This Little Piggy

by Bea Davenport

  Tuesday 24th July

  The day didn’t get off to a good start for Clare when she called in to find that Dave Bell was on leave and it was Sharon Catt waiting to take her news list.

  “Okay, well, to start with, there’s the opening of the inquest into Debs Donnelly, down at the coroner’s court this morning. I’m expecting that…”

  “We’ve got Chris Barber down to do the inquest.”

  “How come?”

  “Because we have. It’s the biggest story of the day and he’s our chief reporter.”

  “I’m not likely to forget that, Sharon. But this is supposed to be my patch. And actually, I don’t think…”

  “Clare, I don’t have time to argue with some prima donna reporter who thinks she should get the splash every single day. What else have you got?”

  Clare decided not to tell Catt that it was quite likely the inquest would be opened but go no further, meaning there wouldn’t be a lot to say. Her diary also read: Police protestors up in court? She decided not to mention that. The coroner’s court and the magistrates’ courts were in the same building and she didn’t want Barber to get that story too. “Umm, otherwise it’s looking a bit quiet. Tell you what, Sharon, I’ll have a dig around and come back to you in an hour or so.” Then she headed for the car and drove to court.

  Around ten men and women were standing in a small huddle outside in the car park, smoking. Clare recognised some of them from the protest. The usher directed her into Court One, where Geoff Powburn was sitting, just in front of the press bench. He swivelled round to chat. “How’s your social worker training going?”

  “Eh?” Clare gave him a baffled smile.

  “The last time we spoke you were worried about some child that was being neglected?”

  “Oh. That. No, everything’s fine now. You expecting much here?”

  Geoff nodded. “I am, as a matter of fact. Word is the magistrates are going to come down hard on these protestors. Make an example of them and stave off any more trouble from Sweetmeadows. And if they do, there’ll be problems, because some of them are strikers and no way have they got money for a big fine.”

  As the magistrates came in, Clare recognised two local councillors on the bench, who were well-known for taking a tough stance when they sat in court. She sat with her pen at the ready. These two were unlikely to be sympathetic to anyone accused of causing an affray. Nor were they disposed to be in favour of the miners’ strike.

  Sure enough, the magistrates refused to agree to the group being bound over to keep the peace. Instead, they heard charges of violent disorder and suggested the maximum possible fine, to be paid back at a high weekly rate. There were little gasps from the defendants and their friends and family in the public seats, and one of the magistrates told everyone to be quiet.

  The hapless duty lawyer stood up. “Your worships, all of the defendants are currently not working and are struggling financially. The defendants Wilson, Cook and George are miners and you will be aware of their present situation, in that they are on strike and not currently earning a wage…”

  “Perhaps they might consider going back to work,” a magistrate commented, to an audible intake of breath from members of the public.

  The duty lawyer didn’t comment on this. He continued, “Mrs Johnson is a single mother of two children and owing to a dispute with the Department of Health and Social Security, she has received no benefits for two weeks…”

  “If the defendants are saying they are unable to meet a fine then the other option available to the bench is a short prison sentence,” said one of the magistrates, as the clerk, sitting in front of the bench, visibly cringed and stared down at his law books.

  The people in the public seats started to whisper amongst themselves. The magistrate smacked the desk. “If there is any more disorder in the court I will ask that you all be charged with contempt.”

  In the end, three of the eight were given two-month jail sentences and were taken down into the police cells with bewildered expressions on their faces. The others agreed to heavy fines and Clare guessed it would only be a week or two before they were back in the dock for non-payment. Everyone stood up as the magistrates filed out of court. Geoff Powburn swivelled round to look at Clare and gave a little whistle. “What did I tell you?”

  Clare shook her head. “Unbelievable. I don’t see the sense in that, to be honest.”

  It was at that point that Joe appeared at the court room door. “You’re here. Thank god for that. I’ve just wasted an hour sitting in an inquest and it’s going to make the grand total of two pars of copy. And I’ve missed the protestors.”

  “You certainly have.” Clare looked past him. “Chris Barber isn’t on your tail, is he?”

  “He didn’t know about this so I damn well wasn’t going to tell him. If it makes you feel any better, the whole thing took ages because the coroner dealt with a whole load of admin first. And then it was only opened and adjourned because they haven’t got a full pathologist’s report. So he’ll hardly get anything out of it at all. Certainly not a big enough piece for a by-line.”

  Clare grinned. “Excellent. Come and listen while I phone the story in, and you can take it all down. Then we’ll go get some reaction down at Sweetmeadows.”

  On the estate, Clare felt she could almost taste the worsening mood. Clusters of people were standing around talking, with grim expressions on their faces. She overheard a small group of young teenagers complaining about ‘fascist pigs’.

  A woman came up and jabbed a finger at Clare and Joe. “You want to write something about the way this estate’s been written off. No one’s listening to us. There are kids round here who can’t sleep at night because some psycho’s on the loose. The coppers say we all know who killed the bairn but that we’re not saying. It’s a lie. They just think we’re scum.”

  “That’s right.” Another woman joined her. “My brother-in-law’s just been sent down, all because we went to tell the police what we thought of them. My sister’s in bits. And in the meantime someone who’s killed a kiddie is still wandering the streets. Our streets.”

  “That’s the trouble with living here,” the first woman went on. “You get branded. If it was some posh couple’s baby, the police wouldn’t drive the mother to her grave by making out it was her that did it. And if anyone else complains about the police they have to sit up and take notice. But when it’s Sweetmeadows, it’s just, oh, it’s that lot again. They call us swine and treat us like rubbish. Bastards.”

  Clare and Joe were soon surrounded by people, shouting about how badly they’d been treated, how the investigation was a joke, how the fines and prison sentences were unfair. They could barely take notes fast enough. Afterwards, with pages of hurried shorthand to compare, they headed for Joe’s car. Clare sat back and took a deep breath. “Wow. That was quite some reaction. Fury on the ‘Forgotten’ Estate.”

  “Let’s get it written up. I’ll buy you a drink. I promise not to tell you how to live your life this time.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “I’m sorry.” Joe gave an embarrassed smile. “It’s just that you haven’t seemed yourself, for ages now. You always look a bit, I don’t know, strained.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Sorry. Did I say strained? I meant gorgeous.”

  Clare smacked Joe on the thigh. “Stop that right now.”

  “But still strained,” he went on. “You’ve been working too hard, I reckon, and I totally understand it. It’s because you want to prove they made a mistake in not giving you that job. But I think you’re over-tired and not always making the best decisions. That’s all.”

  Clare put her hand on the car door. “What happened to ‘I won’t tell you how to live your life’? It took you about thirty seconds to break that promise.”

  Joe screwed up his face. “Damn. Sorry again. I will shut up now, honest.”

  “Okay. I mean it. You’re a good mate, but if you tell me once more th
at I look like hell or that I’m losing my mind, I will find someone else to go drinking with.”

  “Like Finn McKenna?”

  Clare swore. “You can’t leave it alone, can you?” She pushed the car door open. “I’ve had it, Joe. Come and see me when you’ve remembered that I’m all grown up and I don’t need a minder.”

  “Sorry!” Joe leaned out of the car and tried to persuade her to get back in. But she strode off towards the office.

  “Another front page,” Jai commented as she walked into the shop. “I don’t think you ever stop working.”

  “Yeah?” Clare picked up the evening paper and smiled as she read her by-line. The report continued onto Page Three, where a small sidebar mentioned that an inquest had been opened into the death of Deborah Donnelly, the mother of murdered baby Jamie. “Two whole sentences on the inquest. Great morning’s work for a chief reporter.”

  She took great pleasure in ringing Sharon Catt. “I’ve got some brilliant reaction to the court sentences. The people on the estate are really angry.”

  “Get it sent over, then.” Catt didn’t sound as pleased as a duty news editor should sound, when they’ve just been offered a lead story.

  “I’m about to. I just wanted to give you a heads-up.” Clare paused for a moment. “Not much came out of the inquest, then. Bit of a waste of Chris’s time.”

  There was a second’s silence on the end of the phone. Clare pictured Catt gritting her teeth.

  “Don’t gloat, Clare. I wish you’d start acting more professionally.”

  “Professionally? Sharon, you sent me out to a district office and you knew I didn’t want to go. But ever since, I’ve worked really hard. I come in every day and sometimes at nights and weekends and I never complain about it. How is that unprofessional?”

  “You’re still resentful about not getting the chief reporter’s job, that’s obvious. Even though you didn’t turn up on the day of the interview and didn’t even bother to give us a call. For days, remember? We had to send Dave Bell round to bang on your door to make sure you weren’t dead. And then we got some pathetic story about having a virus. Talk about ‘the dog ate my homework’. You might be able to bat your lashes at Dave and the other men in the office, but you’ve got some way to go before I think of you as professional. And you’ve only got yourself to blame, so stop trying to make Chris Barber into Public Enemy Number One.”

  Clare blinked hard, surprised at how much Catt’s words stung. She held the phone away from her face so that she could try to gulp back her urge to cry, without Catt hearing her. She swallowed and hoped her voice wouldn’t come out too thick. “Okay. Point taken.” She put the receiver back in its cradle and reached for a tissue. She held it, scrunched up, against her wet eyes for a few minutes. She could easily rescue her reputation, just by being honest about what had happened on the day of the job interview. But she couldn’t bear the thought of everyone knowing about it.

  seven

  The phone rang again. Clare took a deep breath before picking up the handset.

  “Hi, Clare, it’s Amy. I might have a scoop for you.”

  Clare couldn’t help smiling when Amy used words like that. She hadn’t the heart to say that real reporters would never say ‘scoop’ these days. “Go on, then.”

  “You have to come and see it.”

  It turned out to be quite a good story, about one of Amy’s neighbours who’d found a cockroach crawling in her baby’s cot. When she’d seen the state of the flat, with its patches of black fungus growing on the walls and its insect infestations, Clare knew she could write a weighty feature about the conditions in the last occupied flats on the estate. A quick quote from the council would finish it off. Another double-page spread, Clare reckoned.

  On their way out, Amy linked her arm into Clare’s. “Have you noticed anything?”

  “Like what?”

  Amy stopped and sniffed the warm air. “I’m not sure. But it’s like… it’s like something’s about to happen.”

  Clare looked at her and frowned. “What sort of thing?”

  “I don’t know, do I? I’m not Russell Grant or someone, am I? I can’t, like…” she wiggled her fingers in the air, “…see into the future. But it just feels different round here.”

  “In what way, different?”

  Amy screwed up her face. “It’s hard to say. But the air is all buzzy. It felt like that before Jamie died too. I could sort of smell it. Like something’s about to change.”

  “I wish I knew what you meant.”

  Amy traced a circle round and round with her toe. “I wish I knew what I meant, too.”

  “You’re a funny girl, Amy.”

  Amy gave a little sigh. “That’s what everyone says.”

  Clare nudged her gently. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”

  “Good. ’Cos that’s what most people mean.”

  The strangely mournful-sounding ice-cream van cruised slowly around the corner. “Want a lolly?” Clare asked, glad to change the subject.

  “Yessss. Can I have a Funny Feet?”

  They sat on a low brick wall and Clare handed Amy the lolly. It started melting its Germolene-pink drips almost straight away, but Amy was deft at catching them with her tongue.

  “Baby Jamie loved ice-cream,” she said. “If I had one I would put a bit on my finger and he would lick it off. He loved it.”

  “You still missing him?”

  Amy nodded and for a few moments she stopped eating and let the lolly drip onto the floor. “I’ve got no one to sing to any more. Or do games with. He used to like doing Round-and-round-the-garden, and having his toes tickled.”

  “Try not to think about it,” Clare said. “I know that’s hard, but you should try not to dwell on it like this.”

  Amy turned her attention back to the ice lolly.

  “So you think there’s a strange atmosphere on the estate?” Clare tried again.

  Amy frowned. “A strange what?”

  “You know, like things feel odd and different. You were saying that, remember?”

  Amy nodded and made a slurping sound as she tried to stop any drops of ice-cream from falling to the ground. “I don’t know how to say it. It’s like things are all shifting about. Changing. But I don’t know how, really.”

  “What makes you feel like that?”

  Amy stared around her and sighed, trying to find words that would properly explain her thoughts. Clare watched her, remembering how it sometimes felt as a child to lack the right words to tell someone how you felt. To know that something was happening but not to understand it.

  “Everyone’s cross or sad or worried. More than usual, I mean. And the kids hardly ever come out to play anymore. All anyone talks about is baby Jamie or the strike or not having any money. No one says anything nice or funny these days.”

  Clare looked at the ground. Not just on Sweetmeadows, she thought. “These are hard days, Amy, for lots of people. You’re right. And when something really bad happens – you know, like Jamie being killed – people can feel it’s wrong to be happy. At least for a while.”

  “And there are these boys that hang around at night,” Amy went on. “Some girls too. And they have stuff to drink and they shout and throw things around. A woman told them off and they smashed her windows. I get scared of them. I can’t sleep when they’re out there.”

  “Has anyone told the police about them?”

  Amy gave Clare a pitying look. “The police? Nah. Why would they? They wouldn’t do anything to stop it, anyway.”

  “So how long’s this been going on?”

  Amy gave a little shrug. “Three or four nights. I watch them from my bedroom but I keep the light out. I don’t want them to see me watching.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “A couple of them. One of them’s the brother of a boy in my class. He stopped coming to school a while ago, though.”

  “I’m sorry you’re scared. But they’re not interested in you, Amy,
they’re just letting off steam. They’ll soon get sick of hanging around here with nothing to do. Especially when the weather gets colder or it starts to rain.”

  “I wish it would rain.”

  “You do?” Clare smiled. “How come?”

  “Maybe then it won’t feel so… crackly. Maybe some of the bad stuff here will get all washed away.”

  Clare nodded. “The funny thing is, you’re right. People do fewer crimes in bad weather. Look, I need to pop back to my office to finish some work. But I’ll come back tomorrow. I might get a story out of the way these yobs are terrorising people on the estate. Ask your mum if I can talk to her about it, will you?”

  Amy pouted. “You’ll be lucky getting any sense out of me mam these days. She’s got this new bloke and she spends all her time running after him. I hate him.”

  “Why do you hate him?”

  Amy made a face. “Just because.”

  Clare glanced at her watch. “Ask your mum anyway. And if there are any other mums I could chat to, you could point me towards them, yeah?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Clare waved Amy goodbye, and headed for the nearest phone box to call the picture desk. “Hey, Stewie? I’m glad it’s you. I need you to come to your favourite place. Yes, Sweetmeadows. I need you to take a pic of a cockroach in a jar.”

  Wednesday 25th July

  It didn’t take long for Clare to find people on Sweetmeadows to complain about the way small gangs of teenagers were disturbing the estate at nights, although she preferred the word ‘terrorising’. Yobs terror on murder estate.

  As she knew she would get stuck there for a while, Amy’s mum was her last door-knock of the day. She was half-surprised to find that Tina was around, pale and sleepy-looking, and she was even more surprised to be let into the flat. Usually, even Amy kept her standing outside the door.

  The place smelled heavily of cigarettes, unwashed clothes and dog. Like most of the living rooms Clare had seen in the last couple of weeks, the place was sparsely furnished: a sofa, a rug so coated in dog hairs that it was difficult to guess at its original colour, a TV, a plug-in electric fire. There were no pictures on the wall.