The job at the leisure center’s not a bad number really. The pay is crap and who ever dreamed up the uniform must have been pissed, but most of the time I can please myself. Just do enough to make it look good and the rest of the time I can put my feet up in my office; if you can call an eight by ten cupboard an office, but it serves its purpose

Site supervisor is my official title; bit grand really for a glorified cleaner, but a job’s a job and I’ve managed to keep this one longer than usual

George Baker the superintendent came round Monday, on his weekly visit. He’s based at County Hall, but he likes to survey his kingdom at regular intervals.

“Roger,” he said. “There are dead leaves in the entrance hall. You must remember that first impressions are what count and you are a front line soldier in the battle.”

“Yes Mr. Baker” said I, but I was thinking “What a prick.”

Of course I had to go and clean them up while he stood over me, spouting about ‘tight ship’ and the usual crap. Thought I was never going to get rid of him.

“Oh!, he said, as he was halfway through the door. “No news on your national insurance number yet Roger, but I am on to it and I will track it down, don’t you worry.”

I wasn’t worried. Going on past experience, I reckoned I had another couple of months before it showed up.

Stacy was hanging about when I got back to my cubbyhole, so that cheered me up.

“What you up to?” I asked her, but she just shrugged, so I knew it must be trouble at home.

I know all about home. She never tells me much about it, just odd comments here and there, but enough for me to build up a picture of what it’s like. No wonder she spends her time out of it.

She had a skirt on for a change, a really short one and one of those skimpy top things. The sort that shows more than it covers.

Her eyes were a bit puffy, like she’d been crying or something, so I gave her one of my Rollo’s. That brought a little smile from her. Instead of putting it into her mouth, she licked all the chocolate off first, and then nibbled at it till there were just soft bits of caramel left all over her fingers. Sometimes she is just like a little kid.

“You hungry?” I asked her. She shrugged again.

“Tell you what,” I said. “How about I treat you to a burger?”

She looked at me with those enormous brown eyes and I could see the beginnings of doubt creep in.

“It’s up to you,” I played it cool, like it was no great shakes and turned to open the office door.

“OK,” she said softly and I knew I had scored.

Her eyes were the first thing I noticed about her. It was about a week after I started here. She was standing in reception, next to the drink machine.

She had been swimming and her blond hair was still wet at the ends. She looked in my direction and I got the full force. Dark brown velvet, all soft and innocent and I was hooked--- again.

I gave her a quick smile and a wink. Her pale face flushed pink and she half smiled back. Then she went all coy on me and turned away.

I saw a lot of her after that, usually in the café gallery, nursing the same bottle of coke for hours. The gallery overlooks the pool and she liked to watch the swimmers. When she had the admission money, she would stay in the pool for most of the day. She told me later it made her feel safe; she’s a strange girl sometimes

There was something about her that made me think of other times, other places and missed chances. I didn’t push it; just kept on with the smiling campaign and eventually she smiled back.

The burgers cost me a fortune, but it was worth every penny

I knew something was different as soon as I walked into the center this morning. You get a sort of sixth sense about these things.

For a start, Fat Brenda who works in reception, didn’t flash me her usual ‘Hello I’m desperate for a man’ smile. In fact she didn’t look at me at all.

Then I glanced down the corridor and spotted George Baker waiting outside my office

As soon as he saw me he said something to the two blokes with him. No doubting who they were; I can smell them a mile off.

For a second I thought about making a run for it, but there was no point really, bound to be others waiting outside.

The local nick was like all the others. When you’ve visited as many times as me, they all begin to look the same. The snot green walls of the interview room felt so familiar, almost like home.

There s a saying that,’ you know you are getting old when the policemen start to look younger’. The one who came to interview me looked about twelve.

It seems that, nit picking, George Baker had decided to get to the bottom of the missing NI number. What he found had sent him scuttling of to the nearest nick, just about at the same time the cops had found Stacy. It didn’t take them long to make connections and here I was.

They got me the duty solicitor and I gave the usual ‘no comment,’ to all of the questions.

All through the interview, the young copper was looking at me like I was something that crawled out from under a stone.

“Why? He said after he turned off the tape. “She was ten years old for God’s sake.

I just smiled at him. I used to try and make them understand, but they never could. As my mum used to say, ‘You can’t write in a closed book,’ and their minds are definitely closed.

I love children, I understand what they want, what Stacy wanted. I would never have hurt her. What happened was an accident. I just wanted her to stop screaming.

Afterwards, I put her where she wanted to be; in the water---- she felt safe in the water.