LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 9

      To my acute disappointment, not to mention sadness, Keeley’s notes didn’t make for the best reading. There was little in them that I didn’t already know, and what little I hadn’t known only served to confirm that there had been a reason for her being parted from her siblings, in the form of a big question mark hanging over her. A question mark about her that had effectively sealed her fate. And all sparked by a disclosure from a four-year-old.

      It was usual, at the point when children are removed into care following a crisis, for any who are old enough to be interviewed. In the case of the McAlister children, this duly happened, the four- and six-year-olds, Courtney and Aaron (who’d been billeted together), both having been questioned about what happened on the night when the police came.

      Mike’s assumption had been right. The children had initially been fostered separately for practical reasons, there being no one available to take them all. So it was that Keeley was fostered on her own, the middle two to a temporary foster home together, and the babies – the ones with the best chance of an untroubled future – into foster care alone, with a view to being quickly adopted. All of which I already knew, of course.

      What I hadn’t known, however, was that, at that point, there’d been no plan to separate them permanently. Even with the younger two going up for adoption that didn’t preclude some sort of contact being maintained. And perhaps they’d have been reunited – at least in terms of regular contact – but for one thing. That the four-year-old, Courtney, when questioned about the man who’d done horrible things to her, had mentioned that Keeley had not only been there, but had also been the one ‘guarding the door’. She’d been confused and upset – this, too, had been recorded in the notes – and apparently they’d been unsure what she meant, quite, but of course (I say ‘of course’ because I might have felt the same) alarm bells about Keeley had begun ringing – and the person who’d interviewed Courtney had been anxious for clarification.

      There had already been concerns that, as the oldest (and a pretty girl), Keeley herself might well have been regularly abused by the drug dealers – this man included – who profited from her mother’s addiction. There was no evidence of abuse, because Keeley had always refused to speak to anyone about it (perhaps, I mused, because she was old enough to understand the potential consequences of sharing anything with the official-looking women who were in and out of her mother’s life) but the possibility that her mother had allowed her to be had already been discussed.

      I read on, painting a picture that I really hoped I wouldn’t. A picture of a girl who might well have been sexually abused for years, and by a series of men. And I didn’t doubt that was what went through the minds of whoever was responsible for sorting out the mess, because if she had been sexually abused from a young age, there was a fair chance she might be sexually inappropriate around her younger siblings. No point wishing otherwise – I knew that. Because it was something that happened all the time.

      But had it in this case? And would it in the future? It seemed not at all clear. Keeley – then just ten – had already been questioned about the night they’d been taken and, raging against everyone, wanting only to be back with her family, she had refused to say anything about it. So they tried again, anxious to piece together her role in what happened, because so much depended on that one central question. And eventually persistence bore fruit. It was all there in the records.

      ‘Your sister said that you were holding the door while it was happening,’ went the question. ‘Keeley, were you?’

      ‘No,’

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