LITMIR.BIZ

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anyway, as she obviously needs to know how important confidentiality is – that she must not divulge her whereabouts to even her closest friends.’

      Relieved beyond measure that no one was going to swoop in and whisk Bella away, I agreed to do just that, and assured John that I’d be more careful in the future. In truth it was my fault, whatever he’d said. No, I wasn’t expected to hover over her like the proverbial ‘helicopter parent’, but I should have been more savvy, and mentioned security to her every flipping time she used the computer. Kept at it till it had sunk in. Not blithely assumed that because she acted like she had no one in the world – she hadn’t mentioned a single friend to us, after all – she didn’t have a whole bunch of them she wanted to chat to. Stupid, stupid me.

      We also decided that, though John would have to report the letter to both social services and the police, we would be better not mentioning it to Bella just yet. There was no point in worrying her further if we didn’t need to. And the last thing I wanted was to dampen her good spirits the minute she returned after her long-awaited visit with her mum.

      No, I wouldn’t mention the letter yet, but I did need to address the situation because John was right about one thing for sure. On no account did we want our address bandied about in cyberspace for anyone to see. Bella herself was obviously only a part of the picture. We’d been fostering a long time, and looked after children from all sorts of scary backgrounds. I dreaded to think who else might now know exactly where we lived.

      That’s the thing about fostering. It never ceases to bring you up short and confront your preconceptions. Not to mention keeping you on your toes. Even though you are doing your best for a child, and in most cases trying to work to get them into a better place with their parents, so that, if possible, they could be returned to them, some parents didn’t see it like that.

      For some parents – and, sadly, it was often the least able and responsible parents who responded to intervention like this – we weren’t helping at all. No, we were either misguided do-gooders, or meddlesome professionals with ulterior motives, who were interfering in their lives and being pivotal in tearing their families apart. Which is why I have the utmost respect for social workers; they are truly on the front line of what very often feels like a war zone.

      It’s also the reason why children have sometimes been placed into care and the parents are often not told where their children are. But in our modern world, it’s no longer as simple as that, and, of course, older children, these days so ‘social media-savvy’, aren’t stupid. Also, in cases where unsupervised contact is permitted, you’d have to be pretty naïve not to realise that if a child wanted to they could just tell their parent where they now lived. That said, if unsupervised contact is on the table, it’s invariably because things are moving towards reunion, and the mum or dad are well aware that they must never use that information to turn up at a foster carer’s house unless invited.

      Over the years Mike and I have had many parents come to us, in fact; usually for their annual or twice-yearly LAC (looked-after child) review, which is mandatory for all children in care. But the thought of someone lurking in the neighbourhood, possibly watching what we were up to, was never going to be anything but worrying.

      But for the moment we had a stay of execution, at least, and for what it was worth (which was probably little, given my silly laptop blunder) I didn’t think our ‘concerned citizen’ posed any real threat. No, it seemed obvious it was just someone fighting Adam Cummings’s corner; perhaps a nosy neighbour who was batting for his team. And why should I assume I knew better? Perhaps Bella’s mum was guilty of whatever she’d been accused of. I’d never met her, and from what I did know about her (giving as good as she’d got – all that fighting – was a theme that had been established early) it was all entirely possible.

      It was also not my concern and none of my business. My job was simple: to keep Bella safe and well. And with a couple of hours still before I had to return to that particular duty, I decided to blow away the cobwebs and the jitters by doing a round trip of my own kids.

      I fetched up at Kieron and Lauren’s first – Kieron worked all sorts of odd shifts, so could sometimes be found at home on a weekday – happy to spend an hour in the company of my youngest (and gorgeous, naturally) grandchild, little Dee Dee. She was going to be two in March, only a week or so after the wedding, but Kieron and Lauren had sensibly kept me out of the planning for that particular soirée, busy as I was with the ones for what he’d taken to calling the Wedding of the Century – ever the enthusiast when it came to winding his sister up. ‘And that’s with ninety-odd years of the century still to go, remember,’ he always added, drily. And usually got a slap for his trouble, too.

      It was good to flop down on their big squashy sofa and relax, with a ticklish granddaughter giggling on my knee. Though not for long; the ‘baby’ was a long way from babyhood now, of course, confident at walking and as prolific a chatterbox as my other granddaughter was. What was it about the girls in our family? I often wondered that. Till Riley reminded me – as she invariably did. ‘Er, looked in the mirror lately, Mum?’

      ‘I’m sorry we haven’t been round these past couple of weeks, Mum,’ Kieron said, smiling as Dee Dee wriggled and writhed under my onslaught of tickles. ‘But with you having your hands full with Bella, and our Riley taking up all your free time, we thought it best to let things calm down a bit.’

      ‘Oh it’s fine, love,’ I said, touched at Kieron’s pragmatic assessment of the situation. ‘Though in truth, with Bella not up to going back to school yet, I’ve been a little bit stir crazy. Still, seeing her mum today will hopefully be a big boost to her spirits. Perhaps she’ll even feel like testing the waters.’

      ‘That’s no small thing, is it?’ Lauren mused. ‘You know, school. She must have only just found her feet at her own high school, mustn’t she? So the thought of having to be the newbie at a completely new one … scary. I suppose there’s no chance of her going back to hers in the short term, is there?’

      I shook my head. ‘Much too far away, particularly as this is all so open ended. Who knows where she might end up, if her mum goes to prison. My hunch is it’s not going to be with her stepdad. No, scrub that. There’s no way it’ll be with her stepdad. So if her mum does get a prison term, who knows?’

      ‘You can’t even imagine it, can you?’ Kieron said. ‘You know, your mum being sent to prison. Being sent away to live with strangers, knowing they’re locked up. Doesn’t even bear thinking about …’

      ‘So don’t think about it,’ Lauren told him firmly. She knew my son and his sensitive nature oh so well. ‘Anyway, listen, Casey, in the short term, d’you think she’d like to come along to my dance class? Now Dee has a nursery place, I’m starting them up again, part time, straight after the wedding. I just confirmed the hall rental this morning, as it happens.’

      Lauren was a beautiful, classically trained dancer and had run popular local dance classes locally for several years now. From toddlers to teenagers, she instilled grace in them all. Our last long-term foster child, Adrianna, had benefited from them hugely, though in her case, as she was an older teenager, and a dancer herself, more from passing on her own talent, and helping Lauren out, than having lessons.

      Either way, Bella seemed a graceful girl too, and I thought she’d probably enjoy it. ‘That would be brilliant,’ I said, mentally crossing my fingers that we’d still have her with us at that point; that she wouldn’t be dragged off to start again with a whole new foster family. Because one thing was for sure. She wasn’t going home to her own family any time soon.

      Having come away from Kieron’s, I then quickly popped into Riley’s, though as she had a couple of her friends round (and, of course, their own selection of manic pre-schoolers) I only stayed long enough to be given the latest to-do list, including such fine-tuning details as ‘Ask Father Brennan if he’ll make sure to remember to put the heating on at least an hour before the service!’

      That was my daughter, I thought, the delegating supremo. She knew as well as I did that getting Father Brennan to move his thermostat would require almost as big

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