Authors: Susan Lewis
‘Hello, sweetie,’ she said to Chloe, as she went to pick up her mobile, ‘are you all right? Have you eaten anything yet?’
Chloe watched her with wide, anxious eyes.
Maxine forced a smile and began tapping in a text.
We have to talk. Please come home
.
‘There,’ she told Chloe, putting the phone down again, ‘that’s done, and so now what shall we do about you? Are you ready to eat something yet?’ Jumping as her phone bleeped, she snatched it up and read,
Your Vodafone bill is ready for you to read online.
Swallowing her disappointment, and playfully rolling her eyes at Chloe, she said, ‘It wasn’t him, but never mind. He’ll be back later and he’ll be so pleased if I can tell him you’ve eaten your tea.’
Chloe watched her sit down.
Maxine dabbed away a tear as she sipped more wine. ‘Will you eat something, or speak to me and show me how clever you are?’ she asked shakily.
‘Want Mummy,’ Chloe whispered.
Biting her lip, Maxine brushed a hand over the little girl’s hair. She presumably meant Charlotte Nicholls, so what was she supposed to say when Charlotte was in prison and as things stood, it was unlikely Chloe was ever going to see her ‘mummy’ again?
Reaching for her mobile as it bleeped with another text, she opened it and felt her heart jarring badly as she read,
Going to stay with Guy for a few days. Need to get my head together.
‘Oh God,’ Maxine groaned helplessly. It seemed so mean to give Chloe back now, as though she was something they’d bought at a shop that didn’t quite suit when they got it home, but it wouldn’t be fair to keep her here while they were going through this. She looked at Chloe and her eyes welled with more tears. Where would they take her next, she wondered. Steve would say it wasn’t their problem, and she guessed it wasn’t really. The trouble was, if social services felt they couldn’t rely on her they might not let her have any more children to take care of, and what would she do then?
‘Ah, Tracy, there you are,’ Wendy Fraser announced as Tracy bumped backwards through a set of swing doors into the main offices of Kesterly’s child protection department. ‘Do you have a minute?’
‘Sure,’ Tracy lied, ‘I’ll be with you in two ticks.’ She rarely argued with Wendy, mainly because the days when she’d pick a fight with someone just for the sake of it were long gone, thank goodness. Though her eight-year-old son, Tyler, was certainly learning how to push all the buttons. His room was a bomb site, he’d started cheeking her back and this morning, after his father had left for work, he’d thumped his sister and made her cry.
Still, that was all a part of family life and challenging as she found it at times, she was proud of the fact that she’d now learned to tell the difference between normal and aberrant. And it didn’t come much more aberrant than what was going on with the eleven-year-old boy she’d stopped by to visit on her way into the office. Though he’d been a part of her caseload for a while now, she hadn’t known until this morning that he was becoming addicted to the most gruesomely explicit porn websites, something he shared with his mother’s unsavoury boyfriend.
‘I never told you how bad it was before,’ Linnie, the mother, had wailed, ‘because I was afraid you’d take him away, but it can’t be good for him, all that stuff, can it, not at his age?’
It certainly wasn’t – and nor was all the dreadful junk food he was being fed, nor his experiments with alcohol, which was why Tracy had already taken steps to remove the boy. This morning’s revelation meant it would probably happen today, which was going to be hard for poor Linnie when she genuinely loved her son and wanted the best for him. Sadly, she was too weak and unworldly to cope with her own life, much less a vulnerable young boy’s. Still, at least Linnie had the sense to admit that she needed help, and the removal would only be temporary if the wretched woman could bring herself to evict the vile boyfriend.
‘Hey Trace, how’s tricks?’ Saffy Dyer asked, as Tracy dumped her heavy bag on the desk next to Saffy’s.
‘Magic as ever,’ Tracy quipped. ‘Are you in or out today?’
‘Out in about twenty minutes. Why?’
‘Just wondering if you can come to the Gales with me later to pick up not-so-little Freddie.’
Saffy checked her diary. ‘Should be OK,’ she said, ‘if it’s this afternoon. Where are you taking him?’
‘Still waiting to hear from placements, so I’ll let you know. What’s all the fuss over there?’ she asked, nodding towards the break-out area, where a dozen or so of their colleagues all seemed to be talking at once.
Saffy rolled her eyes. ‘The police are here, taking statements,’ she said. ‘And then there’s this thing on the Internet about Charlotte Nicholls’s father being the bloke behind the Temple Fields Massacre. That lot reckon it’s why she chose to work that area when she was one of us, though why it’s such a big deal sure beats me. It’s not like the house where it happened is still there, and so what if she wanted to help kids on one of the worst estates in the county? In my book that’s a good thing . . . Oh Tommy! Tommy!’ she shouted, as he appeared at the far end of the office and looked set to go straight in to see Wendy. ‘I have to speak to you urgently. I’m due in court in half an hour and I haven’t got any of the paperwork through for Brooklyn Prosser. If I don’t have it, they’ll end up giving his mother back her custody rights, and the woman’s bloody mental.’
Coming to join them, his large physique and hippy hair making him an interesting figure, Tommy said, ‘Give me a minute and I’ll chase it for you. Have you been interviewed by the police yet?’
‘No, still waiting, but they’d better get on with it, because I should leave soon. How did yours go?’
Looking slightly strained, he said, ‘It was fairly routine sort of stuff, but apparently they’re going to need to talk to me again. A treat to look forward to. Trace, have you spoken to Wendy yet today?’
‘Just about to,’ Tracy replied. ‘Why, what’s up?’
‘No idea, she just told me as soon as I saw you I had to send you in, but I need to speak to her myself first. Christ, will you look at that lot, anyone would think a social worker’s never been in the news before.’
‘Yeah, well she’s the type of social worker who gives the rest of us a bad name,’ Dustin Koby grumbled from the other side of the partition. ‘What was she thinking, for Christ’s sake, making off with the child like that?’
‘If you have to ask that question I’m not sure why you’re sitting there,’ Tommy said shortly, and turning away he stalked back to Wendy’s office and closed the door.
Dustin’s bushy eyebrows were reaching skywards. ‘I guess that’s me told,’ he grunted, ‘but you have to admit I’ve got a point. Why should we be the ones suffering for something
she
did?’
‘You don’t look as though you’re suffering much to me,’ Saffy told him tartly, and turning back to Tracy she kept her voice low as she said, ‘How was Ottilie when you left her at the weekend?’
‘We’re calling her Chloe,’ Tracy informed her, ‘and the answer is she was sobbing her heart out for Mummy.’
Saffy sighed. ‘Poor mite,’ she murmured. ‘Poor Charlotte. This must be really tough on them both, especially Charlotte, being banged up in Walworth. You know, it occurred to me yesterday that Molly Buck might still be in there, serving time for the assault on her husband?’
Tracy regarded her soberly. ‘Let’s just hope she’s been moved on by now,’ she said, ‘because Charlotte was the social worker who took her kids into care, which was what provoked the attack on the husband. She reckoned it was him who called us in.’
‘He did, and he’s got custody of the kids now, which I don’t suppose Molly’s any too pleased about.’ Her eyes went to Tracy’s, as their shared experience of Molly Buck deepened their concern for Charlotte. ‘Going back to Ottilie, or Chloe,’ she said, ‘I don’t suppose you can say who she’s with?’
Tracy shook her head. ‘But they seem like a good couple, and they came highly recommended from their own authority.’
Seeming relieved, Saffy told her, ‘There goes Tommy, so you’d better pop in to see what Wendy wants.’
Glancing over her shoulder, Tracy said, ‘I’ll text you as soon as I hear from placements about where we’re to take Freddie Gale.’
A few minutes later she was sitting slumped against Wendy’s desk with her head in her hands. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she groaned. ‘Please tell me it’s not true.’
‘I wish I could,’ Wendy responded, pushing her horn-rimmed glasses up the bony slope of her dainty snub nose. Her hazel eyes were close-set ovals, and her wide, thin mouth was an inverted smile that managed to prettify her pale face on the occasions she turned it up the other way. The expression in her eyes showed that no matter how businesslike she had to be, she wasn’t without feeling for the child they were discussing.
‘So when did you get the call?’ Tracy asked. ‘And why didn’t they contact me if there was a problem?’
‘I can’t answer that,’ Wendy told her, ‘but I spoke to Maxine Kosey about half an hour ago. She sounded very upset about having to hand Ottilie back after such a short time, but she says she has to. Actually, I got the impression she might be having problems with her husband.’
Tracy nodded sadly. ‘Apparently they’re trying for one of their own,’ she said, ‘but it’s not working out. As we know, IVF can put tremendous pressure on a marriage. I just wish she’d said something before we took Chloe there – Chloe is what we’re calling her now, by the way. She associates Ottilie with her father, and obviously we don’t want that.’
Wendy nodded her understanding. ‘I’ve spoken to placements,’ she said, ‘and they’re trying to sort something out with West Somerset, but it isn’t going to be easy. Finding a family that’s suitable when we don’t want her going somewhere that already has children, and preferably no men either, is a very tall order. However, we must do our best, because she requires careful handling and close monitoring while we carry out a full and proper assessment of her health and needs in order to make decisions for her future.’
‘Of course,’ Tracy mumbled; as if she didn’t know that already. ‘So when does Maxine want us to get her?’
‘As soon as possible, today preferably.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘I wish I was.’
‘So what do we do if placements can’t find someone? She can’t go into residential care, it’ll terrify the life out of her.’
Wendy glanced at the clock. ‘I think we give it until two this afternoon and if placements haven’t come up with somewhere by then, we’ll extend the search.’
Relieved by the suggestion, Tracy said, ‘OK, but what about Maggie Fenn? I know she’s right on our doorstep, and we’re not supposed to be . . .’
Wendy was already shaking her head. ‘Apart from the point you’ve just made, Alex Lake is friendly with Maggie Fenn.’
‘But this isn’t about
Charlotte . . .
’
‘I’m afraid it is, and if
Charlotte
does get bail at any time it’ll be our job to make sure she doesn’t try to see the child.’
Tracy looked offended. ‘So what if she does? Can it be such a bad thing? They’ve become very attached to one another. Chloe calls her Mummy . . .’
Wendy was regarding her incredulously. ‘Do you want her to run off with the child again?’ she demanded.
Thinking she probably did, Tracy replied, ‘I was just saying that we’re supposed to be putting the interests of the child first . . .’
‘That’s exactly what I am doing,’ Wendy reminded her crisply. ‘In fact I have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning with adoption services. Given the child’s age and ethnicity I don’t think we’ll have any problem finding a family who can offer her a permanent home, and the sooner we get on to it the better it’ll be for everyone, most of all Chloe.’
Charlotte was back in her cell now, still shivering and damp from the tepid shower she’d just been taken to by the guard, Nola. The woman had stayed with her the entire time, never taking her eyes from her as she’d soaped herself with the pebble of Palmolive while a bunch of inmates had hooted and jeered from outside. She was sport for them, for Nola too, a way of livening up the monotony of their day. Still, at least no other prisoners had been allowed in during the few minutes she was there, using the last of the hot water. The others had showered ahead of her, a communal ablution that made her shrink inside even to think of it.
Was this how it was going to be for her now, no more privacy, no friends, no power to change where she was?
She’d wondered if her solitary shower meant that she was the only one on the rule, but she hadn’t asked and nor would she. She just wanted to keep herself to herself as much as she could, while she prayed and longed for the day to come when she’d be allowed out of here.
Using the towel she’d worn back from the showers to dry her hair, she then rummaged in a drawer for the comb she’d spotted in her welcome pack. She was voraciously hungry, she realised, and yet still wasn’t sure she could eat. Her breakfast hadn’t been taken away yet: toast and porridge, cold now and congealing, but maybe she should try it.
‘Room service,’ Nola had sneered when she’d brought it. ‘Don’t get used to it.’
Charlotte pulled on the tracksuit she’d been given and felt glad of the clean clothes, rough though they were. She wanted to ask if she could use the phone. The trouble was, she didn’t have enough to make a call to New Zealand. They probably weren’t allowed to make international calls anyway.
Daft to think of ringing her mother. What could Anna do, apart from try to reassure her that everything would work out? It might not, they both knew that, but she needed to hear someone say it. She wished her mother was in England, but at the same time was glad she wasn’t. One of them behind bars was already more than enough.
Perhaps she could call Gabby. During the night a wild idea had come to her, a rash, crazy dream that had seen Chloe in the heart of Gabby’s family. She’d looked happy there, as though she belonged with the twins, who were adorable and would do everything to make Chloe feel at home. Children were often much better at drawing each other out than adults. But Gabby and Martin weren’t registered carers, and even if they were there was no way Chloe would be allowed to go to the sister of the woman who’d abducted her.