When She Was Bad (31 page)

‘Mummy, you stay here.’ Sam had got out of bed and was clasping on to her from behind, his hot cheek resting against her back.

‘Go back to bed, sweetie. Daddy’s going to stay with you today.’

‘Don’t want Daddy. Want you.’

Sam burst into snotty tears, which she could feel soaking through the back of the only clean shirt she’d been able to find that morning. She tried to explain to him about needing to go to work, but his sobs just became louder, which set Joe off, so that when she finally left the house, the sound of her sons’ cries followed her halfway down the street.

Outside the office building, she hesitated, reluctant to go in through the heavy main door. Already her heart was beating too fast and there was a nasty taste in the back of her mouth. Fear. The receptionist gazed at her blankly as she made her way to the lifts. Her feet felt like they were weighted down with breezeblocks. Everything inside her was screaming at her to turn around and go back to her family.

She’d half expected to find the office empty. Paula had been in such a strange state yesterday, Sarah actually thought she might be in the early stages of a breakdown. And just what was going on with Charlie and Amira? Or Ewan and Chloe, for that matter? But when she arrived on the fifth floor everyone was present and correct. Maybe they too feared the consequences of being away from work even more than they feared being there.

Sarah sat down heavily in her seat and tried not to catch anyone else’s eye. The tension in the office was palpable. She could feel it in her nostrils, and pressing on her eyeballs. She’d just started calculating how many weeks she’d have left before her maternity leave would start when Chloe leaned across towards her desk.

‘How are you feeling?’ she whispered.

Despite herself, Sarah felt touched. Chloe was so clearly canvassing for new buddies since whatever had happened between her and Ewan. Sarah could probably guess what it was, but things were bad enough without inventing scenarios that might not even be true.

‘I’m fine. Well, apart from feeling completely shit.’

‘Ha. Yes.’ Chloe had the air of someone skimming over the niceties in order to get on to more interesting matters. Sure enough: ‘Guess who’s in there?’

The girl jerked her head towards the glass walls of Rachel’s office, where the slatted blinds were once again pulled firmly shut, blocking any view inside.

Sarah shrugged.

‘Mark and Rachel,’ Chloe informed her. ‘He looked very grim when he came in. Do you reckon he might be about to give her the sack?’

A flare of something in her heart that she tried to dampen down.

‘I don’t expect so, Chloe. He might be giving her some advice though. She needs it.’

Chloe looked disappointed.

‘I wish he would. She’s ruined this department. It used to be such a fun place to work, didn’t it?’

Sarah thought about it. Had it been fun working here under Gill? It had certainly been more harmonious, less stressful. But fun?

Rachel’s door opened and Mark Hamilton emerged, followed by Rachel herself.

Mark’s face had lost the expression of studied bonhomie it had worn throughout the team-bonding weekend. Back in a jacket and tie, after the weekend’s ill-suited leisurewear, he exuded an authority he’d lacked in Derbyshire. Next to him, Rachel seemed diminished.

‘Can everyone gather around, please. Quick as you can.’

Even his voice had grown in stature since the weekend, reverberating off the grey laminate desks and the computer screens whose customized screensavers provided the one hint of personality in the otherwise anonymous office environment. A close-up of Ryan Gosling (Amira), a beach in Thailand, all white sand and palm trees and colourful wooden boats (Chloe), two chubby toddlers, their mouths smeared with chocolate, beaming proudly as if their gluttony was an achievement to bask in (Sarah herself).

Sarah pushed herself reluctantly to a standing position. Though her bump was still hardly noticeable, blending in effortlessly with the extra cushion of flesh she had acquired since her last pregnancy, she felt leaden with tiredness as if the baby was draining the energy out of her. She longed to be at home, lying on the sofa watching cartoons with Sam, both of them wrapped in the soft woollen blanket they kept folded over the sofa arm.

But curiosity over what Mark had to say propelled her from her desk. She wondered if Chloe could be right. Was Rachel about to be publicly sacked? After all, the last time Mark had summoned them together like this out of the blue was to tell them that Gill was leaving and Rachel was taking over. She caught Charlie’s eye and he stretched the corners of his mouth down in a ‘don’t know, but it’s unlikely to be good news’ face. At least he was acknowledging her again.

‘Right,’ said Mark when they were all gathered around. He was half sitting on the edge of Paula’s desk so that one black leather, slightly pointed shoe was firmly planted on the floor, while the other dangled inches from the ground. He raised a hand to rub his nose, revealing an inch of tanned wrist, scattered with freckles and fine golden hairs against which gleamed a silver watch so chunky it might have been intended for a larger man.

‘I’m not going to beat about the bush. I think we’re all aware the atmosphere in this office isn’t all it should be. The weekend away was supposed to get you working together properly as a team, but instead it just seems to have highlighted the divisions between you. Now I understand many of you were loyal to Gill and may have found the transition period difficult, but you are professionals and your loyalty must first and foremost be to the company that pays your salary. Rachel was brought in for a specific reason – to raise this department’s productivity levels and boost profits, bringing it in line with the rest of the company. Do you think this is a charity?’

When he threw out the surprise question, Mark was looking directly at Chloe, who started as if she’d been slapped, her mouth falling open in a perfect ‘o’ of alarm, closing again only when his stern gaze abruptly altered direction, panning around the assembled company who shifted uncomfortably, gazing down at their shoes or at a point just above Mark’s head, anything rather than meet his eyes and be obliged to answer his challenge. Sarah felt herself shrivel as his eyes passed over her.

‘Rachel and I have had a long chat and we both agree that it is untenable for her to implement the changes she was brought in to effect unless she has a supportive team behind her giving her one hundred per cent loyalty and dedication. I don’t intend to single individuals out here and now, but there are some members of staff who have been at best obstructive, at worse destructive – and let me be very clear, such behaviour will not be tolerated. Rachel is a highly skilled executive with an exemplary track record who has been brought in to do a job and we are very lucky to have her. Anyone who has an issue with that might be advised to start looking for employment elsewhere.’

Again he allowed his eyes to sweep across the gathered staff members and again Sarah felt herself shrinking under his gaze. Was she the one he was accusing of being obstructive, or destructive?

Finally, when Mark seemed satisfied that he’d made his point, he continued: ‘Now, I came down here yesterday determined to make sweeping changes, but Rachel has persuaded me to give this department one more chance to get its house in order. She believes, and I support her in this, that what’s needed is a clearing-of-the air session, somewhere neutral, away from the office. To that end, she has generously offered to host a meeting tomorrow morning at her own home, which is not far from here. I wouldn’t normally allow an entire department to be absent for a few hours during the working week, but I think these are exceptional circumstances.

‘After the débâcle of the weekend, I very strongly suggest you all take the rest of the day and this evening to think about areas where things have been going wrong and ways in which you can make improvements. I don’t want this to turn into an excuse to vent grievances. I want to hear positive suggestions for how to best introduce changes so that this department starts pulling together and brings its performance up in line with the rest of the company. But there will be no more chances. If you cannot reconcile your differences, there will need to be significant restructuring.’

Mark glared around one more time and then strode from the office with the gait of someone much more powerfully built. Sarah found it hard to reconcile the man who’d gamely launched himself across the rope bridge and offered himself up for comparisons to a flower and a pet animal to this tough-talking executive. She turned to see Rachel’s reaction to the managing director’s speech, but caught a glimpse only of her retreating back before she closed the door of her office behind her. Now she sought out Charlie, but Charlie was staring down at his arm, scratching at the deep cut that had been concealed by a plaster all through the weekend and was now scabbed over with beads of dark dried blood. As she watched him, Sarah shivered, not because of the fresh blood that appeared where he scratched the old away, but because of the look on Charlie’s face, the way his features appeared wiped of all the things that made them his, as if he’d been put back to factory settings, as he gazed fixedly down and scratched and scratched until the new blood was smeared in crimson streaks against the pale skin of his arm.

36
Anne

I’m watching him on the news. He hasn’t changed much. Still the same confidence. More. Because now it’s confidence born of authority rather than confidence born of youth. He looks very much at home on camera, which isn’t surprising really. He’s been a regular expert on documentaries and news shows for years. Decades. He knows how to talk in soundbites. And he knows how to say ‘we got it wrong’ so it doesn’t sound like an admission of guilt but an honest summation of a difficult situation. Maybe we didn’t draw the right conclusion but our methods and motives were beyond reproach.

‘No one could have known,’ he says now. ‘We gathered all the evidence and, based on intensive assessment, made a professional judgement call in the child’s best interests – which was all anyone could have done in the circumstances.’ He looks straight at the camera as he speaks. His meaning is clear: you win some, you lose some. What can you do?

‘So you wouldn’t say your judgement was flawed, Professor?’ asks the interviewer.

Dan Oppenheimer shakes his head with a kind of half smile on his face as if to say, ‘I know you’re required to play devil’s advocate, but sheesh . . .’

‘You have to remember these were very different times. Our understanding of child psychology and the effects of early trauma on the psyche has changed beyond all recognition since then. And obviously we were up against huge time restraints. We wanted to give that child the very best chance at leading a good, normal life – which incidentally I think we did, up to now – and in order to do that, we had to make decisions very quickly.’

‘Would it be fair to say you built your career on that case?’ the interviewer breaks in. ‘The book you wrote at Stanford –
The Boy Who Lived Downstairs (and the Girl Who Kept Him There)
– was what first propelled you into academic stardom. Isn’t it still the best-selling publication by an academic press ever?’

‘In the States.’ Dan shrugs modestly. ‘But you know I should point out I’ve published plenty of other material subsequent to that, moved into other fields.’

The interviewer isn’t to be fobbed off.

‘But this was the book that cemented your reputation. And now it turns out you and . . .’ He glances down at the notes on the table in front of him. ‘. . . Professor Kowalsky made a wrong call when you decided to fast-track an adoption overseas. And as a result of that, you put people in danger and ultimately contributed to the terrible events in England we’ve seen unfolding on our newscreens.’

‘As you know,’ Dan says, all trace of levity gone from his expression, ‘Professor Kowalsky was the lead psychiatrist on this case, and there was also another junior academic who was involved in the assessment process.’

Alone in my living room, still wearing my sweatpants with my greying hair pulled back off my face by a thick black band, every one of my muscles tenses. Is this it, finally? The point where I’m unmasked? My own involvement finally recognized? I find myself both dreading and longing for it.

‘I don’t believe it would serve any purpose to name her now. She was a young woman not long qualified and I know she found the case . . . emotionally challenging.’

I breathe in sharply.

‘Obviously as Professor Kowalsky has since passed away, you’re the only one who can tell us what went on back then. Maybe you can give the folks back home an idea of what the child was like, Professor Oppenheimer. I mean, you green-lighted the adoption.’

‘Well, Brad, you have to understand we’re talking about a very young child here, so the personality is far from fully formed, but I will tell you this seemed like a smart child, very quick to learn and capable of showing empathy and remorse and forming relationships with others. Despite the terrible things that had happened in the family home, there was no hostility that we could determine and surprisingly little aggression.

‘Ultimately, as you know, it was Professor Kowalsky’s call. He was the senior psychiatrist. I was really just starting out, and though I have to say there were a few red flags for me, I very much bowed to the professor’s superior judgement.’

I am grasping the remote control very tightly. For the first time it occurs to me that there is to be no restitution, no righting of wrongs. Ed Kowalsky is dead – felled by a catastrophic brain haemorrhage as he was queuing at the juice bar after coming a respectable sixth place in the veterans’ cycling race. The irony was lost on no one. To everyone’s surprise, he hadn’t, in the end, capitalized on the sensational House of Horror case beyond using it to consolidate his role at the college here. His children had been his excuse. They were settled here. But really I think he just lacked the ambition. He liked being a big fish in a small pond. He liked the way the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor took him for dinner at their golf club and described him as one of the ‘jewels in the university’s crown’. And I don’t think he ever quite recovered from Dan Oppenheimer’s meteoric success. Ed published his own papers on the case, of course. All of them well received. But none of them ever made him a star outside the narrow walls of academia. I used to think I was the only one left scarred by the Child L case, but after Ed’s death I was able to see it wasn’t so.