Death in Dark Waters by Patricia Hall

performed nightly on the pub and club circuit, casting off their bras and squeezing into too revealing dresses to exchange their pain and disappointment for a moment of glamour and whoops of drunken enthusiasm from the audience. He knew now that Donna was different. She saw life on the Heights as a challenge and had learned slowly and painfully that occasionally she could win and he admired her for it. But admiration and sex in the afternoon did not equate to anything more. They both knew that and most of the time accepted it. It was only occasionally Mower caught that look of longing in Donna’s eyes before they turned away from each other, he in sudden anger, she in embarrassment.
    She pulled a blue silk nightdress over her head to conceal breasts that were beginning to droop and a stomach still flat from fevered dieting but not free of stretch marks, and reached out until Mower sat back down on the bed beside her and put an arm around her waist companionably.
    â€œWhat is it about you?” she asked. “I’ve been watching you, you know. This weren’t just summat that came up on me today. I’ve watched you wi‘t’kids and seen you come alive
wi‘them. And then when you come back to t’bloody adults you switch off, dead as summat that fell off back of a bin lorry. What’s that all about?”
    â€œIt’s a long story,” Mower said uneasily, getting up again to pull a sweatshirt over his head and moving out onto the balcony of the fourth floor flat where an icy blast from the Pennines made him recoil. Donna followed him, pulling a robe around herself and standing beside him shivering as they both gazed down at the littered car-park below. Donna’s lips tightened and she looked away so that the sergeant could not see eyes filled with tears which were only partly caused by the wind.
    â€œAnd a story you’re not going to tell some slag you just picked up on a night out slumming on t’Heights?”
    Mower reached out and pulled her closer.
    â€œDon’t do that to yourself, Donna,” Mower said. “You don’t deserve it.”
    â€œSo why won’t you tell me about her? I know there’s someone else. I can see it in your eyes when you get into bed. It’s not me you really want. Dumped you, did she?”
    Mower shuddered slightly as the wind threw a flurry of needle sharp sleet in their faces.
    â€œIt wasn’t like that,” he said, turning and urging Donna back inside.
    â€œSo you dumped her and now you’re regretting it?”
    â€œShe …” Mower hesitated. “You don’t need to worry about her. She died.”
    â€œOh, Jesus, I’m sorry,” Donna said quickly, her eyes filling with tears again. She dashed them away and began to get dressed, pulling clothes on quickly to cover flesh she did not want Mower to inspect too closely. Mower stood with his back against the balcony door looking at her, wishing he could give her what she so desperately wanted and knowing that he never could. He followed her into the living room where she began a furious tidying away of the previous night’s mugs and glasses which covered the coffee table.

    â€œYou don’t need to be sorry for me. It’s over now,” he said.
    â€œAye, but it’s never over, is it?” Donna said. “My sister lost her lad. He were t‘first to OD on smack. Too pure, they said, as if that made it any easier. She’ll not get over it. Not ever. Why d’you think I’m so gutted that the Project’s getting trashed by t’minutes. It’s to stop kids like our Terry getting hooked. And my Emma, for that matter, though she’s little yet.”
    Mower glanced at his watch. Emma was Donna’s eight year old daughter and as far as he knew she did not know of his existence. It was a situation he preferred to maintain.
    â€œShe’ll be home soon, won’t she? I’d better