty teeth glittering white, hair like a splash of dried blood on the ice. He opened the window and tossed out the half-smoked cigarette, watching it fizzle in the greasy swill of the gutter.

  High-pitched voices floated on the air, footsteps rattled on tarmac, and he climbed from the car, walking towards the spill of bodies coming around the sides of the ugly concrete building. He accosted a tall youth whose face blossomed with chill and acne.

  ‘D’you know where I can find the Tuttle girls?’

  The boy’s teeth chattered gently. ‘Haven’t seen them. The school secretary’ll know where they are.’

  The secretary told him the twins had failed to register, and the parents had failed to contact the school. McKenna sat again in the car, trying to decide what to do for the best, how to reimpose order on the chaos underlying all life which had erupted into the Tuttle household.

  The house was empty of Emma and her daughters. Walking round to the back, he peered through the kitchen window at a pristine room bereft of traces of recent occupation. He lingered, looking through other windows, finding the garage vacated of Emma’s small car, and the twins’ bicycles leaning against one wall, dusty and abandoned, like the unquestioning innocence of childhood. He telephoned Jack, whose voice rose with hysteria, fear adding ugly harsh sounds to his words.

  From the drawing-room window, Rhiannon watched the Range Rover come slowly down the lane then pass from sight, and stayed in her place, head tilted slightly, listening for wheels biting gravel, the gentle squeal of locking brakes, the chunky thud of the closing door, the crunch of her husband’s footsteps as he mounted the steps to the front door. But the front door opened before the vehicle stopped, and she heard Mari’s light steps and tinkling laughter. She sighed for another missed opportunity, and returned to her chair, sitting with clasped hands, listening still but hearing nothing to bring any joy.

  ‘I can’t find Inspector Tuttle,’ Janet complained. ‘He told me to report to him when I got back.’

  ‘I’ve sent him home,’ McKenna said.

  Janet stood by the desk, coat hanging loose, a cashmere scarf around her shoulders. ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘Do you have anything to report?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There just isn’t, sir. Nobody’s got any suggestions.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ McKenna snapped. ‘This isn’t London! There aren’t quarter of a million people in the whole county, yet you can’t find a soul who can tell you anything!’

  ‘It’s not my fault!’

  ‘Stop being childish!’ McKenna warned. ‘You should know better. Where’s Dewi Prys?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her voice was sulky. ‘Probably still out.’

  ‘Then go to the parade room for instructions from the inspector in charge. Jack Tuttle’s girls have gone missing, and they must be found.’

  Emma stood by the sitting-room window, and merely glanced in McKenna’s direction as he parked the car. The front door stood wide open to the icy air, strands of gold and silver foil on the newly decorated Christmas tree shivering in the draught. He shut the door, and went into the sitting-room.

  ‘Jack’s out looking,’ Emma said. ‘He’s frantic. I’ve got to stay here for the telephone.’

  ‘Is anyone with you?’

  ‘You are.’ She reached out blindly, groping for his hand. ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘They’re using you.’ Elias ab Elis stared at his wife, the forkful of venison uneaten. ‘I’ve warned you time and again.’

  Rhiannon picked at her own food, prodding the meat with her fork. ‘What am I supposed to do? Blodwel has problems.’

  ‘Of whose making?’

  ‘Hoggs do their best with very poor resources and very little money. They’re entitled to my support at times like these.’

  ‘You’re naive!’ He dropped the fork on the plate. ‘You must apologize to Cook. I’m not very hungry.’

  ‘Where were you last night?’ Rhiannon stared at her own plate. ‘I telephoned the hotel in Bonn. They said you’d left.’

  ‘I stayed with Anselm. We had a lot to discuss.’ He sipped a glass of German spa water, noting the stains of tiredness about her eyes. ‘You must stop evading unpleasant issues. Ronald Hogg’s problems are of his own making, but while he can claim the wholehearted support and friendship of the chair of committee, no one will be inclined to ask searching questions about those children.’

  ‘I know things aren’t right at Blodwel.’

  ‘Things at Blodwel are very wrong. Do you ever talk to the children, without staff breathing down your neck?’

  Rhiannon shrugged. ‘Sometimes. They don’t say much.’

  ‘They don’t, do they?’ Elis rose from the table, and stood before the hearth, arm resting on the mantel. ‘Arwel never said much to me, and I don’t know what he said to Mari, but I know he was desperate and unhappy.’ The silence lengthened, punctuated by rapid breaths and the crackling logs.

  Rhiannon abandoned her own meal. Her fork chipped the plate as it fell to the table. ‘I don’t imagine words were necessary between you and Arwel. You loved him very much and he must have known.’

  ‘Dear God!’ Jack Tuttle wept in the arms of his wife. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Nothing for now.’ Emma stared over Jack’s shoulder at McKenna, who sat by the fire, gazing steadily at the flames. ‘They’re home and safe.’ She pulled herself away. ‘Let them settle down.’

  Bewilderment clouded Jack’s eyes. ‘What if they run away again? What if we can’t find them?’

  ‘I don’t think they will,’ McKenna said.

  ‘And how would you know?’ Jack demanded.

  ‘Because they’re not as stupid as you think!’ McKenna snapped. ‘Or as troublesome. Lots of kids take a day off school, even those from the very best homes. It’s part of growing up.’

  ‘Michael’s right,’ Emma said. ‘They came home at the usual time, and if he hadn’t wanted to see them, we’d never know they dodged.’

  Jack stared at his wife, at McKenna. ‘So where’ve they been all day? Answer me that, since you know it all!’

  ‘Round the shops,’ McKenna said. ‘Taking afternoon tea alongside the city’s venerable matrons.’

  ‘How do we know they weren’t shop-lifting, or drinking in pubs, or out with men?’ Jack demanded.

  ‘We don’t,’ Emma said tetchily. ‘And there’ll be even more things we don’t know in the future. We must trust their common sense, because if they don’t know how to use it now, they never will.’ She walked to the door. ‘I’m going to make dinner, and if they prefer to sulk in their room all night, they’re welcome.’ The door slammed behind her, its draught dislodging a Christmas card from the row on the mantel.

  McKenna stooped to retrieve it.
‘Your cards come early. I’ve had none yet.’

  ‘Are you going to let them get away with it?’ Jack’s face, blotched with tears and misery, discoloured further with incipient fury. ‘For God’s sake! We had a full-scale missing children alert. What about the cost?’

  ‘Pity we didn’t turn up the real runaways.’ McKenna put the card back in its place. ‘The twins won’t risk this hullabaloo again to dodge school for a few hours, because they’ve seen the consequences, and fun stops being much fun when the chickens come home to roost.’

  ‘Would you like to spend a couple of years at Blodwel?’ McKenna asked.

  Emma leaned against the closed door of the twins’ bedroom, watching McKenna, who towered over the girls lounging on one of the beds.

  ‘Are you looking for alternative prospects? Are you bored with plans for university and a career? Going into care would wreck your future very quickly.’ He watched Emma from the corner of his eye, waiting for her to shield her young from the onslaught of harsh reality. She remained mute.

  ‘I hope you’re both listening.’ McKenna added. ‘You can ignore your parents, but you’re foolish to ignore me. You put a great many people to a great deal of wholly avoidable trouble and expense, and I’m extremely disappointed. If you want to play silly games, I’ll make sure you reap the consequences.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Both girls jerked to attention, then stared at Emma. ‘What does he mean, Mummy?’

  ‘The law permits us to commit juveniles to care if we think it necessary,’ McKenna said. ‘Whether or not I decide to exercise that power is entirely up to you.’

  ‘You can’t do that! You can’t!’

  ‘Try me,’ McKenna invited.

  ‘You slut!’ Peggy Thomas lunged at her daughter. ‘You filthy slut!’

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ Carol jeered. ‘You should be glad I don’t take after him. Don’t you always say he’s fucking useless?’

  ‘Shut your dirty mouth!’

  Her father reared from his chair and swiped at her with his fist. Carol stumbled backwards, eyes alive with the rage and grief so long dammed, the beautiful yellow hair flying about her face. Still slender, agile with youth, she dodged their hands and spat in their ugly faces. ‘You’re shit! You’ll rot in hell for what you did to Arwel!’

  ‘He was bad!’ The woman’s voice rose to a screech. ‘Evil bad! Devil’s spawn, both of you!’

  Carol leaned against the wall, out of reach, and began to laugh. ‘He’s no devil, is he?’ She nodded towards her father. ‘Didn’t he father us? Who made Arwel and me? Don’t you know? Were there so many?’ She advanced towards her mother and grabbed her shoulders, feeling bone thin beneath her fingers. ‘Tell me, you dirty whore! Who fathered us?’ She began to shake the woman, watching the head jerk, hearing the teeth rattle. ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me!’ she intoned, watching night press itself to the grimy window, thin reflections of herself and the man and woman silent in the darkness beyond.

  ‘Tell me!’ she screamed. ‘For Christ’s sake tell me!’

  Patrolling the dingy basements of Caernarfon, a young policeman found Mandy trying to breach the rear doors of the Market Hall, in search of food and shelter. She struggled once or twice as they waited for a woman officer to walk from Castle Ditch, then slumped on the steps of the building and smoked the cigarette he offered, deciding to say nothing, hoping to evade the return to Blodwel which would follow identification, knowing the police would feed and house her, at least for a while. As the trio walked into darker shadow by the castle walls, Mandy thought she might say her name was “Carol Thomas”, that she was almost eighteen years old, and that she was going to have a baby, and as she giggled to herself, the policewoman jerked her arm, then hustled her up the steps and into the fuggy warmth of the police station.

  Janet sat in the passenger seat of McKenna’s car, her subtle perfume mingling with the scents of damp night and warm engine. Sometimes, McKenna thought he detected vestiges of the chapel scent about her person: prayer books and hymnals and the muskiness of old wood.

  ‘You must be sick of the trouble these kids are causing, sir.’

  ‘We can stop worrying about Mandy for a while.’

  ‘I wonder why she didn’t go home?’ Janet asked.

  ‘Because she knows she’s not welcome.’

  Janet smiled. ‘She said she’s expecting. I can’t think what she hopes to gain.’

  ‘A respite from that dreadful children’s home, I imagine.’ McKenna pushed the accelerator, wanting to bring the journey to an early end. Breasting the bypass, headlamps swinging wide arcs in the sky, the car drifted momentarily as the rear wheels hit a patch of black ice.

  ‘Is Blodwel really as bad as we think?’ Janet asked. ‘Aren’t we perhaps getting things out of proportion?’

  ‘Blodwel is as bad as we think, if not worse. I have nothing out of proportion.’

  Jeans muddied, suedette boots scuffed and stained, jacket hung awry from skinny shoulders, Mandy lounged on a bench in the detention room, sucking her thumb, staring at the police officers who crowded the doorway, her eyes flicking from one to the other.

  ‘A social worker should be here,’ Janet pointed out. ‘She’s still a minor.’

  ‘D’you want a social worker?’ McKenna asked.

  Mandy wrapped her lips more firmly around the thumb, gnawing at the knuckle, then shook her head.

  ‘That’s disposed of that issue.’ The room smelt musty, its painted walls sweating with cold. ‘D’you want to talk to me, to WDC Evans, or both of us?’

  Shrugging, Mandy sat up straight and put her feet on the floor. ‘Makes no odds. You’ll still send me back.’

  McKenna sat down beside her. ‘I don’t know we’ve any choice. You’re in care.’

  The girl smiled wryly. ‘Yeah, I am, aren’t I?’

  ‘Why did you run away?’

  ‘Why not?’ Mandy frowned, and began to pick at a loose thread on her sleeve.

  ‘What happened after we took you back the other night?’

  She watched her fingers pluck the stitching apart.

  ‘We called the next day, but the staff said you were ill.’

  ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

  ‘Was that because you’d been drinking?’

  ‘Yeah, it might’ve been.’

  ‘Could there be another reason?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Turning attention to her bootlaces, Mandy leaned forward, cloudy brilliant hair obscuring her face, slowly untying both laces, then retying them, pulling each taut before fashioning neat little bows, each loose end meticulously matched to the other.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘What’s the point? You won’t do nothing. Nobody every does.’

  ‘Are you pregnant?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since I don’t know! Right?’ The girl looked up, eyes fiery as her hair.

  ‘You must have some idea.’

  ‘Yeah, I must, mustn’t I?’ She nodded and sat back, leaning her head against the sweaty walls, closing her eyes, putting out the fire.

  Janet moved, shoes squeaking on the floor, and took Mandy’s limp small hands in her own. ‘We want to help you.’

  The eyes flew open, fires alight. ‘Help? You’ll take me back, whatever I say!’

  ‘Depends on what you have to say,’ McKenna said. ‘Why not give us a chance?’

  ‘You can’t do nothing.’ The girl was adamant, wrenching her hands from Janet’s grasp. ‘I’m not talking to you, so nobody can say I said anything.’

  ‘People might think you have anyway,’ McKenna said. ‘Blame you for something you haven’t done.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’

  ‘What happens when you get blamed?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what it is?’

  ‘Did Tony Jones get blamed for somet
hing?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘I would if I knew where to find him.’

  ‘He’s in a lock-up in South Wales, and he’s only got himself to blame.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Who said what?’

  ‘Have you seen Gary Hughes recently?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I’d like to know. I’m worried about him.’

  ‘He’s better off than he was.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Not in that dump, is he?’ Mandy looked up, eyes dulled and lifeless. ‘When you taking me back?’

  ‘When d’you want to go back?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘Up to you, isn’t it?’ She unfastened the laces, and began the ritual tying.

  ‘Did someone hit you the other night?’ McKenna asked. ‘You should tell me, because I can’t take you back if you won’t be safe.’

  ‘Hogg said nobody’ll have me except the lock-up for girls. It’s called Puddlechurch, or something.’

  ‘Why should you be locked up? You haven’t committed a crime.’

  ‘Tony was, and he hadn’t.’

  ‘Maybe someone thought he had.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Mandy announced. ‘And maybe they thought he’d opened his gob, like they’ll think I have.’

  ‘I can tell Blodwel staff you said nothing of any consequence.’

  ‘Are you pregnant?’ Janet intervened. ‘You should say, so you can be looked after properly.’

  ‘Like Donna, you mean?’

  ‘Donna?’ Janet asked. ‘Have I met her?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know who you’ve met?’

  ‘Is Donna at Blodwel?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘The social worker got her a flat off the council.’

  ‘She’d be entitled with a baby,’ Janet said.

  ‘I said she was expecting!’ Mandy snapped, glaring at Janet. ‘I didn’t say she’d had it.’

  ‘So when’s it due?’

  ‘They got rid of it, didn’t they?’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Doris took her somewhere. Donna told me, ’cos she was sick with the pain. She bled all over the bed, and Dilys had to get clean sheets, and she was scared.’