safely in her room and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."
“That's not what I meant, Laura.”
“I know what you meant,” she murmured, turning up the volume on the radio to shut him out. "But you're using Martin's words, so perhaps you should ask him what he means by them."
'.. . two hundred local people joined, police during the night to search the surrounding countryside .. ."
'.. . police believe Amy may be heading for her father's house in Bournemouth .. ."
'.. . home owners in the south are being asked to look in sheds garages, abandoned fridges, derelict houses .. . not given up hope that Amy may have fallen asleep .. ."
'.. . NSPCC spokesman said that, while it's an appalling tragedy when any child goes missing, the public should remember that two children a week die from cruelty and neglect in their own homes .. ."
'.. . police spokesman confirmed that all registered paedophiles in Hampshire were visited within eight hours of Amy's disappearance ..
."
'.. . no leads .. ."
Saturday 28 July 2001 10.00-19.00
Six.
Saturday 28 July 2001 Glebe Road, Bassindale Estate
MELANIE PATTERSON SHARED a cigarette with her mother on a bench seat outside the Co-op in Glebe Road. It was an unvarying Saturday morning ritual during which they caught up on news before doing their shopping together. It was like the old days, when they still lived together.
Gaynor would stretch out on the settee with Melanie curled against her and they'd drink a beer and split a fag and set the world to rights.
They'd always been close and never understood the hassle the Social gave them about their ever increasing family.
Gaynor was an older version of her daughter, not so tall, but with the same lush blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Her fifth child, a little boy, was born six months after his niece, Rosie, but none of the Pattersons found this particularly odd. There was no logic to any of the generations. Melanie's great-grandmother, herself the mother of ten, wasn't born until five years after her eldest brother's death in the First World War, yet she kept his photograph beside her bed and spoke as if she were closer to him than any of her surviving brothers.
And maybe she was, because Patterson men were renowned for their feuding“ It the Irish in them,” Great-Grammer always said, making a tenuous link to some distant ancestor who had crossed the sea to Liverpool during the nineteenth century. "They'd rather be fighting than home in their beds.. ." and Patterson women for taking lovers out of boredom '.. . the good Lord wouldn't have given us wombs if he hadn't meant us to fill them."
It was a view shared by Melanie and her mother. Bossy health visitors could say what they liked about contraception, but child-bearing answered a basic need in both of them. As indeed it had for the long line of women before them. There had never been a perception among Patterson women that personal fulfilment lay in taking a regular job and making money. A woman's role was to make babies, particularly when someone else was prepared to pay for them. Indeed, Gaynor's most perfect achievement was this, her eldest daughter, who adored and was adored in equal measure. Men came and went in both their lives but their constancy to each other was unshakeable. They agreed on everything. Loves, hates, beliefs, prejudices, friends and enemies.
On hearing from Melanie the previous Saturday that paedophiles had been housed just one door away from her grandchildren, Gaynor had reacted with predictable anger.
“It makes you sick,” she'd said. "The Social's got no business sticking psychos in your road and expecting you to guard your kiddies twenty-four hours a day. That says the nonces are more important than you, Rosie and Ben put together .. . and that's not right, darling'.
Men like that should be locked up for life .. . simple as that." She took a drag and passed the cigarette to her daughter. "I don't want you and the babes in
“That's not what I meant, Laura.”
“I know what you meant,” she murmured, turning up the volume on the radio to shut him out. "But you're using Martin's words, so perhaps you should ask him what he means by them."
'.. . two hundred local people joined, police during the night to search the surrounding countryside .. ."
'.. . police believe Amy may be heading for her father's house in Bournemouth .. ."
'.. . home owners in the south are being asked to look in sheds garages, abandoned fridges, derelict houses .. . not given up hope that Amy may have fallen asleep .. ."
'.. . NSPCC spokesman said that, while it's an appalling tragedy when any child goes missing, the public should remember that two children a week die from cruelty and neglect in their own homes .. ."
'.. . police spokesman confirmed that all registered paedophiles in Hampshire were visited within eight hours of Amy's disappearance ..
."
'.. . no leads .. ."
Saturday 28 July 2001 10.00-19.00
Six.
Saturday 28 July 2001 Glebe Road, Bassindale Estate
MELANIE PATTERSON SHARED a cigarette with her mother on a bench seat outside the Co-op in Glebe Road. It was an unvarying Saturday morning ritual during which they caught up on news before doing their shopping together. It was like the old days, when they still lived together.
Gaynor would stretch out on the settee with Melanie curled against her and they'd drink a beer and split a fag and set the world to rights.
They'd always been close and never understood the hassle the Social gave them about their ever increasing family.
Gaynor was an older version of her daughter, not so tall, but with the same lush blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Her fifth child, a little boy, was born six months after his niece, Rosie, but none of the Pattersons found this particularly odd. There was no logic to any of the generations. Melanie's great-grandmother, herself the mother of ten, wasn't born until five years after her eldest brother's death in the First World War, yet she kept his photograph beside her bed and spoke as if she were closer to him than any of her surviving brothers.
And maybe she was, because Patterson men were renowned for their feuding“ It the Irish in them,” Great-Grammer always said, making a tenuous link to some distant ancestor who had crossed the sea to Liverpool during the nineteenth century. "They'd rather be fighting than home in their beds.. ." and Patterson women for taking lovers out of boredom '.. . the good Lord wouldn't have given us wombs if he hadn't meant us to fill them."
It was a view shared by Melanie and her mother. Bossy health visitors could say what they liked about contraception, but child-bearing answered a basic need in both of them. As indeed it had for the long line of women before them. There had never been a perception among Patterson women that personal fulfilment lay in taking a regular job and making money. A woman's role was to make babies, particularly when someone else was prepared to pay for them. Indeed, Gaynor's most perfect achievement was this, her eldest daughter, who adored and was adored in equal measure. Men came and went in both their lives but their constancy to each other was unshakeable. They agreed on everything. Loves, hates, beliefs, prejudices, friends and enemies.
On hearing from Melanie the previous Saturday that paedophiles had been housed just one door away from her grandchildren, Gaynor had reacted with predictable anger.
“It makes you sick,” she'd said. "The Social's got no business sticking psychos in your road and expecting you to guard your kiddies twenty-four hours a day. That says the nonces are more important than you, Rosie and Ben put together .. . and that's not right, darling'.
Men like that should be locked up for life .. . simple as that." She took a drag and passed the cigarette to her daughter. "I don't want you and the babes in
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