First Blood by Angela Marsons

Author:Angela Marsons [Angela Marsons]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786816238
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2019-11-13T18:30:00+00:00

With Hayley’s full name Stacey felt as though she was being spoilt.

Within minutes of the boss’s call she’d managed to cobble together a brief history of the woman’s life. Nothing yet that would help track down nine-year-old Mia, which was the information the boss wanted. Pronto.

Hayley Smart was born in 1987 and placed into the care system at two months old by her sixteen-year-old mother. Stacey had seen no evidence to suggest that the relationship had ever been rekindled.

There followed a succession of foster homes and children’s homes until she left the system at the same age her own mother had left her there.

Stacey couldn’t help the sadness that engulfed her as she learned more about the woman.

Having grown up as an only child with both parents and part of the wider Nigerian community in and around Dudley, she had felt nothing but love and security. Even at school when her colour had brought her first brushes with cruelty and isolation she had known she would return to the loving, reassuring embrace of her family.

As she read about Hayley Smart she found herself wishing for the happy ending. In films and TV dramas, no matter what the hardship, most folks got their happy ending. She kept hoping that each foster home would be the last, that the girl had finally found somewhere to feel safe and loved.

But now she’d met her end and there’d been nothing happy about it at all.

Hayley had first come to the attention of the police at the age of seventeen for shoplifting. The charges hadn’t stopped there and for the next few years she’d been brought in a total of seven times on crimes ranging from petty assault to burglary, resulting in some decent stretches of prison time.

Stacey kicked herself for not searching their own system with nothing more than a first name and the birthmark, though she wasn’t sure how effective the search would have been or if the boss would have felt it a good use of her time. This week was turning into the biggest learning curve of her life, she thought, as she continued to read.

For a couple of years Hayley had disappeared from the radar and a simple calculation told Stacey it was when she first had her daughter. And the crimes were back down to petty theft.

Personally, Stacey had never been a believer in victimless crime. Someone, somewhere always suffered or felt the repercussions whether it be through violence, fear, loss or a stock-take that didn’t add up at the end of the day. Someone lost something.

But she did believe in survivor crime. Desperate people carrying out criminal acts to get by. They weren’t trying to hurt anyone or take more than they needed, they were simply trying to survive.

And that’s what Hayley appeared to have been trying to do.

Once she had a child only three short prison sentences had occurred, the last one being less than a year ago.

Stacey noted that on each of those three occasions her address given was completely different.

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