A Stolen Childhood (16 page)

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, that she works in a care home, anyway. She didn’t specify in what capacity. But, yes.’

He nodded, as if satisfied that I’d answered correctly. ‘Well, let me tell you, you’re right. She cares, all right,’ he said. ‘Takes care of all the blokes that are willing to pay her a tenner for a quickie down some alley. You know what I’m saying?’ He paused to smile mirthlessly. ‘You beginning to get my drift?’

Chapter 12

Still in shock, I decided to drive straight back to school to see if I could catch someone before they left for home. This really wasn’t something I wanted to sit on all night. I was hopeful, as well, because almost all of the teaching staff, and certainly Gary, tended to stay on for at least an hour and often more at the end of the school day, there being scant time available, even with many of us starting an hour early, to prepare everything that needed preparing ready for the following school day.

I hadn’t stayed long after Mr Bentley’s revelation. It had been altogether too much to take in. And he’d point blank refused to be drawn further into it. Though he didn’t seem to be regretting spilling the beans regarding his ex-wife’s
real
profession (about which I was gobsmacked – could that really be true?) he would not comment further except to repeat what he’d already said: ‘You know what I’m saying?’ Well, yes, shocking as it was, I did.

I’d asked to use the facilities, however, grim though I’d imagined they’d be to someone with a bleach habit as entrenched as I had, and on the way back (reasonably untraumatised, when compared with what he’d just told me) I took the opportunity to poke my head round the door to the second bedroom, which looked pretty much the same as the other rooms I’d been in – bar a newly painted pink wall, that was –
check
. Though Kiara was obviously expected to sleep on a mattress on the floor, amid half a dozen of those checked, woven zip-up plastic laundry bags, which I presumed formed the remainder of Mr Bentley’s storage.

When I returned to the living room, Mr Bentley himself had been bustling around, tidying up further – almost as if he expected his revelation to set a ball rolling, and that he wanted the place looking nice before the next ‘official’ came round. I really didn’t know what to make of any of it.

I was therefore now desperate to speak to Gary. Yes, it could have waited – what difference was a day going to make, after all? But I didn’t want to wait. I just couldn’t get to grips with what Mr Bentley had told me and I needed to share it with someone else. It just sounded like the most unlikely thing imaginable, even though, at the same time, my brain was now working overtime, remembering all the oddities and inconsistencies in what I’d already seen and heard, and trying to overlay what I knew of Kiara’s life with her mother, with what I’d just seen of her father. Most of all, I needed guidance about how best I should follow it up – and I was keen to get some before I saw Kiara the following morning, because I knew that
what
I knew would affect everything.

I was in luck. I could hear Gary tapping away on his keyboard even as I headed down the corridor. Still there, then. I knocked on the open door as I went in.

‘You heard, then?’ he asked me. ‘Poor Mike.’

‘Poor Mike what?’ I asked him. ‘
Which
Mike?’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘
Our
Mike. Looks like he’s going to have to have his appendix out after all.’

‘After all?’ I asked, taking the seat he’d gestured I sit down on.

‘Sorry – you’re probably not up to speed. That’s what it’s been – a “grumbling” appendix. Grumbling no more, apparently. Full on complaining. He left in an ambulance, just over an hour back – you might have even passed it on your way to your visit.’

‘Oh, my God – is he alright?’

‘Well, no one seemed to think that he wouldn’t be, least of all him, he said. You know what his last words were when we waved him off to hospital?’

‘No. What?’

‘They’ll think I’ve rigged it – just so we can postpone the inspection!’

Gary laughed. ‘Respect, eh? And, of course, he’s right. They’ll probably have to.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ I said again. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘So that’s not why you’re here then,’ Gary said.

‘No, no, it’s not,’ I said, mentally regrouping.

‘I know that face, Casey,’ Gary said. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s been a development,’ I told him as I sat down. ‘With Mr Bentley.’

Gary clicked his mouse and put his computer to sleep temporarily. ‘Okayyy … What sort of development? “Not an encouraging one” would be my educated guess.’

‘It would be a good guess as well,’ I said. ‘I’m shell-shocked, to be honest. Though it’s not about him. It’s about what he’s
told
me.’

‘Which is?’

I relayed the gist of my meeting with Kiara’s father and, as verbatim as I could, what he’d said to me before I left, watching Gary’s reactions to it as I spoke. I had been horrified myself, perhaps even more gobsmacked than I might have been, because if it was all true, it wasn’t just that Mrs Bentley didn’t look like a prostitute: if it really was, then I’d been completely and utterly hoodwinked. But perhaps that was my failing, for having such a clear idea in my head of what a prostitute would look like. Which was insane anyway. I knew as much as the next person about Cynthia Payne, didn’t I? Which was a thought that really brought me up short.

But Gary never so much as raised an eyebrow, much less flinched. ‘Ri-ight,’ he said finally, once I’d finished recounting the details. ‘So.’

He left a pause, as if to collect his thoughts, but more, I thought, from habit. His was a job that required an element of calm and cool rather than a tendency to hot-headedness, however hair-raising some of the things he’d seen and heard. ‘We-ell,’ he went on finally, ‘the first thing we have to consider is that what you’ve been told could just be bitter tit-for-tat nonsense, couldn’t it? We both know there is no love lost between the pair of them, after all. On the other hand, if it
is
true, then we have something else to consider.’ Another pregnant pause. ‘And that is – is it even our business?’

I was stunned. It was obviously my day for being stunned. ‘What?’ I said, aghast. ‘But of course it’s our business! How could it not be?’

Gary moved a pen a couple of inches across his desk. ‘But, Casey, if Kiara is being looked after, fed, clothed and generally brought up well, then she isn’t in any danger, is she? Yes, granted, what her mother
might
be doing to earn a living is against the law – and, if so, potentially actionable, but not necessarily by the school. Unless Kiara is at risk, then I have to be careful how I approach something like this. Yes, again, as a Child Protection Officer, I have a duty of care towards the child, but I also have to be
very
sure about the facts before throwing around any accusations. Imagine the implications. Kiara would be snatched up from that lovely home you saw, and taken into care, which would obviously be very traumatic for her, and also for ever smeared by the allegations against her mother. Do you see? We have to consider the possible consequences. We have to think.’

I didn’t want to think at that moment. I wanted to act. But after allowing Gary’s words to sink in, I realised he had a valid point. The last thing I wanted was to be the cause of turning Kiara’s life upside down, particularly if all it came down to was a bunch of nasty, unfounded allegations by her ex.

‘You’re right.’ I sighed. ‘I know you’re right. But oh, I’m so
angry
, Gary. If it turns out to be true, then that woman is some bloody actress, I’ll give her that. It’s making me wonder though, it really is. On the way back here, you know what struck me most? That every single time I’ve ever mentioned her mum’s job, Kiara’s given me this strange look – a weird sort of look, as though she knows something I don’t. Do you know what I mean? Well, you probably don’t – it’s not even something I can really pin down – just this sense that there’s something going on behind her eyes. Something that makes me think she’s carrying around secrets. Perhaps that’s key to everything; perhaps that’s why she keeps herself to herself, doesn’t have friends round the house … God, Gary – d’you think Mrs Bentley takes
clients home
?’

‘Whoah, there, ‘Gary said. ‘You’re running away with yourself here, Casey. All we have is a derogatory comment by an obviously antagonistic ex. And with some motivation, given what you’ve told me about the situation. Perhaps it’s all part of a ploy to get more access to his child. Though if so, slinging mud isn’t exactly the best way to go about it –’

‘But it might be
true
.’

‘You could be right,’ Gary conceded. ‘But even so, it’s important we don’t act in haste. To be honest, this is something I’d like to talk through with Mike first, which – hmm, not the best timing, is it?’ I shook my head. No, it wasn’t. ‘Which isn’t going to be able to happen for a good bit now, I don’t think. Which means I need to speak to someone else. Someone who can guide me through the protocol for a situation like this. If indeed there even
is
one.’

But I was still having visions of what sort of things – well, potentially at least – young Kiara might be being exposed to. No wonder she felt isolated. No wonder she wanted to be with her father. No wonder she was tired all the time and had developed a self-soothing tic. For me, it was all adding up now. ‘Can’t we speak to Donald?’ I suggested. ‘As deputy, wouldn’t he be automatically the man to go to when the head’s not here?’

Gary nodded. ‘Indeed we could, and perhaps we should, but I’m still inclined to caution. He’d have said the same as me; that it would make sense to run things by Mike first – or someone in a position of similar authority, anyway. We also need to properly review the evidence we
do
have; perhaps even to talk more to Kiara herself. Not overtly. I think “softly softly” is the way to go here. At least in the short term. If she’s not deemed at risk – which it doesn’t appear she is, then we have to wait and sit it out, I’m afraid.’ He leaned closer, as if to emphasis his next words. ‘Though, trust me, Casey, I won’t just leave this; I promise, I will do a bit of digging.’

I could only wait and hope, then – that he dug down deep enough.

Life is full of ironies, in all sorts of ways, and nothing seemed as ironic as the situation I found myself in over the following week. When I was told that Mr Moore wouldn’t be returning till sometime after the half-term holidays (and he
had
had his appendix out, to be fair) I found myself in exactly the same situation as I imagined Kiara was in with
me
– possessed of a secret that I couldn’t share with her. And just to heap a further irony upon the one I was already carrying, I’d never seen her so apparently happy. Strange and closed-off and self-contained as she had been up to now, I was beginning to see an alternative Kiara; more outgoing – she and Chloe were apparently very much BFFs – and more relaxed as well; she now seemed to be leaving her hair alone. And though I suspected she was still up far too late in the evenings, there was a spring in her step that I’d not seen before.

Her father’s doing? When she skipped in the following Monday (he was good as his word, then) I wondered if her brightness was born out of the belief that he was going to arrange things so she could stay with him more. Or, more than that – would he even try for custody? Wouldn’t any father, knowing what he knew?

But then, how did he know? And how
long
had he known? There was just so much we didn’t know, and it grated on me. And there was a third irony, right there in front of me. Just as Kiara was sorting out her life and happiness, I was basically plotting to destroy it. It just didn’t add up.

The half-term holiday seemed to take an age coming round, but at least I had something else to focus on: the fact that we’d be moving into our lovely new bungalow. And though it meant I’d spent every weeknight coming home from work and then lugging furniture and filling boxes, I couldn’t have been happier about the timing.

There was also the fact that it meant I could go shopping. A new home naturally meant I needed new things to go in it – at the very least new curtains, new light shades, and new rugs and cushions. Everyone knew this. It was a family given.

‘But why?’ Mike moaned on the Saturday night when, with me surrounded by catalogues, he could hardly find a space on the sofa. ‘It’s only two bloody minutes since you changed everything last time! Why does every move come with spending a fortune?’

‘You know the old saying,’ I told him. ‘Out with the old, in with the new. That’s why.’

‘Er, Mum,’ Kieron butted in, ‘I think that saying is supposed to be used on New Year’s Eve – not every time anyone moves house.’

I gave my ‘too clever for his own good’ son a withering look. ‘Even
so
,’ I pointed out, ‘you grotty pair probably won’t have noticed, but all the old stuff is so out of date now, it’s practically ancient. We’re upgrading and that’s that. I wouldn’t
dare
hang these old curtains in that new neighbourhood!’

But, for all my excitement, the move itself didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. Having taken a week off at Easter, Mike had been unable to do so again, and Kieron wasn’t much help either. Yes, he’d got the week off from college, but had gone to play football as usual the first Saturday and had, rather conveniently to my mind, badly twisted his ankle.

With Kieron out of action, and Riley at work, I’d had no choice but to beg help from my poor beleaguered parents, who, though fit and pretty well, were both in their sixties and hadn’t done much in the way of heavy lifting for quite a few years. As a result I had to do the bulk of it, which meant it all went very slowly, leading to the realisation that the sensible thing would be to take an extra day off at the end of half-term.

I was perfectly within my rights to do this, as it was part of my contract, but I still felt awful when I called the school early on the Monday morning, to explain that I wouldn’t make it in till the Wednesday. I felt bad because it meant that Jim, my fellow behaviour manager, would have to take over the Unit for me, and worse still when the school secretary reminded me that Morgan, the traveller girl who was coming to sit her GCSEs, would be starting, and I wouldn’t be there to welcome her myself.