Crying in the Dark (8 page)

I had never heard of a pub with that name either, but the landlord of my local told me that there was a Sailing Cot down on the waterfront, by the docks. When I asked him what kind of a place it was, he looked uncomfortable and said that it wouldn't be
his
choice of hostelry, and that he'd be surprised if I liked it. I told him I'd give him a thorough report, and, as early evening began to fall on the city, I headed for the docklands.

I found the pub eventually. It was a small place, halfway up an alley. A swinging sign, covered in grime and soot, depicting a sail-boat being tossed on a stormy sea, hung from two rusty chains at the mouth of the alley. The smell of the tidal river hung heavily in the air, and cranes and fork-lifts moved noisily on the busy docks. On the waterfront, business kept going twenty-four hours a day. I could hear the shouts of the workers, many different accents and languages mingling. This was not a place the Henrys would have ever come to. In fact, I thought as I stood outside the door of the pub, with its cracked paint and ageing posters advertising Sweet Afton cigarettes, that this was not a place I would ever come to. But there I was. So I pushed open the door, paused as the stench of stale beer, cigarette smoke and body odour washed over me, and went in.

Inside it was so dark I had to pause again as my eyes adjusted. There was a small bar facing me, and the rest of the room was divided into cubicles and snugs. An elderly man in a shirt that had probably started out life white, but was now grey, stood leaning on the bar. A cigarette smouldered in the corner of his mouth, a long strand of greasy yellow hair was brushed over his bald pate and he badly needed a shave. I could hear murmurs and muted conversation from the snugs, but the shadows were so deep I couldn't make out anyone.

‘Can I help you, sir?' the barman asked, smiling and displaying very few teeth.

‘I'll have a sparkling water, please. Ice and lemon.'

His smile broadened. ‘A water. For the chap.'

‘Please.'

‘We don't have ice. Don't get much call for it.'

‘Warm will be fine.'

He produced a dusty bottle from beneath the bar without ever taking his eyes off me, and then reached behind him and took a surprisingly clean glass from the shelf.

‘Thanks,' I said, and poured for myself. ‘I'm looking for someone I've been told comes in here. A young woman.'

‘Sir, the girls work outside. We don't allow them in. It's bad for business.'

‘No, no. This is a friend of mine. A girl with Down's Syndrome.'

‘Wha'?'

‘Ummm … she's got a disability … she looks different … y'know.'

‘You mean the mongoloid girl.'

‘Yes! Have you seen her?'

‘Did she come in this evenin' now? I think she did. Have you looked over in the snug over there? That's where she usually goes.'

‘Thank you. Does she come in on her own?'

‘Oh no,' the barman laughed. ‘Never alone. She has a bit of an eye for the fellas, does that one. I wouldn't like a girl like that meself now … don't get me wrong, I've nothin' agin it, but,'
he leaned towards me and whispered, ‘what would the children be like? Would they be handicapped or normal?'

I put the glass on the bar and turned away from him. The bar seemed to be uncomfortably hot, the air too thin.

‘You think she might be over there?'

‘The middle snug. There isn't goin' to be trouble, is there?'

‘I hope not.'

The distance to the snug was only about six feet, but it seemed to take me for ever to cross it. I stood at the door of the cubicle and looked in, not knowing what to expect.

The snug was lit by one bare light bulb that was not on a wire; the socket was fitted into the low ceiling. There was a small table in the centre, upon which was a pint-glass with the dregs of Guinness in it, and a glass that contained a short of some kind. There were soft seats on either side of the table, the upholstery worn and the stuffing showing through in places. On one of these seats sat Mina, draped around a man in his late fifties. He was a skinny, angular individual, his chin and cheeks covered in a salt-and-pepper stubble. He wore a dirty blue suit that was far too big for him, under which he had a purple cardigan and a yellow shirt. His hair hung in strands around his shoulders, black streaked with grey. He looked up at me and smiled. The smile made him look cadaverous and predatory at the same time. Mina had not looked at me, although I was sure she knew I was there.

‘I've come for my friend,' I said to the man, fighting to keep the anger from my voice.

We're all friends, here, Mister,' the thin man said, kissing Mina on the cheek and wrapping his arm around her, leaving his hand resting on her breast.

‘I want you to take your hands off her and walk out of here right now,' I said through clenched teeth.

‘And why exactly would that be?'

‘She is a child. Her parents want her home. I don't believe that she wants to be here with you – and I'm telling you to leave.'

‘She's no child. Look at her. This is no baby here, Mister.'

I felt bile rising and clenched my fists.

‘She is only seventeen years old.'

‘Old enough, as I understand the law, to make up her own mind.'

‘Mina, come on, we're leaving.'

I reached out my hand to her, and for the first time she looked at me. Her brown eyes were huge and wet, but I couldn't read what was in them. The thin man, seeing what was happening, leant around her and kissed her full on the mouth, pushing his tongue between her lips. I rushed at them, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and heaving him away from her. He threw a punch at me, but I had him off balance and the blow went wide, bouncing off the wall. I pulled Mina to her feet and pushed her behind me. She came placidly. The thin man lay on the seat, fury burning in his eyes at having the prey snatched from his grasp.

‘I'll see you soon, Mina,' he said, smiling again. He looked at me, and the smile left his face. ‘And I'll be seeing you too. Watch your back, Mister.'

I shook my head in disgust and led Mina from the snug. Two men were now at the bar – they didn't look like bouncers, but I had the impression that that was their purpose. The bartender had a decidedly unhappy look about him. There was no muttered conversation. All eyes followed us as we walked to the door.

‘Bye, Mina,' the thin man called as we left.

I didn't stop, but walked as fast as I could to where I had parked. Mina was silent beside me, but her pace was quick and she didn't try to shrug off my arm. I fumbled with my keys (my hands were still shaking) and unlocked the passenger-side door. She got in and sat there, looking ahead, as if in a daze. I walked quickly to my own side of the car and was just about to open the door when I stopped dead.

Directly across the street, about one hundred yards from the alley where The Sailing Cot plied its trade, was a corner where two roads conjoined. On this corner stood a group of four girls. They were dressed in short skirts and strappy tops, all revealing a bare midriff, and each of them wore knee-high boots with high heels. The corner was not a bus-stop, and I didn't think that they were waiting for a taxi either. Given the area I was in, the time of evening and the dress and demeanour of the girls, it was obvious what their purpose was. What stopped me in my tracks was that I thought I recognized one of the girls. The group was only a few yards away, and there was still enough light
to
see them clearly, but it had been years since I had seen this girl. I looked again. Yes, it was her!

Her name was Sylvie. I had worked with her in a residential children's home while I was still a student. As a student, I was not permitted to act as a key-worker, but I had developed a very close bond with her, nonetheless. She had called me her ‘minder' – her protector. At that time she had just been taken into care, the victim of a psychiatrically disturbed mother, abandoned by her father, and the experience had been a traumatic one for her. I used to read to her before she went to bed, an activity we both looked forward to. She had loved the story of Cinderella – especially the notion of having a fairy godmother, someone watching over you and looking after you all the time. She asked me one evening, snuggled up on my knee as I read her the story, if I believed there really was such a thing as a fairy godmother. I told her that, yes, I liked to think that there was. The world had never been kind to Sylvie, and she needed all the comfort she could get. Judging by what I was seeing, her fairy godmother had been sorely negligent in her duties.

I did some quick sums in my head. She had been four when I had worked with her. That meant that now she couldn't be much more than thirteen. As I watched, a couple of men walked up and stopped to talk to the girls. I was torn: I could not handle Mina and this waif at the same time. I hadn't seen Sylvie in almost ten years – she may not even have remembered me. She would never have come with me right off. I would have had to talk to her for an hour or more, and even then it might have been a waste of time. I wasn't even a hundred per cent certain she
was
on the game, although it was starting to look more and more like a dead cert. Cursing myself for what I had to do, I got in and drove away without looking back. Sylvie would have to wait.

Mina would neither look at me nor speak to me on the drive home. I tried talking to her for a while, then gave up and focused on my own thoughts. I pushed Sylvie to the back of my mind, and considered what had just happened with Mina. My head was awhirl with the possibilities, none of which was good. Had Mina been running away to meet that man? Was she having a relationship with him? Had he in some manner inveigled his way into the Abled-Disabled Club or the workshop and coerced her into a sexual relationship? Had she just run into him by accident this afternoon, and they had got together? She was obviously a regular in The Sailing Cot. How had she even found the place? What had brought her there initially? She was, according to the barman, known as having ‘an eye for the fellas'. Was she purposely going out to meet men? I had no answers to any of these questions, and Mina was not making any effort to enlighten me. I pulled up outside her house, and she opened the door and got out without a word. I followed her up the drive and waited while her mother answered the door.

Mina shot past her and straight up the stairs. Her mother stood at the door, her mouth open, gazing after her daughter and then looking back at me.

‘My God … you … you found her!'

‘Can we go inside and sit down, Molly? I need to talk to you both, and what I have to say isn't pretty.'

She showed me into the living room, where Dirk was already standing, looking pale and worried.

‘Thank you for bringing my daughter home, Shane. About this afternoon …'

‘Let's not go over that, Dirk. I was as much an ass as you were. Just listen to me now. There's some things we need to go over.'

I told them how I had found Mina, what had happened in the grotty pub by the river, and described the thin man. They sat through it all, never saying a word. When I was finished, Dirk, whose Adam's apple had been bobbing like a cork in a basin of water, swallowed and took a deep breath.

‘Well, I'm devastated. I don't know what to say.'

‘I'm sorry to have to bring you such bad news.'

‘Well, she's home now.'

‘Yes. I don't think that there would be any point in trying to talk to her just at the moment. Let her have her space. I'll come by tomorrow. Perhaps she'll talk to you in the meantime, but I doubt
it.
Let's just hope she opens up soon. There are a lot of questions that need answering.'

‘Oh, I'm sure she's got whatever it is out of her system, Shane. I doubt that we'll have any more trouble with her now.'

‘I don't know. I wish I could agree, but there's something odd happening. I don't know what it is yet. There are just too many coincidences. Nothing adds up.'

‘I'd really prefer it if we just leave it, Shane,' Molly said.

I had almost forgotten she was there. I looked over at her, and saw that she was crying. I felt for her, but I was strongly getting the sense that neither of them was surprised by this turn of events. They were desperately embarrassed that I had tracked her down, horrified that I knew the dirty little secret, but not at all surprised that I had found their daughter in a clinch with a filthy man in a seedy pub in a dangerous part of the city.

‘With respect, Molly, we
can't
leave it. Mina has been going out and, intentionally or under duress, I don't know which, has been giving herself to men. And not nice, pleasant, gentlemen, but men who want to use her, who want to take advantage of this vulnerable young woman. Now I don't think that we can just pretend that this hasn't happened. We need to talk to her about it, have her medically checked out to see that she hasn't picked up any sexually transmitted infections, maybe get her some counselling. There are courses, specially designed for people with intellectual disabilities, called “body awareness programmes”, which can help Mina to have a better understanding of her sexuality. We have a huge range of things to do now. This is just the beginning.'

‘Thank you for your help, Shane.' Dirk stood up and extended his hand. ‘I think Molly and I had best be getting off to bed. It's been a trying day for all of us.'

At the door I turned and looked him hard in the eye.

‘I don't know what's going on here, Dirk. But I do know that Mina is hurting, and that she seems to be trapped in a cycle of behaviour that is going to end up with her being hurt a whole lot more. Don't try and brush it under the carpet. The only way to deal with this is to talk about it.'

He looked at me for a moment, and I thought he was going to answer me. I could see that he was fighting to keep his composure, that he was on the edge of collapsing. But he just cleared his throat, patted me firmly on the shoulder and said: ‘Goodnight, Shane.'