‘Known him long?’

‘Who?’

‘Billy.’

She wafted smoke away from her face. ‘He i’n’t so bad. Not so bad as some.’

‘He know how old you are?’

‘How old am I?’

Cordon shrugged. ‘Fourteen?’

‘Next birthday.’

Jesus! The word loud inside Cordon’s head. ‘You living at home?’

‘When I can’t find nowhere else to go.’

‘Family?’

‘Mum, sometimes.’

‘Social worker?’

‘Count ’em, shall I? Bastards every one.’ She laughed, showing teeth that were small and sharp. ‘This new un, likes to see me down on my knees, praying God to show me the error of my ways.’ She laughed again and the laughter turned into a fit of coughing. Cordon went to the counter for a glass of water and when he looked back towards the table she’d gone.

She was outside on the pavement, head down, squatting.

‘Thought you were doing a runner,’ Cordon said.

‘Fat chance. Needed a bit of air.’

When she stood, her head came almost level with his shoulder: tall for her age.

‘This social worker, she have a name?’

‘Apart from Fuckface, you mean?’

‘Apart from that.’

She laid a hand on his arm and let it slide down towards his wrist. ‘Look, we could just forget about it, right? No skin off your nose. All the other stuff you must have to do, no sense wastin’ time on me.’ Her fingers were gently stroking the back of his hand. ‘We could go somewhere first if you like.’

Cordon shook her off and stepped away.

The social worker recited the whole sorry tale: Rose’s mother, Maxine, was a registered heroin addict with three children by three different fathers; the two youngest, both boys, had been taken into care when they were seven and five. Rose herself had had periods of temporary fostering, but had been allowed back home when her mother had turned a corner at the beginning of the year.

‘Which particular corner was that?’ Cordon asked.

He nodded towards where Rose sat gouging the dirt from beneath her nails with a paper clip that had fallen from the desk. ‘What’s going to happen now?’

‘I’ll take Rose home. Lay down a few ground rules. Make sure they’re understood.’

‘Ground rules?’

The social worker was getting to her feet. ‘We like to keep families together, Detective Inspector, wherever it’s humanly possible. If you’d care to come along to Rose’s next case conference, I’m sure it can be arranged.’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Of course, he did. As Rose herself had said, all that other stuff he had to do … and one kid among many, what business was it of his? Let Social Services earn their keep as best they could.

If he saw her at all in the next eighteen months, two years, it was a face glimpsed amongst others, a group of girls giggling their way from pub to pub, jousting with some lads down by the harbour where the Scilloniancame into dock, her voice loud and shrill, giving as good as she got, sharp little features fleshing out. Once, someone who might have been her, touting for business along the Promenade, spangled top and skirt up to her behind; before he could make his way along to check it out, a silver Mondeo had pulled in and, after a brief negotiation, whisked her away with a fishtail of wheels.

Then, one summer evening, there she was, arm in arm with a woman dressed just like her, the pair of them parading up Market Jew Street, head to toe in black save the silver rings catching the last of the sun as they walked. Rose’s hair was henna red, her companion’s bright green.

She didn’t just recognise him: she stopped.

‘Cordon, right? Detective somethin’-or-other. The bacon-roll man.’

‘Detective Inspector. And you’re Rose.’

‘Yeah. And this is my mum, Maxine.’

‘Good to meet you,’ he said and held out his hand.

He could see now that she was older, Maxine. Could have passed herself off as an elder sister and on a night out that was probably what she did. Up close, it was the heavy smoker’s lines around the mouth that gave her away, that and the residue of a life hard-lived behind the eyes. What was it? Three kids, two in care. She’d be all of thirty-four, thirty-five.

‘Still a copper, then?’ Rose said.

He nodded.

‘Putting people away.’

‘A few.’

‘My mates.’

‘Maybe.’

She laughed; he remembered the laugh.

‘New leaf, me. Straight an’ narrow.’ She was mocking him with her voice, her eyes. ‘Workin’, too. Caff down the arcade. Evenings. Weekends. Thinkin’ of goin’ to college, right, Mum? Qualifications. NVQs. Veterinary assistant, that’s what I fancy. Somethin’ like that.’

She said the word veterinary as if she were trying it out, each syllable stepping carefully off the tongue.

‘Like animals, then?’ Cordon said.

‘Better’n people. Most people.’

‘Dogs?’

‘Yeah, dogs are all right. Why d’you wanna know?’

‘I’ve got this springer spaniel. Never gets enough exercise. If you want to walk her some time …’

‘How much?’

‘Huh?’

‘For walkin’ her, how much?’

‘I don’t know. A fiver, maybe?’

‘An hour?’

‘I was thinking more, each time you took her out.’

‘Bog off!’ She gripped her mother’s arm tighter and started to walk away.

‘All right, then, five pounds an hour.’

She turned back, grinning. ‘Fifteen minimum.’

Cordon looked at her mother. ‘Strikes a hard bargain.’

‘Likely had to.’

Cordon nodded. ‘Okay, your terms. Agreed. Here …’ He took a card bearing his police details from his pocket and wrote his home address and number on the back.

‘How d’you know I won’t turn up with all me mates when you’re out, break in, rob you blind?’

‘I don’t.’

She took the card without another glance and tucked it out of sight. ‘Come on, Mum. Stand here talkin’ to the likes of him, get ourselves a bad name.’

Cordon watched as, laughing, they headed for the Wetherspoons across the street. College. Qualifications. A proper job. Who was she fooling? Herself? Him? He thought about Rose’s leggings and the long sleeves covering her arms, wondering if she and her mum shared needles at home. Still time to follow in her mother’s footsteps, an addict and a mother just this side of sixteen: next time he saw her on Market Jew Street, she could be pushing a buggy slowly uphill. Who did he think he was, some kind of benefactor? Guardian angel? Come and walk my dog — what kind of bollocks was that?

He didn’t see her again for a couple of months. Why did he think he ever would? He was in the middle of scouring out a pan in which he’d been making scrambled eggs — the phone drawing his attention away at the crucial moment and egg adhering to the pan like a second skin — when he glimpsed her face at the small window alongside the door.

‘Come for the dog, okay?’

Cordon wasn’t certain if she was still in her Goth phase or not: most of the henna had gone from her hair, black waistcoat though, white shirt, black jeans, studs and rings; white lipstick, purple fingernails.

‘Fine, as far as I’m concerned. Dog might need some convincing, though. Doesn’t take easily to strangers.’

But even as he spoke the springer was energetically wagging her tail and reaching up to lick the girl’s hand.

‘Yeah,’ she said, with a small look of triumph. ‘See what you mean.’

‘Here,’ Cordon said. ‘Here’s her lead. Take a couple of bin liners for when she does her business. You can let her off past the Tolcarne Inn. That patch of grass by the gallery. Then down on to the beach.’

The girl was crouching down, stroking the dog behind the ears. ‘She have a name?’

‘Kia.’

‘I’ll get some treats for her next time. You can pay me for ’em later. Oh, and yeah, know how long it takes, all the way over here from Penzance?’

‘Twenty minutes?’