Cold Shoulder Read Online Free PDF Page B

earning a few cents for food.
    No one remembered her as Lieutenant Page, it was all so long ago. The human flesh trade moves on and changes fast. Many of the young vice-patrol cops who saw her falling down in the streets had no idea who she was. Sergeant Rooney had been promoted to captain. He didn’t know if she was alive or dead, and he didn’t care.
    No one cared, not even Mike or her children. Mike had tried often, over the years, to help her. He heard from her occasionally on the girls’ birthdays and at Christmas, but she was incoherent on the phone and lapsed into strange silences apart from asking him for money. The calls stopped when Mike moved house. He remarried, and the children settled into a new school, a new life. They no longer asked about their mother; they had a new, better one. Lorraine made no attempt to contact Mike again. She seemed almost satisfied that she had at last severed every tie.
    Only Rosie, because of her own problems and her open friendly nature, wanted to help Lorraine, so thin and pale, with that strange waif-like blonde hair that hung in badly cut, jagged edges. Her fingers were stained dark brown with nicotine, and she had lost a front tooth. She also had a strange way of looking at people, her head tilted as if she were short-sighted, an odd, nervous squint, made more obvious because of a nasty scar running from her left eye to just above her cheekbone. The shapeless regulation blue hospital gown hung loosely on Lorraine’s skinny frame. She wore overlarge brown shoes — like a ballet dancer’s; someone had passed them on to her and they flopped at her heels as she walked.
    Rosie and Lorraine worked side by side, helping to dish out food and make up trays. As the weeks passed, Rosie realized there was more to Lorraine than appeared on the surface. She never had to be told twice which inmates required a special diet but passed out the food to the right women.
    ‘You must have had a job once. How old are you?’ Rosie was trying to make conversation.
    ‘I guess I must be around thirty-six. D’you have a cigarette?’
    Rosie shook her head. She’d given up smoking when she gave up booze. ‘I used to work on computers. What sort of jobs did you do?’
    Lorraine was delving among the food scraps in the trashcan, looking for a butt end. She gave up and dried her hands. ‘Rosie, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you… I’ll go an’ see if I can steal one.’
    Rosie watched as she shuffled over to Mad Mona, who really was out-to-lunch, but always had a guarded packet of cigarettes. She watched Lorraine searching Mona’s pockets, pretending to tickle her, and then the screaming started as she caught Lorraine with her precious packet. But Lorraine got one, because she came back puffing like an asthmatic on an inhaler.
    ‘Do you have any family?’ Rosie enquired, as Lorraine leaned against the door, eyes closed.
    ‘Nope.’
    Rosie remarked that she had a son somewhere, but hadn’t seen him or his father for years. She busied herself at the sink, and was about to resume her conversation but she saw Lorraine had gone. Rosie took off her overall and went to collect her wages, a pittance, considering the number of hours she put in, but she was only part-time, and most of the staff were Mexican. Probably they were paid even less. She smiled at the receptionist as she buttoned up her baggy cardigan. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days.’
    The receptionist nodded. ‘It’s hot out. You won’t need that on.’
    Rosie shrugged — she had arrived so early that there’d been a chill in the air. She asked how long Lorraine was being kept on the ward.
    The receptionist checked on the clipboard behind her. ‘Oh, she’s due to be released. May not be here when you come back Thursday. The doctors haven’t signed her out yet, but she’s down to leave. Has she been okay in the kitchen? You know the way they are — steal anything…’
    Rosie’s shopping bag suddenly felt heavy: the