The Silent Witness - Casey Watson

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over to you, if that’s okay. Hour or so. Two at the most. I’ll double check and confirm in the email. Really, Casey, thanks so much for this. Terrible timing. And thanks to Mike, too.’

      ‘No, it’s fine,’ I reassured him, before putting the phone down.

      ‘No it’s not,’ Mike said immediately, as I walked back into the living room. My turn to face the music now, I realised. I knew I shouldn’t have said yes. Not without checking with Mike first. But I knew that if I did check he’d say yes too. So not doing so was a time-saving exercise, that was all. ‘It’s Christmas Eve, love,’ he said, not yet knowing the circumstances. ‘Wasn’t there anyone else John could ask?’

      ‘If there had been, he wouldn’t have called us, would he?’ I told him reasonably. Though Mike did have a point. She wouldn’t be the first child to have been deposited with us close to Christmas. But this close? John had said she was already in the system, hadn’t he? So what had happened? Had another foster family decided they couldn’t keep her? I decided not to tell Mike about that part. Just the facts. An episode of violence (I was necessarily editing as I went, for Tyler’s benefit). Dad in hospital. Mother in jail. And her a witness to it all, to her family falling apart. To her father’s last hours of life, even, potentially. The poor child, we agreed, must be in bits.

      And it wasn’t like we had anyone in at the moment, was it? Bar Tyler, who no longer counted, of course, on account of being one of the family now. It had been a while, in fact, since we’d had anything approaching a long-term placement. Since Adrianna, a lovely Polish teenager, had left us at the end of spring, we’d only had children come to us on a short-term basis, keeping us free for the sort of child who needed specialist care long term.

      This wasn’t being billed as that, exactly, but, given the gravity of the circumstances, it might well turn out to be, mightn’t it? Specially given John’s email, which pinged into my inbox five minutes later, and, though brief, did make mention of Bella’s demeanour, her probable post-traumatic stress disorder and her refusal to say a single word about what she’d seen. Emotionally shut down. Eating poorly. Unreachable. Deeply distressed.

      ‘Well, that’s Riley’s breakfast off the agenda,’ Mike said when I’d finished, ever the practical one. ‘We’d better give her a ring and let her know.’

      ‘She might like it,’ Tyler suggested. ‘Take her mind off stuff and that.’

      ‘She might,’ Mike conceded. ‘Though by the sound of things Christmas will be the last thing on her mind. After all, she’s –’

      ‘Oh, lord,’ I said, a thought having just occurred to me. ‘Presents. She’ll need some presents. Mike, we have to get her some presents.’ I checked the time again. ‘The supermarket. The supermarkets will still be open, won’t they? For another hour, at least, anyway. Mike,’ I went on, seeing his pained expression, ‘I can’t have a child here with nothing to open on Christmas morning. I just can’t. Look, please, love. There’s still time. You go off and get some bits for her while I go and sort the room out –’

      ‘Me? Case, how am I supposed to know what to get a twelve-year-old girl?’

      ‘Use your imagination,’ I said, while grabbing his trainers so he could put them back on. ‘Use Tyler’s. Ty, you’ll go with Dad, won’t you? And I’ll make a list. Let me see … pyjamas. She’ll need some anyway, probably, as I don’t have anything the right size. A dressing gown. A fluffy one. Some CDs. Some smellies … Get some paper, Ty. Write it down. Go on, quickly, the pair of you. You know what’s current, Tyler … actually, on second thoughts, you can stay here with me. Help me clear all the rubbish in the bedroom …’

      ‘And clean it to within an inch of its life,’ he said, grinning. ‘I know the drill, sir.’ He clicked his heels.

      ‘Cheeky tyke,’ I said, aiming a gentle swipe at him. He was such a good boy. Such a lovely nature about him. Whatever else was true, Tyler’s presence was a bonus for any child who came to us.

      I bundled Mike out into the fairy-light spangled night, which was cloudless and chilly, then ran around, first pulling out my wrapping box so I could wrap up all the spoils, then grabbing cleaning spray and dusters, and heading off up the stairs with Tyler to make the required assault on our unexpected charge’s place of safety.

      ‘Business as usual, then,’ Tyler said, grinning as he unwound the cord on the vacuum cleaner.

      I couldn’t imagine anything about Bella’s circumstance that merited anything other than heartbreak, but this was not the time for that. Place of safety, place of calm. I smiled back at Tyler. ‘Yes, business as usual, love,’ I agreed.

       Chapter 2

      I stared at my laptop screen, engrossed. While Mike was still out, and Tyler was ensconced in front of the telly, a second, more informative email had come through from John. And with coffee made, and the practical side of things finished, I had sat down to read it, first taking in the fact that it was so much longer than the first, and then, line by line, as it began to sink in, the truly desperate nature of this child’s situation.

      There was also a good reason for Bella’s emergency relocation, it turned out. After having been taken from the family home, and interviewed (fruitlessly), she’d initially been billeted with another foster family. They were a middle-aged couple who often took emergency placements, and the intention had been for her to stay with them at least till New Year, when the various agencies and departments who made decisions in such weighty matters were back open for business. At that point, the holidays over, the intention was to move her to a longer-term foster home while the police built their case against her mother. But nature had no concern for the smooth running of social services, and it so happened that the couple had a very pregnant daughter who lived some 150 miles away.

      That shouldn’t have been a problem in itself. The baby wasn’t apparently due till late January, so there was no reason for the couple not to have Bella short term. However, a few hours back, the couple’s daughter had gone into early labour, and with complications that meant the couple had no choice (as if they’d want one) but to jump in the car and make the journey to be with her. Which left Bella out on a limb, since there was no guarantee they’d be back any time soon, which was where social services, and then John, and then Mike and I came in.

      I sent up a silent prayer for happy news – perhaps a Christmas Day delivery? And for a baby who was delivered safe and well.

      Then my thoughts naturally moved to the girl we were receiving. John had managed to speak at greater length with Bella’s social worker’s line manager, and was able to give me a fuller account of the events that had led to Bella being in care.

      It seemed her mother, Laura Daniels, and her stepfather, Adam Cummings, had always had a volatile relationship. Together since Bella was three or four (with the stepdad acting very much as Bella’s father, apparently), they were already known to social services and had been for some years, following numerous complaints to police and social services, mostly with regard to their frequent noisy rows. Screaming episodes, fighting in the garden, bouts of drunken brawling; incidents like these had seen them visited by those in officialdom on numerous occasions. It had apparently been a regular occurrence.

      Yet on every occasion, it seemed, there was little in the way of follow-up. Which was not to say anything should have been done (all too easy to think you know better with the benefit of hindsight) but there was obviously a pattern: the mother always trying to calm the situation down and the stepfather, once questioned, always taking full responsibility, saying he had a drink problem which he was anxious to address.

      I had heard it all before. Who hadn’t? The cycle of drinking, drying out and then, down the line, the almost inevitable relapse was one that, sadly, was familiar to many. Yet it seemed there was a genuine desire to stop drinking in Adam Cummings, which was presumably why his luckless partner kept sticking by him.

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