A Dark Secret

by Casey Watson

  ‘That’s cool,’ he said. So, so far, so good.

  The next day, which was Saturday – which meant the men in the family were all worshipping at the altar of football – we took both Flame and Luna out for an especially long walk, physical tiredness being an excellent elixir for stressy kids.

  Throwing a stick for Luna (I had been converted by Sam’s no-ball-doohickey laziness), I said, ‘Guess what, Sam, that really clever lady I was talking about? She’s called Kim, and she said she’d like to meet you. She’s really excited to see if she can help you. What do you think?’

  Sam threw his own stick, for Flame. ‘The superhero lady?’ he asked, as Flame galloped off to fetch it. ‘That’s cool. She sounds cool. When is she coming?’

  ‘She’s not coming. We’re going. To meet her. Colin’s coming along too.’

  ‘Cool,’ Sam said again. ‘Does she live in, like, a bunker?’

  I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘No, not a bunker. Just a house.’

  ‘But a secret house.’

  ‘Erm, not exactly …’ Perhaps I’d run with this too far now. ‘But it is a very special house.’

  ‘How special?’

  ‘In that it’s a place where people help people. Children especially.’

  ‘Like a safe house?’

  ‘Er … yes, I suppose you could call it that. Anyway,’ I hurried on, ‘won’t it be nice to see Colin? He said that afterwards, if you like, he’ll take you for lunch. Do you like the sound of that?’

  But Sam was still off on his own trajectory. ‘So, Sampson and a superhero lady at the same time. That’s way cool. You never know, they might blow up the world!’

  Little man, I couldn’t help but think, as I saw his excitement, in reality, they might just blow up your world.

  And which might take a bit more rebuilding than Lego.

  Chapter 14

  Our local family centre was a large converted guest house. It was in a residential area, and externally it looked just like its neighbours, so if you passed it you might not even realise what it was, let alone have any notion of what, on any given day, might be going on within.

  All sorts happened here, of course – some of it routine, some of it sad, or bad, or shocking – from birth parents making halting overtures to children currently in the council’s care, to meetings such as this, where troubled children had a safe space to speak out. And in a place designed not to scare or overwhelm them.

  The family room, into which we’d brought Sam, was the epitome of cosy. It was a room for all seasons, with a low, book-strewn table and squashy armchairs at one end, and a well-stocked play and ‘chill-out’ area, with Disney posters on the walls behind it, and full of toys, books, puzzles, board games and beanbags. It always reminded me of the corner I had created in my classroom, back when I was a school behaviour unit manager. There it had functioned as both a place to shut the world out, and a place to bring it in, sometimes, too – as challenged children, locked into negative behaviours, could dare to imagine the world beyond their own troubled environment.

  Sam was still in anticipatory mode – part excited, part nervous – something I’d noticed from his choice of attire. He’d opted for an assemblage of favourite clothing items, including his dog-walking anorak (despite the warmth of the day), and, though he had nothing to put in it bar a carton of juice and a banana, his Spider-Man backpack. Always good to know your favourite superhero has – literally – got your back.

  I had been to this type of interview before, with a number of children in our care, but as each child is different, each situation unique, you never really knew how they were going to go, so Sam’s demeanour as we sat down meant nothing. I knew, both from knowing Sam and from my experience of similar encounters, that the smallest thing could send the chat off in all kinds of directions or, as sometimes happens, shut it down immediately. We started well, though. After ten minutes of ‘getting to know you’ time with all of us, the CID officer, Kim (to whom I gave a mental ‘high five’ for immediately noting the significance of the almost empty backpack), seemed to instinctively understand Sam’s capacity. And, better still, seemed to have inspired his confidence. And that despite looking not a bit like a superhero. If anything, with her gentle voice and soft, unhurried manner, she looked more librarian than hard-bitten copper – though I didn’t doubt she’d seen more than enough time on the streets wrangling hard-bitten criminals into submission.

  But now it was time to step up a gear. And, in picking the precise moment when Sam alluded to her being a kind of superhero, she chose her moment well. ‘Oh my,’ she said, ‘just wait till I get back to the office, Sam! Once I reveal my superpowers, I’ll get the top job for sure – and at the very least, first pick when someone brings in donuts.’ She then barely paused for breath before moving swiftly on to, ‘Speaking of which, I think Colin needs to nip out to the shops, don’t you?’ Then, glancing at him only to confirm this was the moment (so I was obviously to be allowed to stay with Sam, which I was pleased about), added, ‘While you and I – and Casey, of course – get on with the important superhero business of chatting about what to do about these bad dreams of yours.’

  Colin stood up. ‘I’d better get off then, kiddo,’ he said to Sam, touching his shoulder. ‘But I won’t be far – or away for long. You’ll be fine with that, won’t you?’

  ‘Course,’ Sam said, and grinned. ‘Course, Sampson. You can go.’

  ‘Sampson?’ Kim Dearing asked.

  ‘Like the strong man,’ Sam told her.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘Of course. So, Sam, shall we start? Shall we go back to the other night, when you had the bad dream and Casey found you all upset?’

  Sam glanced at me. As he would. As would most children in that scenario. My Kieron would still expect me to answer the GP’s questions for him right up till the time he turned twenty.

  But it wasn’t for me to speak. Because that wasn’t my role. Indeed, my role was clear in these situations: just to be there. I knew this well because it was part of our training. I was simply there as a reassuring presence, to help give Sam the confidence to speak out. I couldn’t lead any lines of enquiry, much less answer questions for him. And though I wasn’t yet sure he knew me well enough to have acquired that vital confidence, the fact that he looked at me so automatically was encouraging.

  Kim had already got out a large pad – not an official-looking notebook of the kind the police usually used, but more like a child’s colouring book, with balloons and clowns on the cover.

  Sam eyed it. ‘What’s that book for?’

  ‘It’s my notebook,’ Kim said simply. ‘My memory is just terrible. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on. So I make notes in here to help me remember.’

  ‘About the bad man?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Are you going to shoot him for me?’

  ‘That I’m not. Even for superheroes, shooting people is against the law. But I’d love to know who he is. What he looks like, if you can tell me? I could even draw a picture of him if you describe him to me, so we’ll all know who to look out for.’

  Sam shook his head emphatically. ‘You can’t do a picture because he’s invisible when he’s the bad man,’ he told her.

  ‘Invisible?’

  Sam put his hands to his eyes. ‘I have to wear a mask thing.’

  Said so matter of factly, this shocked me to my core. Kim merely nodded. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘That mustn’t have been very nice for you. What’s he like, then?’

  Again, Sam answered without hesitation. ‘He’s like a really bad superhero, and he takes kids away.’

  ‘Did somebody take you away?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Yes, a lot of times. Sometimes, once, even when I was in the dog hut. Till I made it safe.’

  I filed this in my brain. ‘Who put you in the dog hut, Sam?’ Kim a
sked. ‘Was it your mummy, or the bad man?’

  I could feel the anxiety begin to build in Sam now. See the way he had begun twitching his leg. ‘Not the bad man,’ he said. ‘Sometimes Mummy put me in there. She took care of me sometimes,’ he added. Kim made a note.

  ‘Sam, you told Casey that the bad man hurt you. Down below. Can you tell me anything more about that?’

  Tears immediately began to pool above Sam’s lower lashes. Just like that, I thought. Instantaneous. It was that bad a memory. ‘I didn’t like it, I didn’t. He said I did, but I didn’t. He said it was good but it was bad.’

  Since there was nothing in the rules to stop me comforting Sam, I did. I put my arm around his shoulder and squeezed him tight for a moment. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ I whispered. ‘You’re doing a great job. A really great job.’

  ‘Casey’s right,’ Kim said softly. ‘You really are doing a great job. Was this bad man someone who your mummy knew? A boyfriend?’

  Sam blinked at her, and a tear escaped to track down his cheek. ‘Mummy knows him, but he was gonna kill Mummy. Or take me away. And never, ever, ever bring me back again. I had to touch his winkie as well, or he would, and I hate him.’

  Kim leaned in towards him with her pad. ‘Do you think you could tell me what the bad man looks like, Sam? When he isn’t being invisible?’

  Sam shook his head, almost violently, and then looked up at me, his eyes beseeching. ‘I feel sick, Casey, I want to go home. I can’t tell, or he’ll get me, he will.’

  ‘No one’s going to get you, sweetie,’ I soothed. ‘I absolutely promise you.’

  ‘That’s right, Sam,’ Kim said. ‘You’re safe here, I promise too. You say Mummy knows him. Do you know how? Was he her friend?’

  ‘He said he was but he wasn’t. He’s a liar. And he hurt me! And I can’t tell!’

  This was escalating fast. Sam was shaking now, badly. I looked over at Kim, signalling my own anxiety. ‘Would it be okay if we finished up for now?’

  Kim smiled and nodded. Closed her pad. ‘That’s enough for now,’ she agreed. ‘And, you know, Sam, you’ve been so brave. Just like a superhero yourself. I think you might deserve a special lunch now. What do you think, Casey?’

  ‘I agree,’ I said, standing up and smoothing Sam’s hair from his face. ‘How about we go find Colin, and then go somewhere special?’

  Sam nodded, clearly relieved that the questions were over. He picked up his backpack, and when I held out my hand to him, he grabbed it tighter than he ever had before.

  ‘I need the toilet, Casey,’ he whispered as we left the room. ‘Badly. Can I go here?’

  ‘That’s fine, Sam,’ said Kim. ‘This way.’ She led us around a corner, towards the back of the house. ‘The toilet is right here.’

  ‘So what do you think?’ I asked as soon as Sam was out of earshot. ‘Because, if anything, I’m even more convinced he’s telling the truth now.’

  Kim slipped her pad under her arm. ‘Not a great deal to go on, obviously. But, yes, poor little mite. For what it’s worth, I do too.’

  Yes.

  Colin was waiting in the reception when we returned to it. And had clearly used his time productively. ‘Hey, kiddo,’ he said to Sam, rising from his chair and waggling his mobile. ‘You fancy some fun? I know a place that has the most enormous play area. Ball pool and all. You ever been in a ball pool?’

  ‘What’s a ball pool?’ Sam asked him. ‘Is it like a swimming pool with balls in?’

  It was heartbreaking. He was nine and he’d never seen a ball pool. ‘Better than that even,’ Colin said. ‘It’s a pool made out of balls. And you can kind of swim in it – and, best of all, you don’t even get wet.’

  This seemed sufficient to distract Sam from brooding on what had just happened. In fact, within minutes his mood had begun to bounce back, not least because, in response to his question, I assured him that for being such a good boy on our trip he’d earned a couple of extra stars today.

  But perhaps it was inevitable that I had done a mental ‘high five’ too soon. Though, in fairness to me, at that point it felt like things were going well. When we arrived at the pub, Sam could hardly manage to get out what he wanted to eat, so desperate was he to get to the play area. And since it was a school day (we were still just under a fortnight away from the Easter holidays) I could already see he’d have free rein over it too, as only parents with pre-schoolers were in the pub.

  Having found a seat close by, and taken charge of his backpack, coat and trainers, I took the opportunity to give a rundown to Colin of the gist of what Sam had said to Kim. And my confidence that she’d taken him seriously and that they were going to take things further.

  ‘I imagine they’ll probably email us with their report,’ Colin said, ‘so I’ll make sure I forward it, but if this is true, then it certainly is good news, isn’t it? What do you think they’ll do now? Interview the mother?’

  The question was a reminder that Colin was still relatively inexperienced. He’d obviously not been involved in a sexual abuse case yet. This would probably be a useful learning experience for him.

  ‘I assume so – if she’s in an appropriate mental condition to make a statement, anyway. And they’ll hopefully do it quickly,’ I added. ‘In my experience they don’t tend to let the grass grow once they suspect a criminal act has taken place – they can’t. Too much risk that the perpetrator’s still at it. And perhaps they’ll also interview Mrs Gallagher, since she knew the family so well. And since she’s claimed to have seen men going in and out of the house, there’s a fair chance she’d be able to identify him as well.’

  ‘Well, here’s hoping,’ Colin began, then his gaze moved behind me. ‘Uh-oh,’ he said. ‘I think we have trouble.’

  I turned around to see an angry-looking young woman approaching, with a little girl perched on her hip. The child looked around four, perhaps a little younger, and was crying, very loudly and lustily. Though because of injury or indignation, I couldn’t tell.

  The woman stabbed a finger back towards the play area, where Colin, taking the initiative, was now headed. ‘Is the boy in the yellow top your son?’ she asked me, clearly upset. ‘Because he needs sorting out if he is!’

  ‘I’m his foster carer,’ I told her.

  The change in her expression was marked and immediate. ‘Well, that figures,’ she said. ‘I might have known.’

  ‘What’s happened? What’s he done?’

  She twisted around so I could take a look at her little girl’s arm. ‘He’s bitten my daughter is what he’s done. See the teeth marks? Absolute disgrace. You’ve no business letting animals like that out in public. I’ve half a mind to call the police, the little sod!’

  So, the child’s tears had been of pain, then. About which I felt genuinely sorry. Sam had clearly bitten her pretty hard because I could still see the tiny teeth marks. But another feeling muscled in that was slightly less noble – an instinctive anger that, now she knew Sam was in care, this woman was talking in such derogatory tones. Kids had spats all the time and though I’d never condone it, and would of course reprimand Sam the very minute Colin brought him back, her automatic use of the term ‘animal’ in Sam’s case upset me almost as much as what he’d done.

  It was a feeling I knew I must temper, and I tried to, but just as I was launching into ‘I’m so sorry, I’ll speak to him,’ she immediately spoke over me, with a follow-up of ‘Speak to him? Speak to him? At the very least he deserves a hiding. As if talking will ever sort out a kid who behaves like that! Bloody goodie-goodie claptrap. You just keep him away from my daughter.’

  I was shaken by her vehemence, but I’m not generally given to biting my tongue – and in this case the urge to point out the flaw in her childcare philosophy was strong. To tell her that suggesting violence was hardly the best way I could think of as a way to stop a child being violent. That w
asn’t being a goodie-goodie – it was just plain old common sense.

  I held my tongue though, and as she turned around and marched away, I turned my attention, as I’d promised, to a returning, and now red-in-the-face Sam.

  ‘How could you hurt that girl, love?’ I asked him, as Colin sat down again. ‘You must know that you shouldn’t hurt someone like that – especially a little person like she was.’

  Sam remained defiant. ‘She was sat on top of the slide and wouldn’t move for me,’ he said. ‘I tried asking nicely, but she still wouldn’t move. Then she called me a bad name.’

  I’ll bet, I thought. Perhaps ‘sod’? Like mother, like daughter? Though Sam’s eyes were downcast as he spoke, so at least it seemed he knew he was in the wrong.

  ‘So then you should have left her there and come to find me or Colin,’ I went on. ‘And we would have sorted it out for you. You can’t just go around hurting people to get your own way, love.’

  Sam met my gaze then, and held it. He seemed genuinely puzzled now. ‘That’s what grown-ups do, don’t they? Why are they allowed and I’m not?’

  I was too stunned by his logic to answer that question. Not immediately, at any rate. Because, to him, it was pertinent. He had experienced for himself – as we’d seen only an hour previously – that if a grown-up wanted something, they simply went right on and took it, regardless of him getting hurt.

  Thankfully, Colin stepped in to rescue me.

  ‘I know it sometimes seems that way, buddy, and you’re right to ask the question. But that doesn’t mean they’re in the right. They are in the wrong – it’s never okay to hurt someone else like that. Doesn’t matter if they’re a kid or a grown-up.’

  Sam pouted. ‘They still do though.’

  ‘You’re right, Sam. Sometimes they do. But that doesn’t mean they should do. And you shouldn’t either.’

  ‘Superheroes do.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s just it. They don’t. They might fight the baddies, but that’s a different thing entirely. And something you might want to think about. They fight the baddies to stop them from hurting innocent people. Not to get their own way. That’s not what they’re about. They’re about doing good for others. Being brave, and being helpful. And, ah,’ – he glanced up – ‘about refuelling by eating burgers that are the size of your face. Let’s eat, shall we?’ He grinned across at me as Sam nodded, happier now. ‘After all, who ever saved the world on an empty stomach?’