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Chapter One

Twelve years later

Dani Sinclair heard the bell go for morning break. All around her, her classmates scuffed their chairs back and started talking. The teacher at the front of the class – Mr Wynn – called out something, but it was lost in the hubbub of noise as everyone hurried out excitedly for breaktime.

Everybody except Dani.

Nobody stopped to run out to the playground with her. Nobody called to her, or smiled at her, or paid her any attention at all. And for that, Dani was pleased. When the other children did pay attention to her, it wasn’t the kind of attention she wanted.

She was the last to leave the classroom, and Mr Wynn hurried her on. ‘Come on, Dani,’ he said impatiently. ‘Outside for break-time, please.’

Dani nodded timidly and left the classroom; Mr Wynn followed her out into the playground.

It was a clear winter’s day, cold enough for the raw chill of the air to burn Dani’s bare legs. Her school skirt was short, not as a fashion statement, but because her mum – her foster mum, actually – had not bought her any new clothes for ages. All her school mates seemed to have new trainers every other week, and they certainly noticed that Dani was not as well dressed as them. It was one of the many things that they used to pick on her.

She skirted round the edge of the playground, trying to make it look as if she was busy doing something when in fact she was just wandering aimlessly. As she passed certain groups of kids, they shouted names at her, but she was so used to them doing so that she hardly heard them.

Dani had been wandering for perhaps five minutes when they stopped her. Ashley and Tammy were the two most popular girls in the class. They had long hair and wore perfume and make-up, even though you weren’t supposed to at school. It made them look much older than their twelve years, and it also put them on a different side of the playground to Dani, who never had anything to make her look pretty. Ashley and Tammy were mean girls. They were always picking on Dani, always teasing her for being so quiet, always trying to get her to say dirty words she didn’t want to say. They made her cry on an almost daily basis, and she hated it when they turned their attention to her.

Dani tried to carry on walking, to get away from the potential confrontation, but they weren’t having it. Tammy wolf-whistled at her, and Ashley stepped forwards and grabbed hold of the hem of her skirt, pulling it up and down so that it billowed. From somewhere else, Dani heard the sound of other children laughing, and she felt blood rise to the skin of her face.

‘What you doing, Sinclair? Going on the pull?’ Ashley called.

Embarrassed, Dani looked down at the ground and carried on trying to walk away; but the girls kept following her.

‘Don’t think there’s anyone fancies you much round here,’ Tammy added.

‘Shut up,’ Dani retorted from behind clenched teeth.

It wasn’t like her to answer back. The other girls knew it and they jeered. Ashley went for the skirt again. This time, Dani swung round and lashed out at the other girl. It was a pitiful sight – Dani was no fighter, and the other two were good at it. Immediately they piled in, pushing Dani to the ground and pulling at her hair. Dani wanted to fight back, but she was not good at this sort of thing, and she curled up into a little ball as a crowd gathered round to watch the entertainment. There were shouts of encouragement as the girls started punching her curled-up body. Dani was in no doubt about who they all wanted to win the fight.

‘Fucking cry-baby,’ Ashley shouted gleefully when she noticed the hot tears that had suddenly started to stream down Dani’s face. And then again, in a sing-song voice, slightly babyish but all the more aggressive for that: ‘Fucking cry-baby …’

‘All right, you three. That’s enough!’ a man’s voice barked from nearby. Dani looked up to see Mr Wynn, his green eyes flashing angrily. ‘I said, that’s enough!’

The scratching and clawing stopped. Humiliated at being the only one still on the ground, Dani pushed herself up.

‘That’s not the first time I’ve seen you three fighting,’ Mr Wynn said severely. ‘I don’t expect to see it happening again.’

Dani looked wide-eyed at him, smarting from the injustice of it.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Miss Sinclair,’ Mr Wynn snapped. ‘I won’t have any fighting in the playground while I’m on duty. Is that understood?’

Dani felt herself nodding. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said quietly.

‘Ashley? Tammy?’

‘Yes, sir,’ they replied in unison, their voices chanting almost sarcastically.

‘Good.’ Mr Wynn nodded his head decisively, and then turned and walked to the other end of the playground. With his back to them, he did not see the spiteful little smile that Ashley and Tammy cast in Dani’s direction.

It was late on Friday evening, and there were three people in the meeting: Kate Swinton, a tall, curly-haired social worker with a thin face and kind eyes; Andy Martin, also a social worker – a young man with a shaved head to hide the fact that he was balding; and Alice Gray, a fair bit older than the other two, their line manager. It had been a long afternoon, and their meeting had overrun. All three of them were looking forward to getting out of the bland room in the council offices and going home. But there was a final case to get through before that could happen.

‘All right,’ Alice said with a sigh of relief. ‘Last one.’ She looked at the agenda on the table in front of her. ‘One of yours, I think, Kate?’

Kate Swinton nodded. ‘Dani Sinclair. Twelve years old. I’ve mentioned her to you once or twice before.’

Alice smiled. ‘Sorry, Kate,’ she said. ‘Heavy caseload. You’ll have to refresh my memory.’

Kate pulled a file out from a little pile by her side. ‘She’s only come my way in the last couple of years. Before that we had no reason to become involved. She was placed with a foster family at birth, a couple in south-west London. Two younger siblings, but neither of them fostered.’

‘Unusual,’ Andy butted in.

‘Mmm,’ Kate replied. ‘I spoke to the mother about it. They tried to conceive naturally for a long time before they fostered, and she fell pregnant soon afterwards.’

‘Sod’s law.’

‘Quite.’

‘Come on,’ their line manager said briskly. ‘Let’s wrap this up. What’s the problem with the child?’

‘Difficult to say,’ Kate told her. ‘On the surface of it, nothing – at least nothing that I can detect. She’s very quiet, and by all accounts finds it difficult to make friends. Young for her age, I’d say – not as streetwise as a lot of the kids we see nowadays. But that’s really nothing out of the ordinary – nothing that would require our intervention. It’s the mother who’s more of a worry. Her husband left the family home two years ago as a result of an affair, and he hasn’t been back since. Divorce is only just coming through now, but he’s not paying any maintenance, and the CSA being what it is …’

Alice rolled her eyes.

‘Exactly,’ Kate said. ‘Anyway, unusually it was the mother who got in touch with us. Her husband leaving hit her pretty hard, I think. She told me that it was getting more and more difficult to look after the three children, and she didn’t think she could continue fostering Dani.’

Both Alice and Andy blinked. ‘How old did you say the girl was again?’

‘Twelve.’

‘And she’s lived with the foster mother all her life?’

Kate nodded.

Alice shook her head. ‘Some people—’ she muttered. ‘Are you trying to tell me she’s requesting that the girl be reassigned?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Has she given you any reason, other than not being able to cope? Any real reason, I mean?’

‘Yes. She’s complaining that the child is showing signs of becoming violent.’

‘Violent?’

‘Getting into fights at school, attacking the other two children at home.’

‘Have you spoken to the school about it?’

‘Yes.’ Kate pulled a piece of paper out of her file and glanced at it. ‘I spoke to a Gina Sawyer, her class teacher. She seemed very surprised by the suggestion that Dani was aggressive. My understanding is that Dani Sinclair does get into scrapes, but they’re not of her own making.’

‘Bullying?’

Kate shrugged slightly. ‘Her teacher didn’t use that word, but that’s what it sounded like to me.’

Alice frowned. ‘Poor little thing. What’s your take on it?’

Kate took a deep breath. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the mother’s approached us, so we have to follow it up. I don’t think there’s any doubt that she’s finding things tough. Money’s obviously tighter than it used to be, which doesn’t help matters. But in my view, moving the child from her family home would be deeply traumatic, especially if she’s having difficulty at school. I think it should be avoided.’

‘I’m assuming you have no reason to believe the child is in danger. No signs of abuse?’

Kate shook her head. ‘As I say, she’s a very retiring kind of girl. It’s difficult to get much out of her. I wouldn’t say she’s the happiest child I’ve ever met, but no, I wouldn’t say she’s demonstrating any of the warning signs.’

‘Do you think we need a supervision order?’

‘I’d say it’s early days for that.’

‘OK.’ Alice looked at Kate and Andy. ‘Kate, you need to keep tabs on the family – keep an eye out for any deterioration. But are we agreed that it’s in the child’s best interest for her to stay where she is?’

‘Absolutely,’ the two social workers said in unison.

‘Good.’ Alice smiled at them. ‘Well, I guess that wraps everything up.’ She scraped her chair back and stood up. ‘Have a good weekend, you two. I’ll see you both on Monday.’

Dani Sinclair had dark brown hair, pale skin and clear brown eyes. She was small for her age, though close up you could tell that she was almost a teenager. When she cried, the tears would collect in her lower lids like water swelling against a dam; but the dam would eventually break, and the tears would suddenly wet her cheeks profusely. It happened a lot. Dani was a tearful little girl, not robust like some children, and she found it difficult to stop herself from crying when she started to feel the tears coming.

She felt them coming now as she sat at the meal table with the two younger ones. It was fish fingers for tea.

Dani didn’t really like fish fingers – didn’t like the way the fish oozed a kind of milky sap against the orange breadcrumbs when they were warm. But she never said so because the other two – James and Rebecca – loved them. Instead, she pushed the little pieces around her plate, occasionally summoning up the courage to eat a mouthful. She knew that they just got worse as they grew colder, but that didn’t make it any easier to eat them up when they were hot.

At the other side of the small kitchen, their mum clattered around at the sink. Dani would be in trouble when her mum saw that she had barely eaten any of the food, and that thought spurred her on a bit. She stuck her fork into a piece of fish finger, put it in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. She shivered as the food went down.

‘Finished!’ Rebecca shouted loudly.

‘Me too!’ James chimed in.

Their mum turned from the sink, suds dripping from the yellow washing-up gloves she was wearing. She walked to the table and picked up the two empty plates, before looking down at Dani’s.

Dani returned the look and steeled herself for what was to come.

‘You’re a fussy little beggar, Dani,’ she snapped. ‘Why can’t you eat the food I give you? Why can’t you be more like your brother and sister?’

Dani kept quiet, and endured the smug stares coming from the younger children.

‘Go on,’ her mum said waspishly. ‘I’m sick of the sight of you. Go to your room.’

Silently Dani got down from the table, left the kitchen and trudged up the stairs. ‘And when your Auntie Rose comes round, you make sure you don’t have that surly bloody look on your face!’ Mum’s voice carried up the stairs.

‘Dani never eats her dinner, does she, Mum?’ she heard Rebecca saying from the kitchen.

‘Shut up, Rebecca,’ the little girl was told.

Mum wasn’t her real mum. Dani had known that for as long as she could remember. But she hadn’t always been like this. In Dani’s earliest memories, things had been happier. There had been a man in the house, for one thing – the man she called Daddy. He had been kind to the children, and to Dani in particular. One day, however, he wasn’t there any more. Dani asked any number of times where her Daddy had gone, but she never received a straight answer from her mum. It was left to her to piece things together from half-heard conversations between grown-ups not intended for her ears. Conversations about things she didn’t really understand.

Dani opened the door to her bedroom. The other two children shared a room, but having a room to herself was not intended as a treat for Dani – she knew that well enough. It was because Rebecca would rather share with James than with her. Their room was nice and big; Dani’s was tiny, with room for only a small single bed and an old chest of drawers. But she didn’t mind. No one ever really disturbed her in here. It was the one place she could go and be sure of being by herself. She sat on the bed, hugged her knees and rested her head against the wall. The wallpaper was pink; her dad had put it up for her before he left and nowit was looking a bit old and tatty – in one corner it was coming away from the wall. There wasn’t any point mentioning it to Mum, of course, any more than it was worth mentioning the trouble she’d had at school that day. She would probably just shout at her, so she kept quiet about it.

Downstairs, she heard the television being switched on. Dani would have liked to have gone down to watch it with the others, but she chose not to – not with Mum in the mood she was in. Much better, she had learned, to keep herself to herself. She put her thumb in her mouth, closed her eyes and gently rocked herself. It would be bedtime soon. Bedtime was all right. When the lights were out, she could lose herself in her own little world and pretend things were better than they really were.

In truth, she knew, they could hardly be worse.

It had been several months ago that Mum had first told her she didn’t want Dani to live with them any more. Her words rang in the little girl’s head more clearly than anything anyone had ever said to her. At first she had persuaded herself that it was just a joke, that she didn’t really mean it; but when she kept repeating it in moments of anger, Dani wasn’t so sure. The arrival of the social worker had confirmed it for her. She was a nice lady called Kate, who had come to talk first to Mum and then to Dani herself. The grown-ups didn’t know that Dani had listened in on their conversation, however; they didn’t know she had heard her mum beg the social worker to take her away. ‘I can’t cope with her any more,’ Mum had said. ‘She’s going off the rails, always fighting other kids and bullying her brother and sister.’

Dani had blinked. She didn’t recognise herself in that description at all. But she knew that she would have to try very hard to make her mum want her again. It was difficult, though. Dani never seemed to be able to do anything right. Anything at all. She was always being shouted at, complained about. One time, Mum had even hit her – not hard, but hard enough to bring those tears to her eyes that always seemed to enrage her mother even more.

The very thought of it made her want to cry now.

She was woken from her reverie by the ringing of the doorbell and a little fluttering of apprehension in her stomach. That would be Auntie Rose. Dani couldn’t decide what to do. If she stayed here in her bedroom, she would be told off and accused of being unfriendly; but if she went downstairs, no doubt they would find something to complain about. Dani sat still, paralysed by indecision for a few minutes, before finally deciding to leave the safety of her bedroom and venture back downstairs. She grabbed the little pink and blue teddy bear – the one that had been hers ever since she was a baby, which was now worn and tatty and was still deeply loved – and went down.

At first, nobody noticed her standing in the doorway of the front room. Mum was in the kitchen, for a start, while James and Rebecca stood around Auntie Rose. Dani’s aunt – her mum’s sister – was a chubby lady. In her private moments, Dani had always thought that she looked a bit like a toad – a fat, poisonous toad with jowly cheeks and flat eyes that would sit there, hardly moving, waiting to be fed. She looked particularly toad-like today, sitting on the comfortable sofa with a wide, indulgent smile on her face. In her hands there was a large, dark green plastic bag. Not the sort of plastic bag Mum brought back from the supermarket: this was thicker and altogether more exciting – you could tell just by looking at it that it contained something more fun than food shopping. James and Rebecca could tell that too. They stood excitedly on tiptoes, waiting to see what their aunt had brought them.

James’s present came out first – a shiny metal car in a bright yellow box. ‘Thank you, Auntie Rose,’ he gabbled automatically, before taking his gift off to a corner of the room to unwrap it further. Meanwhile, Auntie Rose was removing something else from the bag. Rebecca looked a little crestfallen when she saw what it was: a magic wand, with a star at one end and a little button at the other. She pressed the button and the wand lit up, a sparkling golden colour. There was a tiara too, which Auntie Rose placed on Rebecca’s head before pinching her affectionately on the cheek.

‘Auntie Rose,’ Rebecca said in a quiet, whingey voice. ‘I’m too old for toys like that. I’m not a baby.’

Auntie Rose bristled slightly, and looked as if she was about to tell Rebecca off for her ingratitude; but at that moment she noticed Dani, and the indulgent smile fell from her face. ‘Dani,’ she said abruptly, as though greeting a grown-up she didn’t like very much. Her voice was lower than that of most of the women Dani knew.

‘Hello, Auntie Rose,’ Dani replied politely. She glanced at Rebecca’s glowing wand and the plastic bag. She didn’t really expect there to be anything in it for her, but she couldn’t help feeling a whisper of hope.

Auntie Rose looked away. ‘You’re too old for toys like that, Dani,’ she said by way of explanation that the bag was empty.

Dani felt a tiny crush of disappointment. In her mind she searched for the words to explain that Rebecca was only a year younger than her; but it wasn’t in her nature to answer back, and anyway, before she could say anything, she felt her mum pushing past her into the front room.

‘You spoil them, Rose,’ she said perfunctorily. ‘They’ve got enough toys as it is.’ She handed her sister one of the glasses of wine she was carrying, and then took a hearty swig from her own.

‘I like to spoil them, Tess,’ Auntie Rose replied. She also took a sip from her wine, and the awkwardness with Dani seemed to be immediately forgotten as they started chatting. Unobserved, Dani took a step backwards, and then silently climbed back upstairs to the refuge of her bedroom.

It had always been like this. Even before Dad left, Dani had always felt second best. Mum made no secret about it – about the fact that after Rebecca and James came along, she had wanted Dani to move somewhere else. It was Dad who had insisted on her staying, but now he had left. ‘Run off’ was the phrase everyone used. And since then, Mum had seemed increasingly bitter towards the little girl, as though she had been left with a burden she had long since lost interest in but couldn’t get rid of.

It was just the way things were. But that didn’t stop it hurting every time she was left out. It didn’t stop the little surge of embarrassment and shame coming to her cheeks. It didn’t stop her from almost crying. She was almost crying now, as she sat once more on her bed, waiting for night-time to come.

Half an hour later, perhaps a little more, she heard James and Rebecca traipsing upstairs. There was a time when Dani would be in charge of making sure they brushed their teeth and washed their faces, but that time was long gone – there was no way her siblings would ever put up with being bossed around by Dani now. And so she waited, listening for the sounds of them getting ready for bed to die away. Eventually she heard footsteps up the stairs – not the fast, impatient footsteps of her mum but the more plodding gait of Auntie Rose. She listened as the footsteps went into James and Rebecca’s room. It sounded as if she was going to read them a story. Stories were a bit babyish, she knew. Still, for a moment Dani considered knocking on their door and asking if she could listen too, just for a bit of company. Just to feel as if she was part of things. But she soon discarded that thought. They probably wouldn’t say no, but it would still be clear to everyone – her included – that she wasn’t really welcome there. No, there wouldn’t be a story for Dani tonight. There hadn’t been a story for her since the night her dad had left.

A few minutes passed, and eventually Dani heard Auntie Rose going back downstairs again. She would be staying until late in the evening, drinking wine with Mum until they both became drunk and noisy. Dad never liked Mum drinking alcohol, but she did it more and more now, as if she was punishing him for going off like that, proving that she could have a nice time without him. But it never really seemed to Dani that she was having a nice time – not if the way her mood got even worse the morning after was anything to go by.

Dani gave it a few more minutes before deciding to go and brush her teeth and get ready for bed herself.

It was dark outside now, and the landing light had been switched off. Rebecca’s wand caught Dani’s eye the moment she stepped out of her bedroom door. It was lying on the floor, discarded but still switched on, its glow bathing the landing in a soft, golden light. To Dani’s young eyes, it looked like some kind of treasure, and she found herself walking almost automatically towards it. She knelt down and gingerly picked it up.

It was such a beautiful thing, she thought. She couldn’t understand why Rebecca hadn’t liked it, why she had just left it lying there. If it had been Dani’s, she would have taken better care of it; she would have put it somewhere special in her room and made sure it could not get damaged by accident. She longed to take it to bed with her, keeping it switched on under the covers so that everything would be suffused with its magical light.

Gently, Dani switched if off and then on again; off and on. She waved it in the air, drawing an elegant curve as she whispered something under her breath – a magic spell in an invented language. How the others in her class at school would laugh at her if they saw her doing this – Dani was always going off in her own little world, and being teased for doing so.

‘What you doing with my toy?’

Dani jumped, and looked guiltily over her shoulder. Rebecca was standing there in her nightdress, an accusing look on her face.

‘Nothing. Nothing … I was just—’

‘Give it here.’ Dani’s foster sister lashed her arm out and grabbed the other end of the wand. It happened in a split second – the golden star at the end broke off in Rebecca’s hand, and the light was immediately extinguished, plunging the landing into a semi-darkness that was broken only by the light from the hallway downstairs. For a moment the two girls looked in silent horror at the broken toy, and Dani felt a twist of apprehension in the pit of her stomach.

She knew what was coming.

Sure enough, her ears were suddenly filled with the sound of Rebecca’s wailing scream. ‘Mum! Mum! Look what she’s done now, Mum!’ Then she threw the piece of the wand that was in her hand down to where Dani was kneeling.

Dani froze as she heard the sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs. The landing light was turned on and there she was, Dani’s foster mother, looking down on her as she held half the broken toy in her hand.

In her little mind, time seemed to stand still.

Then the air was full of screaming. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Dani’s tongue seemed to stick in her throat, and her body started to shake as she tried to catch her breath. ‘I didn’t …’ she whispered.

Then Rebecca was screaming too. ‘She broke it! She broke my wand! It was her – I saw her do it!’

Suddenly Auntie Rose was there, wrapping Rebecca in her arms and whispering soothing words to her. Dani’s mum, however, had grabbed Dani by the arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Get to your room,’ she hissed, and she pushed the little girl along the landing and through the door, slamming it closed so that the two of them were shut in there. Dani thought she could smell wine on her.

‘I’m sick of you!’ her mum blazed. ‘You haven’t got a fucking idea, have you? What it’s like.’

Dani was sobbing uncontrollably, great heaving sobs shaking through her whole body. She desperately wanted to explain to her mum that she hadn’t broken Rebecca’s toy, that she wouldn’t, but the words would not form in her mouth.

The little girl’s sobs seemed only to enrage her foster mother even more. ‘What have you got to say for yourself? What have you got to say for yourself?’

She didn’t answer, and her silence seemed to push the woman over the edge. It seemed to happen in slow motion as she raised her hand and brought it down with a surprising, shocking force against the side of Dani’s face. She started to fall towards her bed, and as she did so, her ankle twisted, as did her body. With a sharp, sickening bang, her face fell against the corner of her chest of drawers. The thud seemed to go all through her as she continued falling to the floor, and within a few seconds she felt a burning, stinging sensation creep over her skin. She looked up at her mum, who was standing above her, eyes blazing. She seemed surprised by what she had just done, but not, Dani thought, sorry.

‘I wish we’d never set eyes on you,’ her mum hissed, and Dani thought she could detect a slurring in her voice. ‘It was him that insisted on taking you in. Him. Twelve years, and never a word of thanks for what I’ve done. And how dare you go around breaking my daughter’s toys? How fucking dare you?’

Dani just stared at her, wide-eyed.

‘You’re an arrogant little cow,’ her mum said, delivering a parting shot before turning round, leaving the room and slamming the door behind her.

Dani stayed on the floor for several minutes, her hand pressed painfully to the side of her face that her mum had hit with such sudden violence, tears welling in her eyes. There was the murmur of voices on the landing – Auntie Rose calming Mum down – but no one came to Dani’s room. Noone came to check that she was all right.

Dani didn’t clean her teeth that night or wash her face. She just removed her clothes, switched off the light and climbed into bed. She wept for a long time, being sure not to make too much noise about it.

After all, she had created enough trouble for one day.