Paul Finch - Stolen

She led the ex-nun to a side-door, tapped in the combination and diverted her towards one of the station’s non-custodial interview rooms. ‘I have to tell you, though,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘I haven’t got a lot of time.’

‘Well, that’s always the problem,’ Sister Cassie replied, following her in, unhooking her cloak and seating herself rather primly in an armchair. ‘We’re all rushed off our feet these days.’ Then she became stern. ‘But I do think these disappearances are getting a little out of hand.’

Lucy sat in the facing chair, which thankfully was several feet away. Sister Cassie attended to her own hygiene as much as any homeless drug-addict could be expected to, regularly using the showers available in the shelters, but she also insisted on wearing this ancient religious garb of hers, which, by the look and stink of it, probably hadn’t been laundered in two decades or more.

Lucy shrugged. ‘Sister … we’re looking into these pet abductions as part of a larger operation …’

‘Pet abductions?’ Sister Cassie seemed baffled. ‘My child, if only it were pets I was talking about.’

Lucy could only shrug again, bemused. ‘Okay, so … what disappearances?’

‘My dear child … three of my regulars have recently dropped out of sight.’

‘Dropped out of sight?’

‘I believe that’s the vernacular. They’ve vanished. They’re no longer here.’

‘Sister, I’m afraid I’m still not sure what you mean …’

‘Oh, child.’ A look of patient frustration briefly etched the ex-nun’s face, a hint maybe of the teacher she’d once reputedly been. ‘This is not difficult. You know Edna Davis, I take it?’

Lucy couldn’t help thinking about the custody clock ticking next door. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘They used to call her the Cat Lady.’

Lucy paused. This name rang a bell.

‘Always sits at the junction between Stoker’s Street and Kiln Lane,’ Sister Cassie explained. ‘Or she used to. I don’t know where she is now.’

Lucy recollected the homeless woman in question. She was a lot older and in a far more decrepit state than Sister Cassie and was instantly recognisable for her beige mac and overlarge trainers, and for the crumpled, flower-covered hat she wore, but, most noticeably of all, for the three or four cats she always had with her.

‘Stoker’s Street and Kiln Lane?’ she sought to confirm.

Sister Cassie nodded.

‘And she’s disappeared, you say?’

‘One day, I was making my usual evening rounds – and she was no longer there. And she hasn’t been there since. No one I know has seen her.’

‘When was this?’

‘I would say … five days ago.’

Lucy pondered. Five days wasn’t that long, and some homeless people were transient and prone to wandering.

‘But I’m afraid that isn’t the worst of it,’ the ex-nun added. ‘Ronald Burke … you know him?’

Lucy regarded her quizzically. ‘No, but he’s also homeless, I’m guessing?’

‘You, most likely, will have met him when he’s been causing trouble in public houses.’ The ex-nun sighed at such regrettable behaviour. ‘He used to wear a brown overcoat and a grey balaclava. Whatever the weather.’

‘Yes, now you mention it … I remember.’

‘Well … he hasn’t been seen for two or three weeks.’

‘Sister … couldn’t these people have simply moved on? They’ve no work to keep them here, no fixed abode.’

‘Oh, my child …’ Sister Cassie gave a sad smile. ‘Let’s not find reasons not to investigate, mmm? You are a police detective, after all.’

Ever the school-ma’am , Lucy thought. ‘You said that three of your regulars have gone missing?’

Sister Cassie was thoughtful. ‘The last one is a little more troubling. For a brief time, I was unsure whether to include him on the list, because he can really be rather naughty. Frederick Holborn … you know him?’

Lucy shook her head.

‘Ah. Probably a good thing. No doubt he would attempt to impugn your honour.’ The ex-nun arched a disapproving eyebrow. ‘As he regularly does mine.’

‘I’m sorry …’ Lucy was puzzled. ‘You’re saying he’s assaulted you?’

‘Perhaps “assault” is too strong a word. Let’s just say that he has several times sought sexual favours from me. I think he regards my religious calling as a challenge to be overcome.’

From what Lucy knew, it wouldn’t have been much of a challenge. Sister Cassie might don the trappings of a nun and adopt the role of carer with her fellow vagrants, but she had a heroin habit all of her own, and she needed to earn the money for it.

‘I almost stopped including him in my nightly rounds,’ the ex-nun added, ‘but though drink and other poisons have ravaged many of these poor creatures to a point where they are closer, frankly, to God than they are to men, they still have needs and desires . I don’t mind admitting, there’ve been times when I’ve almost complied—’

‘Sister, please. If you’re not actually making a complaint against Fred Holborn, can we get to the point?’

‘Well, he’s vanished too, child. Completely … as if he was never put on this Earth.’

The door opened, and Tessa Payne stuck her head in. ‘Sorry, Lucy, but Sergeant Cullen’s wondering what the delay is.’

Lucy signalled that she’d be out shortly.

‘You’re a very kind person, Sister,’ Lucy said. ‘And I know you genuinely care for those in want. The fact you make these nightly rounds at all is … well, it’s going to win you a lot of brownie points with the Lord, even if it doesn’t get you anything down here.’

The ‘nightly rounds’ she referred to were a real thing. Sister Cassie spent the best part of each day scavenging what scant supplies she could – food, drink, cigarettes, money – and despite holding some back in order to feed her own habit, was often able to make a nightly circuit of the doorways, sewers and underpasses where so many of Crowley’s homeless bedded down, doling out whatever she could to the most needy, or sometimes simply offering company and comfort.

‘But the first point I made still stands,’ Lucy said. ‘Edna Davis, Ronald Burke and Fred Holborn … they might just have wandered off.’

Sister Cassie shook her head.

‘Look,’ Lucy said, ‘they may have been fixtures in Crowley for years, but there’s nothing to keep them here.’

‘I know these people well, child. None of them have anywhere else to go.’

‘What do the others think?’ Lucy asked. ‘I mean, the rest of your community.’

‘They’re as worried and bemused as I am.’

‘So why haven’t they come forward? You say Ronald Burke vanished two or three weeks ago.’

‘My child … they will not come into a police station.’

‘Why not?’

‘They don’t trust you. And why should they? One young lady I see on my regular rounds … she was raped by a gang of men some nine months ago. Not just raped, sodomised too. It was a terrible attack and I know, because I’m the one who cared for her afterwards and persuaded her to go to the police station.’

‘I don’t remember this,’ Lucy said.

‘It wasn’t here at Robber’s Row, it was at Cotehill Crescent.’

‘Okay, and …?’

‘Well …’ Sister Cassie sighed again. ‘It’s a sad tale already, but it gets sadder still. While the police ladies were helping her undress for examination by the nurse, they found certain substances . As such, this young lady herself was questioned. It made her feel very uncomfortable … as if she wasn’t already uncomfortable enough.’

‘I do remember that one, actually,’ Lucy said. ‘That young lady had quite a bit of heroin on her, and several uncapped needles, all of which she failed to mention. As a result, one of the policewomen assisting got her finger pricked and had to go through all kinds of health checks afterwards. Are you surprised they got cross with her?’