Women of Courage by Tim Vicary Page B

place, top hotels, Kensington, the lot — sends her old ma four or five quid a week, never mind the rest.’
    The other woman wavered. ‘I could do with that, God’s truth I could. And my Linda would send it to me, she’s a good girl, she is.’
    ‘Well, there you are then. Play your cards right and you never need work again. And you’ll get a good bonus for her being pure.’
    The other woman sighed. ‘I know, I know. I just wish it could wait a year or so, that’s all.’
    ‘Well, it would have waited, if you hadn’t quarrelled with your Dan and got forced out on the street again. But you’re getting on, dearie, we all are, you got to look out for number one. At least this way your kid has a good lie in, keeps her looks, and has a chance of going somewhere . . .’
    The cell door opened, three more women came in, and Sarah lost the rest of the conversation as she had to move up along the bench. But she had heard enough. There could be no misunderstanding what the two women had been talking about. They were talking about selling a young girl into prostitution through the services of some woman called Mavis. And they had even mentioned a doctor called Armstrong — where was the place he owned? Red Lion Street, Hackney. Could there be two doctors involved in this with the same name? Surely not! It was too much of a coincidence to be a mistake.
    I suppose this is the evidence Alice Watson wanted, Sarah thought. If we could just produce those two women in court, get them to swear on oath what I have just heard them saying, then the scandal would be proven. Or even just tell Alice the name of the street in Hackney and the fact that Martin Armstrong owns a — a brothel there. If it is him . . . All we would need then would be the names of the men who are actually paying to seduce — is that the word?
    Paying to deflower — to destroy — to ruin thirteen year old girls!
    Oh Jonathan, Jonathan! In the overcrowded cell Sarah felt herself trembling, sweating, scarcely able to breathe. She tried to imagine what would happen in a bedroom in that house in Kensington when a man — a mature man, bearded perhaps, distinguished, socially secure, thirty-eight years of age perhaps, my husband ! — came into a bedroom with a thirteen-year-old girl. A child who might be his daughter . . .
    It can’t happen.
    It does. Those women were talking about it, just now. Men pay extra because the girl is pure, a child, a virgin. Some of these men must be fathers, with daughters of their own. As that woman is a mother, who is selling her girl.
    Not my Jonathan. Please God, let it not be him.
    Let there be some mistake. Oh dear Father in heaven — why is God a father, would He have done this too?
    My father did . . .
    Sarah sat very still, trembling, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her fingers were white and bloodless. She closed her eyes and tried to pray, not knowing what she believed in any more.
    Certain only that hell was all around her . . .
    At four o’clock they were marched out, thirty women together, to the Black Maria. Sarah had been arrested twice before, but for some reason she had always been taken to prison in a cab, never in one of these until now. The Black Maria was a motor coach, a little longer than an omnibus, but with a single deck and no windows. One by one, two policemen ushered the women in through the doors at the back.
    When it came to Sarah’s turn, panic seized her. There was no room inside! The door at the back opened into a long narrow corridor, almost entirely filled by the bulk of the policeman crouching in it. His head was bent because of the low roof, and he was holding open the door to a small cubicle, a cupboard, on the right.
    ‘Here you are, Ma’am. First class passengers step this way!’
    ‘But — I can’t!’ She began to back out. It was too small, too cramped!
    ‘Here, George, catch her back! This one’s leery!’
    The policeman behind caught her waist, and between the two