Читать книгу: «Groomed: Part 2 of 3: Danger lies closer than you think»

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,’ she’d said. ‘No, I wasn’t there!’ She’d apparently said it several times, too. But eventually, perhaps sick of the endless inquisition, she’d apparently screamed that all right, yes, she was there, and that of course she’d been holding the door shut. ‘I had to!’ she’d told them. ‘It’s my job to!’

The social worker questioning her had apparently then asked, ‘So it was your job to watch, was it? To watch and guard the door when the man came?’

And Keeley had apparently confirmed it.

‘Did you know about all this?’ I asked Danny, as early as was appropriate the following morning. I was keen to get hold of him in the window of opportunity between him getting to work and Keeley waking from her lengthy slumbers. I just couldn’t stop trying to answer my own question. Guard it against whom? The nosy neighbour? Keeley’s off-her-face mother? The police?

‘Yes, of course,’ Danny said, seemingly surprised that I even felt the need to bring it up. ‘Didn’t you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘EDT didn’t have all this, did they? That’s why I’ve been so keen to get my hands on Keeley’s full records. Seriously, Danny, she has absolutely no idea why she was separated from her brothers and sisters. Did you know that?’

There was a pause. Possibly pregnant. ‘Of course,’ he said again.

‘But you’ve never discussed it with her?’

‘No, of course not …’ He paused again, possibly weighing up what kind of woman he was dealing with. ‘There was no question of my doing so,’ he went on.

‘But why?’ I said, still not understanding.

‘Because what was the point?’ he said. ‘It’s not as if it was ever going to change anything, was it?’ Another pause. I waited. He eventually spoke again. ‘I think the feeling was – still is – that we should let sleeping dogs in that department lie. After all, as I say – and I think the feeling has always been this, to be honest – that it’s not as if we can help Keeley by going back over any of this, is it? And to lay it bare to her that she herself was the reason … well, that’s only going to make her feel even worse about herself, isn’t it? Assuming that’s even possible …’

He let it hang. And I stood there and weighed things up too. And thought back to two children we’d fostered before – the elder of which (in fact, both of which) had been similarly abused over several years. They too had been separated. To break the abuse cycle. To put it behind them. And, in that case, hand on heart, I realised I couldn’t argue. It had been the right decision. Perhaps it had been the right decision for Keeley too.

So I finally had my answer. And it settled things in my mind a bit more. Depressingly, it also put the phone sex into perspective. For a teen who, as a little girl, had been systematically abused by strange men, what she did on the phone for money must feel like water off a duck’s back. As if she was calling the shots. A kind of payback.

And Danny was right. I couldn’t change her past. Only help her with her future. It made me even more determined to see beyond the stroppy fifteen-year-old I was currently dealing with, and remember the frightened, abused ten-year-old beneath.

If sympathetic, Mike was also pragmatic. I’d droned on at him about it all as soon as I’d had the opportunity, but though he understood what I was saying he took the same view as Danny. How could it help Keeley psychologically to have chapter and verse on the reasons why she’d been separated from her siblings? It was all so much water under the bridge now, after all.

And I put it behind me, because they were both right. Did Keeley need any more reasons to feel bad about herself? No. She had enough of those already. But it galvanised me to the extent that I felt even more compelled to try and help her. To the extent that within the week I’d moved mountains for her. Well, various small heaps of educational red tape (challenging enough). And I eventually managed to sweet-talk my old colleague and friend Gary Clarke to offer Keeley a place on the Reach for Success programme that, as behaviour manager at the local comprehensive in my former life, I had helped set up.