his mate disappeared off down the road, and something told me to follow them. After about ten minutes, they split up. There was no-one about, it was very late, very dark, and I took him by surprise and just punched him. I hit him in the head, like Alex had tried to do, so he’d fall the same way he had earlier, and the bruises would match. Only this time I made sure to do some proper damage. Poor bloke hit his head on the pavement – again – and by the time some more snowflakes found him the next morning on their way to work, he was a goner. Even if there were no witnesses to identify Alex from the night before, people saw him leaving the scene, including me. I would say I was passing and have helped the police by providing the registration number of his car. But I didn’t need to, because things started to move quickly when the police assumed the injuries that killed the bloke, were inflicted by the man who’d hit him outside the bar. Shame really, the dead bloke was quite young – but stupid for getting done twice, if you ask me.
Meanwhile, back at work, things weren’t going quite so well. There were problems with a client, which at one point looked like it might derail everything, including me! Thing is, Chloe Thomson always had the hots for me when I was her social worker. I didn’t encourage her – hell she didn’t need any encouragement, believe me. At first it was just flirty, and okay, I might have spent a bit too long on visits when her mother was out. Then we kissed, and one thing led to another. I mean, she wanted it, really wanted it, the little slapper. I knew I shouldn’t, bloody hell, by then she was still only fifteen, so was underage and my client – I’d have had the book thrown at me. But she was gagging for it and I know it’s no defence, but she looked eighteen with make-up on.
Then the worst happened, and Chloe was taken off me and given to Hannah – if she opened her stupid little mouth to her I was ruined, in so many ways. So, in order to stop her blabbing, I kept Chloe dangling, and at first, I thought I’d got away with it. But then Hannah told me she’d been sent some information from Chloe’s mental-health worker regarding a recent interview and I was really worried. What if Chloe had said something? I asked Hannah if she’d had a chance to read it, which she hadn’t, but I prepared the ground by saying, in a nice way, that the stupid little bitch didn’t tell the truth. I also dropped heavy hints about the mother’s boyfriend to anyone who would listen, so if Chloe had said anything about having sex with an older man they’d look there. I knew I had to get hold of whatever was in the files sent to Hannah, so one night when I thought everyone had gone home, I crept into the office via the back door hoping to take them. But Hannah was there, and I had to stand there in the dark corner of the office just watching her. Normally I’d have enjoyed that, I might have even made a noise to scare her, but this time I was too worried about getting my hands on the files.
I tried not to make a sound, just praying she’d leave, but she must have heard me, because she started saying, ‘Hello? Hello?’ I thought, shit, if she sees me, I won’t ever be able to explain this, so I left. But as I left, I saw him, sitting in his fancy car outside the office, bloody stalker, and I’m sure he saw me running away. I hid across the road, and when they left together, I followed them discreetly to the pub, where to my deep joy they had quite a nasty row. But the icing on the cake was that she walked out on him and left the files on the floor! I couldn’t believe my luck, I was straight in there – took the files into the toilets, removed all the notes where Chloe’s mental-health worker reported that she’d told her she was, ‘having a relationship with someone older in a position of authority, but refused to name them’.
I didn’t stop seeing Chloe, I couldn’t because it kept her