The Runaway (21 page)

In many respects he was right.

The boy before him reminded Danny very much of himself. Eamonn Docherty Junior, as he was known, lived life with the express wish of accumulating money and spending it. He wanted the best and wanted it as quickly as possible. He would also do anything to further his own ends. Unlike most of Dixon’s heavies this boy would never, ever draw a line. Had no boundaries.

Dixon admired this, even though he knew the lad would one day be dangerous because of these very qualities.

One day, Eamonn would want what he had. It was a simple fact of life. When that day came, he would deal with it. Until then he would use the boy, be his mentor.

Dixon believed in the old adage: It takes one to know one. In this case he was pretty sure he had met, if not his match then the nearest he would ever get to it.

Eamonn left ten minutes later two hundred pounds richer and unsure exactly what he had done to earn it other than beat a man nearly to death.

That beating had been bought and paid for already.

He wouldn’t understand for a little while that the unexpected gift had been nothing more than a publicity exercise for himself and Dixon.

The beating would be talked of, naturally, but the two hundred pounds would be discussed everywhere. In every pub, club and drinking establishment.

Even his own men would discuss it.

It was sound economics.

Lessons would be learned.

For the moment, Dixon could sleep easier in his bed and Eamonn Docherty could bask in the kudos Dixon’s largesse had afforded him.

 

Mary Barton was deeply concerned. Taking one look at the girl in the bed, she turned on Hodges ferociously.

‘Get the doctor, you bloody fool of a man!’

As he lurched from the room she looked at her friend and colleague and raised her eyes heavenwards.

Miss Henley shook her head sorrowfully. ‘No one was here with her. I thought he would have let it go after a couple of hours. I had no idea he had left her for the whole night.’

This was a lie and they both knew it. It was all part and parcel of the game they played. Everyone pretended that what they did was perfectly normal. No one actually admitted out loud that their treatment of the children in their care was abominable.

Nor would anyone ever admit that the money they skimmed from everything, from heating to food to clothing, was ever used for anything other than the most righteous and just of causes. It was a cruel and cynical game and they were all experts at it.

‘What the hell will we say?’ Miss Henley’s voice was frightened.

Mrs Barton shrugged as if this were a normal day in a normal home. ‘Why, the truth, of course. One of the other girls did this to her and we found her like it. What else can we say?’

Brown’s voice came from the back of the room. ‘Or we could say that the sadistic old bastard in charge of the place tied her up, nearly killed her, and came in during the night to have a look at his handiwork. Because you can guarantee that he did, ladies. And I bet he loved it! Especially when she was still lucid and knew what was happening to her. He could’ve done anything to her!

‘Or we could say that she isn’t actually supposed to be here, because she hasn’t actually done anything wrong - unless we count the fact that you took one look at her and decided she should be locked up, Mrs Barton. I mean, that’s why she’s really here, isn’t it?’

The two older women stared at June Brown in amazement.

‘Have you gone off your head, woman?’ Mrs Barton’s voice was scandalised.

The heavy-set woman before them shrugged. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep me trap shut, but I warn you all now: this place has got to sort itself out. Me and Jonesey are sick of it. Our job is to police the girls, not the bleedin’ staff. Look at the pair of you! A dried-up old stick and a raving lesbian. And as for Hodges . . . he’s a sick-minded fucking pervert! By Christ, how the hell you sleep at night, I don’t know.’

Miss Henley’s face was red and shiny with nervous perspiration. ‘You can talk. What abo—’

June Brown interrupted her. ‘Me and Jonesey have been together for years, lady. We ain’t after little girls. Look at you and Denise . . . you think we don’t know? She describes it all in graphic detail to give the other inmates a laugh and you think no one knows? You’re really that fucking stupid? They talk about everything, and when they leave they take it with them, in their hearts and in their minds. One day it will all come out and I can’t fucking wait to see the shit hit the fan then.’

She walked from the room, a fundamentally decent woman who, because of sexual preferences, was reduced to living a life of shame and humiliation in an institution where her so-called strangeness was more or less normal compared to the peccadilloes of the people in charge.

As she had remarked to her long-time friend, Gillian Jones: ‘The price we have paid for our friendship is much too high. If we’re unnatural, what the fuck does that make this lot?’

Life could be very unfair, as the Two Misses knew to their cost.

If they blew the whistle, it would be their word against everyone else’s and they both knew that they wouldn’t stand a snowflake in hell’s chance of ever being believed.

After a strong coffee laced with Scotch, Miss Brown let the doctor into the Home and played the game as she was supposed to. Ergo: she lied through her crooked teeth.

Chapter Twelve

The doctor was shocked and disgusted at the treatment meted out to the girl in the bed. He was on the verge of taking her to hospital when it was pointed out to him that she was a violent offender and had to be taken everywhere under guard.

The doctor, who only a few months previously had been brought in to help save a child who had mutilated herself and her dorm-mate, was not as shocked as he made himself out to be. Indeed, he dined out on his stories of this female institution, and in fact wished he were called there more often.

An actual tying up would be a very good story for his cronies and professional colleagues alike.

He had the girl lucid and sufficiently recovered to be spoken to and understood within one week - a feat he was proud of and which earned him the heartfelt gratitude of the authorities at Benton.

The doors, however, remained closed to him after that and he had to wonder at the fate of that particular girl as he did about others he had treated there. In his heart he knew he was part of a conspiracy of some sort, but wrongly believed it was to keep the good name of Deal as a holiday centre spotless. Mrs Barton knew human nature and sussed out the good doctor from the off, while he congratulated himself on the fact that the girl would have lost at least one limb, if not for him.

As it was she had a full complement of arms and legs and was making an excellent recovery.

Cathy was a silent and stoical patient.

He put the quietness down to the ordeal she had been through. He never dreamed it was Miss Henley’s presence that kept the child so tight-lipped.

It would take twenty years and the admission of tie down practices by the care authorities before he would piece together exactly what had gone on right under his nose.

Until that time he would congratulate himself on a job well done.

 

Denise was allowed to visit the sick girl on a regular basis. The fear everyone had experienced at Cathy’s near demise had communicated itself to the residents of the Home and all were aware that, for once, they had the upper hand.

Food was plentiful, warmth was an everyday thing and the excessive punishments meted out were a thing of the past. Everyone knew it would not last and everyone was enjoying the respite while they could. No one more so than Denise.

As she looked down at the girl in the bed, she felt a tightening in her chest and realised it was a form of love.

Miss Henley and the others knew that Denise was the linchpin of the whole Home. That in her own way she worked with them to keep some kind of order; one word from her and there could be murder committed before their very eyes. Suddenly, the boot was on the other foot and, realising this, Denise milked it for all it was worth.

What Denise didn’t know was that the guilty members of staff were already conspiring between them to remove both Cathy and herself from the Home as soon as was humanly possible.

Cathy opened her eyes and smiled gently. ‘Me hands are still killing me.’

Denise winced. ‘I bet they are, girl. They look painful even now.’

The tight bonds had cut off her circulation from the wrists. Eventually her hands had swollen badly and now, a week on, Cathy was losing her nails. The strange thing was, this was the most painful part of the whole ordeal.

‘I hate having to be fed as well, I feel a right prat.’ Cathy’s voice was harder than before, her eyes more wary, but her small-boned body had an indomitable air that was obvious to any onlooker.

She had been through so much, in such a short space of time, that anything the world threw at her now would be as nothing. Unwittingly, Benton School for Girls had shaped the rest of her life.

Denise sensed this and was both elated and sorry. ‘How long do you reckon then?’ Denise’s voice was low. Even though they were alone, neither was going to take any chance of being overheard.

‘Another week and I’ll be back on me pins. And then I want out.’ Cathy’s voice was wistful, the need to escape so strong she could almost taste it.

‘Unlike me, see, you won’t be pulled back in because you’re not really supposed to be here anyway,’ Denise whispered to her. ‘I’ll have to go right on the trot, me. South London is the last place I can go. I was thinking of Up West or even the North. Those twins, Maureen and Doreen, reckon I could make a good living up at a place called Lumb Lane in Bradford. Apparently it’s really lucrative and all the women who work there look the business and have good pimps and everything.’

Her voice was strong and happy with the visions the twins’ words had conjured up before her eyes. The thought of making plenty of money, and being in the company of real prostitutes again, was like a dream come true. Denise knew it was all she could expect from life. Even as a child she had accepted that for her, life would be a harsh struggle. It was how it had always been.

‘You do realise what we have to do to get out, don’t you?’ she pressed.

Cathy nodded, her face clouding over for a moment, and then she smiled grimly. ‘I’ll do it and so will you. I’d do anything to escape this place.’

Both were quiet then, as if the enormity of what lay before them had rendered them both speechless.

Which was pretty much what had happened.

 

Mary Barton, for the first time in her life, was up against a brick wall.

A troublesome woman called Betty Jones had been asking all and sundry about the Connor child. She’d somehow found out about the initial scheme to foster her and kept asking why there had been no letters from or any news of the child. For the first time in her life, Mary was experiencing real fear.

Until Cathy Connor, she had done pretty much as she had pleased, both with the people she dealt with and the children she so cavalierly placed in homes, foster care or institutions. Now people wanted to know what was happening to her charges and she was having to justify herself. It was a sobering exercise.

Basically, like most bullies, Mary Barton was a coward. She was happy when in complete control and lost once someone questioned her power.

Catherine Connor should never have been placed in Benton School for Girls and they all knew it. The little minx herself had actually had the effrontery to question her about the situation. Unheard of! No one ever questioned Mary Barton. It was like an eleventh Commandment, an unwritten law. But now everyone at work was querying her decisions and she was finding it difficult in the extreme.

How to explain why she’d placed the child here instead of with a private family? She had made out a report saying the child had attacked her and also Miss Henley. This was all it took normally. Now suddenly, the magistrate wanted to see the child for himself.

This Betty Jones was also causing untold trouble by offering the girl a home with her. As if Mrs Barton would allow a child to be put at risk in a house of ill repute, with a woman who sold her body to strangers for money! Miss Henley chose to forget the treatment meted out within Benton School for Girls by so-called respectable members of the establishment.

All in all, it was very worrying.

She found herself resenting the Connor girl more and more. She had never liked the child from the moment she had clapped eyes on her; now it seemed she might actually begin to hate her.

It was all the child’s fault, of course. You did not bite the hand that fed and clothed you. It would be a hard lesson and the Connor child would learn it the hard way.

Of that Mary Barton was determined.

Once this little fiasco was sorted out, the girl was going into lock up in one of the more obscure mental establishments. That should take the leap out of her gallop.

 

Betty Jones’s face was devoid of make-up and her hair was brushed into an unaccustomed bun. At first she had tried being herself, but as this seemed to get her nowhere she’d decided that the less like a whore she looked, the more chance she’d have of getting people to take her seriously. There was something up with Cathy; Social Services weren’t being straight with her, she just knew it.

She’d decided to enlist the help of Richard Gates but all he could do was laugh at her changed appearance.

‘I knew I recognised that face, but I couldn’t place it. What on earth’s the matter with you, woman? You look even worse than usual. You ain’t joined the Salvation Army, have you?’ He put back his head and roared with laughter once more.

Betty, forgetting what she was there for, snapped, ‘Up yours, Gates. How dare you take the piss?’ She stood up and made to walk out of the room. He stood up too and pulled her roughly back.