Sweat began to drench Julia’s hair as she lugged the rucksack towards Symphony Hall. Almost there, she thought as she grabbed a flyer and stuck it to the window of a vacant shop. She spotted the grand building with its mirrored glass frontage up a flight of stone steps. She scanned the area, looking for anyone who might be loitering. Passing the art museum, she spotted the blonde girl lying in the sun on one of the steps. Her head was resting on a rolled-up hoodie as she slept. The dusty shade of blonde that only came with not washing it stood out, as well as the tears in her clothing.

Julia pulled a flyer from her bag. ‘Hello.’

‘I’m not moving. If you think you can move me on, you’ve got another thing coming. Go away.’ The girl didn’t even open her eyes.

‘I’m not here to move you on. I’m looking for my daughter and I thought you might have seen her.’

Dazzled by the sun, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. ‘You’ll be lucky if I can remember her, they come and go all the time. Some go home, some get mopped up by the pervs, and some get off the streets – not many though. You all come around, trying to gain my trust. What for? You all pretend that you can help or you need help. I don’t fall for that sort of thing.’

‘Please.’ Julia thrust a flyer into the girl’s hand. ‘She’s fifteen. Christina and I argued. School wasn’t going too well. I suppose things just got her down. She met a man. From what people tell me he’s in his early twenties with brown shoulder-length hair. She came with him. Maybe you’ve seen them. He is called Westley.’

The girl sighed and looked at the flyer. ‘I don’t remember the man but I remember her. She and Erin left me on my own. We met late last year, when it was freezing – broke into places together to find warmth and shelter. I got sick of hanging around with Erin anyway, stupid cow was a junkie.’

Julia almost stopped breathing knowing that her daughter had gone off with a junkie. ‘Was my daughter taking drugs too?’

‘How would I know? I only knew about Erin because I saw her doing it. She didn’t shoot up in the street, nothing like that, and I made her take her needles to the exchange. I wouldn’t know about your daughter.’

Exhaling, Julia scanned around for somewhere to sit. ‘Can I buy you something to eat, if you don’t mind talking to me? I really need to ask you a few things.’

‘There’s a cafe inside Symphony Hall. I haven’t had anything decent for ages. Buy me a dinner and I’ll answer all your questions. Ask me to get in a car and go somewhere with you, I’ll scream paedo. Don’t test me.’

---

The girl scoffed the sausage and mash meal in front of her, stopping to reply to Julia’s questions with an open mouth.

‘When did you last see my daughter?’

‘A couple of months ago.’ The girl began licking gravy off the plate.

‘That long. I thought you’d seen her recently.’ Julia gripped the edge of the table and fought her tears back.

‘I never said that. I said I remembered her and she took my place as Erin’s best mate. We shoplifted together, made a pretty packet at one point. They used to try and sell their goods by the Bull outside the Bullring. There’s always a buyer if you’ve got good gear. If trainers are a hundred pound, someone will always give you thirty for them. We got hold of perfume, even meat. Yes – you’d be surprised. A piece of beef for Sunday dinner that cost fifteen quid – some cheapskate in a pub will buy it for eight quid. I taught Erin all she knew.’

‘What did Erin look like?’ Julia pulled her old diary from her bag, the one she had for 2014 but had never used. It would be good enough to take some notes in.

‘Skinny, but aren’t we all? She had brown hair but she’d run a red colour through it. Stupid cow used to make me help her dye her hair in the bogs at Selfridges. We got chucked out a few times, once before she’d managed to swill it out. She had brown eyes, bags under them. The drugs had given her a sunken look. She was always toying around with the thought of prostitution until she tried it once and some shitbag beat her up. I told her not to.’

Julia’s heart began to race. Had Christina got embroiled in drugs and prostitution? She could be working out of some massage parlour at night. Her daughter didn’t belong here, she had a home. She looked at the girl sitting before her. Did she belong here? How had she ended up on the streets? Julia wondered if she’d left to escape abuse or had just fallen out with her parents. ‘Can you tell me anything else? I really need to find her.’

‘The last day I saw them, a man came along. I think he was in his fifties but he might have been a little older. We’d been begging and thieving by New Street, by where the trams pass. There was something about the man. I’ve seen him since, looking for people to work for him. He gives me the creeps so I avoid him if he’s around. He came back with a woman a couple of weeks ago. I never trust people like that. There’s always someone offering me work but it’s never the kind of work I want to get involved with. Your daughter and Erin went with him. I told him to stick his job.’

‘What was the job?’ Her heart sank as she thought of her daughter in some seedy brothel.

‘Care work, domestic work, he said. They all lie though. I knew he was after a slave.’

She swallowed. Getting het up and panicky wouldn’t help. She needed information. ‘Can you tell me what he looked like or the woman?’

‘I remember thinking he looked really well off, fancy clothes and all that. I didn’t take a great deal of notice and they were quite far away. I just remembered his jacket, a really nice cut, looked designer. The woman came a little closer to me at one point, almost stared me out. Creepy bitch.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Her roots needed doing.’

‘Is that all you remember?’

‘Yes. I see people all day long. How much do you expect me to remember? They are a posh-looking couple, with money and the woman’s roots needed doing, I remember that much. That’s all I have. I didn’t want to catch the man’s attention. He gave me the creeps when Erin and your daughter went with him. The last thing I wanted was for him to come over and speak to me. I walked off and haven’t seen them since.’

Julia ran her fingers over her own roots where the grey was coming through. ‘Please try to remember something.’

The girl closed her eyes as she thought back, frowning occasionally as she did so. ‘The first time I saw him he was smart, wearing a crisp light-coloured shirt, trustworthy looking. I hate that I didn’t take any more notice now. I just wanted him to piss off. I’m really sorry, I can’t remember any more.’

‘Did he have an accent?’

‘Not much. He was quite well spoken. Can I have a dessert?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll have one of those?’ Julia hurried to the counter and bought the large slice of chocolate cake.

‘So you have no idea where she went after that? Are you sure you haven’t seen her since?’

‘I’m sure. I would have asked her about Erin if I’d seen her around. I sometimes go to some of the shelters for a free meal and I haven’t seen her there either.’

The girl filled her mouth with cake and licked her lips. ‘This is so nice, thank you. Aren’t you having any?’

Shaking her head, Julia felt a tear slip from the corner of her eye. The girl in front of her was just a little older than Christina. She acted like she knew it all but underneath, she could sense her fragility. ‘Can you go home?’

The girl placed the fork down and stopped eating. She shook her head. ‘I’m never going back there. They can never find me. I mean it. Soon, I’ll find a job. I’m a survivor. I’ve enrolled at college in September to do hairdressing. I have an interview at a bar next week. The centre gave me an address I could use and they take my post in. They are also helping me with clothes for my interview. It’s a start. I stay at a hostel overnight now. I’m slowly getting on my feet. I stay away from weird men and I stay away from drugs. I may look like some sort of vulnerable street urchin but I have my shit together. The only thing I’m always short of is food, as you can probably tell.’

‘Thank you for talking with me. I’ll go back to the police and tell them about the man and woman you mentioned.’ She paused and looked up, trying to suck the tear back into her tear duct. ‘Can I leave you my number? If you see her or hear anything, can you call me?’

The girl nodded.

‘If I can ever help you, just let me know.’ She couldn’t leave the girl without at least offering to be there. She’d felt a connection. This girl was someone’s daughter. She was scared to go back home and she was slowly crawling out of the gutter. If Julia could help her to escape the last bit, she would. Deep down, she knew the girl would never trust her. She pulled all the notes out of her purse amounting to forty pounds and placed them on the table. ‘Please buy food with the cash.’

‘I only ever buy food with the cash. Thank you. I hope you find your daughter. She’s lucky she has you. My mother would never come looking for me. There is just one more thing. Your daughter didn’t go by the name of Christina.’