Looking For Trouble 2 (Pages 11 - 97)

 

SPOILERS!!!

This novel is becoming more and more interesting. I have to say that I was a not very enthusiastic at first, but now I am really hooked.

We know more about Sal, who at first I thought was a man 😆. He shares the house she rents with Ray and his son, Tom, but there is no romance between them. They are just housemates, and they help each other with the children. And they have a lodger, Clive, who is now away, but they want to ask them to leave as he does not pay his rent and is very untidy and irresponsible.

Sal tries to find out where Martin Hobbs is. In his school they do not give him much information, but Sal goes into contact with a squatter, JB, who tells him that he helped Martin, letting him stay in his squat. JB agrees to help her, and one or two days later he tells her that Martin is with an older man, but he does not know if the man is his lover or his pimp.

Sal wants to thank JB and buys him some drawing material as he likes drawing, and when she goes to find him in his squat, she finds him dead, a syringe stuck in his arm. Sal tells the police that JB swore to her that he was clean, but the police conclude that JB was murdered.

Harry, Sal's journalist friend, gives him information about some clubs where Martin may appear, and he hits pay dirt when he finds him in the company of three other men. Sal manages to get him alone, and Martin is outraged when she tells him that his mother wants to know he is all right. Martin tells her that his mother never cared when he told her that his father abused him. Sal is shocked and feels horrified. Then she follows the car where Martin and his man get in and she discovers the area where he must be living.

When Mrs Hobbs comes to meet her, Sal tells him about Martin being fine, but he does not want her to know where he is because of what he went through at home. Mrs Hobbs is upset, and the next day she calls Sal, begging her to tell her where Martin is. Sal told her the area and now the woman wants to send a letter, and Sal persuades her to stay put and let her send the letter.

Sal is still thinking about the strange circumstances of JB's death, and she goes to find the girl who she also saw in the squat, and the girl reacts angrily, saying that it is Sal's fault that the boy is dead. Her words upset Sal, but she goes to find her another time, telling her when JB's funeral is. The girl, whose name is Leanne, finally goes, and after the funeral, she tells Sal that the day that JB died, she saw a man known for his criminal activities in the squat. When he left, Leanne found JB dead, and she got scared and left, and that is why Sal found him. Leanne doesn't know the name of the man, but she describes him as very smiling and with a scar on his face. 

The next shock that Sal has is when at the end of one day she starts reading the newspaper, and on the front page she reads about a woman being murdered. The shock comes as the woman is Mrs Hobbs, but the name given to the woman in the newspaper is Janice Brookes, and she is single. Sal is confused. Who is the woman who came to see her? Sal goes to the police and tells them about Mrs Hobbs/Janice Brookes, and what she wants is to contact Janice's sister, but the police refuse to give her any information. When Sal mentions what she has learnt about JB's death, they tell her that there is no doubt that the boy died of an overdose, and his death has nothing to do with Janice Brookes. Sal is certain that these two deaths are connected. What she does not understand why both JB and Janice looking for Martin Hobbs could be so threatening that got them killed.