‘Hey Brodie,’ Wee Elvis shouted. ‘D’you like my dog?’ He carried the white Jack Russell terrier under his arm and lifted Lucky’s paw and waved it at me. Wee Elvis had been brought up in care and abused by resident social workers. He was a chronic alcoholic, and on more than one occasion he had cowered under my desk fighting imaginary beasts as he suffered from delirium tremens. He was one of life’s victims. I didn’t want to accuse him of stealing Mack’s dog, but I couldn’t see why the huge tramp would have let him go when he had told me in great detail how much that dog had meant to him. However, there were only so many battles I could fight. I waved back to Lucky the dog, pushed my way through the queue and made my way to the kitchen. By the time I reached the gunmetal grey shutters, I’d removed my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. I knew the score before I walked into Ina’s domain. Information would be traded for work, so for the next hour I’d be dishing up soup. It wasn’t Sunday so there would be no roast dinner, just plain old soup.

‘Hullo there, hen,’ Ina said. A smile lit up her face as I hung my coat on a peg and took down a clean white apron. I tied it round my neck and walked over to her.

‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked, knowing that she’d not let me be idle. The canteen was filling up. Untidy queues of unwashed, bedraggled human beings gave the room a depressed air. Posters showing pictures of missing people, loved ones, lined the wall. I stared and learned that Andy Mullen, who left home at sixteen, would be twenty-six now. He just walked out of the house after a family row. If anyone saw him, would they tell him to contact his mother who was very ill. ‘They’ve just fallen or been pushed through the cracks, hen,’ said Ina, watching me. ‘We can’t fix everything–but we can feed them.’