No Child of Mine (19 page)

Still, the idea of a rival gang lurking in the shadows, ready for an unholy scrap that might have developed into something seriously threatening, remained unnerving.

‘You still going for the EPO?’ Lizzie asked as Alex dialled the office.

‘She has to be got out of there,’ Alex replied.

‘So you’re not put off by what Shane Prince said to you?’

Alex inhaled deeply and shook her head. ‘No, I mean yes, but I can’t let him intimidate me like that.’

‘That’s my girl. And remember, if you need to, you can always call on our Nathan.’

Doubting she’d ever do that, while realising it made her feel a little easier to think she could, Alex asked to be put through to Wendy and moments later she was practically shouting at her down the line.

‘But we know from the doctor that the girl has an STD,’ she insisted, ‘and apparently she’s still sleeping around ...’

‘You only have the sister’s word for that,’ Wendy pointed out, ‘and you know what sisters can be like. All kinds of history and jealousy could be coming into play. And you didn’t even see the girl, so how can I recommend any kind of protection order when we haven’t even attempted a second visit?’

‘Wendy, if you’d been there, if you understood how important it is to get her out ...’

‘That may be so, but you know very well that we have to be extremely careful when making these decisions. Just because the mother was uncooperative doesn’t mean she’s not seeking medical help elsewhere, or that she’s allowing the girl to be promiscuous. No, I’m afraid this is a situation that will have to be closely monitored over ...’

‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ Alex broke in furiously. ‘Shane Prince has already threatened me. I can’t just go in and out of that house ...’

‘Lizzie can go with you, or Tommy when he’s back. Now, I need you here as soon as you can make it. When is that likely to be?’

Somehow resisting the urge to throw the phone out the window, Alex said, ‘Probably around three,’ and before Wendy could dump any more on her she cut the connection. ‘Sometimes I wonder why we bother,’ she snapped irritably to Lizzie.

‘I’ve asked myself the same question a thousand times over the years,’ Lizzie sighed. ‘But somehow we keep on going. So where are you off to now?’

As she remembered, Alex’s eyes closed in dismay. ‘Yarnham,’ she answered, referring to the neighbouring estate, which wasn’t much more edifying than Temple Fields. ‘Do you remember Gemma Knight, the little girl whose mother was dying of cancer?’

‘I do. Don’t tell me, the mother’s gone.’

‘At the weekend. Gemma’s grandmother’s staying with her for now, but I have to go and pick her up and take her to her carers.’

‘Does she know them?’

‘Yes, she’s been spending time with them ever since her mother was first diagnosed. It’s just a pity the grandmother can’t take her in, but the old lady’s got a heart problem and to be honest, I’m not sure about the son, Gemma’s uncle. He’s a real seedy type, never works, or washes by the look of him. She’ll be better off with her carers.’

‘Please, Alex, please, please, let me stay here,’ Gemma was sobbing half an hour later, while clinging to Alex with all her might. ‘I know Granny has to go home, but I can take care of myself. I know how to cook and clean and I’ll go to school every day, I promise.’

With tears streaming down her own face, Alex held the child tight as she said, ‘You know I can’t do that, you’re way too young.’

‘Then let me come and live with you,’ Gemma begged. ‘I’ll be good, I swear it. I’ll do everything you tell me to – you won’t even know I’m there.’

Holding the girl’s ravaged little face between her hands Alex tried to explain that she wasn’t a registered carer, and nor could she be while she had a full-time job. Besides, Gemma was going to be very well looked after by the Brownings: she and her mother had got to know them together during her mother’s lengthy decline.

‘Your mummy wanted you to go to them,’ she reminded Gemma gently. ‘She’ll know you’re safe there, and you
won’t be far from the rest of your family, so you’ll be able to visit them.’

‘I don’t care about them,’ Gemma shouted, her glasses clouding up again. ‘Why should I, they don’t care about me?’

‘You know that’s not true,’ Alex insisted. ‘They want what’s best for you too. We all do.’

Hardly able to speak through her sobs, Gemma said, ‘Will you still come and see me?’

‘Of course I will,’ Alex promised, with a smile. ‘You’re one of my star charges, aren’t you? There’s no way I’m going to stop seeing you. And you have my number, so any time you want to call you know you can.’

It turned out to be small comfort in the end, because when they got to the carers Gemma simply couldn’t let Alex go. In fact, if the angel of mercy from Winston’s Wish, the child bereavement charity, hadn’t shown up when she had, Alex suspected she and Gemma might still be clinging to one another now.

Instead, she was finally driving into Mulgrove at the end of the day so battered emotionally and engrossed in the notes she was dictating into her BlackBerry that she almost missed Mattie waving out to her.

‘Hi,’ she said, pulling up next to the gift shop. ‘Everything OK?’

Mattie pulled a face. ‘You obviously haven’t seen it yet,’ she declared.

Alex’s mouth turned dry. ‘Seen what?’ Fire had ravaged the Vicarage, the village hall ...

‘Heather Hancock’s review. It was posted on the
Gazette
’s website a couple of hours ago, it’ll be in the paper tomorrow.’

‘Oh God, is it that bad?’ Alex groaned.

‘Afraid so.’

‘Just when I was thinking today couldn’t get any worse,’ Alex retorted, putting the car back into gear. ‘Anyway, thanks for the warning, I’ll see you at the hall in about an hour.’

If you’re into cheap laughs, village-hall romps and hairy men dressed up as airheads, then the Mulgrove Players’ production of
Gender Swap
is for you. There was plenty of hysterical rolling around the aisles during the performance I attended, but as most of the audience was made up of friends and family of the director and performers that was only to be expected. For the rest of us the experience of watching a bunch of buxom blokes dancing round their handbags, and butched-up princesses scratching their arses, ricocheted from excruciating to tiresome, to please, please let this be over before I start pulling my own teeth
.

Given the right direction, this piece might have spoken to our hearts and left us with more to think about than where your ten quid might be better spent. But alas it seemed to lack any sense of direction at all
.

So, my friends, unless you’re in the mood to find out what gives amateur theatre a bad name I urge you not to waste your time going to see this sorry little fiasco of a production
.

The review was so unnecessarily spiteful and condescending that Alex could only wonder at just how much venom Heather Hancock had stored up inside her. And all because Alex had had the nerve to challenge an unfair review of a restaurant over a year ago and point out the mistakes Heather had made in a front-page report on the standard of social work in the area.

‘We’ve got absolutely nothing to feel ashamed of,’ Johnny Grant declared to the assembled cast. ‘It’s a brilliant production, you only have to go on Facebook to read how much everyone loved it. And the audience was
not
made up of only our family and friends. There were loads of people we’d never met before.’

Alex looked around at their dear, loyal faces. ‘Have there been any cancellations since this came out?’ she asked Mattie.

‘Three, but we’ve no way of knowing if they’re anything to do with this. Anyway, I’ve sold the tickets on already, so we’ve still got a full house for Saturday night.’

‘Even if we don’t, we’ll go on anyway,’ Sarah Grant informed her. ‘We’ve committed to three performances so three performances we shall give.’

‘Hear, hear,’ the rest of them cheered with a small round of applause.

‘Actually, I owe you all an apology for letting this
happen,’ Alex confessed. ‘I knew before we invited Heather Hancock how she felt about me, I just never imagined she’d go public with it like this.’

‘But how could she not like
you
?’ Sarah protested.

Alex had to laugh at that. ‘I just want you all to understand that everything she’s written here was meant as an attack on me – well, I think she’s made that pretty clear – but it’s written with a grudge, or a sense of vengeance in mind that means she was never going to allow herself to view our play objectively, never mind fairly.’

‘Well, I for one want you to know,’ Hailey stated hotly, ‘that I’ve loved working with you and I’m proud of what you did with my script. It wasn’t meant to be touchy-feely or schmaltzy, you understood that even if she didn’t.’

‘She would have slammed it whichever way we played it,’ Johnny pointed out. ‘So I say we just ignore her and forget she even exists.’

‘No way am I buying the
Gazette
tomorrow,’ Mattie declared.

‘Me neither,’ several others added.

Alex smiled. ‘Well, I don’t suppose I could ask for much more support,’ she remarked, ‘so thank you. And I think we should just keep looking at Facebook and take our lead from that.’

‘Absolutely,’ Steve Perry agreed as he walked in the door. ‘Sorry I’m late, everyone. Got caught up on a job. I take it we’re talking about the crap on the
Gazette
’s website? Well, wait till you see what’s been going down on their Facebook page in the last half an hour, if you haven’t already.’

Alex looked at him, intrigued.

Grinning, he spun out his iPad, tapped through to the relevant page and passed it round for everyone to see. ‘Outrage, I’d call it, on an industrial scale,’ he announced. ‘Demands for retractions, explanations, even sackings. OK, a lot are from our nearest and dearest, but not all. Like these from a couple called Ron and Maggie Fenn, and this one ... Just listen to this, it only got posted a couple of minutes ago: “I’ve no idea where Ms Hancock left her sense of humour on Saturday evening, but happily everyone else brought theirs and frankly I can’t remember when I last
laughed so much. Well done to Alex Lake and all the cast, it was a tremendous show that from where I was sitting everyone thoroughly enjoyed.”’ He beamed triumphantly. ‘Anthony Goodman, QC,’ he told them. ‘Anyone know him? He was obviously here.’

Alex’s heart tripped with surprise as she said, ‘He’s related to the Fenns, who are a couple of foster carers I dealt with recently.’

‘My God, we had a QC in the audience,’ Sarah gushed in delight. ‘And now he’s written this. That’ll really put HH in her place.’

Handing the iPad to Alex, Steve said, ‘He’s not the only one speaking up for us. Here, take a look.’

‘Do you reckon we might be able to get her to print a retraction?’ Hailey suggested, clearly switched on by the thought.

Though Alex would have loved it more than anything, she said, ‘Actually, I think the best course now is to maintain a dignified silence. She’ll hate that more than anything, especially when she sees all this.’

‘So where’s Jase?’ Steve demanded, pulling up a chair. ‘Don’t tell me he’s gone to sort out those kids again?’

‘Actually, I’m not sure where he is,’ Alex replied, feeling slightly lost without him. ‘He texted earlier to say he was going to be late, but nothing about what was holding him up.’

‘I bet he’s gone to tear that vindictive little bitch to pieces,’ Sarah decided. ‘They’re old friends, aren’t they?’

‘He knows her,’ Alex conceded, ‘but it’s his wife who’s friends with her, not him.’

Johnny threw out his hands. ‘So there we have it, the motive for all this crap. She’s doing it for her mate.’

Not at all sure Heather Hancock would allow herself to be used in such a way, Alex could only shake her head in confusion. More than what was driving Heather Hancock, she’d have liked to know where Jason was, since his text hadn’t mentioned anything about the review, so there was a chance he might not even know about it yet.

‘At last,’ she declared, when she finally got through to his mobile. ‘I was starting to worry.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I tried calling earlier, but I was on this job that just wouldn’t finish and it was a total dead zone. I’m nearly home now though. Are you OK?’

‘Fine, apart from getting over the shock of Heather Hancock’s review. Have you seen it?’

He gave a weary groan. ‘No, and by the sound of it I don’t want to. Just ignore it. You know what she’s like, she never gives a good review about anything. I suppose she thinks it makes her more interesting to stir up controversy or hurt people’s feelings.’

‘Well, she might not be wrong there, but if she looks at the
Gazette
’s Facebook page – and ours – she’ll find out it’s backfired on her, which is going to make her love me even more. Won’t that be lovely?’

Laughing, he said, ‘Where are you now? Have you eaten, because I’m starving?’

‘No, I haven’t, and so am I, so let’s meet up at the pub. How soon can you get there?’

‘I’m just pulling up outside the Vicarage, so I’ll walk down ... What the hell? Jesus Christ! What’s happened to your car, Alex? How did you get all those scratches?’

‘Oh, God, don’t remind me,’ Alex sighed, as the morning’s ordeal came flooding back to her. ‘I’ll tell you about it when I see you, but it’s OK, it didn’t happen in Mulgrove.’

‘I didn’t think so, but do you know who did it?’

‘Actually, I was in the car at the time, but please don’t let’s get into it now. It’s been a long day, and I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be even longer, so I’d like to just chill out for a while and forget about everything except you, me and a lovely big plate of fish and chips.’

Chapter Eight

‘SO, OTTILIE, YOU
understand what’s happening later, don’t you?’ Brian Wade was saying as he dabbed his face with an already damp handkerchief. It was humid outside and grey, a prowling beast of a day.

Ottilie’s big eyes were regarding him carefully. She was standing in the middle of her bedroom, hands hanging limply at her sides, her wispy hair uncombed and stuck in places to her head.