No Place of Safety (5 page)

‘Never better, Mum. Busy, but I like that.'

‘But what are you
doing
, Alan?'

‘Something useful, Mum. Working real hard.'

‘But why, Alan? This is your holiday. School's broken up now. You've just done your GCSEs, and you deserve a break.'

‘A break is what I'm getting, Mum – a clean break . . . I felt knocked for six, Mum – by you know what. I feel better if I keep busy. Don't
worry
, Mum. And tell Dad not to as well. I'll keep in touch. ‘Bye, Mum.'

His mother and father had discussed what to do if he rang again, and the moment she had put the phone down she took it up again and rang the call return facility on 1471 to find out the number he had rung home from.

When she had been told the number Alan had rung her from, Mrs Coughlan got straight on to Charlie Peace at police headquarters. Her mind was now comparatively at rest: she thought she knew that Alan was safe and well, but she did very much want to know
where
he was, and what he was doing. She was in many ways an old-fashioned mother: the idea that Alan had some rights to privacy and independence at sixteen would have seemed to her quite silly. When she had given Charlie the number he said he'd get back to her, then went straight down to Records to see what he could find out about the person and place behind the number.

‘It's a domestic property, 24 Portland Terrace,' said the sergeant in charge, a young, enthusiastic snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. ‘We had some complaints back in April, when it had recently changed hands. Now owned by a Benjamin Marchant. The complaints, by the way, seemed to be orchestrated – two neighbours ringing on successive days and talking about drugs. We sent a man round, but there didn't seem to be anything in it. Lots of young people, but no signs of drugs on the premises.'

‘Young people?' queried Charlie. ‘Do you mean he's running some kind of lodging house for DSS cases?'

The Records sergeant shook his head.

‘No, that didn't seem to be it. No money changed hands. The man who went round said that this Marchant was setting up some kind of unofficial refuge for young homeless people.'

‘Unofficial? So no connection with Shelter, the Sally Army, or people like that?'

‘No. Completely unofficial. They just call it the Centre, and rely on word of mouth to get it known. It was just beginning then, but the PC said that Marchant was aiming to provide short-term stays for young people on the streets.'

‘I must say I wasn't expecting my two to be on the streets. If they have been, they've found a roof over their heads pretty sharpish. Any more complaints?'

‘Another ten days ago, but very vague. “Terrible-looking young people with dyed hair and rings in their noses” – that kind of thing. We didn't follow it up.'

‘Anything on this Benjamin Marchant?'

‘Nothing you could call a record. Maintenance order served on somebody of that name in 1982 . . . Done a flit. Could be a different bloke. That's it.'

‘Not very much. I don't feel I'm really getting the picture. Anyway, I'll have to go and talk to my two. I think the boy might be persuaded to go home. I'm not sure about the girl, and she's the younger, and in more danger. Assuming they're together, the boy could probably be more useful as protection for her if he stays put.'

It was late morning before Charlie could get away from routine paperwork at police HQ. When he got to Bramsey he left the police car around the corner, well away from 24 Portland Terrace. He didn't want to frighten the people in the refuge, or give the neighbours who were agitated the wrong idea. He was very conscious of the fact that a few years ago he might have been taken for one of the homeless refuge-seekers, whereas now he looked almost frighteningly respectable. It occurred to him that his very smartness might reduce his usefulness as a black police detective. He took off his jacket, loosened his tie and lingered on the corner, looking down Portland Terrace.

The street seemed mostly to have been built around the turn of the century: tall, narrow houses, with the attics converted into third-storey bedrooms. Mostly they were terraced, and a lane at the back gave access to a yard and kitchen door. Here and there, in gaps, later, smaller houses had been
inserted, their walls abutting their neighbours', looking like children holding the hands of grown-ups on either side. Most of the houses looked solid but neglected – stalwart presences gone to seed with age. It was not unlike Alan's home street.

As he watched, two young people rounded the far corner from him, carrying bulging supermarket bags in both their hands. He lingered, noticing the house numbers nearest to him, and doing a quick calculation in his head. As they came nearer he thought he recognized Alan Coughlan from the last year's photograph he had been given by the boy's father. The pair, talking animatedly, turned into number twenty-four. They didn't look like any homeless adolescents he had ever seen. It looked as if they were doing good rather than taking refuge. He lingered, to give them time to disburden themselves of their loads. Then he walked down the Terrace and rang the doorbell.

‘Alan Coughlan?' he said to the boy in the short-sleeved shirt and baggy trousers who opened the door with an expression that was almost welcoming. ‘I'm DC Peace.'

The boy took some time to register the abbreviation, then his expression lost its welcome. He barely looked at the ID put in front of his eyes, and stood four-square in the doorway as if to repel the invader.

‘Yes?'

‘Can I come in and talk to you?'

‘Why?'

Charlie had to tell himself he had been twice as bolshie as this at his age, especially with policemen.

‘Because you're sixteen years old and missing from home,' he said reasonably, ‘and Katy Bourne is fifteen years old and missing from home. All right?'

The boy hesitated, then reluctantly stood aside. Charlie walked down the long, high hallway, noting the new paint and the attempt at cheerfulness in the colours. A side door led into a large sitting room, which in its turn opened directly into a kitchen. In there Katy Bourne was stuffing food from the supermarket into over-full cupboards, items now and then falling out on to the table tops and cooker.

‘There's no beds tonight, Alan – ' she began, and then turned around. ‘Oh.'

Clearly his relaxation of his smartness had not turned Charlie into a likely dosser.

‘Katy Bourne?' he asked. She nodded slowly. ‘Do you think you could come through into this room, and we can all have a talk? I'm DC Peace, by the way.'

‘DC?'

‘Detective Constable. I'm a policeman.'

She came through, but dragging her feet. The set of her shoulders reminded him of her mother: she was going to be awkward.

‘There is nothing illegal going on here, you know – no drugs or anything, no prostitution. This isn't that kind of place. It's a sort of hostel – a refuge.'

‘It's you I'm here about, not the refuge. Now, can we all sit down?'

He set an example by sinking into an armchair. They slowly sat down on the sofa, close but not intimately close. He looked them over as he took out his notebook. Alan Coughlan was nice-looking without being in any way handsome or distinguished – Charlie had known boys of his age look distinguished, against all the odds. A lock of hair fell over his right eye, and his face was lean, with sharp eyes twinkling from under fair eyelashes. It was the eyes that gave Charlie the idea that he was going to grow up an interesting man – not an insurance tout or a bank manager anyway (Charlie had had a bad experience recently with the manager of a bank which claimed to fall over backwards in its eagerness to hand out loans).

Katy was of course more unformed, further back on the road to womanhood. Her clothes seemed to have been bought with little idea about colour or fit – just something to drape over herself. Charlie wondered whether this was her doing or her mother's. But in her case, too, the face was alive, with bright eyes and mobile mouth, and this was not something he had expected from her friend's or her mother's account of her. He could only assume that it was since she had left home that she had come alive. Certainly her whole
stance on the sofa suggested an attitude that was positive and even, if necessary, aggressive.

‘Now – ' began Charlie.

‘I don't see why you're here,' said Katy, who clearly believed in the pre-emptive strike. ‘We've rung our parents; they know we're all right.'

‘They know you say you're all right,' corrected Charlie. ‘On the other hand, you were careful not to tell them where you were or what you are doing.'

‘I suppose mine used the call return facility, did they?' asked Alan. ‘I must say I would never have thought they'd heard of it.'

Charlie refrained from mentioning that he'd had to tell them about it.

‘Naturally they're concerned about you,' he began. Katy Bourne shook her head vigorously.

‘You're just saying that,' she protested. ‘It's just words. My mother isn't concerned in the least.'

‘Of course she is.'

‘She isn't finding life alone as pleasant as she had hoped, and she isn't liking having to do the things I used to do, but that's
all
. She isn't concerned about me at all. The person she's concerned about is herself.'

Charlie thought he'd better try a new tack.

‘How did you come to leave home?' he asked.

‘We heard about this place, and we thought we could do useful work here,' said Alan, ‘at least over the summer, and maybe for longer.'

‘You'd had a row at home, hadn't you?' Charlie probed. ‘What was it about?'

‘Oh – the usual things,' Alan said, with studied vagueness and shrugging his shoulders. ‘Being out late, playing loud music, that kind of thing.'

It was the first time during the interview he had lied. It was done with a sort of schoolboy aplomb, but was none the more convincing for that.

‘So you'd both heard of this place . . . Who from?'

‘Oh, several people. There's a number of people of my age at school who've left home for a bit.'

The vagueness clearly masked another lie.

‘And you, Katy?'

‘Oh . . . the same.'

Charlie shifted in his chair. Was it worth trying to batter down this particular wall?

‘What attracted you to homeless young people as the sort of area you wanted to work in?'

‘Isn't it obvious?' said Katy, with renewed fierceness. ‘These are people of our own age, sometimes younger. They've got no homes, often no family that wants to have anything to do with them. They can't get benefits, they can't get a job. So, they've just fallen through the system. They beg, they do drugs, they fall into prostitution. Of course we're concerned. They could be me.'

That speech, at least, had the ring of truth. Charlie turned to Alan.

‘But it couldn't be you, could it, Alan?'

‘Of course it could.'

‘You've got parents who are concerned about you, a good, stable home, you are doing well at school.'

Alan seemed on the edge of saying something revealing, but then he changed his mind.

‘Being homeless can happen to anyone,' he said. It was true enough for Charlie to change his tack.

‘OK, tell me about this hostel.'

‘I knew you were wanting to get dirt on the Centre,' said Katy.

‘Only because you two are here,' said Charlie equably. ‘Who comes here, who runs it?'

‘The young homeless on the streets in Leeds come here,' said Alan. ‘They can stay a fortnight, then they have to leave for a bit. We don't take anyone who's into drugs, since that's a special problem we can't deal with because you need special skills. Anyone who's going to be disruptive for the rest isn't allowed back in. Otherwise, we take everyone we can, and there are practically no rules.'

It occurred to Charlie that there were points in this account where it would have been natural to use the name of the man running the refuge, but Alan had avoided it.

‘Who started it, who runs it?' Charlie asked. Alan paused, and pursed his lips, but concluded it would be foolishly suspicious to keep the name back.

‘Ben. Ben Marchant. He started it and runs it.'

‘How long's it been going?'

‘Three months or so.'

‘And what does he run it on?'

‘They don't pay,' said Katy quickly. She'd been told that would make a difference legally, Charlie felt sure. ‘They live here free and get a meal a day.'

‘So what does Ben do for money?'

‘He got a lottery win,' said Alan. ‘Not millions and millions, but a nice sum. He bought the two houses with it, did them up, then started up the Centre.'

‘Why?'

‘Because he wanted to help, put something back. He's a good bloke. He wants to do good.'