God only knows what she’ll be when she comes out the other end.’ - Out in the Cold, by Stuart Johnstone, Part 2

John riffled through the contents of a purple purse he had found, looking for the woman’s details. He reached for his radio, giving our call sign. Control acknowledged and I carried Carly back down the hall. She didn’t need to hear what John had to say. As we passed back along the hallway Carly tugged on the collar of my stab vest.‘Baby,’ she said.

Former police officer, crime writer and dog shop owner Stuart Johnstone

I looked around the floor and spotted the dropped doll and handed it to her, swapping it for the return of my radio. I turned it back on and inserted my earpiece. John was passing the grim news.

‘That’s confirmed, Control, no suspicious circumstances, door was locked from the inside, no signs of struggle, no wounds.’

‘That’s received, Echo-Three-Three, I’ll update supervisors. Do you require detectives?’

Out in the Cold

‘Negative, I’ll email them the incident for the morning meeting. Can you just confirm Social Services are en route?

Oh, and we’ll need a joiner to re-secure a wooden door.’

‘Roger, Three-Three.’

Carly fell asleep in the car once it had warmed up. I had coddled her in my uniform fleece jacket and she was snoring gently. John had dabbed at her face with a sanitation wipe from the first-aid box, only succeeding in making her look grubbier with the streaks of clean skin standing out in contrasting hue to the rest.

‘What did you find?’ I asked John, now that I safely could.

‘The mother in bed, stiff and cold. Some pill bottles and charred foil.’

‘Such a shame,’ I said.

‘Shame? Selfish f***ing wretch you mean.’

This took me a little by surprise, and not just because of the sudden raising of his voice; it really wasn’t like John.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I just don’t get how someone could do that.’

He turned to look at Carly. She hadn’t stirred. John had a daughter of his own. I’d never met her, but he talked about her often and with obvious pride. She was studying

to be a nurse and was only four years younger than me.

‘Do you think she made the call?’ I asked.

‘The girl? Must have. Mum’s been dead a while, at least a day.’

‘What will happen to her?’ I said, sending a nod towards the sleeping girl.

‘I’m not sure,’ said John, still looking at her. ‘If there’s no family to take her she’ll be placed with a foster family; if she’s really lucky, adopted.’

‘And what if she’s not lucky?’

John considered this for a moment. ‘She’ll be passed pillar to post between foster homes and institutions for her entire childhood. God only knows what she’ll be when she comes out the other end.’

There was a period of silence as we both digested this. I wished dearly that I hadn’t asked. Everyone then seemed to arrive at once: the undertakers in their dark blue private ambulance, the joiner in his white van and a social worker looking bleary-eyed, clearly on call and asleep when they had summoned her. The priority was to get Carly out. Seeing your mother being removed in a black body bag is the kind of thing you can’t unsee.

John stood with the social worker, passing on as many details as he had been able to glean from the purse. I lifted Carly carefully, trying not to wake her, and brought her over. John was being told that neither Carly nor her mother were known to social work, which horrified me. I didn’t comment; I didn’t want to sound like I was attacking the social worker personally.

It wasn’t her fault the system had failed here. She was a middle-aged woman with a kind face, a useful advantage in her job, I guessed. I handed the half-sleeping girl over. Her small fist was again gripping the edge of my vest and she began to moan as I carefully prised her fingers. As I walked away, she began to cry, understanding dawning on her perhaps. My heart was breaking and the urge to return to her was overwhelming.

‘Baby,’ she called, her voice and lower lip trembling.

Oh shit, I thought and went to the car to retrieve her doll. I passed it to her and couldn’t resist tucking a dark curl around her ear. I exchanged sympathetic smiles with

the social worker. Carly seemed to settle briefly, until the social worker began buckling her into a child seat in her car. I joined John, who was helping the undertakers remove equipment from their vehicle.

‘Baby,’ I could hear Carly screaming in the background.

The social worker must have had to remove her doll to properly secure her in her seat. We waited until they had driven off before traipsing back to the flat, the five of us each

lugging something necessary up the stairs. I had the body bag…

Tomorrow: The body

Out in the Cold, by Stuart Johnstone, is published by Allison and Busby

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