Time To Play by KA Richardson (best book club books of all time TXT) 📗

shoes, she felt calmness wash over her. Finding a raised dune, she sat down and looked out towards the sea. Elvie took the offered ice cream with whispered thanks and sat down beside Marlo. It was bitterly cold, the sea breeze mixing with the already low temperature for the time of year and Marlo was glad of the heavy coats they both wore. There were still people on the beach though, dog walkers, joggers, and even a bunch of teenagers larking about. She hoped the calming sound of the waves crashing on the sand was helping Elvie to relax.

When Elvie finished her ice cream, Marlo said, ‘Talk to me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.’

Elvie hung her head. It was almost as if she was too scared to speak.

‘Whatever it is, sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere. No matter what happens you will always be able to talk to me.’

‘Why Marlo nice to Elvie? Elvie not nice person.’ She sounded devastated, and tears filled her eyes.

Carefully, Marlo asked, ‘Why do you think you’re not a nice person? From what I know of you, you’re a lovely girl with a big heart. I think you’re nice.’

‘Elvie leave Nita, not help her. I leave her in house. I bad person. Why Marlo like Elvie when I bad person? You no want me to stay. Send me back.’

‘Is that what you think? That I’d send you back because of what happened? Now you listen to me, young lady, I’ll not have this self-pity. What happened to you and Nita was awful, but you couldn’t help her, sweetheart, not then. You had to make sure you stayed alive. You told me and Ali about Nita as soon as you could. I don’t want you to go back, not if you don’t want to go. I’ve even been looking at bigger houses so you could stay with me. I don’t want you in a children’s home, love. If you have family at home and you want to go back, then I’ll help you do that, but if you stay, I’d like you to stay with me.’

‘Marlo really want Elvie to stay? I not want go back, only my aunt there and she not nice, always shout at Noni. She hate Elvie.’

‘Yes, I want you to stay. I want you to go to school and learn, and later do a job you really want to do. I want you to be happy.’ Now Marlo felt her eyes fill with tears. She wanted Elvie to stay more than anything. But it had to be a decision made by Elvie.

Elvie didn’t speak for a moment, but then moved suddenly and threw her arms around Marlo’s neck and squeezed tightly.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered in Marlo’s ear.

‘From now on, missus, you tell me when something’s bothering you, OK?’ Marlo sounded gruff. She felt really emotional. Elvie just nodded and kept hold of Marlo. They must have looked strange, sitting hugging on a freezing cold beach in the middle of winter, but Marlo didn’t care. It felt right.

Sunderland City Police HQ – 19 November

Ali rubbed a hand over his face – so much for days off. He’d ended up being involved in searching the house on Wear Street with Alex and the NCA – National Crime Agency. His need to see the crime scene for himself was not that strange, though. The girls who’d been found were his cases, not Alex’s. He had a responsibility to speak for them when they couldn’t speak for themselves.

He’d never seen anything so dingy and horrible as the house, and he’d seen some shit-holes. The whole place was damp, mould had covered the walls and ceiling corners, and any wallpaper that had been left behind was from the seventies, aged manky patterns peeling and hanging in the midst of cobwebs. The whole building had felt like it should have been condemned.

The attic room had been the most awful. He didn’t think he’d forget it in a hurry. Sparsely furnished and decked out with a torture chair similar to the one Alex had described in the shed of Connor’s dad. And the whole attic was fully soundproofed, so the screams couldn’t be heard outside. A large stash of liquid heroin and syringes had been found in a small fridge situated beside a small computer. The computer had gone to Jacob Tulley in the digital forensics lab for examination – Ali hoped Jacob would be able to get information off it that would aid the investigation.

They’d found six girls inside, all high as kites and out of it completely. The two men located engaging in sexual activity with the barely conscious girls had been arrested, and the girls removed to a specialist centre for people trafficked into the country. He didn’t know what would happen to them yet, but they were safe.

The man Elvie had mentioned, Gaz, was in the wind. He hadn’t been at the house with the girls. Unease settled in Ali’s stomach: Gaz appeared to be Rocko’s second in command. He needed to be found. As did the house containing the female, Yolanda, that Elvie had spoken of. The voter’s roll checks had brought forth only two living in the force area, and intelligence on both of them had been sparse. Charlie was running down the addresses now.

Alex had returned to the hospital to see if Connor was ready for an interview and to check on Rocko, leaving Ali to finish up the paperwork and handover. It had been a long day, but he had to admit it felt good too. Rescuing the girls had definitely been the positive outcome he had hoped for – it was too late for the girls in the reservoir, but at least some had been saved.

Frowning, he knew there would be locations like that all over the UK in a similar state, filled with