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Damaged Goods
Helen Black
A daughter accused of murder. And unable to defend herself… A dark, gritty thriller, perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers and Jessie Keane.When a prostitute is found butchered on a notorious Luton council estate, the finger is immediately pointed. The prime suspect? Her 14-year-old daughter, Kelsey.But Kelsey is unable to defend herself. After an attempt to take her own life, Kelsey has been left horrifically scarred and mute – unable to even utter the words ‘not guilty’.It’s down to Lilly Valentine – a tough-talking Yorkshire lawyer – to prove Kelsey’s innocence. Prostitution, paedophilia, drugs and blackmail: Lily must put her own life at risk to save a silent, terrified child and find the real killer…
DAMAGED GOODS
Helen Black
Copyright (#u408cc69d-2115-5adc-aec7-193070fda858)
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008
Copyright © Helen Black 2008
Helen Black asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
Extract from A Place of Safety © Helen Black 2008. This is taken from uncorrected material and does not necessarily reflect the finished book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9781847560704
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2006 ISBN: 9780007281862
Version: 2018-05-24
Dedication (#u408cc69d-2115-5adc-aec7-193070fda858)
To Andrew
There are over 60,000 children being ‘looked after’ by the state in the UK.
One third of the homeless in this country were raised in care.
Sixty per cent of young offenders in this country have been through the care system.
Dear Mum,
I can’t believe you did this to us. You always said thatno matter how bad it got we’d have each other.
You said we’d always be together.
We did everything we had to.
I even kept my mouth shut when I knew I shouldn’t.
And what was it all for? You’ve thrown us away likerubbish so that’s how they treat us. We’ve been split upand I’m not even allowed to see the babies.
I can’t tell you how much I hate you for what you’vedone, and if I ever see you again I’ll cut you to pieces.
Kelsey
Contents
Cover (#ue6e16d71-8cd9-5765-8dda-2f6e6fc1a03d)Title Page (#u0d43f801-a29f-5c89-ab62-096e683211eb)Copyright (#u2b595d70-5d45-5df9-a4fb-a9da77cece50)Dedication (#u65a615a8-5445-5ba4-94dc-3acf46c03c5a)Epigraph (#u6cb19629-63a5-5711-b2ec-9d5437667d37)Prologue (#ub383c83d-6283-53dc-a458-863f3407080f)Chapter One (#u912bd23d-7b9f-5261-a17c-9dcb8f77c354)Chapter Two (#u5603219a-cebe-5890-a74d-3fa6644a55cf)Chapter Three (#u6f73bff2-083c-51cc-9742-bca9dace7189)Chapter Four (#ua301100f-e23f-5616-8341-ec7555756c64)Chapter Five (#u3231060c-95fe-5989-ad09-bb2718854e83)Chapter Six (#u39451d6f-efb8-5496-aba6-0ecf0824eca8)Chapter Seven (#ud28a3e55-7d44-5ccb-97fb-38160fa724f7)Chapter Eight (#u828d0ff6-e6fa-5ea1-8f0e-ca929eeb35d4)Chapter Nine (#u3b3c3a19-5f71-5e40-898b-89b888998492)Chapter Ten (#ue4563f7f-6d6a-5432-9082-1f6a4d017669)Chapter Eleven (#u14e0cb21-8b78-57ba-b24d-3bfd5a76e681)Chapter Twelve (#ucf6456e4-833e-53a3-9634-669cb6108a53)Chapter Thirteen (#u7938220a-d6e5-58ed-8d12-967874fcef52)Chapter Fourteen (#ue6faedb0-ac61-53c4-8634-d9ba0420aad5)Chapter Fifteen (#u154561c7-652a-5c37-a5d5-2393fddf64b7)Chapter Sixteen (#u10946241-18be-5131-bb9b-d0dd52d0731b)Chapter Seventeen (#u63978332-94b5-591d-afd1-4c6099395986)Chapter Eighteen (#u1e9e2151-5ddc-5fd2-bebe-02447badd066)Chapter Nineteen (#u75f873c1-8df9-5150-8549-b62ffb0bb3b0)Chapter Twenty (#uee75674c-e87a-57e9-8b6c-4f6ea8107999)Chapter Twent-one (#ub78b7091-0672-5377-87dd-aa6999d97af0)Acknowledgements (#u8c933329-1928-5b75-874f-778246a3dc2d)About the Author (#uddbeabf9-8ae7-50c5-be2f-18b52e8ece65)About the Publisher (#u3aa970e7-154d-53ef-a05f-7778ed825384)
PROLOGUE (#u408cc69d-2115-5adc-aec7-193070fda858)
Grace worried the kitchen surface with the corner of a J-cloth, trying once again to remove a mark made years before by a hot spoon. The phone call had unnerved her and her hands shook. She bent over the cooker and lit another cigarette on the gas ring, hoping it would calm her. It didn’t. What she needed was a hit. A £10 bag would do, just enough to put her in a better place, just enough to allow her to explain things properly. To make herself clear. Just one hit to get through this.
She checked her watch. Five past eight. That should give her ten minutes, enough time to race downstairs to the dealer on the ground floor. He charged over the odds but what could you do?
The tap on the door was soft but Grace jumped all the same. No time to get the brown now, this was one conversation she would have to do straight.
She took a last deep drag on the cigarette and answered the door. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Who were you expecting?’
Grace shrugged.
Outside, a dog scratched and barked.
‘Get out of it,’ Grace yelled.
‘It’s probably hungry.’
‘Aren’t they all,’ said Grace, and turned on her heels. ‘Shut it behind you, it’s fucking freezing.’
‘Hardly. Are you clucking?’
Grace rubbed her arms, their skin barely able to support the scars that ran like the rungs of a ladder from shoulder to wrist. ‘Not really.’
‘I thought you’d be back on the gear.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘I don’t really care one way or the other.’
Grace sighed and picked up her cigarettes. When this was over she’d have that hit, get completely out of it. She clamped a cigarette between her lips and turned to the cooker. In one sweeping and familiar action she bent over the front gas ring, one hand holding back her hair, the other reaching for the ignition. But before her finger pressed the button she felt the back of her head explode.
Grace was confused. Had she finally got her hit? Funny, she couldn’t remember cooking up. She anticipated the melting sensation that the drugs would bring when they moved through her bloodstream.
Instead, the back of her neck felt warm and wet. As dazed as she was, she knew it was blood.
‘Why did you …’
There was another explosion and everything went black.
CHAPTER ONE (#u408cc69d-2115-5adc-aec7-193070fda858)
Monday, 7 September
Lilly Valentine thumped the photocopier. ‘Stupid piece of shit.’
‘You’ll break that.’
She yanked at the tray where her document was stuck.
Her boss floated to Lilly’s side. ‘I said you’ll …’
‘It’s already sodding broken.’
Rupinder’s deft fingers removed the tray in a tinkle of bangles and dislodged the offending piece of paper. ‘You’re late,’ she said.
‘I operate on Indian standard time,’ Lilly said. ‘As you’re so fond of telling me.’
Rupinder opened the front door. ‘Which is fine in Delhi …’
Lilly struggled outside, balancing three files, a mobile phone and her bag. She tossed her head to move the curtain of curls that had fallen into her eyes.
Rupinder shook her head and tucked the loose tendrils behind Lilly’s ears.‘… but this is Hertfordshire.’
Lilly winked at her boss and stumbled towards her car.
She sped through Harpenden towards Luton. Bespoke shoe shops and upmarket gastro pubs soon gave way to pawnbrokers and kebab shops. The women on the streets no longer carried designer handbags and all-white floral arrangements, instead they pushed double buggies laden with bumper packs of nappies. Further still into the sprawling housing estates of Ring Farm and windows were boarded, overgrown gardens housed old sofas, and cars stood on bricks.
Eventually she pulled into a cul-de-sac overshadowed on three sides by granite tower blocks. Even on glorious days like today, at the height of a summer stretching into autumn, scarcely any sunlight fed through and The Bushes Residential Unit for Young People existed in permanent gloom.
Lilly parked in the shadows and pulled out the relevant file from the pile stacked beside her on the passenger seat.
BRAND, K. – CARE PROCEEDINGS
Kelsey Brand, eldest of four girls. Their mother, a heroin addict who funded her habit by prostitution, and was unable or unwilling to clean up, had finally given up the distracting charade of parenting and placed all four girls in care.
So far so familiar.
Lilly reached for some chocolate. She’d sworn to restrain herself to a bar a day, two in dire emergencies, in an attempt to stop the slide from sexy size twelve to pleasantly plump. As she bit into her first Twix of the day she smoothed her hands over her hips. Still the right side of curvy. Just.
She skimmed the pages in search of the ETF. Every case had one. An especially awful aspect that lawyers like Lilly looked for. Something to set their client apart, to prevent them from becoming ‘just another kid incare’. Something to remind the professionals that although they dealt with these stories every day of the week they weren’t commonplace.
She found it on the last page – her search made easier by the lack of detailed notes – and it was tremendous. An all-singing, all-dancing Extra Tragedy Factor. Kelsey Brand, at fourteen years of age, had tried to kill herself by drinking a bottle of bleach.
Lilly closed her eyes and swallowed the chocolate. It stuck in her throat with a peppery sting as she tried not to imagine how Domestos might taste. She pictured herself instead as a corporate lawyer in a smart office overlooking St Paul’s Cathedral in the heart of the city. Dressed in a black Armani suit, which fitted snugly but not tightly over her hips, she crossed a plant-filled atrium, her high heels clicking on the marble floor. Tap, tap, tap.
The heels dissolved as Lilly focused on the doughy twelve-year-old who was rapping day-glo talons against the car window.
‘You on drugs?’
Lilly ignored her and got out.
‘Got any fags?’
‘Not for you,’ answered Lilly.
The girl spat on the ground, inches from Lilly’s feet.
Lilly appraised her with practised cool and nodded at the silver boob tube which threatened to release a small pair of spotty breasts. ‘Been auditioning for a porn movie, Charlene?’
‘You’ve got a big mouth.’
‘All the better to eat you with, my dear.’
When Lilly got to the door she tossed a packet of Marlboro Lights to the girl.
‘You ain’t so tough,’ Charlene said.
‘Wanna bet?’
Lilly stepped inside the unit. It was buzzing. Most of its residents had just returned from their ‘morning education session’, along with all the pupils that had been excluded from every school in the area. Nearly all the kids in The Bushes went there for a couple of hours a day – if they learned anything it was a bonus. Lilly, who had represented at least half of the young people in The Bushes, was greeted with waves and requests for cash or cigarettes.
‘Who’re you here for, Miss?’
‘Kelsey Brand,’ said Lilly.
‘Nutter,’ came the chorus, and several boys pretended to drink from imaginary bottles.
‘Enough of that.’
‘She’s well weird,’ a boy in a baseball cap shouted, his left eye quivering in its socket.
Lilly rubbed his shoulder in long strokes to soothe away both the twitch and the habitual beatings he had suffered at the hands of an alcoholic stepfather, now serving life for setting the boy’s mother on fire while she fed their six-week-old baby.
‘We’re all weird here, Jermaine, it’s why we get on so well.’
Despite her bravado Lilly felt trepidation as she passed along the corridor to room twelve. Self-abusers didn’t usually threaten Lilly’s equanimity. Headbangers, cutters, anorexics, Lilly had worked with them all, but drinking bleach was so extreme. The girl must have been in the depths of wretchedness to punish herself like that.
