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  I try to get Dan to acknowledge that something has to be done about Adam and his “friends” but he tries to side step the issue. He tells me that the police are investigating cases of child sexual exploitation from all sections of society. That might well be the case Dan, but what you’re refusing to do is acknowledge that Adam and his “friends” thought that what they did was totally justifiable and even part of their culture. The problem that Jack has with that is certain people in the country are allowed to live outside the law because the police can’t be seen to offend them.

  I ask Dan again if I can see Jack. Again, he doesn’t answer me directly. The guy really is a moron. Sometimes I get so frustrated with people. There are so many people who are paid to look after me, and make my life better, but they only look at it from their point of view. How it affects them. They never seem to understand that when they get to go home at night that I still have to be me. I’ve got nowhere to escape to. I don’t get no holidays each year where I can get away from me for a while. I’m trapped.

  Trapped inside this body that repulses people. Because I’m fat, people think I deserve what has happened to me because I’m too lazy to lose weight. But I’ve tried to lose weight. Tried exercising. Tried eating less. Tried eating healthily. But it’s like my body has to store fat. It’s like there’s something in my subconscious that is telling my mind that I’m going to be abandoned at any time and that I won’t have anyone to feed me.

  I can feel myself starting to become hysterical. Kate is starting to panic because she doesn’t know how to deal with me properly. Dan’s subordinate tries to put her arm around me but I lash out at her. I don’t like being touched at the best of times and I certainly don’t like being touched by her. The one who has tormented me. Called me a liar. Is disgusted that I’ve dared to suggest that Adam and his “friends” have committed a crime.

  They’ve called for back-up and once again Dr Protection has appeared out of nowhere. He’s trying to work out the situation and I swear that Dan’s subordinate thinks that he’s arrived to see to her because she’s been assaulted by some A.I.D.S infected teenage loony.

  But she put her arm around me. I only removed it. With force, I’m not denying that, but I wouldn’t have touched her if she hadn’t have touched me. Dan’s telling her to get a grip and because she’s only his subordinate she has to do what her superior says, even though it grates on every feminist politically correct bone in her body.

  Dr Protection suggests giving me some kind of sedative. Normally I’m against them but today I need something. I need to escape, even if it’s only mentally. I need to be anywhere but here today, surrounded by this lot.

  The one who puts me on edge. The one who doesn’t believe a word I say. The one who is offended by everything I do. And the who thinks I’m dying from A.I.D.S.

  I’m normally scared of needles, but when Dr Protection does his best to butcher me, it feels like a release. He’s telling me to count down from ten. I want to block him out because I hate the sound of his voice but my mind isn’t my own any more. By the time he’s down to seven I can’t keep my eyes open. Five’s sounding far away and at four…

  Chapter Twenty

  …o’clock in the morning I woke up covered in sweat. That’s the last time I’m taking any drugs. They could have done anything to me whilst I was knocked out. Dan’s subordinate could have got herself strapped up and fucked my brains out.

  I check myself, just in case, but everything feels normal. I’m not used to being awake at four in the morning. All throughout my troubles, sleep is the one that’s never been a problem. In fact, when Kate’s on duty I can sleep for up to 15 hours a day. Of course, I know that in the long run that’s not going to do me any good but it’s better than what I keep doing to myself in the short term.

  I hate being sweaty as well. I have to shower at least once a day. I’ve got an en-suite bathroom that is perhaps one of the positive things that comes from living here. Plus, there’s also someone who comes in to keep it clean for me. Although that’s probably because they don’t trust me with bleach or whatever it is that they used to keep my toilet smelling all lovely and fresh.

  I bet that they knew my sedative would only last until the middle of the night but they wouldn’t have cared. I’m someone else’s problem now. They’re not the ones who are going to be woken up if I start causing another scene. And what’s that going to prove? They won’t let me see Jack if I’m “distressed” all the time. They might not even believe anything I say about Adam and his “friends” if I continue to behave erratically.

  Maybe that’s what they want from me. Maybe I played right into their hands before by kicking off. Now they’ve got an excuse for discrediting everything I’ve said over the last couple of days. Maybe I’m one screaming session away from Adam having the case dropped against him and Gillian being allowed to return to work this week.

  So I need to calm down. Think rationally. But that’s hard to do when you’ve got a temperature and feel like you’ve been locked up in a cell unjustly. I need someone decent to speak to from the police. Not Dan and his cretin of a subordinate. I need to know how much of a part I’m going to play in the prosecution’s case against Adam. Or even if there is going to be one.

  On Saturday, they said that if I didn’t speak up then Adam would get away with it. Maybe they were bluffing when they said that. Perhaps they assumed that I wouldn’t speak, that there wouldn’t be a case to answer, and that Adam and his “friends” would be free to do as they pleased.

  But they underestimated me, and they underestimated Jack. They probably thought he was just some stupid directionless kid looking for some way to pass the time before he had to take a job that killed his soul. But Jack knows exactly where he’s going and he’s taking me down the same path, with my full blessing.

  No wonder Dan is starting to look stressed. I bet he was expecting to be writing “case closed” on his little file about these allegations. But I need to find out who made these allegations in the first place. It must have been another girl in a similar situation to me. I hung around Megabites long enough to know that it wasn’t common knowledge that there was a “chicken nugget” willing to be used and abused for a very reasonable fee.

  There must be someone who can answer my questions. I keep trying to think back to the time I spent at Megabites. Seeing if there’s anything that I saw at the time that means something significant now. Jack seems to think that I was targeted because I was in care, but I’ve no idea how many care homes there are around here.

  But then maybe I’m thinking about it from the wrong angle. I’m the only one, who is a resident here at the moment, who was allowed relative freedom to come and go as they pleased. Because we’re so far down the line we need more specialist care. When I was with foster carers, I used to go more places, but because I was young I wasn’t let out on my own.

  I wouldn’t like to be the person who tried to control a 15 year-old girl who had just been put into care for the first time. If that’s the type of girl that Adam and his “friends” have been grooming then she might have been more open about going to the police. She might have been naïve and thought that the police were there to look after and protect her, but they’re not. The main priority of the police is to look after and protect Adam and his community.

  When you get to the stage that I’m at you know there’s no one who you can trust, so you don’t bother trying to find anyone. You just keep everything to yourself and if you have a problem then you hope that it goes away.

  But the problems never go away. They might be forgotten about by those who are supposed to be able to help, but they never get fixed. I know I didn’t help myself by hardly speaking for ages, but I didn’t speak because I didn’t like hundreds of strangers sticking their noses in and knowing my business. And it was always the same type of people. People who thought they were doing good. People who cared mo
re about rules and regulations, and making sure that I received the care that those rules and regulations stated that I should receive, rather than treating me like an individual.

  But I am an individual. And a very complex one. I didn’t ask to be put in care. And I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I just had to learn to adapt to it. Quickly. When I was first placed with a foster carer I was told it would only be “temporary”. At first, I wasn’t encouraged to get too comfortable because Mum might have been allowed home at any time as soon as her court case finished.

  She wasn’t a bad Mum. She did her best, but she must have thought that she wanted more in life. More than just the two of us. I wouldn’t say that I got jealous when she got a new boyfriend, but I didn’t want things to change. I didn’t want to go and live with someone else and I didn’t want anyone else to come and live with us. So when it looked like things were about to change I had to do something about it.

  I thought I’d never hear anything about it again until I was taken out of class one day at school and introduced to someone who said that she was a social worker. I remember being asked if I knew what a social worker did. When I told them that I didn’t they thought that I was dumb. They thought that I didn’t know what had been going on in my life around me. What they didn’t know is that I’d never seen a social worker before. How are you going to know something exists if you’ve never had any use for it before? So I was taken off home to pack up some things. Whatever I could fit into a bag for an “adventure”. An adventure that still shows no sign of ending.

  Feeling thirsty, I go into my en-suite for a drink, but I need something sweeter. I can’t remember the last time I prowled the corridors at this time of night. Some beats are coming out of The Alcoholic’s room. I doubt she’s still awake though; she’s probably wearing a pair of industrial strength earplugs and just uses her “tunes” as some kind of defence tactic.

  I’m not sure if the Nightshift Workers are notified if I leave my room. The C.C.T.V. is following me but unless someone is actually watching me right now there’s not really much it can do. I head into the kitchen and select a drink. Whoever was on the rota to fill up the little dispenser of the cone shaped paper cups has ducked so I decide to swig it straight from the bottle. Why we can’t be trusted have a cup that we can lay flat on a table is beyond me. It actually encourages The Others to throw their drinks around because they can’t be bothered to stand up and go over to the sink. But then I suppose it justifies the “danger money” that the staff get here for attempting to look after us.

  I’m not supposed to be in the kitchen unsupervised but my pass let me in, so they can add it to the list of situations where they’ve not looked after me the way they should have done. There’s not really much to see in here but a piece of paper sticking out of a draw catches me eye. It’s some form with a picture of some bloke attached to it. Some bloke with a naff haircut.

  This form has got all Jack’s details. His name, date of birth, address, home and mobile telephone numbers. Whoever left this lying around can have a promotion in my eyes. I find a pen in the kitchen unit and scribble down Jack’s mobile number on a piece of scrap paper; making two copies of it in case one is discovered and “confiscated”.

  ‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ says some Nightshift Worker, about 10 minutes too late. I’ve already put everything back in the draw so my excuse about just wanting a drink looks sort of feasible as I head out of the kitchen without any fuss. Sometimes I think the staff here can’t believe how compliant I seem to be. They think that they have total control over me. But they don’t. They all let their guard down in front of me and let me get away with things The Others can’t.

  I mean look at it this way, I just got caught in an out of bounds area in the middle of night. I gave a meaningless apology and went back to my room with something very valuable in my possession. If I’d have tried to cause a fuss then I’d have been searched and they’d be keeping a close eye on me tomorrow. But they don’t suspect a thing. That Nightshift Worker won’t mention that I’ve been out of my room to anyone. So when I say that I want some fresh air tomorrow I should be allowed to walk around the block. To the nearest phone box.

  Chapter Twenty One

  I had two showers this morning. There’s no way I’m going to let some nurse think that I’m a dirty bitch when she’s exploring places that shouldn’t really be explored by a middle-aged woman. I don’t think this nurse is used to dealing with people like me. I’ve never seen her before and she doesn’t stare at me like the rest that have had their “special training”. She’s just treating me like a normal person and asking me questions that don’t seem like they are aimed at a victim of a child exploitation gang.

  She asks me loads of questions about whether I’ve noticed any change, you know down there, but I tell her that everything is fine. I want to tell her about that thing I do in front of Kate but there doesn’t seem to be a question that leads into it. Plus, I don’t think this nurse is the right person to tell about that. I think my problem with that is more psychological.

  I have to think when she asks me the last time I had sex and I tell her it was about three weeks ago. She doesn’t even react any differently when she asks if I’ve paid for or been paid for sex. It’s like she hasn’t been briefed about what type of person I am and is only performing a “home” visit because I’m in an unofficial psychiatric hospital and might not react well to going into a hospital clinic surrounded by “normal” people.

  I’m expecting to be asked more questions about my sexual activities but I’m just told to sit on the bed and to remove my clothes from my lower half so that she can take some samples. After she’s taken a blood sample, Kate comes back into the room. She’s struggling to make eye contact with me, like she’s expecting me to start doing something, but I’m feeling too uncomfortable down there after being prodded and poked enough by the nurse.

  I think Kate is also feeling guilty about having to sedate me yesterday. Whilst she’s been one who has been keen to get me to try new drugs, she knows that just “knocking me out” isn’t going to help me in the long term. Deep down, I’ve got the feeling that Kate wants to help me. It’s just that she’s a complete and utter twat so it doesn’t matter how much she wants to help me, it’s not going to happen.

  Kate tries to lead me to my room but I take a left and go outside. It’s still well before midday so none of The Others have been forced to get up yet. I can’t remember the last time when I didn’t stay in my room when Kate was on duty, but now I’ve got a choice to make. I could sit and wait for Kate to stop watching me before I go through the gates, but I know that as soon as she notices that I’m gone she’ll try and find me, or I could go now and see if she will try to stop me.

  She says something about how some fresh air will put some colour into my cheeks, but she shuts up when I give her a look because of what that implies. When I carry on walking, she doesn’t try to follow me so I take my chance and walk as fast as I can without making it look like I’m going anywhere but for a stroll around the block.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  I walk past the first telephone box I come across. I don’t want to make it too obvious as to what I’m up to in case Kate is following me. She might be feeling guilty over agreeing for me to be sedated me yesterday, but it led to me finding the one piece of information that is going to help me change my life, and ruin Adam’s and his “friends”’ lives.

  There’s a supermarket not far away, and I need some change anyway, so I head there. I’m actually going to spend some of my earnings as a “working girl” for the first time. The £20 note feels weird in my hand. Weird because I know that it’s been held by one of them. I think for a moment whether I should keep it for evidence, you know, for finger prints and stuff, but I’ve touched it that many times that I doubt that any would still be on it.

  I’m not really used to being in crowded places
like this. Alone. When the checkout woman asks me if all I want is a bottle of coke I feel guilty and pick up some chewing gun and a chocolate bar. I keep looking over my shoulder in case Kate has followed me. Or maybe she’s phoned Dan and his subordinate to let them know that I’ve gone “outside”.

  They could be on their way to try to find me. Or they could have radioed through for the uniform police to look out for me. Or plain clothes police. Everyone is a suspect. I need to watch out for people looking at me differently.

  No.

  I just need to act normal. Pretend that I’m okay. After all, I blend in perfectly. I’m in a supermarket on a Wednesday morning. It’s full of fat people. Everyone knows that all fat people are on incapacity benefit because their obesity gives them a bad back.

  Haha, I can be so cruel at times. No wonder I haven’t got any friends.

  I find the payphone and try to get it to work. For a moment, I think it’s broken because it keeps spitting my pound coin out, but I read the instructions properly and find out that I’ve got to dial Jack’s number first and enter my pound when he answers his mobile.

  Jack sounds half asleep when he answers. I tell him that, ‘It’s me,’ but he’s none the wiser. When I tell him, ‘Rosie Red Cheeks,’ he says:

  ‘You told me not to call you that. How did you get my number?’

  ‘Was in the kitchen just lying around.’

  He laughs and asks me where I am. I tell him but say to give me an hour because I’ve got to go back for a bit first so that Kate doesn’t get too worried that I’m staying out for too long.

  I feel better for hearing Jack’s voice. He actually sounded pleased that I’d called. Not put out like most people would. After all, he’s got some needy 15 year-old calling up, wanting to meet him. But Jack wants to meet me as much as I want to meet him; although I’d best not look too happy when Kate sees me because she might not be as lax at letting me out again.