Chapter 10

“I think I’ll make Jenny the pasta I was going to make last night,” Poppy said as she set about preparing dinner, “but I’ll use chicken instead of the tofu I bought, or maybe I’ll use the tofu and almond milk. Yeah, let’s do it, see if she notices it’s all vegan.”

“I’m sure we’ll like whatever you make.”

“If she doesn’t like it I’m not going to put any effort into trying to get you two together, you can only date girls who like my cooking.”

“I’m not sure I’m happy with you trying to fix us up...”

“Come on, it’ll be fun, you said it yourself, she’s pretty, and it definitely sounded like she was flirting with you.”

“Just don’t do anything to upset her.”

“Oh no, I won’t push her, just a bit of flirty behaviour, then I’ll send her in your direction. Anyway, is white wine vegan?”

“I can’t see how it wouldn’t be.”

“Pretty sure I read somewhere they use fish when they’re making it, which sounds beyond bizarre.” Poppy said, looking puzzled.

“Nita drinks wine.”

“Oh yeah, I need some to make the marinade for the tofu, do we have a bottle open, save wasting fresh.”

I found a half empty bottle in the wine fridge and put it next to her ingredients on the work top, “do you need a hand?”

“I just need a quick cuddle, then you can go watch telly or something and leave me to do the cooking.”

I went upstairs to check my emails, Lois had sent my final draft back with a couple of suggested edits, I checked them and they made total sense, so I marked them as ok and sent it back, then on a whim I forwarded the book to Katie, with a cover note asking her not to let anyone else read it. I could make the file scramble itself after 14 days to stop her passing it on, but she’ll be living here soon, so what’s the point in doing that?

I checked the time and shut my iMac down, popped into the bathroom to tidy my hair and spray on a bit of CK Everyone.

“You smell nice,” Poppy said as I walked behind her to pull a bag of coffee beans from the freezer.

“Don’t I usually smell nice?”

“Well, you don’t smell bad normally, but you smell extra nice today, are you making a special effort for PC Jenny?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about...”

“You are, and you’ve put a bit of gel in your hair to keep it neat, hahaha, you do fancy her don’t you...”

“Well, yes, she is pretty, and she’s close to my age, but I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me, here’s me saying I’m going to fix you up with PC Jenny and you telling me not to, when all along that’s what you want me to do, is this your way of playing hard to get?”

“It’s just I’d rather not complicate things more than they already are.”

“Listen Alex, you’re the one who explained to me that it’s possible to love more than one person at once, and I’m not for a minute expecting you to move Jenny into the house, especially as she’s a cop, and their lives are full on, but if she’s up for a bit of fun in her downtime, then I’m just suggesting that maybe you can be there to provide it, while I have my fun with Katie.”

“Do you know something Poppy, and don’t take this as any comment about you, this is entirely me, but in the last week I’ve doubled my so-called ‘body count’, prior to you I’d slept with three women, Tammy, who I was with for almost 5 years, a girl at University called Jessica, I was with her for my whole time at Uni, we separated after graduation because she got accepted to do a Masters in Sydney and I didn’t want to move to Australia, and then I had a short fling with a woman called Demmy after Tammy, we met at a book launch party, Helen tried to fix us up but it was just a rebound thing and it was a disaster.”

“So you’ve not been with anyone since Demmy, and that was what, five years ago?”

“Yep, I was never one to sleep around you see, and all that changed when I met you.”

“Are you upset, have I, I don’t know, have I messed up your life?”

“Good god no, you’ve not messed up my life, I’m happier now than I’ve been in years, all I’m saying is that my sex life has never been as exciting as it’s been these last few weeks, and I’m happy as I am, you don’t need to find me a partner for the times you want to be with someone else.”

“Should I not try to encourage PC Jenny then?”

“Ahh, I didn’t say that, but if it’s clearly not going to work for us, don’t worry, and don’t dash out to find someone else.”

“Ok dad, err, what’s the sitch with PC Jenny again? She knows about us right, so I can call you Alex, or is it dad. Shit, I’m getting myself confused now!”

“She knows, she guessed, so call me Alex, in fact, just call me Alex anyway, a lot of kids use their parents’ first names these days.”

Any further discussion was halted by the gate buzzer, “she’s early Alex, that means she’s keen.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m a girl remember, I know these things, if she wasn’t sure she’d still be at the end of the block making her mind up. Go let her in while I put the pasta bake in the oven.”

I used my phone to swipe the gate open as I walked to the door, thinking calm thoughts, because my heart was racing, Poppy was spot on, I really did like PC Jenny.

As I stood in the doorway I held my hand out to shake Jenny’s, she pulled me into a hug, and as I got over my surprise at the greeting Jenny whispered in my ear “your neighbours have been watching me, I hope I didn’t cause problems coming round in full uniform the other night.”

As I led her inside I laughed, “don’t worry about them, we hate all our neighbours, don’t we Poppy.”

“Oh god yes, they all ignored me when I was waiting in the pissing rain at the bus stop, they all walked past me and it was only Alex who stopped and told me buses don’t come down this road anymore. Anyway, welcome to our home Jenny,” Poppy said as she hugged Jenny, “in better circumstances than your last visit.”

“Well, up to a point, I’ve been looking forward to coming for dinner, but I do have some questions for later, and some photos I want you to look at.”

“I’ve just put the food in the oven, so we’ve got half an hour, is that long enough?”

“I’d say so.”

“Come through to the kitchen, would you like coffee, or maybe some wine?”

“It’s Sunday, and I’m not due in work until noon tomorrow, so I guess I can have some wine, thank you Poppy.”

As Poppy poured wine Jenny sat across from me at the kitchen table and pulled a folder from her bag. Poppy sat beside me and took a sip of her wine, “ahh, am I ok drinking wine, I’m not 18.”

“Shit Poppy,” Jenny laughed, “I’m not in uniform today, you can do whatever you like.”

“Thanks, sometimes I get nervous about the weirdest things.”

“Ok, before we start, a couple of hours ago I tracked down your friend Jeremy,” she must have seen Poppy go pale, because again she reassured her this was all unofficial, “look Poppy, I’m just gathering evidence so I can start an investigation, once I have evidence we can do all this properly, in the meantime everything I hear is off the record, anyway, I spoke to Jeremy as several other people pointed me in his direction, he told me someone else asked the same questions the other day, I’m assuming that’s you, because he gave me no names. Anyway, he told me nothing new, he did ask me to tell you that Evie is awake, she’s told them what she was on and who gave it to her, I’m assuming that means something, he also told me to tell you to consider the matter closed, does that mean anything?”

Poppy dabbed her eyes with her napkin, “she’s awake, we saved her Alex, if we hadn’t got to the shop too early so we went for a wander we wouldn’t have found her, and she’d be dead.”

“Maybe you are an angel, Poppy.”

“Don’t be silly Alex, I’m no angel, but something led me down that alley. Anyway,” she looked at Jenny, “thanks for that, Evie is a girl I shared a squat with, I say girl, she’s more your age, we found her this morning and she’d OD’d on something, Jeremy had some of his colleagues take her to a shelter where they have doctors, it was quicker and simpler than taking her to hospital.”

“And less paperwork, anyway, I heard none of that, so it’s not my concern. I’ve got some photos to show you, they’re just faces, nothing distressing, I’ve taken them from the missing persons files, could you see if you recognise anyone.”

“I’ll try, but if I know people I’ll probably only know street names.”

Jenny slipped a small stack of photos out of the folder, she laid them out in a row, nine in all.

“These are the ones who matched your description of Gemma, I’ve a couple of thousand more back in the office.”

“Fuck,” Poppy said under her breath, “that many? How many more are like me, on the streets but never reported missing.”

“Weren’t you reported missing? That’ll be why we didn’t know about you, you won’t have been flagged with your mother when we searched her file, I’m so sorry Poppy.”

“It’s ok, Oh god Alex, we were going to see her today and we got sidetracked, can we go Tuesday afternoon, I’ve got a study period again.”

“Of course we can, I’ll get a car booked.”

Poppy looked at the photos, “are these all alive, I mean, these weren’t taken in the morgue or anything.”

“These are all photos sent by parents of their missing daughters.”

“Thanks, it would be a bit creepy otherwise.”

She picked up each photo in turn, she spent a full minute looking at each one, gathering every detail she could before putting it to one side.

As she looked at the seventh photo her eyes lit up, she put that to one side without even examining it properly, she spent time on eight and nine, then she looked up at Jenny.

“This one,” showing her the seventh photo, “is Belle, she was my best friend on the streets, I know nothing about her other than she’s lovely and has no place living rough in squats.”

“Her real name is Amelia Dean, she’s 14, almost 15, and was reported missing by her uncle last year. She ran away after her parents died in a car crash. She lived in York.”

Poppy was silent for a while, just looking at Belle’s photo, eventually she looked at me, “see, that’s why we never ask, there’s never a nice reason why someone is on the streets.”

She looked at Jenny, “can I keep this, please?”

“Of course you can, does she mean a lot to you?”

“She does, I kept her safe.”

“Do you know where she is now, so I can tell her uncle?”

“Sorry, we lost track of each other after the squat we lived in was demolished.”

Poppy turned back to the other photos, she spread them out across the table, she turned number one over, “I’m sorry, I kind of recognise this girl, but I don’t know her name or where I saw her.”

Number two and three were also turned over, “never seen these two at all.”

Number four she pushed towards Jenny, “this girl is called Moon, or at least that’s what she’s called on the streets, she’s living with about 20 other concubines in a squat run by a guy called Dhanesh off Blackstock Road in Highbury, Jeremy can tell you exactly where it is, tell him Poppy says it’s the Jainian guy, he’ll know who you mean. I was so creeped out by that setup, but I didn’t realise any of his harem were so young.”

Number five and six were also turned over, she picked up number eight and looked at it again before passing it to Jenny, “this is Gemma, I’m sure of it.”

She touched number nine, “this is Carmen, she was stabbed to death by a client one night because she wouldn’t do him for free, I feel a bit conflicted because I didn’t like her at all, we voted to keep her out of our squat, but she didn’t deserve to die like that. Are these all girls around Gemma’s age, because I thought Carmen was older.”

“Yes, these are all girls between 14 and 15-years-old.”

“Shit, this is horrible.”

“This is a great help, now we know who Gemma is, we can tell her parents.”

“I was thinking about that, what’s worse, having her missing, but always being able to hope she’ll come back, or knowing she’s dead, and died in a really appalling way.”

“Until we find her body we can’t tell her parents anything, and this may be one of those occasions when we neglect to tell them the cause of death.”

“So what will you do now?” Poppy asked.

“We have some hair samples on file, so now we’ll run them through the DNA database to see if she matches any bodies we’ve found. Then we can tell her parents.”

“Can I come into your office and look at more photos? I’d really like to help in any way I can.”

“Of course, you need to come in to sign your statement, we can let you look through the photo archive then.”

Poppy looked at me, “can we do that tomorrow after school, I really need to feel useful right now, because I’m a little helpless on the Evie front, so this will help me feel like I’m doing something productive.”

“Of course, will you be available around 4 o’clock tomorrow?”

“I can make myself available.”

“Great, this will probably upset me greatly, but I really have to do this.”

Just then the oven timer pinged.

“That’s tea nearly ready, make yourself useful by setting the table in the dining room,” Poppy said to me, “while I pop the garlic breads in the oven to warm up.”

Ten minutes later Poppy brought a serving dish into the dining room, followed by a plate of sliced garlic bread. As she dished it out, Jenny first, followed by my plate, then her own, she told Jenny, “I know you said you would eat anything, I was going to make this for my aunties yesterday, Nita, Alex’s sister’s girlfriend, is vegan, so I planned this menu, then we had a bit of a crisis with my friend Katie, so I didn’t have time to cook, so we went to this amazing Nepalese place near Barclays...”

“Oh, I know that place, is it good.”

“It’s great, I had no idea what to order, so I told the waiter to bring me anything he liked, I got this yak cheese pizza and some mutton dumplings, it was great.”

“Amazing, I live in a flat at the other end of that road, I’ll try it out one night.”

“Cool, if you don’t want to eat alone...” Poppy said as she poured more wine.

“If this tastes as good as it smells I think I’ll save my money and let you feed me,” Jenny laughed as she took a bite of the garlic bread.

“So, anyway,” Poppy said, “the food is completely vegan, I was going to use chicken, but I thought I’d leave the chicken for later and use the same recipe I was using for Nita and Helen.”

“This is really good,” Jenny said, “so, it’s tofu and mushrooms, but what’s the sauce?”

“It’s wine and almond milk, and some mustard powder to thicken it, there’s some debate about the wine being vegan, but we’re ignoring that because Nita drinks this wine.”

“I love it, thank you, it’s nice to have a meal cooked for me.”

“Don’t you have a boyfriend to cook for you?”

“Nope, nor a girlfriend, it’s just me, my plants and my cuddly penguins.”

“Awww, that’s sad, you’re so pretty.”

“Thank you Poppy, but it’s hard holding down a relationship when you work as many hours as we do, and sometimes the things we see, and read about, when you come home and vent, it kind of makes potential boyfriends and girlfriends run away, my penguins are good listeners, and they don’t judge.”

Poppy and Jenny both had a second helping of the pasta while I warmed up an apple pie for dessert. As I was cutting the pie Poppy brought the plates through and rinsed them before stacking them in the dishwasher.

She stopped and wrapped her arm around my waist before going back to the dining room, “she likes you, I can tell,” she whispered before giving me a quick kiss on the cheek, “this cologne is nice by the way, you should wear it more often, not too masculine.”

I took the hot apple pie into the dining room with a tub of rich Madagascan Vanilla ice cream, this was very well received.

Afterwards we moved to the lounge, Poppy put some quiet music on and we sat on the big sofa with Jenny in the middle, she didn’t appear to be anything but pleased with this arrangement.

“You know when you find a runaway,” Poppy started, “what if she doesn’t want to go home?”

“Well, if she’s over 16 then we can’t force her to return home, she’s free to live on the streets, we’ll refer her to social services, offer guidance, but we can’t take her home if she doesn’t want to go. The same with boys obviously.”

“Urghh, Social Services are useless, they wanted to take me back home, I had to climb out of the toilet window to escape from them, no fucking way was I going back to that hell hole.”

“In most cases the children are safe to go home, teenage emotions run sky high, and the smallest disagreements often escalate and lead to children running away. Yes, there are cases like yours when going home would be a potential death sentence, and we have to balance everything and sometimes we have to make very tough decisions about what to do with a child. In Gemma’s case, everything I’ve read about her family suggests she would have been safe going home, but we never know what happens in private.”

“Exactly,” Poppy cried, “nobody at my school knew what was going on at home, I turned up every day, I never had bruises that showed and I always had an excuse if they did show in PE or whatever. Even when my mum was away, sometimes she’d go with a guy and not come back for two or three days, I went to school, and I could cook for myself, or make a sandwich, or just manage with the school breakfast club and dinner.”

“I assume Gemma never mentioned home...”

“Never, nobody talks about home. The first rule of runaway club is never talk about why you ran away.”

“I guess life is shit enough without bringing other people down with depressing stories of home.”

“Exactly, now if I was to tell you about where you could find a load of girls, but also at the same time a load of paedophiles, what would be your priority in that situation?”