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‘About your mam – which pub did she go to?’ he asked gruffly.
    ‘Why? What does that matter?’
    He shrugged. ‘I thought we could drop in there on the way to school. They might tell you what time she left. She might have gone home with someone,’ he added awkwardly.
    ‘What, and shacked up with them at their place all night?’ Winnie gasped.
    ‘Does happen,’ Sandy grinned.
    Winnie shook her head. ‘Not when she’d just heard bad news about my dad.’
    ‘That’s why it might have happened. She might have been feeling a bit low and felt she needed someone.’
    ‘I needed someone too, and she left me all on my own all night,’ Winnie wept.
    ‘Yeah, I know. Well, come on, let’s go and check it out. The sooner we know where she is the better you’ll feel.’

Chapter Seven
    WINNIE AND SANDY skipped school, but it took them until midday to find out what had happened to Winnie’s mother. They went from one pub to the next, and although most of them knew who Grace Malloy was they couldn’t offer them any help.
    At most of the pubs the landlord admitted that she had been in there at some stage the night before, drinking heavily and causing a scene. Most times they also told them where she would probably have gone next. As they followed the trail, Winnie’s heart grew heavier and her fears about what could have happened to her mother increased.
    By mid-morning she was ready to give up. The day was grey and damp with a thick mist creeping up from the Mersey, but Sandy was insistent that they should go on.
    ‘We’re in hot water anyway for skipping school so we might as well go on looking,’ he told her as he manoeuvred her cumbersome invalid carriage along the narrow pavement towards the next pub they’d been directed to.
    ‘Heavens! I’d forgotten all about school,’ Winnie exclaimed guiltily. ‘I’m sorry if it means you’re in trouble! Do you think if we explain why we skipped off it will do any good?’
    Sandy shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Probably not, but don’t worry about it. I’m not, I’m enjoying myself.’
    ‘It’s not fair that you should be in disgrace because of me, though, is it,’ Winnie said worriedly.
    ‘I’m in hot water so often that I’m used to it,’ he guffawed. ‘Anyway, I’d sooner be doing this than sitting in class and listening to dull old lessons. Come on, what’s the next pub we’ve got to look for?’
    ‘I think he said the Brewers Arms, and that’s at the top of Scotland Road on the corner of Comus Street. I never knew my mam went there,’ she added, shaking her head.
    ‘I bet you never knew she went to half of the others we’ve visited this morning either. She must have had a terrific thirst on her, the way she seemed to put it away,’ he laughed.
    Winnie felt uneasy. Sandy was right. If her mother had taken a drink at each of the pubs they’d already visited this morning then she must have been well and truly drunk by the time she reached the Brewers Arms.
    The landlord there was a short, stout man with a round florid face and watery blue eyes. He looked very uneasy when they asked him if he knew anyone by the name of Grace Malloy and whether she had been in his pub drinking the previous night.
    ‘Why’re you asking?’ he prevaricated.
    ‘She’s my mam,’ Winnie told him. ‘She went out for a bit of a bevvy last night and she didn’t come home.’
    ‘You mean she left you at home on your own?’ he said in disbelief, staring at Winnie’s twisted legs.
    Winnie nodded.
    ‘Who’s this, then, your brother?’ he asked, nodding in Sandy’s direction.
    ‘No, he’s a friend. He pushes me to school every day.’
    ‘You mean you can’t walk at all?’
    ‘Not properly. I can get around indoors by using the furniture.’
    ‘And your mam went out and left you on your own!’ he repeated, running a thick, podgy hand over his dark greasy hair.
    ‘Was she in here drinking or not?’ Sandy demanded. ‘It would be pretty late on because