Gail
The detective running the show, one of the detective who came in and took over the questioning last night at the station, is an incredibly tall, angular woman with a shock of short dark curls and a slight accent Gail can't pick. Ola is deadly serious and talks fast now she is not working with the interpreter. In her tiredness, Gail struggles to keep up as the three of them stand in a quiet spot behind the supermarket where they won't be seen from the street.
Ola starts laying out the plans and Gail focuses carefully, stifling a yawn.
"Okay, so when they arrive, we are going to start at this supermarket where she shopped and hopefully she can lead us back to her house. It was quite a way from the bus stop where you found her, so she must have walked a long time when she got lost. It's also far enough, though, that we are sure no one related would have seen you," she nods at Gail. " So we are going to get you, the translator, Adrian, and one of the social workers, people she knows, to walk with her. Keep her on the inside so no one sees her and when she points out the house, bring her right back here, okay? A couple of us will follow at a distance, just in case."
"Can I ask, why don't we just go in a car where there's no chance we'll be seen?" Gail asks, hoping she isn't asking something stupid.
Ola nods, as if to concede this is a fair question, to Gail's relief
"I need you to go on foot because when we asked about her route she mentioned going through a laneway and a park and we don't know if she could lead us there by road. If we could figure out her route based off what she told us, we wouldn't take her at all, but it is a little confusing because she doesn't know the street names."
"Right," Gail nods, pulling her leather jacket close around her to protect herself against the bitter wind.
"She's frightened, but she's willing to do it. Just keep her calm and focused. Use the translator to talk to her, if you can."
"Okay," Gail nods again.
"How did you find out she shopped here?" Oliver asks, looking at the small supermarket and then back at Ola.
"They found the receipt in her pocket, along with some cash. It matched what was in her shopping bag."
"Ah." Oliver grins, tapping his head. Ola smiles at him, turning her phone over in her hand.
"Here they are." Ola turns toward a car pulling up on the other side of the lot.
They walk over to it. Ola's partner, Rick, and a short woman get out of the front. The back door opens and the translator from yesterday, a chubby guy in glasses, climbs out of one side and goes around to open the other door. From there, the girl gets out. She is in a different outfit to yesterday, so she won't be recognised, Gail supposes. She is wearing a green jacket, her hair covered in a large fluffy white hat. She looks scared, more so than yesterday, but she is also more animated than yesterday, looking around her as she climbs out of the car and stands there, clearly recognising her surroundings. She turns and says something to the translator.
Ola steps over to them and leans down, talking to the girl and turning to the translator to do his bit. Ola turns and points to Gail. The girl looks over at Gail and clearly recognises her, even out of uniform. Gail smiles at her but doesn't say anything. The girl gives her a weak smile back. She looks like a kid when she smiles.
Ola waves Gail over.
"This is Officer Peck." Ola tells them as she approaches. "Just follow her lead, okay?"
The social worker nods, smiling at Gail. The translator nods and repeats the instructions to the girl.
Ola turns to Gail. "Okay, are you ready? For now, walk south down Speith, we know she came from that way, and then get Adrian to prompt her for you, okay? If anything happens, calls us."
Gail nods, then hesitates. "Hang on, what is her name?"
"Anca," the translator tells her.
"Buna, Anca," she tells her, hoping she is saying it right. She looked up the Romanian phrase this morning on her phone, wanting to at least be able to greet her in her own language.
"Buna diminatza," the girl says in a tiny, surprisingly high voice, staring at the ground as she speaks.
"Okay, let's go." Gail tells them.
They walk off around the side of the supermarket and down the street. "Okay," says Gail taking charge. "Can you walk in front of us?" she asks the social worker. She nods and moves up in front of them.
"Adrian, is it?" she continues. The translator nods. "You walk to the left of Anca and I'll stay on this side." Gail moves close to Anca's right, blocking any view of her from the road. She looks down at the girl. She is pale, biting her bottom lip, clearly terrified.
"Adrian," Gail asks quietly as they continue to walk. "Please tell her that all she needs to do is tell us which way to go, to stay on the other side of the road to the house, and when we pass the it, just to tell me. She doesn't have to point or look at it. Tell her we won't stop and we absolutely won't let anyone see her from the house, okay?
"Sure." He talks to Anca. She nods, but she still looks nervous, so Gail reaches out and takes her hand. Anca looks up at her with those scared brown eyes. She looks like she is twelve in that hat, Gail thinks, smiling back down at her but almost wanting to cry for the poor kid. She takes the small, gloved hand and tucks it under her arm reassuringly, walking as casually as she can, as if they are just taking a stroll.
Under Anca's direction they walk around a corner and through a long, skinny park to another side street. There, they cross into a narrow lane and then through to another one. Ola was right, this would have been too hard in a car, Gail thinks.
"Adrian, can you please ask her for me how she got lost yesterday?"
He does and Anca answers, talking in a low voice.
"Someone came up and said something to her in the park." Adrian tells Gail. "They had a dog and she is terrified of them. There are a lot of feral dogs in Bucharest, you know," he says. Gail nods, even though she knows nothing about Bucharest. In fact it is basically the first thing she has ever learned about it, other than as a place on a map, another capital of a country she has never been. Her family certainly never strayed that far east on those European holidays when she was a kid.
"So," Adrian continues, "She ran down a lane, but it was the wrong one and she got panicked and she just never found her way back."
Gail wonders how she learned to get to the shops in the first place. Someone must have shown her the way in the beginning.
They come out the end of the laneway, turning left on Anca's instructions. Halfway down the street she freezes for a second and then just as quickly hurries her pace, saying something to Adrian.
"It's the red brick place across the road. With the blue blinds," He says in a low voice.
Gail sneaks a look at the place as they hurry past, quickly noting the number. It looks like a perfectly innocent inner suburban home. But then they all do, Gail thinks. Glad that no one is outside, or even possibly home, given the empty driveway, she hurries them on and they turn back in the direction they came along the next street.
"Please tell her thank you for being so brave," Gail says as they march back along the freezing street to the supermarket.
Adrian does as he is told and Gail's squeezes Anca's hand. Anca's only response is to squeeze it back.
When they get back to the car park, they put Anca straight back in the car and Rick pulls straight back out of the parking lot. Ollie hands Gail a coffee as she watches the car drive away.
"Thought you might want something hot after that wintry stroll," he tells her.
"Thanks," she smiles at him, clutching its warmth and wishing he were always her police partner. She often finds herself thinking that lately.
"So, what happens now? Do we go in and arrest them?" she asks Ola, who is leaning on the back of the unmarked car they drove here in.
"No. Not yet. We know enough to make an arrest, but don't have a very clear picture of exactly what went on. We may never get the full picture." Ola shakes her head. "That poor kid. But we want to find out more from her if we can, particularly how she got here and who, if anyone from the house brought her or has her papers." She takes a sip of her coffee. "They are taking her back to the shelter, now, to give her a break. And then we'll talk to her again in a couple of days. We find its best to take our time with these cases. Once we know more, we can then figure out whether it is best to see where these people who have held her lead us first. They probably got her through some sort of organised channel. There's bound to be somewhere higher up we can get to, if we play it right."
"Who's running the show for now?" Ollie asks.
"Me and Rick, basically," she shrugs. "Until they organise an investigative unit at least."
"They're putting together a unit?" Gail asks, biting at the lid of her coffee. "Out of 15?"
"Possibly. It depends on if it connects to anything else we've been investigating. It might go to Organised Crimes or, once we determine her age, us at Child Exploitation. She shrugs. "Or if its local, it's more likely we might set up something at 15."
Gail nods.
"Anyway, I'd better move," Ola says, sighing. "I have to go back to my office and clean up some other cases so we can move on this. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks, Peck. You were great. It wasn't ideal to bring her here, but you kept her calm."
Gail nods, pleased but not letting on. "See you later."
Gail hurries into the comparative warmth of their car.
"Nice one, Peck. You did good." Ollie tells her, climbing into the driver's seat. "By the way, the good news is that Frank said you could take the afternoon off, because you worked so late last night."
"And the bad news?"
"Ah, I think we've had enough, don't you?"
Gail nods. "That poor kid." She turns to Oliver. "You know she only got away because she was running away from a dog? She's scared of dogs. She's lucky she's scared of dogs," she adds, turning back to stare out the window. "She has been walking to that supermarket for however long she has been here, and all it took was this one small thing. It's crazy." She shakes her head.
Oliver nods, saying nothing, focused on the road.
"If they do set up an investigation here, I want to be on it, Ollie," she says him.
"You should be," he tells her.
"Not because I want to advance my career or anything. That's not why. It's because I want to …" She is not sure what she wants to say.
He taps a hand on the steering wheel. "I know, Peck. I mean it. Remember what I told you, a while back, that you have no patience or pity for us regular folk? But for the victims, the mistreated, the sad and the sorry, you have all the time in the world?" He turns and smiles at her. "Well, this is it, Peck. This is the perfect job for you. Get on that case. I mean it. I'll do what I can to help."
Gail nods. "Thank you," she says quietly.
"No problem. But you owe me a beer."
"And Oliver?" She turns to him.
"Yup?"
"I have pity for you."
"Oh, nice one, Peck. Nice one. Tss."
She grins, resting her head against the seat and watching the streetscape slide around them.
As fatherly as he can be, Oliver has never been one to give her advice, aside from the little nuggets of Oliver knowhow, like 'never eat the green ones', or 'don't get a tattoo where the judge can see it'. Probably because she mostly acts like she doesn't need advice. So if Ollie, the training officer she would never admit that she looks up to most in this world tells her she should do it, and that she can it, then Gail is going to do it.
Gail
They leave the restaurant, stepping out onto the quiet street together. It is a cold and windless night, and the last snowfall has disappeared.
"So, did you like it?" Holly asks her as they set off down the footpath.
"Like it?" Gail says, feeling the leaden weight of the best Korean food she has ever eaten. "It was ridiculous. Did you see how much I ate?" She rubs her stomach. "I'm going to have to tell my brother about this place. He'll love it."
"We should take him and Traci there one night."
Yeah," Gail says, gazing up at the sky. It is actually clear tonight. She can even make out a few scattered pinpricks of stars.
"Still got an unholy fear of double dating?" Holly asks, nudging her with her shoulder.
"Nah, I'm over it," Gail tells her, tucking her arms through Holly's and stepping in close to her side. She knows Holly wanted to do that, but didn't. She has taken to letting Gail call the shots about physical contact when they are in public. Gail knows it is because she was all funny at first. Now, sometimes, she regrets having been like that, and having made Holly so careful with her.
She sighs, sated. The restaurant was how Gail likes them: great food but without much stock set in its no frills decor. Gail loves how Holly likes the same kinds of places she does, where it is more about the food than the setting. And if they are going for atmosphere, she too will take interesting or strange over hipster ambience any time. But really, most of the pleasure of the night is coming from just hanging out with Holly. The last time they really saw each other was the awards night, but they'd barely had a moment together. And last night, after finding Anca, when Gail came to Holly's so late, they had barely spoken to each other, just sleeping. Even Gail, exhausted, had slept right up until the alarm rang, and they both had to rush to work in the morning.
Tonight, it has been nice just to catch up, to hang out and find some normalcy. Gail used to fear normal, but now she likes it when it's like this. So tonight they ate hotpots and drank rice wine and Holly told Gail about her two newest interns, and the plans she has made for her best friend's birthday. Gail told Holly about the morning, catching her up with the story of Anca.
"You won't tell anyone any of this, will you?" Gail asked her over their second dish.
"Of course not," Holly had said, frowning. "And you never have to ask me that again, either."
"Okay, I'm sorry." Gail had said.
They cross at the lights, passing a park with a huge lit-up Christmas tree in the middle.
"I suppose it is kind of pretty," Gail admits, although Holly didn't even ask, as she watches the lights flash on and off.
"So Gail, what do you want for Christmas?"
"For my great aunt not to get too drunk. For my mother to say nothing about my outfit, and for Steve to remember to buy our cousins presents himself and not to just sign my card when we get there."
Holly chuckles. "Not quite what I meant."
"Well, it's what I want. Make it happen, Holly."
"Okay," Holly tells her. "But only if you can make sure my aunt and uncle limit themselves to only ten questions about my life an hour and that my father never, ever … ," she squeezes Gail's arm, "sings."
"I'll do my best," Gail nods, as if it is as good as done on her whim.
They walk in silence for a while, turning down toward Holly's house, where they left their cars.
"So, do you want to stay at mine?" Holly asks her.
"It depends," Gail says, biting her lip. She still feels a little bad about waking Holly last night, even though she had reassured her again this morning that it was fine. "Do I stay too much?"
"Gail," Holly says quietly, yanking on her arm. "You don't stay enough."
"Well that's okay then," Gail smiles to herself. "Besides, got to leave you wanting more," she adds.
"Is that so?"
"Mmhm," she nods, changing the subject. "You're going to Montreal for Christmas?"
Holly nods. "I am."
"How long will you be there?"
"Until early January. It's Dad's birthday is just after New Year, so I want to stay for that."
"Didn't your mom just have her birthday?"
"Well, yeah, Gail, but my parents get one each." Holly smiles at her.
"I know that, Holly" Gail sasses. "But you won't be around for New Year's? Who am I going to make out with at midnight?" She turns to her and pouts.
"Poor you. You'll find someone." Holly grins.
"I just might, you know, Holly."
"You could come to Montreal," Holly says, dropping Gail's arm and fishing her keys out of her bag.
"I could," Gail says slowly, "But my family have this party every year. It's kind of a family tradition. The only way to get out of it is if you are on shift."
"You guys have a lot of traditions, you know."
"I know." Gail rolls her eyes. Holly hasn't even heard about the ones up at the cottage. Luckily, Gail can get out of those ones these days because of work. Her Mom and Dad might be able to take leave, but Gail is way to far down the pecking order to claim for leave in summer, even if she wanted to. Besides, by the time Christmas and New Year's has passed, Gail has usually had plenty of parent time.
Holly stops at the door to her flat and turns, giving Gail a look. "Wait. So … you were thinking we'd be making out at your family's New Year's party?"
"God no, Holly," she tells her, laughing; grabbing her hands and climbing up on the same step to kiss away that look of total consternation. "I only have to go to the party for a couple of hours. We'd be making out on a dance floor somewhere, I hope. Peck party strictly optional— for you."
"That sounds much better," Holly tells her, pushing open the door. "Now I am actually disappointed I won't be here, instead of fake disappointed."
To be continued...
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