Give Me the Child

by Mel McGrath

  He gave a ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ sigh. ‘Why do you hate Ruby so much? Is it because she’s rubbing your nose in the fact that you couldn’t have another child? Why can’t you see, the stuff you’re talking about, the shit that needs “working through”, that’s not Ruby’s, Cat, it’s yours.’

  Me again. Defective, infertile, Craaaazy Cat. My cock-ups. My paranoia. The full fifteen rounds. But this was no longer about defending myself. It was about protecting my daughter. ‘I’ll say it again, Tom, so that we’re both really clear. I am not prepared to allow Freya to continue living with Ruby Winter. Not at the moment.’

  When Tom’s face twisted round there was some ugly, unfamiliar script written there. ‘You fucking know I hate it when you issue me with ultimatums. You really think if it comes to you versus me, you’ll win? Honestly? The father who for the last four years has been Freya’s main carer, the man who’s been doing the right thing by Ruby, or some pisshead fruitcake who can’t get over the fact that her husband fucked someone else?’

  I took a breath, let go of the counter and felt my legs carry me towards the door. Whatever I might have said would have been too little and too late. A wide, deep, irreparable chasm had opened up in the landscape of our marriage and Tom and I were teetering on its edge.

  That afternoon, when Tom took the girls to the lido, I thought it best to stay behind at home. The girls would sense the tension and Ruby might try to exploit it. Instead, I spent the hours googling psych facilities and papers on morbid obsessional behaviour in kids and formulating a plan.

  At four, earlier than expected, the girls and Tom returned with the news that his father had fallen on the stairs and was in hospital. Michael Walsh’s injuries weren’t life threatening but Tom needed to go to the hospital straight away.

  Tom and I were in the kitchen. The girls were watching Finding Nemo in the living room.

  ‘I’d take Ruby but the last thing I want to subject my daughter to right now is the sight of an old man she’s never met lying in a hospital covered in tubes.’

  ‘No, no, of course not. You go. I’ll look after Ruby.’

  His voice took on an odd tone. ‘Couldn’t you call Sally?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘I honestly don’t think you’re very stable right now.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

  Tom’s brows raised. ‘Yes I am. I’m bloody deadly serious.’

  I speed-dialled Sally’s number on speakerphone so Tom could hear and left a message. It was ridiculous but it seemed to placate him. While he went upstairs to pack an overnight bag, I checked on the girls. Freya had loved Finding Nemo when she was younger (which small child didn’t?) but hadn’t mentioned it for years. The fact that she’d gone back to it was a bad sign, I thought. It meant she was feeling insecure. She was fond of Michael, though, so maybe that was it.

  ‘You OK, girls?’

  Freya looked up and nodded. ‘Mum, can I have a glass of milk, please?’

  ‘Of course, darling. You know Grandad’s going to be fine, don’t you? Would you like one too, Ruby?’

  Ruby didn’t answer.

  I fetched the milk then sat back at the kitchen table and got on with some paperwork, close enough so that if something happened I’d be in the next room. Tom came down moments later, said goodbye to the girls and left. A little while later when I went into the living room again the two girls were sitting on the sofa together and Freya was making gulping motions with her lips.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Freya said, ‘Practising holding my breath.’

  I thought this was strange but decided it was better not to say anything in front of Ruby, but then the girl leaned towards Freya and whispered something into her ear and there was something about that which just set me off.

  ‘What’s the big secret?’ My eyes shot from one girl to the other and, as I turned my head away from Ruby, I saw her flash Freya a warning look. My heart began ticking. ‘Did something happen at the lido?’

  In my peripheral vision I saw Ruby shake her head as if feeding Freya the answer.

  ‘Mum, you are being so weird.’

  The rest of the evening Ruby remained close to her sister. My first chance to speak to my daughter alone was just after she’d gone to bed, but when I brought up the topic of the pool Freya just frowned and gave a little head shake and I couldn’t get any more out of her.

  Around nine my mobile sounded the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.

  Sal said, ‘So now I’m freaked out. What’s going on?’

  I told her about Tom’s accounts and the loan on the house, about the hamster, the bruises on Freya’s arm and the iPad and the incident in the crematorium, how I’d just found Freya practising holding her breath and how weird and sly Ruby had been when I’d asked if anything had happened in the lido. I told her I was worried that Freya was being bullied. Then I told her about the row I’d had with Tom. And the fact that he’d raised the issue of custody.

  ‘That’s bad,’ Sal said.

  ‘It’s got to the point where I don’t really want to leave Ruby and Freya together unsupervised…’

  Sal made a tutting sound. ‘No, I meant the C word. You don’t really have any proof that Ruby did all that stuff, do you? If she really did do it, don’t you think one of you would have caught her in the act? Wouldn’t Freya have said something? Look, sweetheart, perhaps you just need a break? All those kids at the clinic, no wonder it gets to you. Don’t take this the wrong way but maybe, you know, think about going to see someone? I’m worried all this has got too much for you.’

  My head buzzed. In a calm voice I said, ‘Maybe you’re right, I’ll get an early night and I’ll probably feel better in the morning. You won’t tell Tom any of this if he calls you again, will you?’

  ‘God, no. Shit, no, Cat, you’re my sister. Anyway, he won’t.’

  After the call my mind began to turn over too fast, like a car in the wrong gear. I felt trapped. If I took Freya away, Tom would use my mental illness to fight me to get custody of her. He’d seen me drunk in front of the girls and for all I knew he’d filmed me on his phone. And I couldn’t rely on either of the girls to give voice to my suspicions about Ruby – Freya wasn’t talking, and Ruby was too clever to give herself away. It would be my word against Tom’s. But I had to protect Freya. An idea began to form. It was completely against the rules, but I thought it might work. I called Sal back.

  ‘You know, Sal, I thought about what you said. Perhaps you’re right and I’m overreacting. Can you come over and be with Freya tomorrow, just for the day? I was thinking maybe if Ruby and I spent some quality stepmum–stepdaughter time together, we could resolve some of this. I mean, I might feel reassured.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sal readjusted her ideas. ‘Well, yeah, that might be cool.’

  ‘Good, that’s a plan then?’ I named a time. ‘And Sal?’

  ‘I know. Mum’s the word.’

  Predictably, Ruby Winter didn’t want to come with me. I had the feeling she understood my suspicions and was wary. Her instincts and watchful nature smelled a rat. It’ll be boring, I don’t like science, and, mostly, I want to stay here with Freya. But I pressed upon her how exciting it would be to try out the special movie goggles we had at the institute and Freya helped me out by saying that she’d used them and they were ‘cool’. Eventually, the idea of being able to watch whatever she wanted seemed to win her over and, after a few shrugs and a bit of sulking, she agreed to accompany me.

  Lucas was setting up when we arrived at the lab, his eyes already glommed onto a screen. On Sundays the imaging machines were made available for research grads so I was taking the spot he needed for his own work. I’d done him a few favours and this was calling in the debt. Lucas was smart, hard-working, fun to be around and – here was the important part – deeply, unquestioningly loyal. If I asked him to do something, even something as unorthodox as what I had in mind, he would do it and
keep it to himself. If either of us were caught, the consequences would be unpredictable but almost certainly serious.

  I put a double macchiato on the desk beside him. His eyes smiled.

  ‘Two sugars?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Introductions were made and I left Lucas showing Ruby the movie goggles in the annexe while I swiped through to the scanning room. The scanner sat angular and grey in the centre of the space like some vast, hibernating monster. However familiar it had become, there was something about the machine I always found intimidating. It was as if it were the repository of all kinds of as yet undiscovered secrets, the keeper of the iconography of the soul. I checked the settings and moved back into the annexe. Ruby and Lucas were playing Angry Birds on Lucas’s laptop.

  ‘Ruby was telling me about the pictures of monkeys with wires in their heads outside Brixton Tube,’ he said, catching my eye and grimacing.

  I squeezed Ruby’s shoulder, more for Lucas’s benefit than for my stepdaughter’s. ‘I’m sorry, that must have been upsetting.’ I reached for the phone in my pocket and pressed record. Today was all about catching Ruby off guard and allowing her to reveal herself.

  ‘I thought it was cool,’ she said.

  ‘Well, there aren’t any monkeys here,’ I said. ‘Do you still want to do this?’

  ‘Is there a choice?’

  ‘We could sit here for a while and talk instead. You could tell me how you’re feeling about stuff.’

  ‘I’d rather go in the machine.’

  As I took her through the procedure, she looked bored. I reassured her that it wouldn’t hurt at all and if she wanted to stop at any time, we would.

  I watched the scan in progress on the screen in the annexe. Grey-scale shapes pulsed and morphed on the screen and I marked them against what I knew was happening in the video. I’d need to go back and study them carefully before being able to reach any conclusions.

  We were done in under an hour. In that time Ruby hadn’t moved or made a sound. I saved the scans to my personal Dropbox then deleted them from the mainframe.

  Lucas gave us a lift back to Brixton (Tom had taken the car) and we went to McDonald’s. After that I took Ruby, protesting mildly, to an early evening show at the Ritzy, keen to keep her separated from Freya for as long as I could. We got back to the house just after nine. Sal was watching something on Netflix. A half-drunk bottle of Sauvignon Blanc sat on the table beside her. Freya had already gone to bed. Tired from staring at a screen for several hours, Ruby quickly followed suit. I fetched a glass from the kitchen and came and sat beside my sister.

  ‘How did your bonding day go? What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing terribly exciting.’ I told her about the day. ‘Freya showed Ruby her scanner pictures and Ruby wanted some of her own so I let her have a go,’ I said, not entirely untruthfully.

  ‘Oh. When’s Tom back?’

  My eyes went automatically to my watch. ‘Late, probably after midnight.

  ‘So,’ I went on casually, ‘did you get anything out of Freya? Did she talk about the lido? Or anything else?’ I figured my daughter might confide in her aunt and tell her something she wouldn’t tell me.

  Sal scrolled back through the day. ‘Nope, nada.’

  ‘Nothing about the hamster? Or what happened to Charlie Frick’s iPad?’

  Sal’s frown turned to a disapproving scowl. ‘Cat, you’re not still going on about that, are you?’ She topped up my glass. ‘Here, take a chill pill.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Monday morning at work. I’d been the only one awake by the time I left the house. Around midnight I’d been woken by the sound of the front door and I guessed Tom had taken himself off to the study to sleep. I left him a note on the kitchen table – our only communication since he’d sent me a text with his ETA on Sunday morning – to say I hoped Michael was OK and to request that he kept Freya away from the lido or the pool. I think she might have a cold coming on.

  At five I had a meeting with Simeon Turner to go through Ruby Winter’s scans. Simeon and I had trained together. He’d gone on to work at one of the private clinics specialising in adolescent mental health. I’d told him I had a patient I could use a second opinion on. I didn’t tell him the patient was my stepdaughter or that I’d forged her father’s signature on the permission forms.

  Around eleven, Sal called.

  ‘Is everything OK? I would have called before but I’ve had all this fallout from a client about what happened last night. It’s all over the news, that dead kid. Someone on Twitter suggested it started with a dispute over my client’s branded trainers, so they’re crapping themselves.’

  I swung my chair over to my laptop and clicked on the Herald’s website. The pictures took a moment to gain definition then the whole thing crashed. I mentioned I hadn’t seen the news that morning and Sal told me what she knew. LeShaun Toley, the unarmed fifteen-year-old boy James White had mentioned, hadn’t been stabbed after all. News had got out that the cops had mistaken his zippo lighter for a gun and shot him. My heart hollowed for the dead kid and his family.

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s fucked up,’ Sal said. She started talking about her client again. I tuned out and clicked back on the link and this time the homepage loaded. Kids killing kids, cops killing kids – the atmosphere in the city was as tight as a wet drum. My eyes scrolled down to a familiar name at the bottom of the page. Clicking the link brought me to an analysis of the violence with James White’s byline. At the bottom of the piece I was shocked to see a mugshot of me taken at a conference last year. My heart sank.

  ‘Sal? I have to go.’

  I put down the phone and looked more closely at the piece. There was no mention of the Barrons family so that was good. White had used the information I’d given him, but instead of keeping it in the background as he’d promised, he’d named me and described my occupation as ‘an expert in psychopathic children’. He’d also quoted me saying, Evil is just a gap in the research. I knew MacIntyre would tap in the nuclear code if he got wind of this. I keyed White’s number and got through to his voicemail.

  ‘I’m coming after you with my lawyers.’

  My next call was to Anja. I didn’t want her to find out from someone else and I was hoping she’d have my back and have some good advice, but when I dropped the bomb, instead of offering support, she said simply, ‘What were you thinking? It’s the number one rule: never speak to journalists.’ Then, rapidly changing the subject: ‘But I’m glad you called. Emma Barrons is here. Can you come over right now?’

  Emma was sitting on the sofa in Anja’s office with a face like a rotten mango. I tried not to look, but it was impossible. The bruising was catastrophic. My immediate thought was Joshua, but even Joshua would have had a hell of a job inflicting that kind of damage on an adult.

  ‘Have you been to the police?’

  ‘Emma doesn’t want to press charges,’ said Anja. They’d obviously been talking about it a while before I’d arrived.

  ‘But you know the cops can bring a prosecution without you?’

  ‘Not if I don’t tell them.’ Emma frowned. ‘Really, it doesn’t matter about me but I think my husband’s going to try to stop you treating Joshua.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘That there’s nothing wrong with his son.’

  As I was taking this in, Anja turned to me and said, ‘What’s the legal position?’

  I considered this for a moment. We’d had patients whose parents hadn’t wanted them treated before, but we’d been able to argue that the kids were a suicide risk.

  ‘We could section Joshua,’ I said. ‘That way his father would probably have to go through the courts to stop us treating him. We’d run the risk of CAMHs scooping him up, though. He might well end up in the secure system.’

  ‘Christopher has access to some pretty heavy-hitting lawyers,’ Emma said, before adding, ‘he likes a fight.’

  ‘Let me talk to
him.’

  Emma’s eyes narrowed then the faint trace of a smile appeared on her face. I switched to speakerphone and dialled the number she gave me. A man’s voice answered, gruff with sleep. When Emma nodded to confirm that it was her husband I introduced myself.

  ‘You know the police can prosecute you for what you’ve done to your wife,’ I said.

  The gruffness disappeared and was replaced by a smooth, glassy tone. ‘I tape all my calls, Miss Lupo. This one is going to be short since I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Emma’s eyes flared. I held up a reassuring hand.

  ‘I’m about to tell you. Your son has a mental disorder which means that there’s a possibility he could seriously hurt someone. If he does, he will likely mirror what he’s seen at home. You or your wife could be at risk as well as anyone else he associates with. He might even hurt himself. We’re trying to ensure that doesn’t happen.’

  Barrons gave a contemptuous snort. ‘The only danger Joshua’s in is from a bunch of clucking cunts who are doing their best to turn him queer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I only got back from New York yesterday and I’m trying to sleep off my jet lag.’

  And with that he was gone.

  ‘That’s mild, believe me,’ Emma said. ‘He obviously doesn’t consider you much of a threat.’

  ‘Well, he’s wrong about that,’ I said, thinking about the next step. ‘Where is Joshua now?’

  ‘With the nanny.’ I thought how incongruous she looked, tricked out like a princess, with that terrible mashed face. I asked her if there was somewhere she could go tonight where her husband wouldn’t be likely to find her.

  ‘He’s going away again tomorrow.’ Emma fiddled with her rings. It was obvious she had no one to turn to.

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ I said. I dialled Sal’s number, spoke briefly to her, then called a cab and made sure Emma Barrons got in it.

  ‘Don’t go back there till he’s gone.’