Chapter 11

Jenny went to the bathroom and washed her face, she returned as Poppy and I were putting our coats on.

“Alex doesn’t normally walk me to school,” Poppy explained, “I’m a big girl now, and it’s only a few minutes away, but Katie is moving in, so she’s bringing some stuff to school, Alex will collect it and bring it home.”

“You can walk with us if you like,” I suggested, “unless you have to dash off home.”

“I’d like that,” Jenny replied, “a nice walk in the park will clear my head.”

A few minutes later we were waiting by the school entrance, soon Katie appeared round the corner with two small suitcases, she put them down and gave Poppy a hug.

“Hello Mr Harrison,” Katie said as she gave me a quick hug, “I don’t know how to thank you for your kindness.”

“You can start by calling me Alex.”

“Sorry, still a bit weird calling an adult by their first name, oh hello,” Katie said as she realised Jenny was with us.

“Oh yeah, this is PC Jenny,” Poppy said, introducing Jenny.

Jenny put her hand out, “just Jenny when I’m off duty, I’m Alex’s, err, girlfriend I guess.”

“Amazing, so nice to meet you, I’m Katie, Poppy’s, err, girlfriend I guess, and I’m moving in because my parents are going on tour for a couple of years.”

“Where are they going?”

“All over, mum’s a pianist and she’s got a job on one of those massive cruise ships, if I’d not been able to move in with Poppy I’d have had to move to a boarding school, a nightmare in GCSE year.”

Poppy kissed Jenny, “got to go now, I’ll see you at the police station later, we can talk more about Molly if you like,” she said.

“It’s ok honey, there’s not really anything more to discuss.”

“Feelings, we need to talk about loss, and your feelings for Molly, you need to get it off your chest. I’m a good listener, and so is Alex.”

“Thank you, let’s talk about that after I finish work.”

Once Poppy and Katie had gone through the gates I picked up the two cases and we took a walk through the park, stopping for a coffee.

Kelly brought our drinks out, she stopped suddenly as she got to the table, “oh, hey Jenny, we don’t normally see you this early in the morning.”

“Hey Kelly, I’ve been with Alex, I stopped over.”

“Oh right, where’s the other girl Alex, you’ve not dumped her so soon.”

“Ahh, that’s a long story, she was never my girlfriend, we were just kidding, Poppy is my foster daughter.”

“Oh, really, I wondered why she was wearing the school uniform.”

“Yeah, she was homeless, so I’ve taken her in, my good deed for the year.”

“Right, I guess it’s all change in your house, after being empty for so long, to having a daughter and a girlfriend.”

“Oh it is, so much better with a few extra people filling it up, Poppy’s friend is moving in at the weekend, so that’ll be all the bedrooms filled.”

Just then Helen walked over, “I just called round and you were out, so I guessed you’d be here, and you have a friend.”

“Can you fetch a coffee and a cheese and ham toastie for Helen please.”

“No problem,” Kelly replied.

“Hey Helen, how’s it going?” I asked.

“I was coming over to start on Katie’s room, and you just completely failed to mention your friend.”

“That’s because I want to annoy you, Helen meet Jenny, Jenny meet Helen, my sister.”

“Oh, you’re PC Jenny, Poppy mentioned you, she’s right, you are pretty. Tell me everything.”

“Before I tell you everything, are you Helen Taylor? You were in Celebrity Big Brother.”

“I am.”

“So while we’re complimenting each other, I’ve got to say you are so much more beautiful in real life, I love your work, I may have stolen some of your posters from the walls of the locker room in the station.”

“Interesting, Alex, is there a reason you only seem to attract gay girls?”

“Not a clue, but I’m definitely not complaining.”

For the next ten minutes I may as well have not been there as Jenny and Helen talked about me, about Poppy, and about sex in general.

Helen’s phone rang and she stepped away to take the call, Jenny leant close and whispered so no-one else heard her, “am I to assume you’ve also slept with your sister?”

“Ahh, well, you know how Poppy got a little out of control last night with you, well the same happened last week, she was kissing Helen because she wanted to see what it was like to kiss a girl, they got carried away and ended up having full sex on my sofa, and then Helen decided to bring me into the scene.”

“Oh wow, the thought of Poppy and Helen together is just too wild.”

“So you’re not disgusted by the incest thing?”

“You’re adults, why should that bother me, look Alex, with regards to sex, my opinion is if everyone involved is ok with what’s going on it’s absolutely none of anyone else’s business.”

“So at this point I’ll also mention I had sex with Helen’s girlfriend.”

“Helen’s gay?”

“Yep.”

“Oh shit, I am so glad it was my job to come round to question Poppy about her mum, my life has improved a million percent since Thursday.”

“That’s pretty much how I felt the morning after I found Poppy at the bus stop.”

Helen returned as her toastie arrived, she took a bite before speaking again, “oh wow, that’s nice, thanks Alex. Anyway, that’s the agency, I’ve got a job on Thursday. I’m to decorate a car launch with my considerable assets. It’ll be fun standing in a car park in November wearing just a bikini, I reckon they’ll be using my nipples as a coat rack. Anyway that means we’ve got a busy few days decorating a bedroom and building that new walk-in dressing room.”

“My neighbour is a builder, he’s out of work at the moment, I can send him your way if you like,” Jenny said as she finished her drink, “I have to go now, I want to do some more research on Gemma, we may have some of her DNA in the missing person file, I’ll see if it matches any bodies that have turned up this year.”

“Poppy would be so pleased if any of the info she’s given you helps clear up a case.”

“So will I. Anyway, thank you so much, I’ve not had such great sex in years, probably ever, I will definitely be coming back for more.”

She kissed me hard on the lips for a long time before we broke off, then she moved round to Helen and went to shake her hand but Helen stood and pulled Jenny into a hug, then they kissed.

“Ohhh, that was a nice surprise,” Jenny said, blushing slightly.

“I’ve just made a rule that I have to at least try to make out with all Alex’s girlfriends, especially since Alex enjoyed the comforts on offer from my girlfriend ... whoops, I shouldn’t have said that...”

“No worries, Alex has already owned up after I guessed he’d slept with you.”

“How did you guess?”

“I’m the police, remember, we spot little details like that, body language, reading between the lines.”

“Ahh, and you’re still his friend, knowing what we’ve been up to?”

“Yep, and I’m even more keen to spend time with your family unit, like I said, the sex last night was mind blowing, especially with Poppy joining in, make sure you tell Nita that Poppy made sure nothing entered either hole last night, it seems she drafted me in as her replacement.”

“Oh god, that’s Poppy all over,” Helen laughed.

“And now I really do have to go, I’ll speak to Ernie and send him your way, he’s a good worker, he built my kitchen units, and he won’t charge you much.”

“That’ll be great Jenny, thanks.”

“See you around four then, unless Poppy decides she doesn’t want to look at more photos.”

“She really wants to help you, so I’m certain she won’t back down.”

“Great, see you around 4 o’clock.”

After Jenny had disappeared from sight Helen turned back to the table and picked up her coffee, “she’s super nice.”

“I know, I didn’t realise how much we’d clicked last week until I met her again on Friday morning to pass on some information from Poppy, then as is only to be expected, Poppy forced my hand by inviting her for dinner last night.”

“I’ve heard dating police officers is a real pain.”

“I know, she explained that, along with a bit of trauma from her teens that has adversely affected relationships in the past.”

“Oh shit, bad?”

“Yeah, very bad, but I think it’s something Poppy can help her with.”

“What happened?”

“I shouldn’t tell you really, but maybe it’s something you can help with when you put your psychology head on.”

I told Helen the story Jenny told us over breakfast, her face fell as the tale unfolded.

“Oh fuck, that’s awful, losing your first love like that is an absolute tragedy, and to couple that with the guilt she must feel for not realising how traumatised Molly was. My god Alex, she needs help if she’s not been through any kind of counselling. Can I speak to her some time.”

“If she’ll let you, of course.”

Helen finished her coffee and we walked back to my house, just as I was opening the gate a small van pulled up, the driver leaned over to wind the passenger window down “here, are you Alex?”

“Yes, I am. I’m assuming Jenny sent you down here.”

“That’s right, she said you’ve a couple of jobs for me.”

I let the gate open fully so Ernie could pull his van onto the drive.

“Come inside Ernie and we’ll show you what we’re doing,” I said as I pushed the button to close the gate while Helen unlocked the door.

“Thank you, I’m between jobs right now, so this will really help me out.”

“My pleasure,” I said as we stepped inside.

I made Ernie a mug of tea and we went upstairs to show him what we wanted to do over the next couple of days, then he told us what he could do, which was about 10 times better than I could ever have done on my own.

“Ok, we need to empty the bedroom so we can get it painted, getting rid of the grey will brighten the whole room up, the second hand shop at the end of the road has a really nice dressing table and matching stool, it’s a little tatty, but we could paint it white and it’ll look great.”

We moved to the box room.

“I can get some boards and we can box off part of the room, put rails part way up the wall, drawers at the bottom and cupboards above. Then here we can put up a big mirror, with lights, your girls will be able to step back, look at themselves full length, pose, take photos or whatever, then we’ve still got room for a dressing table here along this wall.”

“That’s amazing, and you can do all this in the next three days.”

“With a bit of help with labour, of course we can.”

“We’re both happy to help,” Helen said, “I have some lovely off-white furniture paint at home, it’s white with a very slight hint of pink, I bought it to paint our wardrobes but Nita vetoed it, we could use that for the dressing table.”

“Do you live locally? If we start with that colour we can choose the rest of the colours for the room based on that.”

“I’m half a mile down the road, I can run and get that paint while you and Alex go in the other direction to the second hand shop.”

So that was the morning sorted, Ernie got his tools and tape measures and planned out the dressing room while Helen and I decanted everything from the third bedroom into the fourth bedroom, and what wouldn’t fit stayed in the hallway.

Ernie had brought up stacks of plastic sheeting, so I covered the floor with sheets before Helen and I started to sand down the paintwork. We’d decided the wallpaper could stay, but we’d paint it with a colour in the same palette as Helen’s furniture paint.

We’d sanded down almost all the paintwork by the time Ernie had drawn up a design for the dressing room storage. It looked great.

“If I can get the drawing and measurements down to the builders merchants before lunchtime I reckon they’ll be able to get everything cut to order and delivered by tomorrow afternoon, then we’ll have all day Wednesday to build and paint it.”

“That’s amazing Ernie. We’ve nearly got everything sanded down in the bedroom, so we can crack on with painting in there after lunch.”

I finished off the sanding while Helen wiped everything down with a damp cloth to get rid of the dust.

After a fresh cup of tea Helen went home to grab the paint for the dressing table, and Ernie and I climbed into his van and we went o buy the dressing table and order the wood, I wanted real wood, but Ernie said it would be better to get MDF, as it’ll be easier to work with and paint, so we went with his recommendation.

The builders’ merchant promised to have everything ready and delivered by noon tomorrow, which was fantastic news. Helen sent me the details of the paint, so we used their paint matching guide to buy a couple of complementary shades for the wood and walls, then we chose a couple of similar, but different shades for the dressing room.

The dressing table was great, it was in decent condition, a few scratches, a couple of rings from hot drinks being put on it, and a small burn that looked like the previous owner dropped a cigarette, nothing that couldn’t be easily fixed.

Next door we found a big mirror and some wall lights. We also found a long strip of LED lights that flashed and changed colour. I simply had to buy them to run along the top of the new wardrobes.

After lunch I spent the afternoon sanding the dressing table down in the kitchen whilst Helen painted the walls in the bedroom and Ernie painted the walls in the dressing room, we stopped work just before four when I needed to pick collect Poppy from school, Helen kindly offered to come with us, in case any of the photos we were about to see distressed Poppy.

I offered to pay Ernie as he left, but he said he’d wait until we were happy with the job on Wednesday, always good to find an honest builder like that, although one that’s not too honest to take cash in hand.

At the school gates I gave Katie her suitcases back so she could fill them again tomorrow, she gave Poppy a quick kiss then ran off to get her train.

“Hey Helen,” Poppy said.

“Hey Poppy, how was school?”

“It was ok, I’ve been given extra maths lessons at lunchtime,” Poppy said as we set off walking to the police station, “the teacher says this will help me fill the gaps in my knowledge. What have you been doing today, you look a bit sweaty.”

“I’ve been doing nothing rude, we’re decorating Katie’s bedroom and building a dressing room.”

“Oh that sounds like a lot of work.”

“I met Alex’s new lady this morning.”

“Oh wow, isn’t she gorgeous, and so sexy, and really sweet, if she ends up being my mum I’ll be so happy.”

“I think she’ll be happy too,” Helen replied, “she was full of compliments about you.”

“I’m going to try to help her identify some girls from photos.”

“Yes, Alex said, I thought I’d come in case you get upset.”

Poppy grabbed Helen’s hand, “that is so nice of you, when I looked at photos last night there was one of Belle, and it upset me because I don’t know where she is anymore, I can chat with her by text message, but I can’t see her.”

“I’m sure you’ll meet her again soon.”

“I hope so.”

At the police station I approached the desk sergeant and asked for PC Jenny Wilde, we were told she was in a meeting, so we waited in the tired looking waiting area. Poppy was brave and got a coffee from the vending machine, Helen and I decided not to investigate the delights on offer from the other machines.

“Mmm, I’ve had much worse,” she said after trying her drink.

“I’ll take your word for it.” I replied.

Eventually the desk sergeant called us forward and asked us all to sign in the visitors register, we were just finishing up as Jenny arrived and showed us through to a small meeting room.

“Hang on here a sec, I’ll bring you a laptop and some forms. The information you’ve already given me has persuaded my boss to open an investigation into Gemma’s disappearance, so anything you can tell me now can be tagged onto that investigation.”

“Do you have any half decent coffee around here?” I asked.

“You’re kidding, right? This is a police station, we only have bad coffee, why do you think I met you in Costa last week.”

“Ahh ok, I guess I’d better get a few cans from the vending machines.”

When I came back with cans of Dr Pepper Jenny was showing Poppy how to use the laptop to view photographs, each image had a code at the bottom, if she recognised any of the girls she was to write the code, a name, be it her real name or street name and any other details onto one of the forms.

“This file has the names and any details we’ve gathered so far for each person, please don’t look at this file unless you know the person in the photo, I wouldn’t want to influence you and potentially prompt false memories.”

“I understand, are these like yesterday, all the photos are from when the girls were alive.”

“I can’t guarantee 100%, these are all from the missing persons database, most of the photos will be the ones we were given by family. They’re all girls who we think came to London, and they should be around your age, from early teen to early 20’s.

“Ok, I suppose I’d better get started then.”

“I’ve got some work to do at my desk,” Jenny said softly, “it’s just over there by the window. Oh, and by the way, as of now I’m no longer PC Jenny, I’m DC Jenny, that’s what my meeting was about.”

“Oh wow!” Poppy cried, “you’re a detective now?”

“Yes I am, I’m going to be working with a special runaways taskforce, it’s what I’ve been working towards since I started.”

“I’m so happy for you, it means they respect your drive to help us girls.”

Jenny left the room and Poppy settled in front of the laptop, she looked at each photo carefully, Helen showed her how to zoom in for a closer look.

The first ten were unknown to Poppy, but she recognised number 11.

“This is Meghan, she lived with Gemma and another girl called, mmm, River I think.”

Poppy wrote the photo code and the name Meghan onto the form, along with the comments about her living with Gemma and River, she added an approximate location for their squat.

Helen opened the file and ran her finger down the page until she found the line for this photo, “she’s really called Meghan, Meghan Tate, she was reported missing by her family in April this year, she’s 15, from Manchester. When did you last see her Poppy?”

“Oh gosh, probably around the time I saw Gemma when we were having a picnic watching cricket in the park, I think it would be June. No, wait, I saw her again later than that, let me think,” Poppy closed her eyes, concentrating hard, “it was September, had to be, because we were seeing kids in school uniform, but they all looked fresh and clean, it wasn’t cold enough for October. I was with Flower and Belle, we saw Meghan, and Gemma, yes they were both there, so Gemma was still alive in September! We chatted about a new squat they’d found in Camden, near the market at Camden Lock, write that down Alex please. Yes, Gemma looked pretty, she had a dress on and looked happy, what did she tell me, oh shit yes, it was that day, oh god, that’s the day she died, she told me about a party and asked me if I wanted to go, Flower and Belle said they didn’t want to and went home. Oh god, let me remember, this is horrible, hold my hand please Helen.”

Helen crouched down and held Poppy’s hands while I slipped out to get Jenny.

“We went to the party, me, Gemma and Meghan, it was in an old house in Swiss Cottage, near the station, there were lots of men there I didn’t know, I felt ok, we had some cider, Gemma and Meghan smoked some drugs but I wasn’t going down that road again, so I stuck to the cider, I remember it was the dark fruits Strongbow, I liked it. Gemma picked up these two guys and they started making out, Meghan went into the next room and came back with Kenzie. My heart sank, did she take us there on purpose?

“I tried to hide but he saw me, he started ranting about me letting him down, I’ve no idea what he was on about, and that’s when he grabbed Gemma from the two guys and that’s when he raped and killed her, right in front of everyone, like he was teaching all the girls, especially me, a lesson.

“I remember I threw up on this guy who’d been trying it on with me, it was all purple from the cider, he went mental, I ran out of the house and got as far away as I could before I stopped, crying my eyes out until a police lady found me.

“I should have told her what I’d seen, but I was so frightened, I just told her I’d been chased by some boys and could she get me back to Forest Hill. She took me back to the police station and I waited around for half an hour until someone was heading out in that direction and they gave me a lift back to where I was staying with Flower, Belle and a couple of other girls, this was after Max’s squat was gone.”

Jenny touched Poppy’s cheek tenderly, she opened her eyes and smiled weakly, “I hope you’re not mad I didn’t tell the police lady the truth.”

“Right now I’m just glad you’re alive, so I won’t judge. Do you have any idea where the house was? Maybe we could get some kind of clues.”

“I could maybe retrace my steps from the station if you have a map.”

Jenny opened the web browser on the laptop and brought up Google Maps. Poppy was amazed, having never used a computer properly before, Jenny brought up the Swiss Cottage area then switched it to the satellite view and showed Poppy how to scroll around the map.

“It was this street, I’m sure,” she said, “I remember the postbox on the corner.”

“Ok,” Jenny said, reaching for the mouse and switching to the street view, “I’ll move around now, see if you can spot the house.”

“Fuck,” Poppy said quietly, “this is fantastic, how did they get photos of all these houses like this.”