A Dark Secret. Casey Watson
imply that she wasn’t. At least I didn’t doubt she’d have seen it that way.
Instead I burbled on about it being easier, since I didn’t have little ones to think about, but when I rang off the intensity of her emotion still dogged me. Just how much of a challenge was this little boy going to be? Surely a child of nine couldn’t be that much of a handful?
I said as much to Mike as he handed me my coffee and we prepared, as a family, to welcome our little visitor together – something that mattered at any time, obviously, but particularly with a child thought to be on the spectrum because change can be hard for such children. So to meet us as a single smiling unit – a wall of warmth and reassurance – would be helpful in managing his inevitable anxiety. Something now made much worse, of course, by this second, sudden, unexpected move and the confusion that would inevitably accompany it.
‘Well,’ Mike said, ‘like you always say yourself, love, it doesn’t matter where they come from, it only matters where they’re going. You already knowing Kelly and Steve shouldn’t really make a difference. And it sounds to me, given the situation with his own siblings, that it might not have been the best choice of family set-up.’ He raised a palm. ‘Though, yes, of course I know there probably wasn’t a choice.’
‘What will be, will be, I suppose,’ I said, automatically checking that the kettle was filled enough to make Christine a cup of tea when she arrived. It was scalding. Mike had obviously beaten me to it, bless him.
And it was only to be Christine, which was highly unusual. A child would usually arrive with their social worker, too. But it turned out that Sam didn’t even have a social worker. It had all happened so fast that the emergency duty team (EDT) had taken care of things, and apparently the only member of staff with space on his books – a Colin Sampson – was away on annual leave till the end of next week.
Colin would be assigned to Sam once he was back, at which point we’d all meet, but, in the meantime, if I had any sort of crisis I would have to call on the duty team. I mentally crossed my fingers that that wouldn’t come to pass. Now I’d agreed to take him on, doing my best ‘knightess on white charger’ impression, I would look pretty stupid if I was calling out the cavalry within the week.
More to the point, the poor lad must be traumatised enough.
‘Mum, I see him,’ Tyler said from his station by the window. ‘Aw, he’s dead tiny, he looks really cute. Not sure what he’s up to, exactly – he seems to be marching on the spot – but he definitely doesn’t look dangerous.’
I’d given Tyler the facts, of course. It was important that he knew what we were dealing with. And following the problems our last foster child, Miller, had caused him, I couldn’t blame him for checking Sam out. Things were okay now; on Miller’s respite visits they rubbed along just fine. But every new child was a journey into the unknown for Tyler too.
And he was right. At first sight, Sam did indeed look very cute. Almost angelic, in fact, with shoulder-length, dirty-blond hair, which hung straight down over his skinny shoulders. And, as Tyler had observed, he seemed to be marching on the spot, while Christine stood by, patiently watching, holding a small suitcase. We all watched him too, till they finally set off down our front path, and I went to the front door to let them in.
Sam was shiny as a pin – Kelly had obviously bought a selection of new clothes for him – and like many a child before him, standing on this very spot, looked every bit as anxious as I’d expected.
‘One hundred,’ he announced, talking to a spot just above his feet. ‘A one-hundred-step path. One hundred steps exactly.’ He then wiped his brow theatrically, and exhaled as if he’d just climbed a very big hill. He straightened the backpack on his shoulders, and tugged on Christine’s coat sleeve. ‘That’s a very long path, Mrs Bolton.’
Though I wasn’t sure what to make of this, that was par for the course. But Christine gave me a quick glance before smiling at him and nodding. ‘It certainly is, Sam, especially when we’ve had to do eighty-five of them on the spot. Sam has a bit of an obsession with the number one hundred, Casey,’ she explained. ‘It couldn’t have been the number five or six, could it, Sam?’
I saw the trace of a smile cross the boy’s elfin features. They’d obviously discussed this. And no doubt Christine would enlighten me later. In the meantime, it had broken the ice, and I laughed as I led them through to the dining area.
Mike was already setting down the teapot, Tyler pouring milk into a mug.
‘Alright, mate?’ he asked Sam. ‘I’m Tyler. Pleased to meet you. Want a drink and a biscuit?’
Sam’s gaze darted towards him, then away again. He shook his head.
‘He’s literally just had his tea,’ Christine explained.
‘Well, in that case,’ Ty continued, as per our usual plan, ‘do you want to come upstairs with me and see your bedroom?’
He held out a hand, and Sam eyed this too. Then, after checking wordlessly with Christine, who nodded an affirmative, began to shrug his backpack from his shoulders.
‘Could you look after my bag, please?’ he asked her politely. ‘It’s a Spider-Man backpack and it’s very, very precious, so you won’t let anyone near it, will you?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Christine assured him. ‘Though why don’t you take it with you? Find a safe place to put it in your new room?’
Sam stood and seemed to think, the bag gripped tightly in his tiny hands. He was extremely slight for nine. Malnourished? Possibly.
‘Am I definitely, like, staying then?’ he asked Christine, in a whisper.
‘Yes, love,’ she said gently. ‘You’re definitely staying. Remember? Like I told you? And I know you’re going to like it.’ She glanced at Tyler, then back at Sam. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Go up with Tyler. See your bedroom, eh?’
‘And mine too,’ Tyler added, extending his hand a little further. ‘I’ve got a PlayStation, and I might just have a Spider-Man game too.’
This seemed sufficient to seal the deal, and though the hand was ignored, Sam seemed happy enough – well, at least not unhappy – to follow Tyler off upstairs.
‘Damn,’ I said to Christine, once they were safely out of earshot. ‘Trust me to spurn Spider-Man for Roblox.’
‘Oh, I really wouldn’t worry. Kelly told me she only bought it for him a couple of days back. He didn’t choose it. The counting to one hundred, though’ – she nodded back towards the hallway – ‘that’s apparently quite a big thing with him. I have no idea why, or whether it has any significance, but apparently he does it all the time.’
Mike handed Christine her tea and we sat down around the table, so we could get all the paperwork done. Though in this case, there wasn’t a lot of it. No history to peruse, obviously, just the usual Placement Plan. Plus a couple of signatures to confirm we took responsibility for any medical issues. And that was pretty much that – no more paperwork than you’d expect buying a second-hand car. Sold as seen. Sign on the dotted line and the child is all yours.
Christine must have read my thoughts. ‘Here you go,’ she said, smiling grimly as she handed me our copy. ‘Far as I know, only one careful owner.’
Joking aside, this was a necessarily serious business. And as Christine began telling us what she did know, I had the usual sinking sense that I was being told an all-too familiar story.
The police had been called to the family home just over a week previously, after a neighbour had alerted them to screams and bangs coming from the house, and of furniture being thrown into the back garden. Upon arrival the police had quickly assessed the situation and, suspecting that the mother was under the influence of drugs, had called social services to attend.
‘So, the two younger siblings