Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

I’d been looking at the graceful white buildings around me. ‘What do you think, Sergeant Williams?’ I asked, turning back to him. ‘Were the girls telling the truth?’

His eyes held mind steadily. ‘I never doubted it for a moment, love.’

78

‘ALICE FOSTERED THIRTY-TWO CHILDREN IN TWENTY years. She never got tired of telling people.’

Myfanwy Thomas, who at one time had been next-door neighbour to the Llewellyn girls and their foster parents, was in her early fifties, but still vain enough to wear clothes that were too tight and use shop-bought hair dye to cover up the grey. She’d given me a quick once-over when we’d arrived. ‘My goodness, love, you have been in the wars,’ she’d announced, before turning her attention to Joesbury.

‘Do you remember the Llewellyn sisters?’ I asked.

She frowned at me, before concentrating on Joesbury again. ‘Biscuit, love?’

Joesbury helped himself to a HobNob and smiled at her. I swear the woman practically simpered at him.

‘In trouble, are they?’ she asked him. ‘I’m not surprised, not with Vicky anyway. The problems Alice had with that girl.’

‘So Vicky was a bit of a handful?’ asked Joesbury.

‘You wouldn’t know the half of it, love. If she went to school one day in three it was going well. Pleased herself when she came back for meals. Stayed out till all hours.’

‘Sounds a fairly typical teenager to me,’ I said, raising my eyes above Myfanwy’s head to the small, walled backyard.

‘There was something not right about that one,’ said Myfanwy, giving me the briefest of glares. ‘Her bedroom was full of nasty books, used to give Alice the creeps. Stephen King, James Herbert, you know the sort.’

‘So she read a lot?’ I asked.

The woman shook her head. ‘Nothing nice,’ she said. ‘She’d get true-crime books out of the library. Serial killers and mass murderers and the like. She wasn’t normal.’

I could sense DI Joesbury taking just a little bit more notice.

‘And that dye she used on her hair.’ Myfanwy was on a roll now. ‘Black as soot, it was. The mess she made on Alice’s bathroom carpet.’

‘Sounds a real delinquent,’ I muttered, sitting back in my chair and looking round the not-very-clean kitchen.

‘She took up with a boyfriend shortly after they came to live here,’ said Myfanwy. ‘Proper waster, he was. Used to steal cars and race round the docks in them.’

‘We’re struggling to find photographs of Victoria,’ said Joesbury. ‘Can I ask you to describe her for me? We’re trying to get an artist’s impression produced. As you lived next door to her for two years, you’d be a big help.’

‘She wasn’t pretty, not like her sister,’ said Myfanwy. ‘She used to cake her face in that horrible white make-up. Like a ghoul. How she got away with it at school, I don’t know.’

‘Actually, we know about her hair and make-up,’ said Joesbury. ‘I’m more concerned with bone structure. You know, I sometimes think it helps to have a reference point. Why don’t you look at my colleague here and tell me how Victoria was different?’

Oh, nice one, DI Joesbury. Very slick.

‘Sit still, Flint,’ instructed Joesbury, although I already was. ‘How do the eyes compare?’ he asked Myfanwy.

‘Victoria was all eyes,’ she replied after a moment. ‘This lady’s are much smaller. And Victoria didn’t need glasses.’

‘Neither does DC Flint,’ said Joesbury, with something like impatience creeping into his voice. ‘Hand them over.’

Without taking my eyes off Myfanwy Thomas, I removed my glasses and put them on the table in front of me.

‘What about my mouth?’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘Thicker lips. More pouty somehow. And she wasn’t as thin as you.’

‘Nose?’ I said.

‘No offence, love, but yours is so swollen I can’t tell what it’s like normally. And I never saw Victoria with two black eyes or a split lip. I won’t lie to you, she did get into fights, but she knew how to handle herself. The other girls always used to come off worst.’

‘I think they still do,’ said Joesbury under his breath.

79

‘SORRY TO KEEP YOU,’ THE WOMAN FROM SOCIAL SERVICES said to us from the doorway. ‘Normally, we can’t give out details without a court order.’ Mrs Rita Jenkins reclaimed her seat in the small interview room in one of Cardiff’s municipal buildings. She’d come into work on a Saturday specially to meet us. Joesbury stepped away from the window and sat down beside me.

‘But confidentiality expires if the person in question is dead?’ he asked.

‘Well, yes, it does,’ Mrs Jenkins agreed. ‘There’s a note on file about Catherine’s death,’ she went on. ‘Ten years ago, does that sound right?’

I nodded.

Mrs Jenkins frowned. ‘As far as Victoria’s concerned, the director’s happy for me to tell you what I can,’ she said.

‘We’re hoping to find someone who knew the girls,’ said Joesbury.

Jenkins pursed her lips. ‘Eleven years is a long time,’ she said. ‘Social work has a high staff turnover. And back then, adoption and fostering came under South Glamorgan County Council. That was abolished a few years ago and the department transferred to Cardiff. People got moved around in the restructuring. I can try and track some down for you. It’ll take a while though.’

‘I appreciate that,’ said Joesbury, who was starting to run out of steam.

Jenkins was flicking through one of the files. ‘It doesn’t often go that badly wrong,’ she said. ‘A young girl dead. And pregnant at fourteen. Bloody mess, I must say.’

The man at my side was paying attention again.

‘Excuse me?’ he said. ‘Cathy was pregnant?’

Jenkins nodded her head sadly. ‘Yes, it was confirmed a few weeks after the incident in Bute Park.’

Joesbury looked at me. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said. ‘The boys used condoms.’

‘Condoms aren’t bulletproof,’ I said. ‘Isn’t there something like a 3 per cent failure rate?’

Joesbury raised both hands in a surrender gesture. ‘Flint, I bow to your greater—’

‘Don’t even go there,’ I snapped.

Joesbury turned back to Jenkins. ‘So what happened to her?’ he asked. ‘Did she have the baby?’

Jenkins shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The pregnancy was terminated at eleven weeks. The trouble was, that wasn’t the end of the matter.’

‘How so?’ asked Joesbury.

‘She got a form of postnatal depression that we see a lot in young girls who’ve had terminations,’ Jenkins said. ‘She was prescribed antidepressants and was allowed to get addicted. She was suspected of taking other things as well. Then she contracted an infection as a direct result of the operation. There was irreparable damage done to her insides. Things just went from bad to worse after that. Her school-work plummeted, there were all sorts of behavioural issues, but she wouldn’t see any of the counsellors we suggested. She became a very sick girl.’

‘And then she ran away?’ said Joesbury.

‘Yes,’ agreed Jenkins. ‘Then we lost her.’

80

BY SIX O’CLOCK, JOESBURY AND I WERE BOTH SHATTERED. We’d visited the children’s home where Victoria and Catherine had lived, on and off, for most of their teenage years. Neither care workers nor files had little to offer that was new. Cathy was the quiet, pleasant-natured one, Victoria the problem child, in and out of trouble, suspected of being up to worse than she was ever caught at.

Joesbury got excited when we managed to track down Victoria’s former English teacher. The look on his face when the tiny woman opened her front door and we realized she could barely see was the highlight of my day.