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so it took a bit of pushing and a lot of coaxing to get into the room. And as soon as I was in there she was screaming at me and ripping the ribbon from her hair, then pawing at the dress, which did up at the back and, in frustration that she couldn’t undo it, yanking violently at the collar.

      ‘Sweetheart, what is it?’ I said, rushing over to her, and trying to gather her into my arms. I was at a loss to understand her near-hysteria. ‘It’s just Kieron, my son. He won’t hurt you!’

      ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire!’ she yelled at me, her cheeks pink and hot now. ‘Liar, liar! You’re a liar, and I hate you!’

      Still at something of a loss, I took a firmer line and gathered her close to me, then sat down on the bed so she was clamped on my lap. ‘What do you mean, love?’ I asked her. ‘Why am I a liar, liar?’

      ‘Because you said I didn’t have to work!’ she sobbed. ‘An’ that lady said it too! And then you tricked me!’

      ‘Tricked you?’

      ‘You got me a pretty dress and you tricked me!’ She was gulping her sobs now. ‘You’re a liar, liar, pants on fire, and I don’t want no dress anymore! I want it off!’

      ‘Then you shall have it off,’ I told her, loosening my grip on her slightly. ‘See?’ I said, dealing one handed with the buttons down the back. ‘There,’ I said. ‘Hop down and step out of it. That’s the way.’

      She did so, and stamped on it a couple of times for good measure. I let her. ‘Better?’ I said finally. ‘Pyjamas again? What?’

      ‘I want my jeans on,’ she said pointedly. ‘I don’t want your dress-up princess dress!’

      ‘That’s fine,’ I said, getting up and going to the chest of drawers. She stood and pouted, scowling, in her vest and pants and woolly tights. ‘But Darcy, can you explain why you’re so cross with me?’ I asked her gently. ‘Because I honestly don’t understand.’

      ‘I told you,’ she said, crossing her arms across her chest and pushing her lower lip out. ‘Because you said I didn’t have to work. And you told a lie!’

      ‘You don’t have to work.’

      ‘But you got a man with a camera!’

      The penny dropped. What had distressed her had clearly been Kieron’s bag of tricks. Being a bit of a techie – not to mention a new dad with a baby – he was keen to record every precious moment of this particular Christmas, and had accordingly brought his super-high-tech camera.

      And, with the benefit of hindsight, I could have kicked myself, truly, for being every bit as clueless as Darby herself had already pointed out.

      ‘Kieron? But he’s my son, Darby. Levi and Jackson’s uncle – you already know that.’

      The ridiculousness of what I’d just said struck me. My son. Somebody’s uncle. A succession of men coming round. I cringed inside. Coming round with one thing in mind. To provide material for the delectation of their sick friends, for money. Coming round, to see Darby, to film her playing dress up – then undress – as their little princess.

      Which meant she must be thinking that we had … It didn’t even bear thinking about. ‘Sweetheart,’ I said, dropping to my knees in front of her and taking her hands. ‘You do not have to work. You will never have to work again – not in that way. That’s a promise. No one will ever make you dress up, or take your clothes off, or work here, you understand that? Never. The dress is for you. It’s for you to wear because you want to. Not because anyone wants you to get dressed up to work. It’s …’

      I floundered. How the hell did you discuss such vile things? How did you begin to explain something so horrible? What words did you use to explain to a six-year-old that she was not going to have to spend any part of Christmas Day being photographed and filmed simulating sex acts with toys for God knows how many men, pay-per-view?

      I handed Darcy her jeans, suddenly remembering a headline I’d seen calling for paedophiles to be castrated. It wasn’t that simple. It would never be that simple. But right at that minute, I couldn’t have agreed more.

      In the end, after another bout of tears, and many assurances, Darby decided she did want to put the dress back on. So I re-dressed her, did her hair again, and listened to her talking about how work could be so boring sometimes, and how sometimes she got a very sore twinkle, and how at other times men came round who didn’t smell nice and shouted at her when she didn’t play properly.

      She had really begun to open up now – which was distressing in itself, as I realised her former reticence about telling of her experiences was simply because she’d been told that if she said anything to anyone, the consequences would be dire. And that was up to and including her mum saying if she wasn’t good, she’d not be allowed out of the ‘pink fluffy handcuffs’ and miss her tea.

      She talked of ‘only ever being allowed to wear pretty clothes for the pictures’. Of not ‘minding it so much most of the time, only sometimes’, but of being lonely. And of wanting to ‘have friends round to play’, and not ever being allowed to. Out it all came – all of a chitter-chatter, as I tied her second ponytail. All so much everyday girl talk.

      And down we went then, me hoping Mike would have explained just enough that her peculiar outburst would be put into some sort of box, so that we could gloss over it now, ready to welcome Riley and everyone when they arrived, and get on with enjoying our Christmas Day.

      And it appeared he had. ‘Well, look at you,’ said my mum when Darby returned and did a twirl for her. ‘You know what?’ she said, pointing upwards. ‘You look just as pretty as a princess!’

      Our little princess. As advertised by devils. I could have wept.

      Chapter 8

      Had that been the end of it, I imagine we would have carried on over Christmas, doing what foster carers everywhere do – trying to minimise a child’s distress by keeping them distracted and as happy as possible under their invariably traumatic circumstances, while at the same time staying mindful of the root of their vulnerability without fixating on the evils of the world and the bleakness of such a damaged child’s probable fate.

      As it was, though, there was more upset to come.

      Once she’d got over her anger about the lies she thought she’d been told, Darby soon returned to doing what any six-year-old would on Christmas morning, playing with her – and Tyler’s – Christmas presents, eating too much chocolate, and generally running around in an over-excited fashion.

      I was still on edge, even though now she knew she wasn’t going to have to ‘go to work’, Darby was becoming more relaxed and playful by the minute, her initial shyness around Kieron and Lauren having vanished.

      ‘Do you think it’s reasonable for me to ask Kieron not to film any of today?’ I asked Mike when I managed to engineer for us to snatch a couple of minutes to ourselves, ostensibly while taking bin bags of rubbish and wrappings out.

      ‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t see how. On what grounds? He’ll think you’ve gone mad.’

      ‘I was thinking, you know, on the grounds of Darby’s privacy, something like that. I don’t know … I just keep having this sense that she wants him to film her … Like she’s playing to the cameras, and, after what happened with Marley Mae the other day …’

      ‘Love, you know you can’t. And calm down. We’re all with her, aren’t we? What d’you think is going to happen when we’re all sitting around the living room?’

      ‘Yes, but no one but us knows what’s been done to her, do they? What she thinks is normal.’

      ‘Nor will they,’ Mike said grimly. ‘So before you suggest it, no quiet words with Kieron, either.’

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