by R. G. Adams
‘I’m sorry.’ Danny’s apology had brought her back into the room. He’d known that he’d hurt her. ‘Look, you go ahead if that’s what you want. I can’t get my head round it, that’s all. Social workers never did us much good, as far as I can see.’
‘They couldn’t do much about Christine, though, could they?’
‘I don’t mean that.’ He had stopped then, and looked her in the eye, waiting, refusing to speak until she asked the question.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It wasn’t just Christine. That wasn’t the only thing that was wrong. That was the easy bit. She’s a waster, we all know that. We survived, didn’t we? But there was other stuff. No one does anything about that. No fucker does anything. That’s why I keep ending up like this. Get straight, then it’s going around in my head all the time and I can’t stand it and I screw it up again. I’m sick of it.’
His voice had been shaking and Kit still remembered the sight of his hands trembling as he drained the rest of his Coke. He wasn’t just hungover, she had realised, he was still drunk. No wonder he wasn’t making much sense. She didn’t know exactly what he was talking about, but, at the same time, she had known, somehow, that she was about to get out of her depth. And she had wavered inside, wanting to help him but scared to try. The truth was that she had ducked it. And why? Because it didn’t work that way round. She didn’t help Danny; he was supposed to help her.
‘I guess they did their best.’
He’d looked up at her again then, and he’d seen her refusal to go on with it. ‘Yeah, well, for you maybe. You’re doing good.’ He’d got up and picked up his jacket and slung it across his shoulder. ‘I’ve got to go see Tyler, make sure he’s OK. Call me when you get your results?’
‘Yeah. I will.’
‘Big Mac after, if you’ve done well, all right? See you.’
He’d smiled at her and left. She’d got on with her work, promising herself that she’d text him later, arrange to see him, give him another chance to explain what he’d meant. But that night she’d been tired, and she’d let it go, and the next night the same. And on the Wednesday morning, she’d woken to a call from Tyler who’d heard around the estate that Danny had been taken to hospital in an ambulance.
The brutality of what he’d done shocked Kit to the core. She couldn’t understand him leaving her and Tyler alone. He’d known that they both needed him, and he’d never once let them down before.
*
She got up from the sofa, got herself a can from the fridge, took it to bed with her, knowing that this was going to be one of those nights when she would lie awake until dawn, trying to blot out the smile Danny had given her when he left that day. The smile that said he had tried to disrupt the way things worked and knew she couldn’t cope with it, so he was putting it all back the way it had always been.
Chapter 7
On Friday afternoon, Kit pulled up outside the huge iron gates of Matt Cooper’s parents’ house. She wondered what it might have been like for him to be living there for the last ten days. It would have been about nine days too many for her to put up with either of her parents. She saw an entry-phone on the gatepost. She pulled down the car window and pressed the button. After a few seconds, Matt Cooper’s voice came through the intercom.
‘Hi, Kit, I’ll buzz you in,’ he said, before she could speak. Kit found this disconcerting, partly because it presumably meant that he could see her somehow, but mainly because of his use of her first name. She wondered whether his strategy was going to be to try and charm her. Or was she being hyper-sensitive? Maybe he was just going to be pleasant and helpful? She steeled herself, just in case. Outright aggression was one thing, she knew where she was with that. But parents being reasonable – how did you know whether to trust it? As she parked the car on the wide sweep of driveway and got out and crunched across the gravel, she thought about an essay she’d written on false compliance during her course. The parent who appeared to be so cooperative with professionals that their actual non-compliance got overlooked. A carefully created facade of pleasantness, politeness and respect. She knew it held a huge danger, and that professionals often got it wrong, but when she tried to remember what she’d been taught to do about it, nothing much came to mind. Her confidence of a few days before had slipped away, and she felt intimidated and uncertain now, too young and too inexperienced to be able to handle this man and his outspoken, confident family.
Matt Cooper opened the door before she put her hand to the brass knocker. ‘Kit, hello, please come in.’
His manner was relaxed. She might have been popping in for afternoon tea. He led her through to a large sitting room. The wall opposite the door was made entirely of glass and gave a panoramic view of the bay. Matt Cooper indicated that Kit should cross the room to two armchairs that were placed in front of the window. As she did so, she found herself transfixed, and could not resist stopping for a few seconds before she sat down. The May sunshine was pouring down onto the sea and the reflection was so bright that it hurt her eyes, which started to water slightly. The air in the room was bitingly fresh. Looking up, she could see that a few of the upper windowpanes were open, letting in the sound of the waves as they broke on the sand, together with the fresh scent of seaweed. Kit had a sudden longing to be back at the Cliffside Café, working for Alex. Why hadn’t she just stuck to that? No responsibilities except getting the orders right and totting up the figures now and again. Long swims and beers after work every day. Some nights she’d stayed on the beach until the early hours, content just to lie curled up by the fire she’d built in the dunes, listening to the Atlantic as it crashed onto the shore, hypnotised and soothed into a doze by the sound. Instead, here she was, with the job of trying to figure out whether an apparently respectable father was, in fact, a grotesque psychopath who posed a serious risk to children. Kit thought she must need her head read.
‘It’s superb, isn’t it?’ Matt Cooper was offering her the armchair again. It was placed so that it faced the window but was slightly angled towards the other armchair, where he was now settling himself. She tore herself away from the view and sat down.
‘Can I interest you in a cup of tea or coffee?’
‘No, thank you.’ Kit was longing for a coffee, and maybe he was just being polite, but she was wary of being manoeuvred into the role of visiting friend.
‘Do you mind if I have one?’ Matt Cooper asked.
‘No, of course, go ahead.’
He jumped up again and left the room, giving Kit an opportunity to have a good look around. The Coopers were obviously loaded. The room was a bit old-fashioned, though. It had a heavily patterned carpet, and a huge sideboard loaded with framed photos. There were numerous knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, which topped an ugly red stone fireplace at the far end of the room. But the sheer size of the house, and its perfect location right above the beach, told Kit that it must have cost a fortune. The Coopers were proud of it, too, Kit thought, looking at the enormous television. She noticed it was located way too high up on the wall, above the fireplace. You would have to strain your neck to look at it, which told her the Coopers were people who loved showing off more than they actually loved TV. One decent series of I’m a Celebrity and your neck would be knackered for weeks.
‘It’s a great TV. My father loves his technology.’ Matt Cooper appeared to the side of her and settled himself back in the chair. He put his mug down on a small table. He was wearing grey shorts, a shapeless navy-blue T-shirt and tatty trainers, as if he had just come back from a run or a game of tennis. He leant back, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the calf. ‘So, what can I help you with?’ He was smiling at her, and she started to relax. It was clearly going to be nothing like the visit to Annie.
‘Would it be helpful if I started by running through the purpose of the investigation and the assessments?’
‘Well, as I
understand it, the investigation is the first bit. The idea is to see whether the children are at risk and need safeguarding, in light of these allegations against me. Then that feeds into the assessment, which is to identify the children’s wider needs and to look at how well Annie and I can meet those needs. Or whether we need any outside help or monitoring. Would that be right?’
Kit searched for something to criticise in this explanation but failed to find it. Surely he’d googled that before she got here? It sounded as if it had come straight out of the procedure manual. But she could hardly blame him for being well prepared; his family was at stake, after all. ‘Yes, that’s right. And I need to get your perspective as part of that. The focus is very much on the children’s needs and how you and Annie meet those needs. Both long-term, and in the context of the current police investigation.’
‘So, more or less as I said then.’ He was smiling, but there was a hint of banter in his tone.
She smiled back at him. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I need to ask you quite a lot of questions, and I will record your answers and then put them together with all the other information that I’ve gathered. I’ll analyse the material at the end and that will help to inform the way forward and how the cases are managed.’
Matt Cooper made a pained noise, just a small suck of air between his lips. Kit looked up from her papers.
‘Sorry, Kit. I appreciate you have a job to do. It’s just very hard to hear my children referred to as “cases”.’
Kit hated hearing that too, it went right through her. She put her pen and her assessment form down on her lap and looked Matt Cooper in the eye. ‘Mr Cooper,’ she started.
‘Call me Matt, please.’
‘Matt. I’m sorry for that remark. I don’t usually use the term and, actually, I don’t like it myself. It was a slip of the tongue. I don’t think of Lucy, Cameron and Chloe in that way at all. I realise this is a very painful situation for all of you and I am not here to make it any worse if I can help it. But you are right, I do have a job to do. I hope we can work together on this and cooperate in the interests of the children. But it has to be done, either way. That’s the bottom line.’
‘Sure, that’s all I want as well.’ Matt was smiling again, but she noticed the fingers of his left hand were working at a loose thread on the hem of his T-shirt. He was upset, and she didn’t blame him. But she had no choice but to press on. She picked up her pen and her papers and prepared to write down what he said.
It was straightforward enough. She’d got all the material about education and daily routines from Annie. Health and care needs were only complicated for Lucy, and Kit had got most of that from Annie, too. She had managed to get Matt to add some more details, but it was all superficial stuff. None of it was giving her an inkling about the kind of person that Matt Cooper really was. She recalled Annie’s reaction to being asked about Lucy’s early life and it occurred to her that this might be a means to get the measure of her husband, too.
‘It would help me to have your perspective on Lucy’s disability. I think that was an area that your wife found it quite difficult to talk about.’
Matt nodded. ‘She would have, yes. Annie is a very private person. She’s found this whole experience deeply upsetting – we all have, of course. But having to talk to people like you and have our family business trawled through . . . well, for Annie, that’s almost the worst part of it.’
‘Could you help me with that?’
‘Yeah, sure, what can I tell you?’
‘I gather from your wife that Lucy’s disability was totally unexpected?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Annie had a normal pregnancy as far as we both knew. It was our first child, we were very excited and really we had no idea what to expect, for the birth or anything after that. You know what it’s like, with the first one?’ He was smiling at her, eyebrows raised in question. She looked back down at her papers and carried on writing. She wasn’t getting into that discussion if she could help it.
‘Do you have any children?’ He wasn’t going to give up; she was going to have to answer him.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Any plans?’
The question was so direct and personal that Kit looked up at him in surprise.
‘I’m sorry, Kit, I’ve shocked you. That was a bit much, I suppose.’ He leant forward in his chair, and she was surprised to see a slight flush to his face. He’d overstepped the mark, but at least he had the good grace to realise it. ‘It’s just that it’s quite difficult to be asked all these questions by someone you know nothing about. It feels a bit robotic, you know? Like I could just tick some boxes and feed my answers into a machine and it could collate the data and come out with pretty much the same conclusions as you probably will. I don’t mean to be rude, Kit, I understand what you are doing here. But it was a very difficult time when Lucy was young, and I suppose I’ve shut it down.’
‘That’s understandable. You just have to get on with it, I suppose. You probably didn’t have much time to think about yourself.’ She felt bad for him, now that his arrogance was gone and she could see him struggling.
‘You are so right. Not everyone can see that. I didn’t have much time for brooding over what happened, and maybe that was a good thing in some ways, but it’s not easy to be asked to open it all up by a complete stranger years later.’
Kit found herself answering him before she had even had a chance to think about it. ‘It’s OK. I know it must be painful to talk about it. I suppose you all seem so fine with Lucy’s disability that I didn’t really think about that question as much as I should have. I know what you’re saying about the assessment, and if it helps you, I don’t mind you knowing that I don’t have any children. But I do have lots of relevant experience and I know a lot about what makes kids tick.’ She hoped he wouldn’t ask what her relevant experience was. Next thing, she’d find herself divulging her childhood traumas to Matt Cooper. ‘So,’ she said hurriedly, ‘if it’s OK with you, I really do need to know about Lucy. I know it’s hard, but I need to understand her history.’
Matt nodded. ‘OK. I’ll do my best. What can I tell you?’
‘Do you have any idea what caused Lucy’s disability?’
‘No. Annie didn’t know she was pregnant, Lucy was unplanned, but Annie’s very healthy so I don’t think it’s anything she did during pregnancy. There’s nothing genetic on either side and it wasn’t a birth accident.’ He looked up and, when Kit lifted her eyes from her notepad, she could see that he was uncertain whether to go on.
‘Is there something that’s hard to say? Do you want a break?’
‘No, it’s just that this is quite personal. I may as well tell you the whole thing . . . The pregnancy wasn’t planned, Annie and I hadn’t been together very long at all, but it felt right to both of us so we went ahead. It was the first grandchild for my parents, and for Annie’s mother as well, so you can imagine the fuss. It had all gone like clockwork, Annie even went into labour bang on her due date. It was an easy birth, too. Well, for me anyway.’
Matt laughed slightly but then didn’t continue. After a while, Kit glanced up again from her writing and saw he was staring out at the sea.
‘Matt?’
Kit saw a movement in the muscles at the side of his jaw. She recognised that twitch straight away, it was what happened to Tyler when he was swallowing hard, determined not to get upset. Then Matt made a fist and rubbed his forehead with his knuckles, as if he had a headache.
‘I’m sorry. This bit really is quite difficult. I’ll just try and say it as it happened.’
‘OK.’
‘As soon as Lucy was born the midwives took her away to be checked. They were a while bringing her back. I didn’t think twice about it at the time. You’re on such a high, you know? They didn’t say anything then, and once they handed her over, we were both in love with her straight away.’
Kit tried to disguise her expression but knew she’d failed.
‘Look, I know you’ve probably found Annie difficult. But try to see it from her point of view. She was only eighteen when she got pregnant, a few years younger than you are now, I’d guess? But she has fought for Lucy every step of the way, and she’s made sure that Chloe and Cameron have a normal life, too.’
Kit hadn’t thought about any of this before. She hadn’t even worked out how young Annie would have been when Lucy was born. Kit wondered how she would have managed herself if she’d got pregnant at eighteen, let alone with the baby turning out to be severely disabled.
‘So, when they tell you something might not be quite right, like they told us the day after Lucy was born . . . well, you don’t really want to believe it,’ Matt continued. ‘They let us go home, but they said she’d need more tests. I’m going to be completely truthful with you now – we ignored them at first. We were delaying tests, postponing appointments, being difficult about it all, telling each other it was nonsense, bloody doctors, what did they know? Lucy looked perfect and so we made up our minds that she was perfect. Does that make sense?’
‘It’s denial, I suppose.’ Kit could see Matt and Annie in this picture, the challenging people that they’d been the first time she’d met them, utterly self-confident. She felt briefly sorry for the doctors who had had to break the news that Matt and Annie had decided not to hear.
