Groomed

by Casey Watson

  ‘Don’t stress,’ I reassured him. ‘You said she didn’t see you, right? So there’s no need for me to even mention you, is there? I’ll just say someone told me. I don’t have to lie. She knows I know some of the staff there, so she’ll just assume it was one of them. And don’t worry. We’ll sort it,’ I said firmly. And I meant it. Because right then I didn’t know what it was we’d be having to sort. And, for all my own nose for impending trouble, no way could I have imagined what it would turn out to be.

  In the immediate future, however, I had to make a decision. Tackle Keeley about it as soon as she returned from school – my first choice – or, given that she might show up before Tyler had been to the chip shop and back, and had gone round to Denver’s, rein myself in (which would be difficult; I was getting angrier with her by the minute) till the coast was clear and we could have it out alone. But then Mike, too, would be getting home, at least by half past five, possibly earlier, and having him arrive cold when I was doing so – and who knew what might happen? – definitely wouldn’t be ideal.

  I felt a powerful urge to call John Fulshaw and solicit his advice. But it seemed pointless because I already knew what he’d say. He’d offer to come round, which I’d decline, because he really didn’t need to, then he’d tell me to confront her, ask what she was up to and get some sort of answer. And not just because we needed to find out what she was up to. If there was a man in a car hanging around the local youth centre, then, in the absence of the innocent explanation I doubted would be forthcoming, it was imperative we report it to both the centre and the school headmaster without delay, because they would certainly need to investigate, and probably involve the police as well, the safety of the young people there being paramount.

  So in the end I called Mike and explained what Tyler had told me and, predictably, his response was short and to the point.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ he growled, over the noise of nearby machinery. ‘I am up to here with that wretched girl and her bloody games. Another “client”, no doubt?’

  ‘Who knows? But one she’s physically meeting. Which is why I keep hoping there’s still a chance it’s that Jamie,’ I said. ‘But he didn’t even have a car, did he?’

  ‘Maybe his mate’s car? Was he alone?’

  ‘Tyler didn’t say. But he’d have said if there’d been another man, wouldn’t he? I think I’m clutching at straws, to be honest, love. He was pretty sure it wasn’t.’

  ‘And he’s probably right. God,’ he said again, wearily. ‘I mean, where do we go from here? Every time. Every flipping time we give her a chance to sort herself out, every single time she throws it back in our face. It’s the deceit I can’t stomach. That’s the thing that really gets me. All sweetness and bloody light, and pouring her heart out, pulling at your heart-strings, and all the while she’s sneaking around behind our backs doing exactly as she pleases! Does she think we came down in the last shower of rain? She’s taking the mick, royally. Seriously, Case. I am up to here with her bloody nonsense, I really am.’

  Because I felt just the same I didn’t try to appease him. Indeed, his anger only served to add rocket fuel to mine. I tried hard to rationalise; we dealt in fostering challenging children, ergo we expected challenges. And I wasn’t stupid – many kids who came from terrible backgrounds could earn degrees in ingratitude, lying and deceit. Often, it was the only thing they’d ever known. So Keeley getting up to mischief (if it could be called that, given she was now almost a woman) was hardly hold-the-front-page news. I suppose in truth it was myself that I was feeling most annoyed at. For allowing myself to believe her cries for help were genuine and that we meant more to her than just bed and board while she did what she liked, pretty much under our noses.

  I took a deep breath. It was pointless to speculate. ‘So am I,’ I told my husband. ‘I feel fit to burst, frankly. So I thought I’d better tell you now, in case you come home to a war zone. Speaking of which, it’s gone four. She’ll be home any minute.’

  ‘I’ll hurry,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be an hour yet, at least.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘I’m sure I can handle it. She might have more attitude than a supermodel but that’s all she’s got.’

  ‘And she’s met her match now. Give her both barrels,’ he said grimly. ‘One for you and one for me.’

  In the fifteen or so minutes between hanging up on Mike and hearing the front door open, I typed up a hasty report in my log. It was almost bizarre, I thought, me being perched in my pretty winter wonderland, and having to deal with such ugly thoughts. No festive switch-on tonight, then.

  Instead I doused the light of the screen of the laptop, closing it as she appeared in the living-room doorway, then getting up to put it back on the table.

  It was impossible to read anything in Keeley’s expression. She looked the same as she’d looked when she’d left in the morning, with just the usual touches of slight end-of-day disarray.

  She slipped her backpack from her shoulders, and lobbed it towards the foot of the staircase. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Seriously, wow, Casey. It looks amazing.’

  She then hooked some stray hairs from her ponytail back behind her ears. I watched her. Just like butter wouldn’t melt.

  My back was to the Christmas tree she was currently gawping at, and I felt a needle of anger pierce the calm I’d tried to instil in myself. I couldn’t help it. She had completely ruined my day.

  ‘What?’ she said, obviously clocking my stony expression. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘That’s what you are going to tell me, young lady,’ I answered, cursing inwardly that I’d let the ‘young lady’ bit slip out. I knew I sounded like my mother. And I also knew that to the sixteen-year-old me those two words were like red rags to a bull.

  ‘What?’ she said again, the word coming out differently this time. An astonished-seeming ‘what’, which she accessorised with a nervous grin. I obviously looked as angry as I felt.

  ‘And you can wipe that look off your face, as well,’ I said. ‘Keeley, I cannot begin to tell you how angry I am with you right now, so I am seriously hoping you have some sort of explanation …’

  ‘For what?’ she asked, and her astonishment seemed almost genuine. But not quite. Her increasingly obvious nervousness betrayed her. I could almost see her brain whirring, trying to figure out what I might have found out.

  ‘For what’s going on. Who you’ve been talking to today outside college.’

  ‘No one.’ The answer was immediate.

  ‘No one? Don’t be ridiculous, Keeley. You’re sixteen, not six.’

  ‘I meant no one you know. And it’s …’ a pause. ‘Look, it’s no one who matters, okay?’

  She’d been about to say ‘none of your business’, no question. And stopped herself, just. But there was an increasingly belligerent look in her eyes.

  Par for the course. And depressing proof that she had been up to something. ‘Then it won’t matter,’ I said, ‘if you tell me who it was, will it?’

  ‘It was no one,’ she said again, and now she couldn’t help herself. ‘Look, since when did I have to report back to you with the name of every person I happen to have any conversation with, every single moment of every single bloody day? Did the law change when I wasn’t looking or something?’

  I half expected her to finish with a ‘duh?’. It was a long speech, and in saying it her cheeks had become flushed. Whoever this man was she was doing some kind of deal with him, I was now even surer of it. Surer still when she turned on the spot, stalked out of the living room and plucked up her backpack again. Had she been receiving a gift from one of her phone-sex punters maybe? It hit me then that perhaps she was covering her backside – perhaps there was something in the backpack that she didn’t want me to see.

  I followed her out. ‘No, it didn’t,’ I said calmly. In the face of her own discomposure, I found I felt calmer, too. ‘But this isn’t about laws. This is about you lying to me, Keeley. You promised me faithfully that
there would be no more of your nonsense with the phone sex. Or the fake account on Facebook. Or any of that nonsense. And now I hear you’ve been seen hanging around outside college, and –’

  ‘I haven’t!’ she yelled back at me. ‘God, I told you. I’m not lying. I haven’t! Okay? God,’ she finished. ‘Just leave me alone, will you?’

  Then, predictably, she stomped up the stairs.

  I waited till I heard the bedroom door slam before following her up there. Again, she sounded genuine. Again, I ticked myself off for thinking so. Ever the actress, I reminded myself as I arrived on the landing, knocked on the door and immediately walked in.

  She was rummaging in the backpack and glared at me furiously, eventually pulling out the charger for her phone. She plugged it in and jabbed her phone in the end, which parped at her to say it was charging. Then she faced me, hands on hips. ‘Look, I told you,’ she said again.

  ‘You haven’t told me anything, Keeley. Except to mind my own business. Which both personally and professionally, I am not prepared to do. You’ve been seen talking to a strange man, in a car, outside the youth centre. Quite apart from anything else, that’s a big cause for concern for them. Anyone hanging around there is a big cause for concern. And given your past assignations, it’s a big cause of concern for me too. So I want an explanation. I need an explanation. Because while you might think you’re all grown-up and able to handle anything, you are not. God, how short is your memory?’ I demanded, spreading my palms in exasperation. ‘It’s not been three weeks since the police had to haul you home from a bloody park shelter! It’s –’

  ‘I told you, it’s NO ONE!’

  She screamed the words at me this time, a complementary spray of spittle and all.

  ‘For God’s sake, Keeley,’ I began again, my anger really welling. ‘Do you honestly expect me to –’

  And then her phone began ringing. I watched her eyes dart towards it. I could see enough to note that there wasn’t a name displayed, only a number. She glanced back at me, then made a move to answer it. Or, more likely, given that she’d seen it too, to stop it ringing.

  ‘That him, is it?’ I snapped. ‘Another one you’ve got on the go, is it? Brought you one of your presents, did he? Was that it?’

  In that moment, everything she’d told me about her feelings for Jamie came back to me as hollow. A pack of nonsense all along? Perhaps that was what inspired me to do what I did. Because, without thinking, I reached out myself and swiped the phone up, charger and all. Which soon popped back out.

  ‘Give that back!’ Keeley yelled.

  I shook my head, clasping the phone in both hands behind my back now. God knew how many rules and protocols I was breaking at this moment. But since I’d already done it, I decided to press on. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, after all.

  ‘Give it BACK!’ she yelled again, and I could tell she was considering wrestling it from me physically. But stopping short, thank goodness. At least I’d called that correctly. ‘You’ve no right to take my mobile!’ she shouted. She was right in my face now, the spit flying again. ‘I can report you! Give it back right now, or I bloody will!’

  ‘No!’ I snapped back at her. ‘No, you’re not having it. You won’t give me what I want, so now you can have a taste of your own medicine. I have no idea why you’re behaving so ridiculously about this, but if you’re going to act like a child then I’m going to treat you like one. And –’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ she yelled. ‘Christ!’ Then she threw herself on the bed in apparent exasperation. I half-expected her to drum her fists against the duvet. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, okay? Why won’t you just leave me ALONE!’

  ‘Keeley, for heaven’s sake,’ I said, ‘get a grip on yourself, will you? The very fact that you’re behaving so hysterically about this is enough to make me –’

  ‘‘Look, you’re wrong, okay?’ she shouted back, having rolled over and got up again. ‘Whatever your spies say, they’re wrong. So unbelievably wrong. But oh no, you just won’t believe that, will you? You automatically think I’ve been up to something “naughty”.’

  Even in her fury, she still managed a couple of finger quote marks to go with this. The phone was warm in my hand. What was going on with this girl?

  ‘All right, love?’ I turned around to see Mike in the doorway.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Keeley said. ‘Now he’s going to start on me as well!’

  Mike and I exchanged glances. He could see I had the mobile. ‘Too right I will,’ he told her. ‘Screaming at Casey like that. Don’t think I didn’t hear you.’ He turned to me again. Nodded towards the phone. ‘So, exactly what’s going on, then?’

  ‘I’m still waiting,’ I began, ‘for some sort of explanation. And if I don’t get one,’ I turned back to Keeley, ‘then I’ll have no choice but to call Danny and –’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ She sounded wretched. ‘You have no idea, either of you! You’re going to ruin everything!’

  ‘Ruin what?’ Mike’s voice. Calm amid the shrillness.

  Keeley was crying now. ‘You just don’t get it! I’m trying to get something on him and you’re going to ruin it!’

  ‘Get something?’ Mike asked. ‘Off who?’

  ‘Get something on him,’ I corrected. ‘Ruin what? Keeley, who?’

  ‘And if you muck it up now, it’ll all be for nothing,’ she sobbed. ‘You don’t know what he’s like! You have no idea, either of you!’

  ‘What who’s like?’ I was struggling to make sense of what she was saying. ‘Who?’

  ‘Christ, who d’you think?’ she said. ‘I’m trying to save my fucking sister!’

  Chapter 21

  It’s amazing how stuck in our grooves we can become, isn’t it? I’m not sure it’s an age thing, because you see it in all ages. I think it’s just a person thing; a by-product of being human. But there’s no doubt that we sometimes see only what we expect to see, don’t we? Sometimes have difficulty thinking ‘outside the box’, and have a tendency to fall into the same traps over and over, because we don’t think imaginatively enough. What’s seen also depends on who’s seeing, of course. And we all bring our preconceptions with us. It’s a bit like those folded pictures – Rorschach tests, I think they’re called – where what you see in the symmetrical image varies depending on who you are and what you’re feeling at the time.

  I was still in my groove when Keeley shared her revelation. I’d only just got my head round the fact that this was apparently something about her sister. But what about her sister? And why did she need saving? And now I’d posed the questions, I was mentally scrabbling for answers.

  They’d remained close, hadn’t they? Well, with Jade being younger and presumably therefore more closely supervised, stayed in touch as far as they’d been able. And I’d purposely restrained myself from talking too much about Jade unless Keeley did first, being all too aware that, after Keeley’s allegations, and the subsequent trauma, her foster parents would probably think it in Jade’s best interests if the relationship was able to die a natural death.

  More fool them, I thought, to think they had that much control over either girl – even though we’d been pretty foolish in that department as well. Jade could easily be involved in Keeley’s entrepreneurial other life, and part of her wide circle of virtual friends.

  But Jade was just fourteen, wasn’t she? The thought made me doubly anxious. What on earth was Keeley about to reveal to us? She was distraught enough now to make me worry that, whatever it was, she was very anxious about it too, not to mention feeling guilty.

  And then a new, even more complicating thought entered my head. Were we even talking about Jade here? As far as we knew, Keeley knew nothing of the whereabouts of her blood siblings – but could that be another massive wrong assumption on our part? Could she have tracked one or more of them down in secret? We lived in an age of global connectivity, after all. For a bright kid like her, and with enough information to go on, it wasn’
t outside the bounds of possibility.

  Mike spoke first, echoing my thoughts. ‘You mean Jade?’ he said.

  Keeley stopped wiping her eyes on her hoody sleeve and looked up at him. ‘Of course I mean Jade!’ she sniffed. ‘Who else?’

  I handed Mike her phone – now I had it I felt reluctant to give it back to her. All my senses were screaming that we were dealing with something serious, and now possibly also involving an under-age girl. Protocol could go hang for a moment.

  Mike slipped it in his pocket. Keeley, busy blowing her nose now, using a pack of travel tissues she’d got from her backpack, was so focused on what she was doing that she didn’t even seem to notice. She finished blowing her nose and sighed deeply. It was a sigh of weary acceptance – no doubt about that – but also, instinct told me, a sigh of relief. Whatever secrets she’d been keeping, they had obviously been weighing heavily.

  ‘Right,’ I said, sitting down beside her while Mike perched on the dressing-table stool. ‘Now we need to hear the truth, Keeley. All of it. Come on – what’s been going on? And who is this man you met today? Do you even know his name?’

  Still she faltered. Then she looked at Mike. ‘You have to believe me. I mean seriously,’ she added. ‘Because I swear down, I’m telling you the truth.’

  ‘Shoot then,’ said Mike. He looked like he still needed convincing. I no longer did. I could sense we had reached an important watershed. Perhaps the watershed; the sum total of all that had gone before.

  I put my arm around Keeley to encourage her. ‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘Come on. Who?’

  ‘Steve,’ she said.

  ‘Steve?’ we both parroted.

  ‘Steve who?’ Mike said.