danger,“ she said with sudden decision. ”You'll have to come home. You and the wee ones can take Colin's room, and he can move in with Bry and little Johnnie."
But Melanie had shaken her head. "Jimmy's due out in a couple of days.
He'll take care of us. Anyways, I reckon it's the nonces should move not us ... which is what I told the cow at Housing the Social's got a fucking nerve, I said, giving us lectures about' she drew quotation marks in the air' "parenting then dumping sodding paedophiles on the street without telling anyone. So she tells me to stop swearing or she'll hang up."
“She never!”
"She fucking did, and I said, if she thought swearing was worse than murdering little kids then she ought to be in therapy. I bet she wouldn't like it, I said, if the council stuck perverts next to her. So then I get the usual wall-to-wall bull .. . she didn't know what I was talking about ... it wasn't her responsibility .. . the person to ask was my social worker. I was well pissed off and said if she didn't fucking move them out herself, then us as lives in the street'd fucking do it for her. I mean, they can't rate our kids very high if they reckon it's OK for dirty old men to shaft them whenever they get a sodding itch .. . and that's when she hung up .. ."
Seven days later, fuelled by radio and television reports that a child had gone missing in Portisfield, the swell of opinion against the paedophiles had reached fever pitch. It was known, courtesy of a postman who had shown a redirected letter to a neighbour, that the men's previous address had been Callum Road, Portisfield, so late on the Friday night the same neighbour phoned the former occupant of number 23, Mary Fallen, to find out what she knew.
Mary was full of it. Portisfield was crawling with policemen, knocking on doors, showing the kid's photograph, and asking if anyone had seen her or knew where she'd spent the last two weeks. They were talking about a 'friend' that her family didn't know about, but even a moron could work out that 'friend' was a euphemism for a predatory paedophile. There were two evicted from Portisfield near on a month ago after one of them was recognized from a photograph, and Mary wasn't the only person who'd told the police to track them down. The kid had been living cheek by jowl with them for God knows how long, and paedophiles being what they are on the lookout for lonely and vulnerable children you could bet they'd picked her out for attention.
It didn't make sense to assume she'd gone to ground in her own neighbourhood, when the chances were she'd been collected and driven somewhere else every day.
Mary was speechless for all of five seconds when her friend told her the Portisfield paedophiles were living in her old house. She couldn't believe it. Her house! Home to bloody nonces! What kind of idiot had decided to move them into the Row? The place had more children than adults. It was like putting a junkie in charge of a drug store. How had they been sussed? Had they tried it on with a kid? Did they have a car? Did they leave the house every day? Had anyone seen a skinny little girl with dark hair there?
The answers to her questions were largely negative but there was always room for doubt. The men's arrival had been so secret that it stood to reason they could come and go at will. The younger one did the shopping occasionally, scuttling along and never meeting anyone's eyes but who was to say where he went when he turned the corner out of Bassindale Row or if he had a car parked secretly away from the estate?
The older one, white-faced and black-haired, had been spotted through the window from time to time, standing in the shadows and scowling at passers-by, but who knew where he went at night when decent people were asleep? As for a little girl .. . well, they wouldn't bring her back to the house in daylight, would they?
Plans had been made at the beginning of the week to converge on Humbert Street that Saturday
But Melanie had shaken her head. "Jimmy's due out in a couple of days.
He'll take care of us. Anyways, I reckon it's the nonces should move not us ... which is what I told the cow at Housing the Social's got a fucking nerve, I said, giving us lectures about' she drew quotation marks in the air' "parenting then dumping sodding paedophiles on the street without telling anyone. So she tells me to stop swearing or she'll hang up."
“She never!”
"She fucking did, and I said, if she thought swearing was worse than murdering little kids then she ought to be in therapy. I bet she wouldn't like it, I said, if the council stuck perverts next to her. So then I get the usual wall-to-wall bull .. . she didn't know what I was talking about ... it wasn't her responsibility .. . the person to ask was my social worker. I was well pissed off and said if she didn't fucking move them out herself, then us as lives in the street'd fucking do it for her. I mean, they can't rate our kids very high if they reckon it's OK for dirty old men to shaft them whenever they get a sodding itch .. . and that's when she hung up .. ."
Seven days later, fuelled by radio and television reports that a child had gone missing in Portisfield, the swell of opinion against the paedophiles had reached fever pitch. It was known, courtesy of a postman who had shown a redirected letter to a neighbour, that the men's previous address had been Callum Road, Portisfield, so late on the Friday night the same neighbour phoned the former occupant of number 23, Mary Fallen, to find out what she knew.
Mary was full of it. Portisfield was crawling with policemen, knocking on doors, showing the kid's photograph, and asking if anyone had seen her or knew where she'd spent the last two weeks. They were talking about a 'friend' that her family didn't know about, but even a moron could work out that 'friend' was a euphemism for a predatory paedophile. There were two evicted from Portisfield near on a month ago after one of them was recognized from a photograph, and Mary wasn't the only person who'd told the police to track them down. The kid had been living cheek by jowl with them for God knows how long, and paedophiles being what they are on the lookout for lonely and vulnerable children you could bet they'd picked her out for attention.
It didn't make sense to assume she'd gone to ground in her own neighbourhood, when the chances were she'd been collected and driven somewhere else every day.
Mary was speechless for all of five seconds when her friend told her the Portisfield paedophiles were living in her old house. She couldn't believe it. Her house! Home to bloody nonces! What kind of idiot had decided to move them into the Row? The place had more children than adults. It was like putting a junkie in charge of a drug store. How had they been sussed? Had they tried it on with a kid? Did they have a car? Did they leave the house every day? Had anyone seen a skinny little girl with dark hair there?
The answers to her questions were largely negative but there was always room for doubt. The men's arrival had been so secret that it stood to reason they could come and go at will. The younger one did the shopping occasionally, scuttling along and never meeting anyone's eyes but who was to say where he went when he turned the corner out of Bassindale Row or if he had a car parked secretly away from the estate?
The older one, white-faced and black-haired, had been spotted through the window from time to time, standing in the shadows and scowling at passers-by, but who knew where he went at night when decent people were asleep? As for a little girl .. . well, they wouldn't bring her back to the house in daylight, would they?
Plans had been made at the beginning of the week to converge on Humbert Street that Saturday
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