Chapter 34

Upstairs Jenny showed the girls into her office, it was quite small, so I waited outside and watched through the window. She had a couple of police college diplomas on the wall behind her desk, flanked by photos of the girls. On the side wall were a few rows of missing person notices pinned to a cork board, as far as I could tell all of them were teenage girls.

Belle scanned the wall, looking at each photo carefully.

“Oh, oh!” she exclaimed, pointing at one of the photos on the second row, “I know this girl”

Poppy and Katie turned to look where Belle was pointing, “oh shit, it’s Lia!” Katie said.

“Oh, do you know Lia?” Belle asked.

“Yes, we met her in Camden when we were looking for you, I really liked her,” Katie replied.

“Katie liked Lia so much, she kissed her on the lips.”

“Oh wow, that’s awesome,” Belle gushed, “she’s so pretty, isn’t she.”

“And smart, and funny.”

Belle ran her fingers over the photo, as was her habit, I think this helped her focus on the person, “Emily-Mae Jackson, from Wood Green, she’s not far from home. I wonder what drove her away?”

“We don’t ask that, remember,” Poppy reminded Belle.

“I know, but she’s clean, and clever, and not at all fucked up, she doesn’t belong on the streets.”

“Neither did you, but that’s where I found you.”

“Yeah, but there wasn’t a missing person notice for me,” Belle pouted.

“Ahh, but there was,” Jenny replied, she dug through a pile on her desk, “here you go...”

Belle took the proffered paper, “Amelia Dean, missing from York, suspected to have travelled to London...” she read, “I thought everyone had forgotten about me, who reported me missing.”

“Clive Dean...” Jenny answered.

“Oh gramps, he must be so disappointed in me.”

“His face on Thursday would suggest otherwise.” I told her, “Nobody who knows anything about your life back then would criticise your actions.”

“I still feel bad for leaving him.”

“You’d have felt worse if you were living with Liam,” Jenny said, “now, who have you found for me?”

“This girl, Emily-Mae,” Belle told her, “we know her as Lia.”

“Is she on the streets for a reason?”

“We don’t know, she’s on the waiting list for a shelter, but they only let girls stay there for two weeks,” Poppy told Jenny, “so once you’re in there, with a mailing address and stuff, you have to get a job really quickly before they send you back out onto the streets.”

“I thought she’d be good to work for your charity,” Katie said.

“Why don’t we try to find her,” Jenny said, “tomorrow. You have money in your charity now, you could recruit her to do something, maybe help Jeremy coordinate suppliers, storage, distribution, whatever needs doing. You could pay her enough to get somewhere to live, she is an adult isn’t she?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Belle said, looking at the notice again, “ahh yes, she’s 18.”

“Great, so you could pay her enough to get somewhere to live, and while she finds somewhere, she can stay in our spare room.”

“That’s a great idea,” Poppy said, “ahh, is it OK if Lia uses Helen’s room for a bit, dad?”

“Of course it is,” I replied.

“Well, that’s agreed then, we’ll go to Camden tomorrow and look for Lia. So, do you know anyone else on the board?”

Belle scanned the rest of the wall, she pointed at one on the bottom row and whispered to Poppy, they conferred for a minute before Belle reached out and pulled the notice off the wall, “I’m afraid this girl died, nothing suspicious,” she pulled three more down, “and these. There may be more, but these four are the only girls we knew personally.”

“My god girls, you know four girls who died on the streets?”

“We knew four of the 30 on your wall, there’s a lot more we could tell you about.”

“Oh gosh, of course. I have no idea how you managed to stay so grounded with all the horror around you.”

“I told you already,” Belle said, kissing Poppy’s cheek, “she’s a goddess, and she kept me safe. These girls,” she added, lifting the paper notices, “they didn’t have someone like Poppy around.”

“I feel we should have some kind of memorial,” Katie said as she took the pages off Belle and slipped them into her bag.

“I know,” Belle cried, “we should have a section in the book, we could print these notices, and any others we can think of, a chapter for the girls who fell through the cracks and never managed to climb back out.”

“That’s exactly what we should do. Mum, can we look through the photos again, both of us, and find all the girls we know died.”

“Of course you can, err, actually I’ll probably have to check with DI Williamson, especially if you want to print them out and put them in a book.”

“He seems nice,” Belle replied, “I’m sure he’ll agree.”

Jenny looked at her watch, “ok girls, we’ve got 30 minutes before we have to go to the talk DI Williamson mentioned, shall we go to the briefing room and see if you can solve any of the crimes, then we’re just across the hallway from the canteen.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Katie replied, and we all fell in behind Jenny as she led us down to the briefing room.

There were four large tables in the room, each had been laid out with several pieces of paper, notes, photos, objects in plastic bags. One table already had a family crowded around pouring over the evidence.

Belle chose the table furthest from the door, she immediately picked up the pile of crime scene photos, “is this a real crime?” she asked.

“Yes, it was about 5 years ago.”

“And do you know who did it?”

“I do, because I actually worked this case, so I’m not going to help you.”

“Oh wow, so we’re walking in your footsteps, this is exciting.”

Belle looked at each photo as Poppy read the notes and Katie sorted through the evidence bags, looking closely at each one as Poppy mentioned them from the notes.

“Err, there’s no point us playing this one,” Katie announced.

“Why, it looks like fun,” Belle said as she looked at photos of a broken back door and an open safe.

“I know who did it...”

“How have you figured it out, you’ve not even read the notes yet.”

“The guy who did it was Jordan Cooper, with help from Don Parker.”

“Are you some kind of crime solving genius?” an awed Belle asked.

“Ahh, if only, Jordan’s my uncle, my mum’s younger brother.”

“Oh fuck, I’m sorry,” Jenny cried, panicked that she’d upset Katie.

“I’m not upset, Jordan’s a twat, I never liked him and he’s been in prison most of my life. Shall we do another one, see if we can solve it together, I don’t think I have any other career criminals in my family.”

We moved to a different table and Katie picked up the notes, “ahh, this will be ok, looks like a woman did it.”

“How do you know?” Jenny asked, she sounded both impressed and cautious, “it would be a massive coincidence if you were related to the person who did this one.”

“Hahaha, I don’t think I’m related to them. I see they used poison, and I’ve read enough Agatha Christie and Shelock Holmes books to know that poison is a woman’s weapon of choice. I’ve no idea if that’s actually true though, but I’ve got a 50/50 chance of sounding like I know what I’m talking about.”

“Well, most murders by women are stabbings, but most poisonings are by women, so Sherlock was partly right. And in this case, yes, the offender was female.”

“Cool, so let’s look at the clues,” Belle said as she picked up the first sheet of notes.

We watched as the girls read through the notes, looked at the crime scene photos and bags of evidence, they debated loudly, with Belle and Poppy disagreeing over the significance of a bagged glove, Katie laughed as she stepped between her sisters and pointed at the glove in one of the photos.

Eventually they calmed down and agreed on the suspect, the victim’s cousin who was dating his girlfriend.

“Oh, so the girlfriend was bi, I didn’t see that coming,” Belle said quietly.

“Ahh, I wondered why you didn’t connect the glove, it’s all here on page three of the notes,” Poppy replied kindly.

“Oh shit, I didn’t even read that page,” Belle sighed, slapping her forehead dramatically.

“Is it Kailee?” Katie asked Jenny.

“Well done, it was Kailee that killed Gary, and for the reason you said.”

“What happened to Julie? Was she involved, it’s not clear,” Poppy asked.

“Well, she was charged at the same time, as she was willingly dating Kailee, and actually moved in with her after Gary’s death, but we couldn’t find enough evidence to safely prosecute her, so she was released.”

“Ooohh, has she gotten away with murder?” Belle asked.

“I honestly can’t answer that, I wasn’t involved in this investigation as I was busy dealing with Katie’s Uncle Jordan.”

“So these were around the same time?”

“Yes, all four tables were cases we were dealing with 5 years ago this week.”

“Can we do the other two?” Belle asked, tingling with excitement at solving crimes.

Jenny checked her watch, “we need to go to the canteen now, but you can come back after, unless you want to go to the armoury, or see the police dogs.”

“I’ve never seen a real gun,” Katie said.

“I have, and they’re no fun when they’re pointed at your face,” Poppy replied, her voice devoid of emotion.

“Oh fuck, really?” Katie said as she pulled Poppy into a hug.

“Yeah, there was this one guy who enjoyed sticking a gun to my head as he fucked me...”

We heard a gasp from the family at the other table, “ahh, maybe a story for later,” Belle whispered.

“Maybe a story for never,” Poppy whispered back, “the fucker’s dead now anyway, nothing to do with us, he pointed the gun at someone less submissive than me and she cut his cock off and he bled to death in an alley. He won’t be missed.”

“Mmm, I’m glad I didn’t hear any of that,” Jenny broke in quietly, “shall we make a move, DI Williamson seems to be keen that you all go to this talk.”

“I wonder what it’s about, maybe he’s got one of the homeless charities in to talk to everyone,” Katie said.

“I hope so, I’m pretty sure most people here have little experience of homeless life,” Poppy added.

As we walked into the canteen I noticed a small stage at the far end, there was a podium emblazoned with the Metropolitan Police logo, behind the podium were a few chairs, and in front, seated either side of the stage, were a couple of press photographers and a video camera on a tripod.

“Mmm, this looks more like a press conference,” Poppy said suspiciously as she slid into a seat near the back of the room. Most of the seats in front were full, including the family Poppy had annoyed with her comments a few minutes earlier.

A couple of minutes after one DI Williamson rushed into the room and took to the podium.

“Thank you all for coming to our annual family fun day, I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves, and learning about the valuable work the Metropolitan Police do to keep you all safe.”

A round of applause spread across the room, the photographers took photos of the DI and the clapping public.

“Ok, and now I should thank you for all coming to this little talk, not something we’ve done before at a family fun day, but some work we did this week made it abundantly clear that an issue in our city needs to be highlighted and work needs to be done to help the people involved.

“So, I’m not sure if you saw on the news last night, or read in your newspapers this morning. On Friday afternoon we carried out a raid on a gentleman’s club in the West End. In the process we arrested a large number of people who are being held in police stations across the city on suspicion of a number of offences including child sexual exploitation, immigration and modern slavery.

“The raid wouldn’t have been possible without the help of two teenage girls...”

Belle looked at Poppy, and then at Jenny, her eyes wide with shock.

“ ... these girls were both homeless until very recently, living on the streets, in squats, in parks, anywhere they could find shelter from the elements, ignored by society. They came to the attention of a local celebrity and one of our finest police officers, who took the girls into their home, showing them the love they deserved so much. As they got to know each other the girls told about their past and described the vile goings on in this club. DC Wilde passed the information on to me, and we coordinated the raid with other forces and the Home Office Border Force, which culminated in the arrest of over 40 people in total.

“So, I’d like to ask Poppy and Belle to come forward and accept both my profound thanks for their bravery in talking about some fairly horrific events in their past, but also a community spirit award.”

Poppy and Belle looked dumbstruck, “go on girls,” Jenny whispered, coaxing them out of their chairs.

Belle stood first, prompting a round of applause from the audience, Poppy followed and they walked nervously towards the stage, every step captured by the press photographers and police videographer.

DI Williamson shook both girls’ hands warmly before he presented them both with a medal and framed certificate.

“I wonder, would you like to talk to everyone about the charity you’ve founded, I’m sure everyone is very excited to hear about the work you will be doing.”

Belle gave him a very black look, “I guess this is the talk you said we’d enjoy,” she said sulkily before turning back to the audience and giving them the benefit of her warmest smile.

“Hi everyone, well, this is a surprise,” she started, “before I carry on, I’d just like to apologise on behalf of my sister, to the family we upset a few minutes ago. You see, a few weeks ago Poppy and I were on the streets, and life there is so enormously different to your lives, and sometimes we forget that.

“On the streets, days, weeks, months, they blur into one, the year is divided into dry days and cold, wet days, so I don’t know exactly how long ago it was, but I used to share a squat with Poppy and some other girls. We were dry, we were warmish, and we kept each other safe, we were happy.

“Then one day the squat was demolished while we were out, and we were scattered, and no longer able to keep each other safe. I didn’t know where Poppy went, she disappeared one day and I couldn’t find her, so along with a couple of other girls I hid out in the tunnels below Kings Cross, we were safe, Poppy though, wasn’t and she was treated horribly by some truly evil men, I won’t go into details, but she was nearly dead when Alex, oh, stand up Alex, he’s the local celebrity, you might have read his books, I’m told they’re good.”

I stood and waved as the people, who were hanging on Belle’s every word, clapped.

“So, yeah, Alex found Poppy and took her into his nice house, which, let me tell you, is not something most people would do. He called his sister over, and her girlfriend, and between them they treated Poppy’s bodily injuries, and then they worked on her internal hurt, because you know, it takes a lot longer for our minds to heal than our bodies. Mental injuries don’t leave marks, so it’s hard to know just where you’re hurting.

“Once Poppy was well, she started school, and that’s where she met Katie, stand up Katie, let everyone see you...”

The crowd clapped, and a couple of boys whistled as she stood and waved.

“Katie saw immediately where Poppy was hurting inside, and she stepped in to help, and within a week she became Poppy’s new girlfriend.”

The boys who’d whistled at Katie looked a bit put out by this news, but I also saw a few people wipe their eyes. Belle is an absolute natural at holding a crowd.

“And then, Katie decided it was about time Poppy had me back in her life, so they went out searching for me, and they found me, and now we’re one big, happy, gorgeous family...”

Belle waited for the applause to die down before she continued.

“ ... and now it’s about time Poppy told you about her charity, yeah, I know my name’s attached, but it’s all her idea.”

They hugged for a few moments as everyone clapped Belle.

“She’s so great,” Jenny shouted over the applause, “I’d never have the guts to stand up in front of a hundred people and a camera and talk off the cuff like that.”

“She’s a natural extrovert, I found that on Wednesday at my publisher, she plays all nervous, then instantly switches on the charm as she steps up to the plate.”

Poppy let go of Belle, who took a seat next to DI Willaimson, he whispered something in her ear and she smiled broadly.

“Err, well, like Belle said, this is a surprise, mum and dad didn’t mention anything about this, and we’ll be taking that into consideration as we make their dinner later.”

She got some laughs at that, which gave Poppy the couragre to carry on.

“So, yeah, one of the first things I decided after I got back on my feet, is that I need to do something to help the girls who are not as fortunate as me.

“Do you know, there are hundreds, probably over a thousand, people sleeping rough around London every night, that’s people on the streets, under bridges, down back streets, under fire escapes, in railway tunnels, every night. And every night people are being attacked, raped, killed.

“Oh, Katie, can you bring those photos up please.”

Katie dashed forwards and gave Poppy the four photos, Poppy gave two to Belle and they held them up.

“Upstairs, in our mum’s office, she has a wall of photos of runaways, thirty photos pinned to a corkboard. Belle was looking at them before and found a girl we knew had died, then we found another, and two more, that’s four girls out of thirty on mum’s wall who died on the streets. Four girls whose parents might still be looking for them, four girls who will never go home, never go back to school, never become great, powerful women.

“I survived, it was touch and go, but I did, and so I’m here to tell you that I intend to do whatever I can to help those girls, and boys, who are less fortunate. I decided to work with the strongest man I’ve ever met, a man who saved me twice, who put me on the straight and narrow twice, who showed 200% more patience with me than he needed to.

“We’re going to intercept food waste from supermarkets, restaurants and markets, we’ll give the food out in shelters, in car parks, under bridges, wherever homeless people go at night, we’ll be there with food for them. Some will be cold, like sandwiches, but we plan to open kitchens to cook veg and pasta and rice. We’ll make tasty warm food out of food waste.

“It’s not just food, although that’s the most important thing people need, people on the streets need a bit of dignity, so we’re going to distribute sanitary products, soap, toothpaste, deodorant, clothes, contraceptives, anything people need, we’re going to find it and let them have it.”

The whole room stood and applauded Poppy, she turned bright red, blushing, unused to people reacting to her like this.

“So you’re asking me,” she started as the applause subsided, “what do you want us to do? And I say I don’t want you to do anything, I’m highlighting what I’m doing to help people I know, people I’ve met, people I’ve slept beside in streets and in squats, people who haven’t yet found their knight in shining armour.

“What you can do is give food to food banks. When you do your shopping there’s always a basket by the door, buy an extra can of beans or soup, some pasta or rice, something that’s non-perishable and will survive being thrown into the back of a van. When you’re in central London pop into a church, almost all of them have a collection tin for their shelter, or a homeless charity.

“If you want to help me, well, right now we’re not ready to do all the things I’ve said, but we will be soon, very soon I hope, as we’re off to Camden to pluck staff member number one off the streets. Come back here in a few weeks and Jenny, DC Wilde, will have some leaflets with all our details on, more than money or food, we’d like some volunteers to help out at collection centres, to cook tasty soups and stews, to make up care packages.

“I don’t expect to clear the streets, or to help everyone, but I would like to think together we can make a difference, to make at least a few people a day smile, to fill a few hungry tummies.

“Thank you for listening to me and Belle, and thank you to DI Williamson, I’ve never had a medal before.”

As Poppy stepped away from the podium DI Williamson stepped forward, “thank you so much, and yes Belle, that was the interesting talk I said you’d enjoy. You were both very entertaining and informative, if you’d like to do the 8am briefings in here each morning I’m sure fewer officers would fall asleep before the end.

“I’d like to thank each and every one of you for staying to listen to what turned out to be a very enjoyable talk about a very important subject. If anyone would like to contribute to the Poppy and Belle Foundation’s work, or would like to find out more about volunteering we will have information on display as soon as we get it, in reception, and on the community notice boards outside the station and in the park. There is a collection tin already in reception and a wire basket for food bank contributions.

“Enjoy the rest of your day.”

The girls were treated to another round of applause before people started to file out. I noticed the family who were in the room before held back, the mother stepped forward and grasped Poppy’s hand.