The girl shook her head, then sucked hard on the cigarette.
A train rattled past somewhere close, making it difficult to hear anything else. As the racket faded away, Rachel said, ‘I’m investigating another case. It might be the same bloke.’ She studied the girl, who just sat shivering, staring across the canal, tapping nervously at the end of her cigarette with her thumbnail. ‘Does the name Sean Broughton mean anything to you?’
Rosie shook her head slowly. No reaction, no increase in stress as far as Rachel could see.
‘This other girl, she was in Ryelands, too.’ Rachel caught the flinch that the name of the home provoked and felt her own heartbeat quicken. ‘Was it someone you knew from Ryelands?’ Rachel asked. ‘Just tell me that. I don’t need a name, I can find out.’ Speaking fast, rushing to convince her.
Rosie turned. ‘No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t,’ she cried. ‘Why have you come back?’ Her face white with anxiety, eyes wide, the pupils huge from the drugs or the drink. She was shuddering, her breath catching and uneven. ‘I didn’t see his face. I just want to forget it, I told you before.’
‘How? Look at the state of you,’ Rachel said. ‘You’ve not forgotten. You let them get away with it. And now they might have hurt someone else.’ All things she should have kept to herself, unhelpful, unprofessional. ‘We can protect you,’ Rachel went on.
‘I never seen him,’ Rosie shouted. ‘Just go, will you, fuck off.’ She leapt to her feet and walked unsteadily back to her friends, and Rachel heard the hubbub of questions and remarks as she reached the tunnel.
Rachel lobbed her cigarette into the canal, retraced her steps. Rosie didn’t know Sean, she trusted her on that, but Ryelands? There was something there, but she needed to find a way to introduce it to the inquiry without getting a total bollocking or being laughed out of court.
JANET WAS SHATTERED at the start of the day. She’d arrived home the night before to find Elise and Taisie going at it like something off Jerry Springer. Ade out at a leaving do for someone at school. As Janet came through the door, she could hear thumping from upstairs and Taisie screaming, ‘Give it me back, you slag. You bitch. Give it me now.’
‘Oy!’ Janet called out. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Give it me!’
Janet got halfway upstairs in time to see Taisie land a kick on Elise’s bedroom door. Taisie was incandescent, her face red with exertion, eyes wild.
‘What’s going on?’ Janet said again.
