Wildcard

PART FIVE - Friday 6th May (i)

"There's a call-back for you to do."

The receptionist on the desk flapped a pale blue docket at Ryan as soon as he walked into HQ. "Here you go. Some woman regarding Sarah Reed."

Ryan was on the phone before the vending machine cup had even dropped into the slot.

"Mrs Quinn? It's D-Detective Shale. You rang HQ and said you had information." He sifted through the intriguing transcript of the earlier call. "M-May I come and visit you?"

- - -

Vera Quinn's post-war overspill home was in slightly better condition than most others in her street, but that wasn't saying much. The prefabricated housing, thrown together with metal facia panels and corrugated iron rooves, was slowly falling apart.

Over time, subsequent Governments had forgotten the bold promise that all emergency housing would be dismantled by the end of the sixties, so the leaking, creaking properties remained – still stubbornly upright, eighty years later. The concrete fencing slats had chunks missing, like broken teeth, and the house next door had been smashed up by vandals.

When Ryan knocked, the woman took her time answering, although he could hear her puffing her way downstairs. He glanced around the rubbish-strewn neighbourhood while he waited. The wheeless chassis of a burnt-out car shielded men dealing drugs on the street corner. He looked away. That was Vice's problem – he already had enough on his plate.

Two heavy locks clicked back, and Ryan readied his identity card. The overflowing ashtray beside a deeply sunken seat on the front porch was a very good sign. It betrayed a favoured spot from which to watch the world go by, and if there was any one thing Ryan really loved, it was an obnoxiously nosy neighbour.

Mrs Quinn opened the door on the chain and peered at him warily.

"Detective Shale, ma'am," Ryan said, holding out his ID. "I've come to talk to you about Sarah Reed."

Vera's hard-set jaw softened at the mention of Sarah. "Such a sweet girl," she said, removing the chain and opening the door. "Come in, Detective."

As if inter-generational despair was a badge of honour, she boasted of having been a lifelong resident of the Torbrook Estate, living in the same council house her mother and grandmother had held before her. Although nowhere near the tracks where Sarah had been dumped, Torbrook wasn't far from where she'd gone missing, so Ryan was hopeful the woman might have something useful to offer.

The tatty sitting room was adorned with fading family photographs. Nicotine-yellowed nets hung at every window, and the place smelled of dogs. A picture of the Virgin Mary hung over the fireplace, and a grey parrot observed him from a cage near the fire. Mrs Quinn collapsed into a threadbare chair and gestured at him to take the other.

"I'm a little p-puzzled as to how you knew Sarah," Ryan began, surveying the sturdy walking frame in the corner as he flipped to a fresh page in his notepad. "Her family lived a fair way from here."

"Sarah were a friend of our Becky," Mrs Quinn explained, as if anyone with half a brain cell ought to know who 'our Becky' was.

Ryan glanced up. "Becky?"

"My granddaughter. Our Missy – that's my eldest girl – got gived her own house by the corpy when she had Becky. Sarah Reed were our Becky's best friend at primary school. I always take the bus to Missy's house for my tea on Saturdays, and our Becky would often be playing out with that Sarah during the summer. She were a lovely little thing that Sarah was. Ever so polite. That were probably her downfall. She'd do anything for anyone ... Such a tragedy what happened."