by Casey Watson
But I still wanted answers, because it was all such a mystery. Precisely what was Jenson’s mother so keen to keep buried? And more chilling than that, should this be a police matter? I was all too aware that her fiancé was currently being police-checked. Was this something to do with him? And just when had all this happened? Was I now privy to information about a murder?
I probably would have got into a bit of a flap at this point were it not for the fact that logic quickly prevailed. Whatever ‘it’ was, it was out there. It almost certainly was out there. What the neighbour – Mrs Clark – had said corroborated that. She’d talked about a bad business with a little one, hadn’t she? Something like that, anyway, I thought, gulping down my coffee. And then it hit me. I had her number. So why didn’t I just call her?
Getting my phone out of my handbag, I did a mental run-through of the protocol. Would I be breaking any if I spoke to her? I didn’t see how. We’d swapped numbers, after all, and it wasn’t as if I was doing anything underhand. She’d started to tell me something that day and all I was doing now was hearing the rest of it.
No, I thought, pressing the ‘call contact’ key. It would be fine.
And happily, she was in and prepared to talk to me. Very keen to talk to me, in fact: I got the distinct impression that not only did she love a gossip, but also that this was a subject about which she felt quite strongly.
‘Oh, the poor mite,’ she said, once I’d explained I was calling about Jenson, and how he’d alluded to his little sister’s death. ‘Poor mite,’ she said again. ‘Such a terrible business. I’m surprised you didn’t know about it. Didn’t the girl from the social tell you? It’s not as if it isn’t common knowledge, after all. Was in all the papers. On the telly news as well.’
So that was one worry dealt with. I wasn’t party to some sort of hideous cover-up. But what Mrs Clark had to tell me was pretty hideous even so.
‘Drowned, she did, little Sammy. Aged 2 at the time. And only just, as well. I remember that in particular because one of the things that stuck in my mind, reading the paper, was how she’d got the paddling pool for her second birthday.’
‘She drowned?’
‘That’s what the coroner said. Accidental death due to drowning. She somehow fell into the paddling pool while Jenson was indoors looking for lollies. I don’t know all the exact details, but that was the gist of it.’ She sighed. ‘Just like they always tell you, isn’t it? That a little one can drown in just a couple of inches of water. I think she might have slipped and banged her head … as I say, I don’t know all the details. But that’s how she found her when she came back from the shop.’
I was thrown. ‘When who came back? Jenson’s mother? Karen?’
‘Yes, dear. That’s the whole point. She wasn’t there. She’d left them. That’s the scandal of it – that she left him – poor Jenson. No more than 5, he was. And she left him minding her. Carley was off playing round a friend’s house, so she just left them. Left a 5-year-old in charge of a tot like that while she was off buying her ciggies at the corner shop. Couldn’t be bothered to get the buggy out, most probably, knowing her. Can you credit it? I can’t. Never could. Oh, you should have heard the screams that day, believe me. Went right through me.’
‘Oh my God,’ I said, trying to imagine. Which I couldn’t. And I sincerely hoped I never would have to. What a terrible, senseless loss. What a tragedy. And what an awful thing for Jenson to have to live with. What a weight for a child to have to bear.
I told Mrs Clark about how frightened Jenson was that I might tell his mother what he’d told me. How it was a secret that Karen had told him he mustn’t tell. How he wasn’t even supposed to mention his little sister’s name. Mrs Clark snorted at this. Actually snorted.
‘Secret? How does she make that one stick? Don’t make me laugh. But it doesn’t surprise me. Course she doesn’t want him blabbing. Telling strangers. Making her look bad to people. But, dear me, that girl’s deluded. Under the carpet? Not a chance. But I’ll tell you one thing for nothing. She’s always blamed him for it. Plain as day, she has. Everyone knows. It’s criminal. Put all the blame on him – a 5-year-old! Can you credit it? Her own flesh and blood, too! Plain as day, like I say. She’s never treated him right, ever since. It’s all Carley this, Carley that – but it’s like she can’t stand the sight of him. She thinks no one notices, but of course everyone does notice. We all did, from day one. It was like she wished he was the one who was dead. So it’s no wonder he’s a bit wayward, is it? Bit of a rascal. Getting into trouble and that. No one to care, and that’s the truth of it. No one to care.’
‘And he blames himself, as well. It’s so obvious.’
‘Course he does, love. She’s brainwashed him, that’s what she’s done. And you know the very worst of it? All he wants in the world is for that mother of his to love him. But you think that’ll ever happen? Pigs’ll fly first.’
I sat for some time after putting the phone down, just thinking. Well, not even thinking, just feeling, really – feeling my way around what I’d been told, trying to get my head round all the implications. Because, psychologically, this was huge. It also explained so much; it had obviously shaped Jenson’s personality. And no wonder he’d been so keen to keep his mother’s secret. She’d obviously done a pretty good job on him.
Horrible thing, guilt. Misplaced guilt, particularly. Misplaced guilt dumped on a poor innocent child, definitely. I finished my cold coffee and mentally rolled up my sleeves. I was suddenly seeing Jenson in a very different light.
Chapter 18
Jenson withdrew from me again – almost as I’d expected – but I decided to give him space. I understood why – he was probably terrified I’d start asking questions he didn’t want to answer. So it was fine. I just felt so, so sorry for him. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much of a load he was carrying, and how much (if what Mrs Clark had said was true, and I believed it was) he must blame, and perhaps hate, himself.
Tragically, this was all too common an occurrence. I’d fostered half a dozen kids now and dealt with many more in my previous job, and one constant with the kids with all the most challenging behaviours was self-loathing; self-esteem that went through the floor. It’s not something most well-adjusted kids would even think about, but children who’ve been damaged emotionally by being in the care of damaged adults almost always, in my experience, felt they were to blame. Didn’t matter if they’d been sexually abused, beaten, neglected or otherwise ill-treated; for all the myriad ways damaged adults could damage their children, it always ended up with one damning outcome, that the child in question felt they had somehow deserved it.
This was what dysfunctional parents did best; transferred their own issues onto the children in their care, causing the cycle to continue in perpetuity. It was a well-known fact that when abused children’s problems weren’t addressed, they often went on to become abusers. The kids of drug addicts, alcoholics, chaotic and neglectful parents had their life chances, day by day, month on month, year on year, gradually, inexorably eroded away. And some of those kids – a sizeable proportion, of them, probably – would go on to become dysfunctional parents themselves. That was the way it worked. That was the tragedy. Jenson was 9 now. Before too long this troubled child would become a troubled teenager. By which time – assuming he went home, and assuming his mother continued to land her guilt on him – it might be too late to get him back on the right track.
‘Bloody hell, Case,’ said Mike, when I found a moment to relate to him what I’d learned from Mrs Clark. ‘Why on earth weren’t we told this at the start?’
I felt dispirited having to fill Mike in on it all. They’d all bounced in from football pink cheeked and smiling. Georgie and Jenson had even had a running race home. And now I’d spoilt the mood – brought the day whomping back down to earth – as the implications of the neighbour’s revelations began to sink in. Like me, Mike was hard-wired to see the bigger picture. From being a regular kind of lad in a s
hort temporary placement, Jenson’s future looked suddenly so bleak.
‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘I mean, it would have been a key issue, wouldn’t it? So my guess is that social services don’t even know. And why would they, when you think about it? She wasn’t known to social services before that.’
‘But she must have been, surely? Leaving a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old – and then a drowning. Surely they must have been aware. There’d have been an inquest, wouldn’t there? Surely alarm bells must have rung.’ He shook his head. ‘Sheesh. It’s no wonder her kids are off the rails, is it? God, what a tragedy. What a blight on the whole family. How d’you ever come to terms with something like that?’
‘I doubt you ever can,’ I said. ‘And it gives you more of an insight into Karen, doesn’t it? Not in terms of excusing her behaviour towards poor Jenson, obviously. But, well – you just can’t imagine how she must feel inside, can you? However much she’s not done the right thing by him – and she hasn’t – she must be riddled with guilt, mustn’t she? It must eat at her all the time.’
And it ate at me, on and off, for the rest of the weekend. But in some ways this was actually a positive. Knowing the child was obviously key to being able to help them, and for all that it saddened me to know what had happened, I also felt more confident that we could be of help to Jenson. We couldn’t change the past, but we could definitely influence the future. Now his behaviour had a tangible foundation, we could set to work on it – which was exactly what I intended to do.
And Sunday night held another unexpected positive. Once I’d put the boys to bed, ironed their uniforms and helped Mike finish off clearing the tea things, I got out my laptop to catch up on my emails. I’d not been near it since the Friday, and among the usual list of spam and marketing stuff were two from social services which were of interest. The first was from a woman called Mandy, who was apparently Georgie’s new social worker. Since his move from the children’s home, his care plans had obviously changed, and she was going to call to arrange to meet up and discuss progress.
The other was from Marie Bateman with the excellent news that it had been decided that Jenson could have some phone contact with Karen. No, he wouldn’t be able to see her till the checks on the fiancé had been completed, but this was something at least, and I knew it would really cheer him up; the first one, assuming it was all right with me, had been provisionally scheduled for Monday teatime.
‘That’s great, love,’ said Mike, once we finally made it to the sofa. ‘At least he won’t feel quite so abandoned now.’ He rolled his eyes and tutted. ‘That’s assuming she actually finds time to discuss him, rather than wittering on again about her flipping fiancé.’
I grabbed the remote. ‘God, we’re becoming a pair of old cynics, aren’t we?’
Mike laughed. ‘Mr and Mrs Outraged from Tunbridge Wells, that’s us. And you’re surprised?’
I started flicking through the channels, looking for something to watch. Lewis. Or Morse. Or Midsomer Murders. Nice bit of brutal murder to cheer us up. ‘You know,’ I said. ‘I wonder what people who live in Tunbridge Wells think about it?’
‘About what?’ said Mike.
‘About being tagged as being outraged all the time.’
‘What do you think, dozy? Outraged, of course!’
It was a complete joy to be able to tell Jenson the good news about his phone call when he appeared in the kitchen for breakfast on Monday morning.
‘Yesssss!’ he said, jumping up and punching the air with such gusto that poor Georgie, who was just putting his empty cereal bowl in the sink, almost jumped out of his skin. So perhaps, being the bearer of good news, I’d been forgiven for interrogating him on Saturday. ‘I can tell her about my game, and how I might be playing footie with Kieron’s proper team next week, can’t I? She’ll be well proud. Well proud of that.’
I smiled, seeing how excited how was at this prospect. But I also felt sad. It was such a little thing, really, but clearly playing in Kieron’s ‘proper’ team – something he’d said might be able to happen, when they’d come home from the match – was a huge thing for Jenson. There would be some sort of local league where he lived, I didn’t doubt. But actually getting involved in such things required a modicum of parental involvement. You needed to be signed up, have a parent drop you off and pick you up. Do all the lift shares, pay the subs, procure the kit. And some parents, to be brutal about it, just couldn’t be bothered.
I could see Jenson had suddenly thought of something else; his face had clouded over. ‘Casey, you din’t tell her anything, did you? You didn’t tell her I said owt, or anything?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I told you, I wouldn’t dream of it. Don’t you worry about that. Everything is fine.’
Which it wasn’t and which it wouldn’t be – not till it was brought out into the open and talked about. But that was for another day and, I guessed, ultimately, not for me to worry about. In the here and now – Jenson, reassured now, was once again smiling – it would have to do.
Just as I suspected, John knew nothing about Sammy. ‘Why don’t you call Marie,’ he suggested, ‘and see if they have anything on file. Mind you, like you, I imagine they didn’t know anything about it. It’s not the sort of detail that, if you did know, would slip your mind.’
Actually, when I got through to Marie, it seemed she did know, though like me she had only just found out. ‘Isn’t that funny?’ she said. ‘I only found out myself on Friday. And quite by chance, as well. I was just doing the final visit with Karen and Gary – tying up the paperwork and so on – when I remarked on a photo. It was one of the kids when they were younger and I wondered who the little tot was, and of course she told me. I was gobsmacked, I can tell you. Goes right through you, something like that, doesn’t it? You know, for all that she’s so feckless, my heart really went out to her, poor thing.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Every parent’s absolute worst nightmare. And it’s shed a whole new light on Jenson for me; it really explains so much. You know, she kinds of blames him? Well, that’s the strong impression I get, anyway. He completely blames himself, at least, and that’s got to have come from somewhere. And it would certainly explain the way she seems so down on him compared to Carley. Do you know what happened afterwards? Was there a follow-up after the inquest?’
‘Apparently not,’ Marie said. ‘She was quite open about it. In fact, she thought we knew all about it. They didn’t bring any charges. She took a stupid risk and paid the ultimate price for it. Gone no more than a few minutes, literally. Stupid, irresponsible and reprehensible – no doubt about it. But not criminal. And I imagine the thinking at the time was that this was just a tragic accident, and that she’d never be so foolish again. Let’s face it, there’s no punishment the courts could have inflicted that could be worse than the punishment she had already suffered.’
All of which was true, of course. But there was no escaping the fact that here we were, five years later, and she’d gone and left them again. And just a little bit further than the corner shop.
But that was something I kind of understood now. The ramifications of such a tragedy would have had far-reaching consequences. Could have been – probably would have been – the start of a downward spiral. Karen’s family weren’t unique in that respect. The death of a child affects everyone, and in lots of different ways. The siblings of dead children – their parents driven crazy by grief – often manifested all sorts of signs of emotional distress. Which led to bad behaviour, which made them challenging, which made for increasingly difficult relationships – a vicious circle that could be very hard to break. I didn’t doubt this was what had happened in Jenson’s case. It would always have been there between them, this terrible thing they shared. No wonder poor Jenson had freaked out at the prospect that he might be expected to look after Georgie.
Happily, my chat with Georgie’s new social worker, Mandy, was more positive. She’d spent the week reading up on al
l his little ways and needs, and was looking forward to meeting us all the following week. As I put the phone down and prepared to start my bout of Monday housework, I reflected that, though outwardly the more challenging, Georgie was actually no trouble at all. His world – if those needs were met – was actually quite a calm place, his passage through life – provided he was placed with a family who could support him – potentially peaceful and drama-free.
Which, for the moment at least, I hoped ours would continue to be as well. But, as is always the case, no such luck.
I was on my way to Riley’s when the phone rang. I’d been itching to get round there and catch up on all her news. While we’d been up to our eyes in challenging 9-year-olds, she and David had been facing their own challenges. They’d spent Saturday morning doing one of their fostering-training sessions and I couldn’t wait to hear how it had gone. They were some way through the process now, and I remembered this bit of the training well. It was one of the sessions where you had to do all sorts of different role-playing, and I’d mischievously not enlightened them too much about what to expect.
Though not just out of mischief; I didn’t want to stress David unduly. Because when we’d done it Mike had found it mortifying, and, had he known what was coming, he might well have ducked out. Confident as he was in his day-to-day life, he’d found the acting bit an absolute nightmare.
One scenario in particular had his toes curling so much that, had he been able to, I think he would have run for the hills. He had to play a foster dad trying to defuse a difficult situation – trying to protect himself from the full-on sexual advances of an over-amorous teenager.
