Runaway Girl

by Casey Watson

  ‘But how does he even know about that? We didn’t even know – not till long after he’d been to the house!’

  ‘He does a fair bit of work for the council. Obviously has some friends in various sufficiently high places.’

  ‘But why would he victimise her like that?’

  ‘Beats me,’ John said. ‘Unless there’s something we don’t know, that is.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I don’t know. But there’s something else too. He reckons in his letter that she was under the influence of alcohol.’

  ‘What! Well that’s baloney. No way is that true. We were with them half an hour later and they were all stone cold sober. I’d stake my life on it. And I’m not being naïve here. I would know, John. Jeez, I’ve dealt with enough inebriated teenagers in my time. That’s an out-and-out lie.’

  ‘And it reads like one. But you know what I’m going to say, don’t you? There’s a process that is going to need to happen now …’

  ‘But John,’ I interrupted, still fired up by my train of thought. ‘The police attended. They have all the statements. They were witnesses themselves. They can confirm this is all patent nonsense. Has anyone spoken to them?’

  ‘I spoke to them myself earlier, and they’ve agreed to get something put in writing and sent to me. But you know how it goes, Casey. This will all take time. You can’t just have access to confidential police statements at the drop of a hat.’

  I knew that all too well. The wheels of justice turned ridiculously slowly. ‘And until then?’

  ‘Until then, no further contact with the baby. I’m so sorry. I hate to be saying this, but I just don’t have any wriggle room here.’

  I think I actually groaned. ‘But that’s so unfair. How can the lies of one vindictive old man cause such chaos? It’ll go on her record too, won’t it?’

  ‘Only as a note. And with another one, God willing, to confirm that it’s unsubstantiated.’

  ‘Yeah, much good that’ll do. You know as well as I do how these things work. No smoke, and all that. God, John, this is terrible.’

  I felt impotent; was absolutely apoplectic with anger.

  ‘I know, Casey,’ John said, ‘but what can I do? Well, bar hurry the police up, which I shall try to. I’ll do my absolute best, I promise, because I’m as flabbergasted as you are. What can he possibly have against her? I can’t imagine. Can you? Was there anything you can think of about that visit that might have triggered this? Because I can’t. And no follow-up?’

  ‘You know there wasn’t.’

  ‘Did he call at all?’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s not like I’d have forgotten to tell you if he had, is it? Because it would have just been so weird. And why on earth would he have something against a fellow Pole?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ John said. ‘Perhaps we’re reading too much into it. Perhaps he’s just one of those types who has a downer on young people generally. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with their nationality. Perhaps it’s just plain spite. Or perhaps he really does believe everything he says. Perhaps he’s saving the world from the youths of today one youth at a time. I suppose in his line of work he spends a lot of time with society’s misfits and wasters …’

  ‘Neither of which she is. Grrr, I could so swear myself now. God, and what do I tell her? The poor girl is on pins enough as it is, and she’s so looking forward to seeing the baby again.’

  John sighed. ‘I just don’t know what to tell you, Casey,’ he said, ‘but my instinct is to tell her nothing. Unless you have reason to believe she knows it’s part of some personal vendetta, I’d say nothing. Just talk about logistics taking time and so on, while I try to sort it all out. Which I will do, I promise.’

  John was right, I thought, as I ended the call and put my phone back on the counter. I definitely couldn’t say anything to Adrianna – not until I knew for sure what might happen. And as for the no-contact thing, she didn’t need to know about that either. I would just have to brush any awkward questions to one side and try to find things to keep her busy.

  And in the way that things sometimes come to you, I had a brainwave only seconds later. Mike and the kids were still playing cards, the laughter bubbling across the hall to me in snatches. Which would normally be a delightful thing to hear. But knowing what I knew just made the sound of it depress me. What was wrong with the bloody world!

  I took a deep, slow breath. Nothing was going to come of this. It was just an irritating hiccup. One I could manage. We could manage, as a family. I swiped the lock screen on my mobile and scrolled through my contacts. I would make a call to my sister, and then a further one to Lauren.

  An observer might deduce that I was powered by some sort of hyperdrive, fuelled by anger and a sense of injustice. And they’d have been absolutely right. And it was productive, too, because no more than 20 minutes later I had some extremely good news to impart. That, starting that very weekend, Adrianna would be the new part-time waitress at Truly Scrumptious, filling the slot that my niece Chloe had temporarily relinquished, so she could begin revising in earnest for her A levels. And also that Adrianna’s help at Lauren’s dance classes would henceforth be on a more formalised footing. She’d now help out twice a week, utilising her impressive dance credentials.

  No, it wouldn’t help a jot in the matter of the inexplicable Mr Kanski. But it made me feel better – in a yin and yang, cosmic-balancing sort of way (at least some of us were actually helping our young people, I raged) – and it would also keep Adrianna busy enough, hopefully, that the delay in seeing Ethan wouldn’t be quite so hard to bear.

  And she was predictably delighted. ‘Oh, I will be such a busy bee!’ she said. ‘Or is it wasp?’

  I rolled my eyes at Tyler, who sniggered. ‘It’s definitely bee, love.’

  ‘And I can save money. Lots of money. So I can buy things for Ethan.’

  ‘And I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ I said. ‘We’ll go into town next week and get a savings account opened for you.’

  ‘Without a passport?’

  ‘No, that’s fine. I’m sure your birth certificate will be enough. That way you can start getting into a regular habit, can’t you?’

  ‘And be a properly independent Polish girl!’ she said, laughing. ‘Not one of those scroungers off the plate!’

  I wasn’t sure exactly where she’d got that gem, but I laughed along with her. Though not inside. Inside I was seething.

  Chapter 19

  ‘I’m not sure that’s your decision to make,’ Mike said, shaking his head.

  It was almost midnight, and though I’d gone through the motions of a jolly family evening, there was a part of me that was itching to get to bed so I could fill Mike in on the conversation I’d had with John. And he’d been unsurprised when I launched into a torrent of angry yammering the minute we closed our bedroom door.

  ‘I knew there was something,’ he’d said, grinning. ‘I knew you were a bit manic. All that busy-bee stuff and organising Adrianna’s life to the nth degree.’

  Neither of us was grinning now.

  ‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘I don’t agree with John on this one. I mean, I know you absolutely believe what the kids have told you about what happened – and I do too. But what if there is more to this? There is still so much we don’t know about Adrianna, isn’t there? Supposing she has had some interaction with this man?’

  Mike hadn’t met him so it was obviously hard for him to judge what sort of man he was. ‘But when would she? How? Bar a couple of trips to the shop for me, she’s barely been out of our sight since she came to us! Mine or Lauren’s, at any rate. How can there be any more to this? I don’t see it.’

  Pyjamas on, Mike clambered into bed. ‘Love, come on – think. What about the internet? Facebook? Insta-whatever? Twitter? How do you know she’s not been on the web and got herself involved with the local Polish community?’ He looked at my expression. ‘I’m not talking about anything dodgy here, for goodness’ sake. I�
�m just talking about making friends. Chatting to other young people who speak her language.’

  I hadn’t thought of that. Why hadn’t I thought of that? ‘God, and you think he might be part of the same community and be, like, stalking her?’ It was too grim a thought to contemplate. I refused to contemplate it. But though I didn’t think for a moment that he would have anything to do with the monsters who’d trafficked her – they were hopefully halfway across the country – she was an attractive young girl, and … ‘God, Mike. I can’t believe that.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting you “believe” anything. I just think you should consider sitting her down and asking her if she can think of any reason that this man could have it in for her. Don’t forget, she’s been keeping a lot of secrets over a long time. If she has had any dealings with him –’

  ‘I just don’t believe it’s possible.’

  ‘But if she has … Love, I’m just saying that she’s used to playing her cards close to her chest, that’s all. And we should give her the opportunity to open up.’

  ‘I suppose …’ I said, still feeling angsty about that course of action.

  ‘And another thing before this light goes off and we go to sleep – I have to be up at six, remember – you don’t know all the story. All you’ve had corroborated by the police is what happened after they got there. Now, as I say, I trust Tyler, and I’m certain we have the full picture, but if there’s been an allegation of drinking then I think you should at least ask them about it. Who’s to say they didn’t get some alcohol from somewhere – now, just stop that,’ he said, seeing my bulging eyeballs. ‘It’s been known. Earlier on, say. And given what’s happened, we need to give them a chance to tell us anything they haven’t as yet. So we are armed and able to fight any allegations that might be made.’

  ‘Have been made.’

  ‘Might be made. By panel. If they decide to take this nonsense seriously. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. Because Mike was right. What did I know? Whatever we thought of the man, he was a professional in some capacity, and he’d put a complaint in against a child who was in care. And they might take it seriously.

  I lay there and ruminated on it for a good 15 minutes, agonising over the thing I knew I had to do. I didn’t believe for a minute that this was anything but a bunch of trumped-up nonsense – for whatever reason – and I felt wretched at the thought that, because of it, I was potentially going to have to shatter the trust that had begun to grow between us and Adrianna – and, more importantly, between Adrianna and the society in which she’d begun to place that trust.

  Then I turned to Mike. ‘Are you still awake?’ I asked him. He grunted an affirmative. ‘I’m still not sure,’ I whispered. ‘I just wonder if we shouldn’t leave it for a bit and see what happens first.’ Then I burbled on about my thinking on trust.

  He turned to face me. ‘Yes. You are right about the trust, Case. But that’s exactly why you need to explain things as they really are. She needs to know that we are being honest with her, that she can trust us and that we will fight for her. Look, she’s already had knocks and has proved she can deal with them, hasn’t she? And this time she won’t be on her own, will she? She’ll have us in her corner. And that will build trust.’

  I perhaps should have trusted my own instinct. Opting to say nothing to Tyler till I knew where we were at with Adrianna (there was no way I was going to accuse him of not telling us the truth, because I refused to believe, given everything that had flowed under the bridge, that he’d even consider abusing the trust we had placed in him), I waited till he’d left for school the following morning before sitting down and telling Adrianna about our new ‘development’.

  It took a while, because I was keen to make Mike’s and my position clear; filling her in about the feelings I’d had about Mr Kanski back in January, and soliciting her own thoughts about why he might have been so brusque – did she chat to anyone on Facebook? No. Visit Polish forums? No. What was I on about? She did not use this ‘social media’. She did not dare go near it. She was terrified. Terrified. Of the men who had trafficked her. Why would she ever do anything so mad – so insane – as putting her face on the internet for all to see?

  So that was me told. And told good.

  I was also keen to impress upon her that we didn’t believe a word of Mr Kanski’s allegations, and were just anxious to put her fully in the picture about the consequences and find out if she had any thoughts herself.

  ‘It will probably all come to nothing,’ I reassured her when I’d finished. ‘In fact I’m positive everything will be fine. As is John. You and I both know what happened that night, love, and Mr Kanski clearly didn’t understand what was going on. Either that or he’s just made a silly mistake. Or has some other axe to grind …’

  Her brows came together. ‘Axe to grind?’ she asked me, her expression incredulous.

  ‘As in some other agenda. Some reason to want to get you into trouble. I know – it’s insane, isn’t it? I don’t believe for a minute that –’

  ‘No!’ she cried, startling me by flinging her arms up in the air. ‘This is wrong! You are wrong, Casey.’ She leapt up from where we’d been sitting on the conservatory sofa. I could almost see the waves of anger coming off her. ‘It is true! It’s just like my friends always tell me. These people are pigs.’ She spat the word out. ‘They act so nice and friendly, and then – pfft! – they take your children away from you. They do not care for girls who have babies. They do not like girls who have babies. They don’t care why it happened. That it might not be your fault. They don’t care! It’s just like I knew but had tried not to believe. It was all a plan to take my son from me! I knew this!’

  I got up as well and tried to take hold of her, to calm her down. ‘No, no, no, sweetheart,’ I said, attempting in vain to grip her forearms. She shrugged me off. I didn’t push it. ‘That is not what is happening. I’ve already explained to you – this man is wrong. And we know that. We just have to wait for the evidence to come from the police so we can prove that he’s wrong. My boss, John, and Jazz – they are both on the case here. They will make this right and you’ll be able to see Ethan again soon. I promise you, Adrianna. No one is going to hold any of this against you. We all know it’s nonsense, and we just have to prove that it’s nonsense. They just have to make sure they can refute it – with the truth.’

  ‘The truth?’ Adrianna raged, storming off into the dining room. ‘I told them the truth. Tyler told them the truth. But they don’t believe it, because I am just some stupid Polish kid. I have done bad things – I know that – I wish I could change that. But they wait to pounce on me, just like my friends told me they would. And now they’ve done it. Tell me, Casey, when will I see my baby now, huh? Huh? I tell you. Never!’

  This was turning out to be a nightmare, and I silently cursed my sensible husband for talking me into all this. Of course, he was right. It would have been dishonest of me to keep the truth from Adrianna and, if I was honest with myself, my reasons had probably been to avoid the exact scene we were in the middle of right now. But to do things simply for an easier life wasn’t really in a foster carer’s job description. Much as it irked me, we often had to take the more difficult path, for the sake of the child and their future.

  I followed her into the dining room, wondering quite how many times I was going to have to say the same thing to her. ‘Adrianna,’ I said sternly. ‘Please listen to me, properly. Listen carefully. No one – not me, not John, not Jazz, not anybody in social services – wants to take your baby away from you. Why on earth would they? It costs a fortune to have a child brought up by the state. Just from a financial point of view it would be insane. Emotionally, too, it is – and should be – a last resort. Yes, he could be adopted and then skip off happily into the sunset, but that’s not a given, I promise you. He could end up in a bad situation, have a placement break down, have a difficult, fractured childhood – become, as a consequence, a further burden on the state. You
understand that? You get that bit?’ She grudgingly nodded.

  ‘So, that being so, Adrianna, your friends are talking nonsense. Babies are only removed from their mothers when it’s decided – very reluctantly – that there is no alternative. That to keep the child with the mother would be a dangerous thing to do. So whatever your friends have said, they are wrong, okay? If they lost their babies – or if they have been told of friends who have lost their babies – then there would have been a very good reason. That they had a drink problem, or a drugs problem, or were otherwise incapacitated – or in a violent relationship and not protecting their child from it … Honestly, Adrianna, you are such an intelligent girl. Use your intelligence now and accept this as fact, okay?’

  Again, perhaps stunned by the vociferousness of my outburst, she nodded. ‘So,’ I said, ‘no more of this silly talk, okay? No one thinks for a moment that you have done anything wrong. But procedures must be followed – you’d want that, would you not, if the boot were on the other foot? – so, yes, we have to wait, but that is all, okay? So, patience. Because John has a job to do, and that’s to deal professionally with everything. And when that silly man made that silly report about you’ – how I’d have liked to use a stronger word than ‘silly’ – ‘then his job is obviously to approach it professionally. As in look into it, gather evidence of its dubiousness and report back that there is no case to answer. And once that’s happened – which it will – things will go back to normal, I promise you.’

  Adrianna sighed, walked into the living room and slumped down on the sofa. ‘But it is ruined now anyway,’ she said. ‘Your boss, John, will always have a doubt about me now, won’t he? That perhaps I was drinking, that perhaps I was the cause, that maybe I did start trouble for Tyler and Denver.’ She looked up at me, her eyes pooling with unshed tears. ‘That is just human nature. You have the same saying we do in Poland? About smoke without fire?’ Then she burst into tears, deep, shuddering sobs. ‘Oh, Casey, I just want my baby back. I need my baby so bad. And every day longer, I see him slipping away. I just want a chance. Is that so much? Just a chance?’