Heroin Annie Read Online Free PDF Page B

parole and went straight back in again on a similar charge. Now she was out again.
    â€˜Something happened to her in there, Cliff', Ma said. She was almost jaunty now, smoking away and getting down her third cup of tea. It was getting on to midday and watching her drink the muddy stuff made me think of something cold and wet in a ten-ounce glass.
    â€˜Come on, Ma, I'll run you home and you can tell me about it.’ We drove to Glebe and I bought her a beer in the pub opposite the trotting track. She said Annie settled down for a while after her second time inside, had a job and seemed steadier. But recently Ma had begun to have her doubts—she didn't like the look of the men who called for the girl and she had the feeling that she was heading for trouble again. She finished her first beer and I ordered another; she had a wonderful bladder.
    â€˜It's the drugs I'm worried about. She swore to me that she was finished with them, but I don't know.’
    â€˜What do you want me to do, Ma? She must be a big girl now.’
    â€˜She's still a kid really. You know how to investigate people—just watch her for a day or two, see what her friends are like. And tell me if you think she's back with the bleedin' drugs.’
    â€˜What will you do if she is?’
    Suddenly she lost interest in the beer; there was a rough, flaky patch of skin near her nose, and she scratched it. To a turned-on eighteen-year-old she must have seemed like a survivor from the days of the Tudors. When she spoke her voice was shaky and tired. ‘You know, there was only ever one thing about me that Annie respected. Know what it was?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜That I was born in London. She's got a real thing about London, even reads about it. Anything on the telly about London she watches. Well, I've got a sister whose old man died a while back; and she hasn't got anyone, and she'd love to see Annie. Been looking at her photos for years and reckons she's the ant's pants. She'd pay for Annie to go over and visit her. It's the one thing that Annie'd toe the line for.’
    â€˜You can't bribe people to be good’, I said.
    â€˜I know that, but it's all I've got. I have to know what she's up to so's I can decide what to do.’
    I told her the usual things—that she might not like what turned up or that I might not be able to find out anything at all. But she'd made her mind up that this was how she wanted to handle it. She insisted on giving me fifty dollars and when I protested she turned fierce.
    â€˜I'm not bleedin' broke, you know. I work for it, and I expect to pay for work done.’
    I subsided. We finished our drinks and she left to walk home. I drove back to my place to have some lunch, re-arrange the bills in order of priority and kill the afternoon. Annie worked at a supermarket in Redfern, Ma had told me, and the strategy was to begin the surveillance that evening to determine whether little Annie was or was not treading the path of virtue. I had fruit and wine for lunch and walked it off in the park as the shadows lengthened. It was autumn, and the ground was just beginning to soften from the occasional rain and the afternoon wind had an edge—it was a nice time to walk.
    At a quarter past five I was sitting in my car opposite the supermarket. It was Wednesday and traffic and business were light; the shop window was plastered with signs offering cheap mustard pickles and dish-washing liquid. Some of the signs were torn and flapping, as if idle hands and the wind had not believed their promises.
    Ma had told me that I wouldn't need a photograph to recognise Annie and she was right. When she came out at twenty to six she was recognisable from her walk; she still moved well, but there was something not proud about the way she carried her head. Her hair had darkened to a honey colour and she wore it short. In a lumpy cardigan and old jeans she headed across the pavement to a battered Datsun standing at the