Chapter One - Reflection

It was a bitterly cold February night. The night sky hung black and heavy over the roaring high tide of the North Sea, lit only by a small number of scattered stars like diamonds on a black velvet cushion. The row of countless bed and breakfast hotels faced the sea like an unbreakable wall against the harsh elements, following the coastline northwards for as far as the eye could see. Strong winds blew, causing the street lamps to flicker and bend slightly, rattling like skeletal bones as one or two people stooped and clutched their thick long coats to their chests, whilst they struggled against the head-on wind to make their way home.

Sorrowful, swollen, tear-stained eyes peered hopelessly into the blackness, as the police car pulled up to the kerb in front of the ‘Sunrise’ Guest House. Clutching a small brown hold all on her lap, the young woman sat silently in the backseat as one of the officers in the front passenger seat radioed in their location to their area command station.

The officer driving the car turned slightly in his seat, to talk to the young woman. As an experienced officer of more than fifteen years service, he had sadly grown accustomed to rescuing damsels in distress. On many an occasion, he had seen their sometimes delicate and fragile features swollen, bruised and bloody from a recent domestic conflict, and had offered kind words of support that fell like silent snowflakes on traumatised ears. He was a family man, himself, and dearly loved his wife and children, never dreaming of hurting them the way these women had been hurt. Every time, he tortured himself with the question: What could they have done, that deserved beatings such as these?  Here was another woman, the victim of continued physical and mental abuse, robbed of her young child, beaten and thrown out into the street with nowhere to go. How do you cope with that? He thought, as he looked into her eyes.

“We’re here, Mrs.Tennant. Your accommodation has been taken care of. All you have to do is to hand the invoice the landlady gives you, into the Social Services office tomorrow, and they will ensure that the guesthouse is paid. Are you okay?”

The woman nodded silently and shakily unclipped her seat belt. Her heart was pounding so hard, she thought it might burst, and she felt sick, so very sick. Her whole world had been turned upside down, and all that she now possessed was: a change of clothes; a single much cherished photograph of her daughter and about six pounds in change in her little battered leather purse.

The officer from the front passenger seat got out of the car and opened the rear door for Mrs. Tennant to climb out. As she slid along the seat and stepped out on to the pavement, she looked up at the three-storey Georgian style guesthouse, casting her eyes over the slightly peeling paintwork and the little green neon sign in the window that said, ”vacancies”. The officer led her up to the doorstep and rang the bell. A good-looking middle-aged woman, with long straight, slightly tired looking hair, answered the door.

“Hello there. I’m officer Stewart Gray. We spoke on the phone earlier.”

“Oh, yes. Do come in.”

“This is Mrs Tennant. She’ll be staying here tonight whilst arrangements can be made to find a place for her in the local refuge.”

“That’s fine. You’ll need to sign in, in the register”, said the landlady to Mrs Tennant, opening the register that lay on the hall table just inside the door.

Shaking with the cold and hunger, Mrs Tennant slowly lifted the pen from the page and signed in just below the last entry on the page.

“Follow me, and I’ll take you straight up to your room, no. 9 on the third floo