by R. G. Adams
‘It’s time for the carers to hand over. So if you don’t mind . . .’
Fay appeared in the doorway, her coat on and her bag over her shoulder, arriving for her shift. She acknowledged Kit with a quick smile, then looked away awkwardly. Annie stood up, her back straight and her face composed. She went to the doorway and waited, ready to usher them out.
Kit thought quickly. ‘Before we go, could I use your toilet, please?’ she asked.
Annie was obviously reluctant, but she couldn’t say no. ‘Yes, all right, I think you know where it is?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Kit turned to Ricky. ‘You go down to the car, I won’t be long.’ He did as he was told, putting out his hand to shake Annie’s at the door. She didn’t offer her own in return and Ricky left, looking disappointed.
Kit headed for the downstairs toilet, in which she locked the door and then rested her hands on the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. She had to think for a minute. She had to find a way to persuade Annie to talk to Lucy. With Ricky out of the way, maybe she could risk disclosing something from the transcripts. But what? She knew she was only going to have a few seconds before Annie would manoeuvre her out of the house. And Annie was not going to want to listen. Still with no idea what to say, she opened the toilet door.
Annie was standing by the front door, waiting. She was half turned towards Kit, but was staring out of the window, absent for a moment. She was playing with her hair where it fell over her right shoulder. She cupped a thick strand in her palm, twisted the end in her fingers, then let it drop. The motion of Annie’s fingers running through her long hair triggered a picture, which flickered in Kit’s mind and made her stomach flip with disgust again. The picture wouldn’t stay still enough for her to see it properly.
Then she had it. She remembered Steph Harman reaching out and picking up a strand of Kit’s hair. And Nicolette’s transcript. ‘He’d touch our hair. Just reach out and play with it, wrapping it around his fingers. He said he liked long hair. He did it afterwards, too. Touching my hair and telling me not to cry.’
Kit remembered something else, too. Seeing Annie standing at the door reminded her of her visit to Matt Cooper at his parents’ house. How she’d been leaving, and he’d reached his hand out towards her in the doorway. Almost as if for a handshake but aiming too high. Had he actually been about to touch her hair?
Kit hated to hurt Annie, in spite of everything. She felt cruel, and a part of her wanted to back off, to leave it alone and close her mind to what Matt might have done and might yet do. To get on with her job and help all the other children who needed her. Or to get out altogether and just do something easier. But she knew that if she walked away at this point, she would never forgive herself.
Annie turned then, realising that Kit was there and got ready to see her out for the last time. Kit felt her way towards the right words, knowing she had only one chance. She crossed the hall. She stopped in front of Annie, standing uncomfortably close, so that she couldn’t get hold of the door handle without leaning in and brushing her arm across Kit’s back, which she was willing to bet Annie wouldn’t do.
‘I’m going now, Annie, and I don’t suppose you’ll see me again. Please think about speaking to Lucy.’
‘Just go.’
‘Yes. But there’s one thing that I want you to know. Nicolette and Steph said something in their interviews about Matt. Do you know what it was? He used to touch their hair. They both had long hair and he liked it. He used to take it in his fingers, play with it. It seemed innocent enough to them at first. I don’t know if you recognise that habit of his, Annie, but if you do, then you really do need to speak to Lucy. Because later on, he played with their hair again. After he’d assaulted them.’
Annie said nothing. In fact, it was as if Kit hadn’t spoken. Kit knew it was best to go before she recovered and asked any questions. She had taken enough of a risk already by disclosing this much. She stepped back to allow Annie to grasp the door handle, and as soon as the door was open, she left. She was careful to look relaxed as she walked down the drive towards Ricky.
‘That seemed to go OK, didn’t it?’ he asked, as soon as she got into the car.
‘Yeah, it did.’
‘What did the trick, do you think?’
‘I guess it was what you said.’
Ricky looked pleased. ‘You see? I knew it would be possible to reason with her. Maybe she’ll push him to tell her about what Steph and Nicolette said now?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ But she knew it wasn’t true. It hadn’t been enough, or maybe the thing about the hair hadn’t been the right choice. Maybe she hadn’t made the connection with Annie at all.
Ricky started the car and set off in the direction of the office. Kit felt a tremor of anxiety at the memory of what she had disclosed to Annie, and what Matt could do to her and her career if he ever found out.
Chapter 15
After a troubled weekend, Kit arrived at the office on Monday morning, where she saw Ricky driving around in the car park desperately trying to find a space. Eventually he pulled up onto a grass verge, spraying his car with mud in the process. He slammed the door irritably and joined her as she stubbed her fag out under her heel. They took the stairs together in silence; Kit’s mind was full of Vernon and she wondered how they were going to manage without him. At the entrance to the team room, she almost walked into Ricky’s back. He had stopped dead and was looking across at Vernon’s open office door. Kit could see the computer screen was lit up, and a briefcase was lying by the desk. They looked at each other. Surely Vernon couldn’t be back? No, Kit realised straight away that that was ridiculous. Even Vernon wouldn’t be back in work straight after a heart attack, and Nell would never tolerate it anyway.
A woman moved into their line of vision. She was pinning things up on Vernon’s memo board. The memos Vernon had left up there, most of them dating back ten years or more, had been taken down, and were nowhere to be seen. Vernon’s to-do pile, a tottering heap of papers he frequently tripped over but otherwise largely ignored, had been removed from the floor next to his desk. A sticky floral smell reached them as they arrived in the team area. Tracing it, Kit saw it came from a plastic plug that sat in one of the wall sockets, periodically giving out a swish of something vaguely akin to the scent of lavender toilet cleaner. Maisie was sitting bolt upright at her desk, her face a picture of pure alarm, and the rest of the team were keeping their heads down in a way that confirmed trouble was in the air.
A cough came from the direction of Vernon’s room. Kit walked over and put her head round the door, to find a slender woman in her early thirties on her knees on the floor. She was reorganising Vernon’s bookshelf, which for the most part had contained dusty textbooks relating to legislation so old it had already been superseded at least twice. Kit saw these were now in the bin, and the woman was replacing them with a row of departmental procedure manuals. Kit knew Vernon had some of those, too, but they were in use propping up wonky desks in the team room. In the rare event that Vernon ever decided to revert to procedure, there would always be a palaver while he crawled about on the floor trying to locate the right manual without bringing half the office furniture down on everyone’s feet.
The air was filled with clouds of dust and the woman raised her head to cough again, holding a tissue to her mouth. She spotted Kit and dropped the tissue. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, without the hint of a smile.
‘I’m Kit Goddard.’
‘Ah, Kit, good to meet you.’ The woman stood up and offered her hand. ‘I’m Georgia Pritchard. I’m your new manager.’
Kit opened her mouth to question what this could possibly mean, but as she did so, there came the sound of the main office door swinging open and shut. Georgia Pritchard’s eyes strayed over Kit’s shoulder and became fixed on whoever had come through the door. The next moment, a waft of musk and coconut arrived to compete with the toi
let cleaner.
‘I see you two have already met.’ Kit turned to find Cole Jackson behind her. ‘I expect Georgia has explained that she has very kindly agreed to help us out in the interim.’
‘Interim of what?’ Kit asked.
‘Until we can get a more permanent arrangement.’
Kit didn’t like the sound of this at all. ‘Until Vernon’s back, you mean?’
‘Kit, yes, of course. I didn’t mean to be insensitive, I know you view Vernon as a mentor. And don’t we all? A man of his experience is valued in my department, I’m sure you know that. But someone needs to take the helm in the meantime. And of course, we don’t know how things will go with Vernon. People can change their minds after time off, you know. A bit of gardening leave. He might find he starts enjoying it. There’s no saying Vernon will even want to come back.’
‘Mmm.’ Kit thought how Cole Jackson clearly knew nothing whatsoever about what made Vernon tick.
‘Anyway,’ Cole Jackson continued, ‘luckily for us, Georgia was available. We are old colleagues. She’s just finished a stint in another authority, working on their performance-indicator framework, and I managed to persuade her to come and slum it with us for a few months. Before she goes on to greater things, eh, Georgie?’
Behind Cole Jackson’s back, Maisie was mouthing something which, after a few repeats, Kit identified as, ‘They’re shagging.’ Kit managed not to laugh and waited with trepidation to hear what might come next.
‘Anyway, I’ll leave you all to get on. If you’ve got five minutes later, Georgia, perhaps you could pop up and we could go over your thoughts about the PI framework?’
‘Yes, Cole, I’ll see you shortly.’ When he’d gone, Georgia Pritchard came out into the main office and propped her thin behind against a desk. She had straightened black hair. Her eyebrows sat high up on her forehead and they, too, were jet black. Her skin had the tell-tale orange tone of a fake tan. She gave Kit and Ricky a quick smile which didn’t go anywhere near her eyes.
‘So, I called in and spoke to the rest of the team late on Friday afternoon, but you two weren’t here. I wasn’t sure where you had got to, if I’m honest, because you hadn’t signed out on the board.’
She indicated the whiteboard. Kit and Ricky fidgeted, neither of them quite sure how to explain that the board was never actually used for keeping track of anyone’s movements. Its only purpose was for Vernon to have a list of the team’s names, so as to reduce the confusion caused to him by the turnover of agency staff, who would often arrive and then leave again within a few days.
‘Anyway,’ Georgia continued, ‘I’ll need to speak with both of you. Kit, you first?’
Maisie and Ricky pulled faces of sympathy as Kit followed Georgia into her office. She sat down opposite the desk and stared at Georgia’s eyebrows, wondering if someone at the brow bar had been having an off day when those had been created. Georgia picked up Vernon’s allocation book and flicked through it.
‘I’m doing my best to get on top of the systems here,’ she said. ‘I’m amazed to find that allocations are still being recorded manually. I intend to get that sorted as soon as. So I’ll be able to send you a weekly list of your allocated cases electronically, and you can then update it. All your closures to demonstrate throughput, obviously, and statutory visits to comply with the performance requirements. I can see you’ve a few cases here that have been hanging around for quite some time.’
‘I’ve been very busy with one complex case.’
Georgia Pritchard looked at Kit in silence, her face betraying a complete lack of comprehension. ‘Well then, you need to get that case tidied up and get on. I’ve only glanced at your caseload and it’s already pretty clear to me that you’re missing targets left, right and centre. Take this one, for example – the Ripton case. You haven’t proceeded to conference, you haven’t taken legal advice. You’ve already set up support services, so you are doing nothing active. Why haven’t you closed it?’
‘I was hoping for a chat about that one.’ Kit had kept the Riptons in mind for her next supervision with Vernon.
‘That’s what I’m here for.’ Georgia Pritchard made a steeple with her fingers and rested her chin on it, which Kit took to be her ‘I’m listening to you now’ pose.
‘Well, it’s just that everyone’s happy with Corey. Mum seems cooperative, she’s been through all the domestic-abuse work, she’s done all the right things, the boyfriend’s off the scene as far as I know. But I don’t feel I’ve got to know Corey very well, and he seems quite guarded to me. I think I need to spend some proper time with him.’ Kit’s brain told her to stop, but her mouth ran on regardless. ‘He loves his Xbox. I plan to call over after school this week and play a few games with him. Then maybe I’ll take him out for a Big Mac, see if he’ll relax and open up with me.’
Georgia Pritchard couldn’t have looked more appalled if Kit had smacked her in the face. ‘And would Vernon Griffiths have found that an acceptable use of your time?’ she finally managed.
‘Well, yes, Vernon likes us to spend time with the kids. To build a relationship with them.’
Georgia Pritchard stared at Kit for a few seconds more, then cleared her throat. ‘Right. I can see we are going to have to go back to basics. The purpose of this team, if I have understood Cole correctly, is to assess, then take immediate actions. Close down where possible or get open cases into proceedings or to conference and transfer on to the long-term teams as soon as they are stable.’
‘Yes, it is. But we need to make accurate assessments first. How can we do that if we don’t get to know the children?’
‘Look, Kit. I know from Cole that you and Vernon had a special understanding. But Vernon comes from a particular generation. Things have moved on since then. You’re newly qualified and he’s not done you any favours by encouraging you to think the way he does. I understand you’re considered to have potential. You could do well in this department. But you need to realise that Cole is all about an effective service. Task-focussed, minimal intervention – that’s the best way to help these families and it’s the best use of public money. I’ve looked at the referral rates into this team, and they are through the roof. There’s no time for you to be playing on Xboxes and eating junk food. You need to get the Ripton case closed. You’ve put in support, the child’s not made any allegations, you’ve covered your back. OK?’
‘OK.’ Kit knew the time had come to concede defeat, at least on the surface. Mentally, she made a note to call and see Corey and Jemma Ripton as soon as she could.
‘You’d better send Ricky in now,’ Georgia Pritchard continued. She glanced at her watch. ‘No, actually, I’ll see him later. I need to have a word with Cole.’ She reached into her desk drawer, took out a make-up bag and started to add even more dark powder to the sharp arches of her eyebrows. ‘You can go,’ she told Kit, without looking at her.
Kit went back into the team room. Ricky was nowhere to be seen. Maisie was staring intently at her computer. Kit wanted to go for a smoke, but she guessed that unscheduled fag breaks would probably not go down well under the new regime. She logged on to her computer and spent a few minutes flicking through her emails while she waited for Georgia to leave. Finally, Georgia swept out of her office. Kit kept staring at her screen until the team-room door banged behind her. Kit and Maisie looked at each other.
‘What do you reckon?’ Kit asked.
‘I reckon she’s trouble. She’s Cole’s spy. He’s wanted Vernon out from the minute he arrived here, and between the two of them they can easily find the grounds. She’s all over our cases already, she’s only been here five minutes. Cole’s lining her up for Vernon’s job, that’s obvious.’
‘Yeah. Of course he is. But Vernon won’t let that happen,’ Kit insisted, although inside she felt doubtful.
‘Get real, Kit. Vernon’s sixty-two. He’s got thirty years in, a full pension
waiting for him, and he’s just had a heart attack. They’ve got a couple of months at the least to collect evidence against him. Then they haul him over the coals and give him the chance to go quietly, avoid a fuss. He’s bound to take it. Then we’re all stuffed.’
‘I didn’t think you even liked Vernon?’
‘Better the devil you know, kid. I’d start looking for something else if I were you.’
Kit felt miserable and she still didn’t think she could risk a fag. She spent the day working on the Cooper case, getting all the recordings up to date and finalising her assessment. At lunchtime, she drove Ricky and Maisie to McDonald’s, where they all sat in a sombre mood. The sky had clouded over and as they ate their fries in silence, they watched the holidaymakers flocking in, shivering in their summer gear, stuffing their kids with chicken nuggets and pretending to have a nice time. Back at the office, Kit carried on grimly with her admin. At four forty-five, she was closing down her computer when Ricky put his head round the team-room partition.
‘Kit, I think you’d better come upstairs.’
‘I was just going home.’
‘Seriously, Kit. You need to come now. Georgia’s looking for you.’ Kit could see that Ricky looked worried. She joined him at the bottom of the stairs.
‘What’s up now?’ she asked him.
‘I don’t know. But she doesn’t look pleased. She said to go straight up to Cole Jackson’s office.’
‘Christ. Not my day, is it?’ Kit pretended to laugh it off, in the hope of reassuring Ricky, but she had the jitters. Had Annie told Matt what she had done the day before? If Matt Cooper had been on the phone with a complaint, she could be about to be suspended on the spot.
Ricky left her at the first floor. She continued to climb the stairs to the top of the building, and made her way into Cole Jackson’s suite, where his secretary ushered her into his office. Kit found Cole Jackson, Georgia Pritchard and another woman waiting for her. The woman was grey-haired and overweight, with an air of self-importance. She was making a great show of leafing through what actually amounted to no more than three pieces of paper.