by Lisa Stone
But what to do about Leila? Perhaps the man who was looking after her would return her soon. Or maybe he would take her directly to school in the morning. That’s what Brooke had done. She’d seen Leila alone in the play area, collected her, and then pushed a note through Kelsey’s door to say Leila was there with her and that she’d give her breakfast and take her to school with her own kids the following morning. No one had been any the wiser, but after that Brooke had said enough was enough and that she wouldn’t do it again. Next time, she’d said, she’d report her to the social services for neglect.
Kelsey sat upright with a jolt. Of course. That’s what had happened! She should have realized sooner. She wasn’t so daft after all. Brooke had seen Leila in the play area and had reported her to the social services. The man who’d taken Leila was their social worker, Peter Harris. That’s why Leila had gone with him: she knew him. Too fucking well – from all his visits, the interfering git. But this was solvable.
Peter had taken Leila and put her with a foster carer for the night like they’d done with her other kids when they’d been living with her. By tomorrow she’d have to come up with an excuse for Leila being out late on the estate. She’d phone Peter as soon as the office opened at 9 a.m. and go on the attack. Blast him for taking Leila without telling her and all the worry he’d caused her. She’d threaten to report him, for she knew that not even a social worker could take a child without informing the parents. He wouldn’t want more aggravation from her, and Leila would be sent home. Problem sorted, Kelsey now felt she could stop worrying and go to bed.
What the hell was that? Ringing? She’d only just dropped off to sleep. Was it the doorbell or her phone making that bloody noise? It couldn’t be her client, Alan, already, could it? What was the time?
Kelsey struggled up in bed as her phone stopped ringing and bleeped with a text message. She reached for her leather jacket, which was dumped on the floor where she’d left it, and took out her phone. There was a missed call and a text telling her she had a voicemail message. The time on her phone showed 9.30 a.m. Drat. She’d overslept. She’d intended to phone the social services at 9.00 but she hadn’t yet come up with a reason for Leila being out so late. Best wait until she’d had a strong black coffee to get her brain into gear, she thought.
Getting out of bed, Kelsey pulled on her jumper over her bra and pants and padded barefoot to the kitchen, retrieving the voicemail message as she went.
‘Mrs Smith, it’s the school secretary here. Leila isn’t in school. Can you phone us and confirm she is unwell? Otherwise we’ll have to mark it as an unauthorized absence.’
Kelsey stopped where she was and replayed the message, thinking she might have misheard. But she hadn’t. Leila wasn’t in school. That was strange. In the past the foster carer had taken her children to school unless they were ill or had played up and refused to go. Whatever. The social worker should have told her – the parent – Leila was in care.
Five minutes and a cup of black coffee later, Kelsey sat on the sofa and called Peter Harris’s office number. The caffeine had given her the boost she needed, and, fired up and aware of her rights, she was ready for a fight.
‘Peter Harris, children’s services,’ he said, answering straight away.
‘It’s Kelsey Smith here.’
‘Hello, Kelsey. How are you doing?’
‘I was doing all right until you stuck your nosy beak in. Lots of kids play out. I’ve told you before I can see Leila from my flat window so I can keep an eye on her.’
‘Kelsey, can you calm down and tell me what’s happened?’ Peter said in a conciliatory tone that infuriated Kelsey even more.
‘You stuck your bleeding nose in and took my Leila! That’s what’s happened! I’ve been doing all right until now. You’d no business taking her without telling me. I want her back with an apology or I’m reporting you.’
There was a moment’s pause before he said, ‘Kelsey, I haven’t seen Leila since I visited you both four weeks ago. Are you saying you don’t know where she is?’
Kelsey went cold. She’d been certain he’d taken Leila and put her with a foster carer. ‘Of course I know where she is,’ she said, and cut the call.
If Peter Harris hadn’t taken Leila then who the hell had? Suddenly Kelsey was very worried, very worried indeed.
FIVE
Leila was scared. What had started off yesterday as a sort of game wasn’t fun any more. She was thinking she really shouldn’t have gone along with it. But he’d been so nice at the start – kind and caring. He’d said he was worried about her and told her she was pretty. Her mother called her plain. He’d said a young girl like her shouldn’t be out all by herself after dark. It wasn’t safe and it was very wrong of her mother not to look after her properly, which Leila sort of knew. He’d said he would take care of her and together they’d teach her mother a lesson. He’d given her chocolates – really posh ones with soft centres – and told her he’d bought her a beautiful doll and it was waiting for her in his flat. It wasn’t like she was going with a stranger – she would never have done that. She knew him, so did her mother, which made it OK.
His flat was warm and tidy – not like hers – and to begin with it had all felt really cosy and nice. He’d talked to her about the bad life she’d led with her mother and how he could put it right. She deserved much better, he’d said: pretty clothes, good food, holidays and a visit to Disneyland, all of which he’d promised would happen if she did as he said.
But when she hadn’t liked the dinner he’d cooked and asked for chicken nuggets and chips instead, he’d got moody and raised his voice, which frightened her. ‘You can’t keep eating that muck! It’s bad for you,’ he’d yelled. ‘From now on you’ll eat proper meals, the ones I give you, and you’ll be grateful.’ She’d gone quiet and said she wanted to go home, so he’d apologized and said it was early days yet, and he had a lot to learn.
Now Leila sat on the bed and held Buttons, her teddy bear, very tightly to her chest. Colin had gone out this morning and left her locked in the bedroom. He’d told her it was very important she kept quiet and that no one must find her here or she’d be in very big trouble. That the social services would take her away like they had her older half-brothers and -sisters and she’d never see her mother again.
She believed him, but she hated being locked in. It was like at home when she had to lock herself in her bedroom when her mother brought men back, so they didn’t hurt her. They hurt her mother and would hurt her too if they got a chance, her mother told her. She tried to be out when her mother had men in, but that wasn’t always possible, so she slid the bolt her mother had fitted on her bedroom door. But that bolt was on the inside of the door, so she could open it if she wanted to. This one was on the outside, so she was locked in. Trapped. Colin had bolted the door when he’d left for work and said he would unlock it when he returned. It was for her own good, he said, but it didn’t feel like it.
Anxious and sad, Leila propped herself on the pillow and picked at the loose threads of the bedspread. It was an old-fashioned bedspread like the ones at Granny Goodman’s. The furniture in the room was old too, and so was the bed. It creaked every time she’d turned over in the night and the pillow smelt of old people. Perhaps someone had died here, she thought with a shudder, and threw the pillow on the floor. It narrowly missed the potty. She’d already had to do a wee in it once, although she hadn’t wanted to. Potties were for babies and she was a big girl, as her mother kept telling her. She’d held on to her wee for as long as she dared, until she’d been bursting and her stomach had ached. Then she’d been so desperate she’d missed the potty and some of her wee had gone on the floor. She hoped Colin wouldn’t be angry like her mother was when she made a mess. There wasn’t anything in the room to mop it up with.
Leila was hungry but the sandwich he’d left for her smelt horrible. Salmon and cucumber. Yuck. She pushed it off the bed and its contents spilled over the floor. She’d eaten the crisps he�
��d left and drunk the juice, but she was still hungry. If she’d been at school she would have been given a school dinner, and if she’d been at home she could have gone to the chip shop. Her mother didn’t care what she ate, not like Colin. He seemed to fuss over food and what he called ‘good hygiene practice’, which involved him repeatedly washing his hands, the work surface in the kitchen and the chopping board. She’d had to wash her hands too before she ate.
He’d left her puzzles, games and books to keep her amused while he was out at work, but they too were now scattered across the floor. She’d tried to do a puzzle but had quickly lost patience and given up, and she never read books or played games. She watched television when she was at home and the hours whizzed by, but now time was dragging. She wondered what her class was doing at school. She didn’t like school but at least the time passed quickly there and she wasn’t locked in and had a hot meal – food she liked.
With mounting frustration and anger, Leila picked up the doll Colin had bought her and threw it on the floor with the other stuff. It landed head down with a nasty crunch, its china face shattering. Leila stared, horrified. Colin had said it was expensive and he’d chosen it especially for her. She’d have to lie and say it was an accident. It was no loss to her. She hadn’t liked it anyway. She loved Buttons, her teddy bear. She talked to him and told him things she couldn’t tell anyone else. Buttons went with her everywhere. She’d had him for as long as she could remember and called him Buttons because he had two rows of buttons on his coat that she liked to undo and do up again.
Suddenly the doorbell rang and she froze. Had someone heard the doll smashing on the floor? Keep calm, she told herself. She knew what to do if someone came to the door. Colin had shown her and made her practice, reminding her of the consequences if she didn’t do as he said. Now this was for real! The doorbell rang again. Grabbing Buttons by the arm, Leila slid quietly from the bed and then climbed into the storage compartment beneath it. She drew the sliding door to and kept very still and quiet. Colin had said no one else had keys to his flat, so hiding was a precautionary measure to keep her safe. She was to do this whenever anyone came to the door, whether he was in or not.
But it was dark and cramped in the strange compartment beneath the bed and Leila didn’t like it. She began counting off the seconds as Colin had told her. ‘Count to sixty, that’s a minute,’ he’d said. ‘If it’s all quiet and the caller doesn’t ring again, it means they’re likely to have gone and you can get out. But don’t make any noise just in case.’
She counted steadily to sixty, then carefully slid open the compartment door, clambered out, stood still and listened like he’d told her to. Suddenly she was startled as the bell rang again. She stood still, wondering if she should return to the cupboard beneath the bed, but then she heard footsteps going along the corridor in the direction of the lift. Thank goodness. She breathed a sigh of relief. Colin would be proud of her.
Leila sat on the bed and thought of her mother in the flat above. What was she doing? She’d heard movements earlier, about an hour after Colin had gone. Did her mother know she wasn’t at school? And if so, was she worried she was missing? Probably not. From what Colin and Granny Goodman had told her she had a very bad mother, negligent and selfish, and she would be better off without her. But it wasn’t as simple as that. She loved her mother despite all the wrong things she did, and she hoped this would teach her a lesson to take better care of her in the future. Locked alone in this strange room, and having to hide from callers, Leila thought she might be better off at home. But that wasn’t an option now.
SIX
‘Sharon, it’s me, Kelsey.’
‘I know who you are,’ Kelsey’s sister, Sharon, replied curtly. ‘I’m at work. What do you want?’
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ Kelsey said, her voice tight. ‘But I’ve got a problem.’
‘So what’s new? I can’t talk now. I’ll phone you this evening as soon as I’m home.’
‘I don’t think it can wait that long.’
‘Why not?’ Sharon sighed. ‘What’s happened now?’
‘It’s Leila, I’m not sure where she is.’
‘What do you mean, you’re not sure where she is? She’s either at school or at home with you, isn’t she?’
‘That’s the thing. She’s not here and she’s not at school.’
A pause, then: ‘Just a minute, I’ll have to go out of the office to talk. I hope this isn’t another wild goose chase. After all, Leila has run away before.’
‘No, I don’t think it is.’
Kelsey heard muffled voices in the background and her sister’s stiletto heels clipping purposefully across the office floor as she made her way out. She knew she was a pain in her sister’s arse, but there was no one else she could turn to. Sharon had helped her out before, and although she’d be angry, she’d know what to do. She always did.
‘Well?’ Sharon demanded, coming back on the phone. ‘Hurry up, Kelsey, it’s freezing out here, and I’ve stacks of work on my desk.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kelsey said, acutely aware of her own inferiority. ‘The thing is, I let Leila play out last night, perhaps a bit later than I should, but you know how it is.’ She heard her sister sigh. ‘It got late so I went to get her, but I couldn’t find her, and that nosy cow Goodman said the social worker had taken her, but when I phoned him he said he hadn’t, and she’s not in school.’
‘Just a minute,’ Sharon said. ‘Let me get this straight. Mrs Goodman told you a social worker had taken Leila, but he says he didn’t?’
‘Sort of. Goodman said a man took Leila, so I thought it must be the social worker because she doesn’t know any other men, but it’s not him.’
‘This was when?’
‘Yesterday evening.’
‘And you haven’t seen Leila since?’
‘No.’
‘So, what have the police said?’
‘Well, that’s the thing, I haven’t told them yet. I wanted to speak to you first.’
‘Jesus, Kelsey! Are you telling me that Leila has been missing all night and you haven’t reported it to the police yet? She’s eight years old! She could be anywhere! What’s the matter with you?’
‘I’m sorry. I thought she would come back like she did before.’
‘And she’s definitely not at school?’
‘The secretary left a message on my phone.’
‘Call the police now. The chances are she’s run off again and will come back, but better to be safe than sorry. I’ll try to get the rest of the day off work and come over, but phone me if she returns.’
‘I will. Thank you. I’m sorry for being a pain.’
‘I know.’
SEVEN
Detective Constable Beth Mayes parked the police car where they would be able to see it from Kelsey’s flat window. The last time they’d left the car unattended on the estate they’d come back to find all the windscreen wipers snapped off and PIGS GRUNT sprayed in red gloss paint along both sides of the car. Beth turned to her colleague, DC Matt Davis. ‘Gently does it with Kelsey,’ she said. ‘She’s had a hard life.’
‘So her kid has to suffer too,’ Matt sighed. ‘Leila is probably back with her mother now, sitting in filth but watching television, just like the last time.’
‘But if she’s not then we need to treat it with the same priority we would any other missing eight-year-old.’
But they both knew that wasn’t going to happen. A child who suddenly vanished with no history of running away would be prioritized as high risk and all available police resources would be deployed straight away. But that was expensive, and given Leila’s history of disappearing and then reappearing, they would be exploring other avenues as well.
‘I spoke to their social worker,’ Beth said as they entered the lift. ‘He thought Kelsey had been doing OK.’
Matt took a sharp breath. ‘Really? And what planet is he on?’
‘Kelsey knows how to play the system
,’ Beth said. ‘She will have told him what he wanted to hear, and social services are underfunded and stretched to the limit.’
‘Just like us then!’ Matt returned.
The lift juddered to a halt and they stepped out. As they approached Kelsey’s flat, number 417, the door suddenly opened and a man came out – short, partially bald and almost cowering in his wish not to be seen.
‘Hello,’ Matt said, stepping into his path and flashing his ID. ‘You’ve just come from Kelsey Smith’s flat?’
‘Yes, why? What do you want?’ he replied nervously, clearly wanting to be on his way.
‘Can I have your name, please?’ Matt asked.
‘Alan.’
‘Alan what?’
‘Stevens.’
‘Are you a friend of Kelsey’s?’
‘Sort of. Why?’
‘She’s reported her child missing,’ Beth said.
‘Oh. She didn’t mention it to me.’
‘Any idea where she could be?’ Matt asked.
‘No, of course not. The kid’s usually at school when I visit.’
‘How well do you know Kelsey?’ Beth asked.
‘Not very. I see her for an hour every so often.’ His cheeks flushed red.
‘We may need to talk to you again,’ Matt said, taking out his notebook and pen. ‘Full name and contact details, please.’
‘Do I have to?’ Alan asked Beth. ‘My wife doesn’t know I’m here.’
‘Naughty boy,’ Matt said.
‘If we do need to call you, we will be discreet,’ Beth reassured him, and waited as he reluctantly gave his full name, address and mobile number to Matt. ‘Thank you.’