Terry nodded, eyes downcast.
‘I’d give anything to have her back.’
‘I know, love.’
‘How can she be dead, Terry? How the hell can she be dead? She left here full of life on Thursday. Said she wouldn’t be long. Then she never came back.’
‘Try not to torture yourself, Ali.’
‘How can life be so cruel? What have we done to deserve this?’
‘Nothing.’
‘She was a child. I should’ve called you and asked you to pick up the milk on your way home.’
‘You can’t change what’s happened, Ali. None of us can.’
‘Or gone myself. Why didn’t I do that?’
‘You weren’t to know what was gonna happen. Jodie’s been to the shop loads of times and nothing’s happened.’
‘I prayed last night. Begged God to send her back to me. Told him I’d do anything if He would make this right and give me back my daughter.’
‘I’m so sorry, Ali. I don’t know what to say.’
‘You know what hurts me the most? Seeing other kids out enjoying the holidays. Wondering why it had to be Jodie. I know it’s selfish, and I hate myself for saying it, but I wish it had been one of them instead.’
‘That’s only natural, love.’
‘It’s so unfair.’
‘I know.’
‘I feel so weak and powerless, Terry. I know Jodie’s gone. I know she’s never coming back. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.’
Terry sat on the bed beside her. Wrapped an arm around her shoulder. ‘We’ve just gotta try to stay strong. Hold on to each other for all we’re worth. And hope to God they find the bastard responsible.’
Alison unfolded the poem. Handed it to him without speaking. After he’d finished reading it, they collapsed into each other’s arms, sobbing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jim sat with his back leaning against the town centre war memorial, chugging his way through a third can of Special Brew. There were five others sitting in a carrier bag beside him. Enough to take his mind on a temporary vacation to the Island of Don’t Give a Fuck. He’d also had a line of coke in the flat to celebrate the news that his car had turned up clean. So that meant there wasn’t one shred of evidence linking him to Jodie Willis’s murder. Along with Shona’s alibi, he was cleaner than a lobster in a cooking pot.
But the law didn’t care about things like the truth when they had the scent of blood in their snouts. Especially that prick Palmer. Jim would have paid good money to have that cocky smirk wiped off his face.
Shona was currently nursing a black eye and tied to the bed with leather restraints. Jim thought she might also have a few cracked ribs by the way she was struggling to breathe, but it was no more than she deserved after threatening to squeal to the filth if he didn’t let her phone her mum. Who the fuck did she think she was? He’d also stomped on her phone and left it to drown in the toilet cistern, just in case she was tempted to tell tales.
He tried to convince himself that everything would be fine as long as they stuck to their story, but the large chunks of life missing from his faulty memory banks kept dragging him down.
In Abbasi’s. Click. Talking to the retard on the bench. Click. Waking up in the flat two hours later. Click. Picking Shona up from Didcot. Click. Trying to shave her pubes with a razor. Click. Shona running out on him and nicking his dope. Click. A whole heap of shit falling on him from a great height. Click. You have now reached the end of the tape. Rewind to listen again, or press stop by drinking eight cans of Special Brew.
‘I ain’t no child killer,’ he said as an old lady walked past with a shopping trolley.
She glanced at him as if he might be contagious and hurried on her way.
His mind roamed to DC Halliwell. Or, more precisely, what he’d like to do to her. He’d never fancied a copper before, and for good reason, but she was different. Made Shona look like a scraggy mongrel in an animal rescue centre. Jim was realistic enough to know that his thoughts regarding Halliwell would have to stay locked in his head and kept for private pleasures, but it didn’t hurt to have the occasional forage into fantasy land.
‘How’s it going, Jim?’
Bentley watched Curtis Pollock dump his skinny frame next to him on the memorial steps. ‘Are you taking the piss?’
Curtis frowned and ran a hand through a mop of curly dark hair. ‘No. Why?’
‘Then why are you asking me how I am? Surely even you know what happened to that kid.’
‘Jodie Willis?’
Bentley finished his third can and popped the tab on another. ‘Ten out of ten.’
‘I know she got murdered and they found her in a garden shed somewhere. Arrested the bloke who lives there, didn’t they?’
‘And then they let him go again.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they’re stupid. But here’s the good bit: the filth think I had something to do with it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because me and Hillock were the last ones to see her alive.’
‘Is that the dude with the shed?’
Bentley nodded. ‘They’ve been crawling all over my flat. They even took my car away to search it.’
‘Did they find anything?’
‘Of course they didn’t. I ain’t done nothing wrong. Anyway, I was with my bird when the kid went missing. Been with her ever since.’
‘Then you ain’t got nothing to worry about… have you?’
‘Coppers don’t give a fuck about the truth. They’d love to see me locked up for something I ain’t done.’
‘They can’t do that without proof, Jim.’
‘Wish it were that simple.’
After a short silence, Curtis asked him if he had any gear.
‘No. I ain’t giving them bastards any excuse to nick me.’
Curtis eyed the crumpled cans littering the step. ‘I thought they’d banned drinking in public places?’
‘Yeah, well, I ain’t staying here. I’m going down the river.’
‘I’ll come with you, if you want. I ain’t got nothing to do.’
‘You’ve never got nothing to do.’
‘True. Can I come, then?’
‘Okay. At least it’ll make a change from Shona’s constant whinging.’
‘Shona your bird?’
‘One of ’em.’ Jim didn’t see any harm in bending the truth for a dickwit like Curtis. ‘Not for much longer, though. Why do women get hysterical all the time? Turn everything into a bloody drama?’
‘I reckon it’s ’cos they watch all them soap operas,’ Curtis offered. ‘My mum does. Emmerdale. Corrie. EastEnders. Then she jumps down my throat because I haven’t put the bog lid down. Or picked me socks up from the bathroom floor. I mean, fucking hell, what does it matter? Anyone’d think I’d sparked World War Three by the way she goes on.’
‘I’ll tell you this for nothing: Shona better buck her ideas up or she’ll wind up feeding the fish at the bottom of the river.’
‘That bad?’