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back inside and Athol opened some champagne for the occasion. I had a couple of glasses and got a decent kiss off Selina but it didn't do me any good. Later I went back to Glebe. Cyn had made a good job of cleaning her stuff out; she'd even taken the bottle of gin.

Heroin Annie
    You've got to help me, Mr Hardy', the woman said. ‘Our Annie's going to end up in the gutter and I don't know what to do.’ The voice was adenoidal and Cockney, the bright lipstick was askew on her big, plain face and she was dropping cigarette ash all over my desk, but I liked her. Ma Parker lived in the street behind mine; she washed dishes in the local pub and sat in the sun outside her house. We talked about the weather and horses and London. I think she once thought I was a schoolteacher, but now she knew I was a private investigator and she'd brought me her troubles.
    â€˜You remember Annie, Mr Hardy? A lovely kid she was.’
    I remembered Annie although I hadn't seen her for five years; back then she'd have been about thirteen and she was already tall. I remembered an oval face under straight blonde hair and not much else except the way she moved—she was graceful when she was tomboying in the street with the spotty boys or dragging home Ma's messages in a string bag.
    â€˜Tell me the trouble, Ma’, I said. I'll be happy to help if I can.’ I gave her a cigarette from a box of the things I keep for the weak—since I gave the habit up.
    She puffed smoke and her false teeth clicked. ‘Annie ran off on the day she turned fourteen. She must've been planning it for a long time. I didn't know a bleedin' thing about it but she left me a note saying she had some money and not to worry. Worry! I went out of my mind with worry for nearly a year.’
    I thought back but I couldn't recall noticing her distress. ‘I'm sorry, Ma’, I said ‘I don't remember it.’
    â€˜Well, you were busy I expect. She was only a kid and I've got Terry and Eileen to think about. I just kept on, you know,’
    I nodded. I knew Ma had buried two husbands; I assumed she had a pension. I'd just let her be a walk-on character in the film of my life, the way you do. With the sensitivity suddenly tuned up like this, I looked at her clothes—they were cheap and clean except where she'd dropped ash. Ma herself seemed to be keeping up appearances okay; we were two of a kind, my clothes were cheap and getting due for a dry cleaning.
    â€˜Nearly a year, you said. How was she after that?’
    â€˜I didn't know her. She was all grown up to look at her. She got some money and took off again. The next time I saw her she was in Silverwater.’
    â€˜What for?’, I asked, but I'd have bet money on the answer.
    â€˜Drugs. Heroin and that—she was using them and selling them. She was giving them to kids younger than her. She got three years.’
    â€˜Where? Some detention centre?’
    â€˜No, Silverwater.’
    â€˜She'd be too young.’
    She stubbed out the cigarette; she looked old and worn but she wouldn't have been fifty. ‘She made me promise not to tell them her age, she said she was eighteen.’
    â€˜She wanted to do her time at Silverwater?’
    â€˜That's right, Mr Hardy. I couldn't believe it but what could I do?’ A couple of tears ran down her rouged and powdered face. It was one of those moments when I was glad I didn't have any children; she was puzzled, ashamed and guilty, and all because this criminal was her daughter.
    â€˜What's she doing now?’ I hadn't meant the words to come out so harshly, so fully of hostility. She sniffed and looked at me uncertainly.
    â€˜Perhaps I oughtn't to have come. I was going to pay, you know.’
    That did the trick. Next I knew I was brewing her tea, stuff I never drink myself, and feeding her more cigarettes and expressing indifference to money. The story was familiar enough: Annie had done eighteen months, came out on