No Child of Mine (6 page)

‘So where are we going?’ Daniel prompted, sounding far less bolshie now he was out of his father’s home and on his way to the unknown. ‘I told you, I ain’t going to ...’

‘The Tanners,’ Alex interrupted hastily, ‘are where they should be, partly thanks to you for speaking out.’

‘Yeah, like I was going to let them do all that stuff to me
and get away with it,’ he retorted fiercely. ‘Bet it’d be right up your street,’ he said rudely to Ben.

Ben’s kohl-lined eyes came to his in the rear-view mirror.

‘The people you’re going to, live in Westleigh,’ Alex declared, quickly steering Daniel away from his inherited homophobia with the promise of a much classier area than the one he came from.

Apparently unimpressed, he growled, ‘I’m only going till my mum gets back.’

‘That’s right,’ Alex confirmed, while knowing that if Laura was remanded in custody it was going to be a much longer stay than he thought, and probably not in Westleigh.

‘Have you dealt with that text yet?’ Ben asked from the front seat. ‘The one you got earlier from the drama queen?’

Alex glared at the back of his head, annoyed that he was bringing this up in front of Daniel. How stupid could he be when he knew very well that Kylie Adams, one of the teenagers in her caseload, had threatened to run away and never come back if Alex didn’t get her a different placement by Friday.

‘It’s in hand,’ Alex reminded him shortly. For God’s sake, he’d been sitting right there when she’d spoken to Kylie’s foster carers, who were now asking for the girl to be removed as soon as possible. Being a self-harmer as well as an arch-manipulator and despiser of other girls her age, Kylie required special handling. Alex was now in the process of arranging for her to go into residential care. That way a team of social workers would always be on hand to keep an eye on her and do everything they could to rehabilitate her.

Grabbing her phone from the bag she’d left in the car while dealing with Daniel, she checked to see if any more texts had come in from Kylie and found that one had. The contents were grim.

Just slit open my veins. Bleeding everywhere. Fucking hate this world and you and them and every fucking one
.

Quickly scrolling through to Kylie’s foster carers, Alex made the connection and was told that Kylie was on her way to hospital.

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ she assured the
distraught-sounding woman at the other end. Audrey Bishop was a long-time agency carer with a rare good record for handling disturbed and violent teenagers.

Clearly Kylie was too much even for her.

Clicking over to another call she said, ‘Hi Fiona. We should be at the Fenns’ place in fifteen minutes, maybe less.’

‘Great,’ Fiona replied. She was in Family Placements at the South Kesterly hub and had organised Daniel’s emergency care, since there hadn’t been anywhere available in the north. ‘Have you got the Emergency Protection Order yet?’

‘No, he’s still under police protection,’ Alex replied, ‘but legal are on it, so it should be sorted any time. I forgot to ask earlier, are there any other children in this family, birth or otherwise?’

‘The birth kids are at uni, but the Fenns are caring for a seven-year-old boy at the moment. Oliver Barratt. He’s a Munchausen victim and misses his mother terribly, but we’re still not sure when, if, he’ll be allowed to go back to her.’

‘Is she in therapy?’ Alex asked.

‘Of course.’

‘So how long has the boy been with the Fenns?’

‘Almost a month now, and they adore him.’

Starting to worry about how Daniel might treat a child as vulnerable as Oliver sounded, Alex decided she’d have to deal with that if the problem arose, and after ringing off she made a quick call to the office, then to the legal department to find out how they were getting on with Daniel’s EPO, and lastly to a lawyer who was representing one of her teenagers in a mugging case. By the time she rang off they were pulling up outside an end-of-terrace Georgian town house in Westleigh.

As they got out of the car Alex couldn’t help wondering if Daniel had ever been anywhere like this before, with its gravelled driveway, immaculate garden beds and impressive double front door with spiralled boxwood topiaries either side of it. Realising that if he had, it would probably have been to help rob it, she immediately started worrying about
what souvenirs he might help himself to while he was in the Fenns’ care.

‘Fancy place,’ Ben commented as he hauled Daniel’s bulky pillowcase from the boot. ‘Bit too good for the likes of that little shit,’ he added under his breath.

‘Why don’t you wait here?’ Alex suggested stiffly, and taking Daniel’s belongings she hoisted her own bag on to her shoulder and was about to steer her charge to his temporary destiny when Ben sniped, ‘Happy to, Your Highness. I didn’t want to come on this job in the first place.’

Refraining from informing him that she’d never have used him as backup given the choice, she went to put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder, had it shrugged off and so turned to the front door as it opened.

‘Alex, hi,’ a smiling, bespectacled Chinese girl said warmly as she came out to receive them. She was a social worker attached to a prestigious nationwide agency who only had the highest-quality carers on their books (all too few of them based in the Kesterly area, unfortunately), and so was paid way more than her council-employed colleagues. However, she was so good-natured Alex would never hold that against her.

‘Hi Mei,’ she said breezily. ‘This is Daniel.’

‘It’s nice to meet you, Daniel,’ Mei told him.

Ignoring Mei’s outstretched hand, Daniel looked down as he scuffed a toe of his worn trainers through the gravel.

Realising that he was far more upset about what was happening to him than he’d ever let on, Alex said, ‘Why don’t we go inside? It looks a really nice place, doesn’t it?’

‘I wanna go home,’ he muttered.

‘Hello, are you Daniel?’ a friendly voice asked from the doorway.

Alex looked up to find an elegant woman in her early fifties coming towards them. ‘Hello, I’m Maggie,’ she said to Alex, holding out her hand to shake. To Daniel she said, ‘I’ve just made some ice cream and there’s far too much for us to eat on our own. Will you come and have some with us?’

Tensing for the ‘eff off,’ or ‘no effing way,’ Alex was
pleasantly surprised when Daniel said belligerently, ‘What do you mean, you made ice cream? I thought it came from a shop or a van.’

‘Maggie makes the most delicious ice cream,’ Mei told him gushingly.

Alex could tell that Daniel wasn’t warming to Mei.

‘I can vouch for that,’ a tall, jug-eared man with half-moon specs and a snowy white beard declared as he came out to join them. ‘Hello, young man, I’m Ronald, but you can call me Ron if you like, most of my friends do. I hear you’re going to be staying with us for a while.’

Daniel eyed Ron Fenn warily.

‘You can have your own room if you like,’ Maggie informed him. ‘Or if you and Oliver get along together ... Speaking of whom, where is he?’

As a small, frightened figure with a mop of shiny dark hair appeared in the doorway, Alex felt torn between pity and dismay. He was so tiny and looked so defenceless that she found herself worrying again about how well Daniel would treat him. She dreaded to think of him being cruel or trying to corrupt Oliver in some way. It was likely to happen, though, it often did amongst children in care – the weakest were preyed upon, used, even abused, and eventually turned into feral little creatures fighting for their lives.

On the other hand, Daniel was just a child too, and in every bit as much in need of kindness and understanding as Oliver, whether he wanted it or not. It looked as though he might get it here, but just for a while, until he was moved elsewhere. What would happen to him then?

Knowing she’d have to worry about that later, she put a hand on his shoulder and followed the Fenns inside. As soon as he was settled, she’d get Ben to drop her at the infirmary to check on Kylie, then she’d have to get the bus back to the office since she’d left her car there. Hopefully she’d be in time for a strategy meeting with an Ethiopian family who, mercifully, were welcoming the support of social services.

Sadly, not everyone was so receptive; many were actively hostile, especially in her area. But as frustrating and even
devastating as her work could be at times, she’d never give up on the children who needed her protection.

Not ever.

Erica Wade was staring from the window of her tired-looking house on North Hill. It had once been a grand Victorian dwelling with smartly painted walls and windows, a garden of pleasant flowers and a welcoming driveway. It stood in its own grounds, surrounded by tall hedges, and dwarfed from behind by a towering maple. It was the kind of place a reasonably distinguished family might once have felt proud to call home.

Though Erica’s grey eyes were directed towards the end of the short drive where a dilapidated gate was open and partially lost amidst the crowding bushes, she wasn’t seeing it. Nor was she registering the brave, sun-seeking blooms springing from a tangle of shrubs and weeds that skirted the overgrown lawn. A dropping cherry tree was casting dappled shadows over an open-fronted playhouse and doll’s pram, but she wasn’t noticing that either.

Once in a while her gaze seemed to catch on one of the cars or lorries tearing up and down the hill outside, as though trying in a ghostlike way to travel away with them. Almost no one walked past the house. Her neighbours came and went from the stately B & B next door, never staying for more than a night or two. The same with the purpose-built holiday apartments the other side, and across the four-lane road.

It wasn’t possible to glimpse the sea from here, the house was on the wrong side of the hill, but it took no more than a minute to walk to the top and from there the vistas down over Kesterly Bay and out into the estuary were impressive. It was one of the many spots from which tourists and scenic photographers took their shots of the old-fashioned holiday town. The wide stretch of the beach sat between two rocky outcrops over which the tide flung itself in exuberant sprays; and the newly refurbished pier stretched off towards the horizon like a walkway to the great beyond.

Erica never went to the top of the hill, or to the end of the pier.

Her sore, grey eyes remained blank as they tracked a pair of swallows swooping in and out of the garage attached to the house. They’d built a nest inside and were making a mess all over her car. It didn’t matter, she never used it anyway, and Brian usually kept his parked in front, on the drive.

The skin stretched over the fine bones of her face was pallid and lined, seeming to add ten years to the mere thirty she had lived. She didn’t feel alive any more, or not often. Sometimes, after she’d taken her medication, she felt as vibrant and free as the butterflies skittering and settling amongst the wild roses, verbena and milkweed. There was a time when the butterflies had inspired her to write a melody, but she didn’t have a piano to play it on any more, or the will to try. She’d been able to name the butterflies then, and probably still could if she tried – orange sulphur, comma ... She didn’t really want to. It would mean engaging with them and she couldn’t allow herself to do that, even though her mind was like one of them, hovering over thoughts and vistas, noting them but never allowing anything to reach into the gnarled and shadowy depths of her feelings.

The postman had dropped some mail through the door a while ago. He was one of the few who came, along with other deliverymen with her online orders, and a local councillor canvassing for an election. They used to have quite a flow of visitors, mainly children coming to learn the piano, but that was when they’d lived in their other house, the one they’d bought just after Jonathan was born. It was miles from here, way up north close to the Scottish border. She’d had friends then, just a few, who’d carried on coming after Jonathan’s death, but she’d found it too hard to pretend that life could go on the way it had before. She’d had to ask the parents of her pupils to make alternative arrangements, and then she’d withdrawn from her friends too. And before long the only person she was seeing in a day was her husband, Brian.

She didn’t include Ottilie because Ottilie was only three. She might be four soon, Erica couldn’t be sure because she had no idea of the day or month.

She wished she didn’t have to see Ottilie at all; everything would be so much easier if she didn’t.

She could sense the child’s eyes on her now; they were making her feel jumpy and sick. Her heart was starting to jerk; the swallows were soaring inside her head; her eyes were full of butterflies. Ottilie was watching her from the open door at the far side of the room, waiting for her to turn around. Sweat trickled down her back. What did she think was going to happen? Did she think at all? Of course she did, but it was hard to know what went through her mind since she barely spoke. Her eyes were the colour of beech bark, her hair as soft as cashmere, wavy and as dark as the earth. It wasn’t often that Erica looked at her daughter. It was too confusing, and she, Erica, was too weak, too broken and afraid of what she might do if she touched her.

Get away from me. Get away from me. GET AWAY FROM ME YOU FILTHY LITTLE BITCH
.

Was it her voice that had spoken, or one of those inside her head?

Ottilie had never known her brother; she hadn’t been born by the time he’d died. She’d come along a few months later like some sort of compensation, or maybe she was a punishment. That was how it felt, like a life sentence for what she, Erica, had done – or failed to do.

It was Brian who bathed Ottilie and put her to bed. Got her up in the morning and gave her breakfast. If he didn’t Ottilie would go unwashed, maybe even unfed, though if she was hungry she’d learned to help herself to food from the fridge. Sometimes Brian read her stories, or played games with her, the kind of games that Erica could never take part in. She’d put on her music while they were happening, Brahms or Debussy, and lose herself in the thrall of her favourite sonatas until the kindly substances reached her brain and quietly closed it down. She hated the games, despised them as much as she despised her husband, her mother, her father, her whole rotten life.