The Foster Child

by Jenny Blackhurst

  Emily Murray is a pretty girl, around twenty-five, with jet-black hair and striking blue eyes. There are no signs of any wedding pictures on her page. I look again at the message I composed yesterday.

  Hi Emily,

  I hope you don’t find this inappropriate but I’m doing your old job at Place2Be, working with Ellie Atkinson and the Jefferson family. This might sound strange, but I have been wondering why you left. Please forgive me for being so forward, but it feels like it might be important to me.

  Hope things are going well for you.

  All best,

  Imogen Reid

  Trying not to think too deeply about it, I click send. There, it’s done now.

  ‘You must be Mrs Reid?’

  I jump. An elderly man stands in front of me. In his sixties, his hair thick and white, he is carrying a few more pounds than look natural, and his forehead is creased with frown lines. His eyebrows are white and bushy and his nose is veined and red – a sign of alcohol dependency? He was reluctant to say why he was no longer practising when I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. But he has kindly eyes, and I can see that he was suited to the role of doctor, at least once upon a time. Now his shoes and coat both look as though they have seen better days.

  I nod and hold out a hand. ‘And you must be Dr Benson?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I don’t really call myself that now I’m no longer practising.’

  ‘But I thought even retired doctors still called used their title?’

  Benson looks sheepish. ‘Well, technically I’m retired, but . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘Come on, let’s go inside. They know we’re coming. I asked for a meeting room.’

  I walk alongside him to the front of the house and up the steps to the front door. Although the place has been designed to look old, it boasts a brand-new security system, and when Benson presses his finger to the buzzer, a wall-mounted security camera turns to face us.

  ‘They have video monitors,’ Benson explains. ‘Nothing but the best security here.’

  A tinny voice sounds from the intercom. ‘Good morning, George.’

  The door buzzes and Benson pushes it with the palm of his hand. I feel slightly self-conscious as I follow him into a large reception area, where a friendly-faced woman sits behind a desk.

  ‘Morning, Patricia,’ Benson greets her warmly. ‘Bit chilly out there today.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. We’ve had the heating on full blast here all morning and I still can’t get warm.’

  I can see why. Despite its modern appearance, Greenacres looks as though it will always have a chill to it.

  ‘Hetty said you wanted a room?’ Patricia inclines her head towards a door off the reception. ‘We’ve only got Beech free today; I hope that’s going to be all right?’

  Benson nods. ‘Of course, yes, that’s fine. It’s really very nice of you to be so accommodating.’

  ‘Anything for our favourite visitor.’ Patricia beams. ‘If you could both just sign in here . . .’ She indicates a large visitors’ book open on the desk. ‘I’ll get you some tea or coffee sorted out.’

  ‘Oh no, don’t you worry yourself, Patricia.’ Benson holds up a hand. ‘I know very well where the vending machines are; we’ll go through and get our own.’

  Patricia hesitates, then gives a small nod. ‘Of course, yes, you’ve been here plenty of times. I’m sure it’s fine. Just don’t go wandering around too much. Most of the patients are still in bed anyway.’

  Benson signs us both in and takes my elbow, hurrying me towards the doors before Patricia can change her mind. ‘I’m not technically supposed to have free rein at this place,’ he admits. ‘I’m just a visitor myself these days, but I’ve got to know a few of the staff over the years, and they really are all right. Not the sort of jobsworths you often get in this type of place.’ He lowers his voice. ‘I offered to get our own tea and coffee because I wanted to show you around a little bit.’

  The inside of Greenacres is more like a school than the stately home it resembles from the outside. I peer through doors as we pass, looking into classrooms with brightly coloured displays, artwork and encouraging slogans emblazoned across the walls. Some rooms contain nothing but comfy chairs, and as we pass a closed door, Benson gestures towards it and says, ‘That’s the office. It’s where the staff spend most of their time between shifts and when they’re not needed. It’s a living area in itself really.’

  ‘So this place is manned twenty-four seven?’

  Benson laughs. ‘Why yes, of course. These children are vulnerable, they need constant supervision. And some of them can be . . . dangerous. Although usually just to themselves.’

  ‘And Gemma?’ I ask. ‘Is she dangerous?’

  Benson looks around as though someone might be listening. ‘We’ll talk more about that in a minute. Let me show you this place.’ He leads the way through a set of double doors into what looks like a large canteen. Although it isn’t like any canteen I ever had at school. It contains a recreation area, with comfortable sofas, beanbags and a wide-screen TV with a stack of DVDs next to it. There is also a kitchen area and a couple of vending machines. The walls are decorated with posters of teenage actors and singers.

  ‘This is the common room,’ he says unnecessarily. ‘You see, it’s really very nice here. It’s not like a hospital really.’

  I wonder why he’s trying to justify the place to me. And what this little tour is really about. ‘Yes, it looks lovely,’ I reply, because I know that’s what he’s expecting. In truth, no amount of slouchy sofas and posters can disguise the fact that these children are not in some trendy hostel or backpackers’ retreat. The locks on the cupboard doors, the absence of sharp edges, and the security cameras in the corner of each room give that away.

  We help ourselves to coffee from the machine, Benson producing a handful of tokens and slotting them in one by one. ‘Visitors can buy tokens for the machines; the kids get them given to them. They aren’t denied anything,’ he adds quickly.

  ‘I can see that.’

  He looks momentarily embarrassed. ‘Come on, we’d better get back to our room or Patricia will send out a search party.’

  He leads us back through to the reception, where Patricia is indeed looking a little twitchy. She smiles when she sees us, the relief evident in her voice when she says, ‘Ah, fantastic, you’re back. If you’d like to go on through . . .’

  Inside the meeting room, Dr Benson sits down and undoes the first few buttons of his coat. He doesn’t take it off.

  I remove my own coat, sit down opposite him and place my hands on the table.

  ‘You said on the phone that you might be able to help me?’

  ‘Well,’ Benson looks sheepish now, ‘I’m not sure how much help I can actually be. You see, it’s like I said in the car park, I’m not a practising doctor any more. I . . . well, I resigned before I could be fired.’

  ‘I see,’ I say evenly, despite my shock. ‘And can I ask why you didn’t feel the need to tell me this yesterday?’

  He at least has the good grace to look embarrassed. ‘I wanted the opportunity to explain the situation in full, in person. And I must say, I was quite excited about what you told me. I thought that maybe you wouldn’t meet me if you knew the full story.’

  I instantly feel deflated. A liar and a quack, just as I feared. But he’s right, I’m here now and I may as well hear what he has to say.

  ‘Go on,’ I say, taking a sip of my coffee. ‘I’m listening.’

  Benson smiles and nods. ‘Okay, as you already know, I am . . . I was a doctor. A psychiatrist, in fact. A long time ago. I dealt with children with a wide range of illnesses, from eating disorders to schizophrenia. Much like this place does. But I’d always been interested in the paranormal. I know, it sounds odd, doesn’t it? A doctor, a man of science, effectively believing in ghosts and ghouls. Those two parts of me never sat well together. My education, my career battled against my curiosity about the unknown, about those things we cou
ldn’t explain through science. I never discussed such matters with my colleagues; they were all men and women of science themselves, and none of them would have wanted to indulge in that kind of debate. And who can blame them? There are a lot of people who admit to believing in the paranormal when directly questioned, but in everyday life most people scoff at anything they can’t explain, anything they haven’t seen with their own two eyes or felt themselves. Even when confronted by absolute evidence, they still shake their heads and claim there must be another explanation – even if they can’t give it themselves! It often frustrates me how closed-minded people can be.’

  I shift uncomfortably in my seat, remembering how I myself scoffed at Ms Gilbert when she sat in my living room imploring me to open my mind.

  ‘Surely you can see how people would be sceptical when there is so little evidence of the paranormal?’

  ‘Ah!’ Benson bangs his hand on the table and points at me delightedly, as though I have just proved his point. ‘But that’s just it! There is evidence, there always has been evidence, but people refuse to see it. They assume it is faked, or that there are rational explanations, as if the thought of there being things in this world that we cannot explain with science is just too much for them to bear. Yet despite all the scoffing and the naysaying, we as a race are fascinated by the paranormal. You only have to look at our TV shows and our films to see that. We are intrigued by what cannot be explained and yet we refuse to believe these things could happen in real life.’

  With every word he speaks, Benson’s face gets redder, his voice climbing higher and higher. It is obvious that he is passionate about the subject, and despite his caginess about the fact that he was forced to resign psychiatry, I find myself believing in him – and hoping that he might believe in me.

  ‘And so,’ he sits back and clears his throat, ‘and so I continued to be fascinated by the paranormal, albeit secretly. Until I was asked to take on Gemma Andrews.’

  I look up at the corner of the room, expecting to see one of the many security cameras focusing in on us at the mention of one of the patients. Benson catches my glance.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he assures me. ‘This is a private interview room. It’s soundproofed; we can’t be overheard in here.’

  I nod. ‘Can you tell me about Gemma?’

  He drops his eyes to the table. ‘Not my finest case, I must admit. I’m rather ashamed, as it goes, of how it turned out. As you’ve probably guessed, Gemma is the reason I quit psychiatry. And what happened is the reason I still come here every week to visit her.’

  I say nothing, waiting for him to fill the silence. As a psychiatrist, he must be familiar with the trick, but it still works.

  ‘Gemma’s parents contacted me in the spring of 2009. They were concerned about some of her behaviour following a car crash the year before in which they had lost her younger sister.’

  Loss and trauma, I think, just like Ellie, but I dare not interrupt.

  ‘Go on,’ I urge.

  ‘Gemma had become prone to angry outbursts. On several occasions she had destroyed her bedroom in a rage. And yet this behaviour was wholly out of character for her. Ninety per cent of the time she was a mild-mannered, studious, polite and well-brought-up young girl. Before the loss of her sister she had never been in trouble at school, barely ever said a cross word.’

  ‘But surely some of those kinds of behaviours are to be expected following such a loss?’ I point out. ‘That just sounds like the textbook guilt/anger stage of grief. Guilt that she was still alive internalised until the anger demanded an outlet.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought at first.’ Benson nods. ‘And I agreed to counsel Gemma, to help her deal with her grief and to help her family provide acceptable outlets for the anger. Unfortunately, my initial thoughts were somewhat under-informed. It wasn’t until my third session with Gemma that I realised I might be dealing with something entirely different to the standard grief cycle.’

  He falls silent, lost in his memories, and I wonder if perhaps he is going over that session in his mind, trying to pinpoint where he could have acted differently I know how he feels; I’ve done the same thing myself countless times.

  ‘It was something Gemma said in that third session,’ he continues after a while. ‘We were talking about one occasion when she had destroyed her bedroom and she said to me that she didn’t even remember touching anything in the room. It was as if she went into a blind rage and things just flew around of their own accord.’

  He holds up a hand before I can speak. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he says. ‘And in truth you’d be right. I only ever had Gemma’s word about what had happened to her. Which is why we started the tests.’

  My eyebrows rise of their own accord as Benson goes on to describe the various methods he used to test Gemma’s supernatural abilities. When they all proved fruitless, he turned up the pressure, chipping away at the girl until she was close to a nervous breakdown. Eventually she set fire to the family kitchen in the course of conducting her own experiments. She wanted to prove to Benson that she was special – at least that was what she told the police officer.

  ‘And she did that with her mind?’ I ask incredulously.

  ‘No.’ Benson shakes his head. ‘The fire investigator found an exploded lighter and accelerant in the kitchen. Gemma had nearly set fire to the whole house and those in it trying to prove herself to me. She was sent here instead of prison and I gave up medicine in disgrace.’

  ‘Wait, so you brought me here to tell me that you never found any proof of the supernatural at all? But your website—’

  ‘Hasn’t been updated since I found out the truth. And I brought you here to show you what happens when you mess with the minds of children. I brought you here to stop you turning into me.’

  83

  Ellie

  Mary squeezes Ellie’s hand gently as she leads her out into the garden.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Ellie asks. Mary has been acting strange ever since school, like she’s nervous and excited all rolled into one. Now she smiles. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she says, giving Ellie a small pat on the shoulder. ‘It’s just like I said, we’re going to do some experiments. We’re going to help you control your power so you can use it properly.’

  Use it properly? What does Mary think she’s been trying to do? But her anger is growing every day, and the way people have treated her here is to blame. All the hateful thoughts she has, and the nightmares. They come to her every night now, Ms Gilbert, and Imogen’s baby, and they scream and scream. She hears the baby most of all – it is crying and crying and nothing she can do will make it stop. In her nightmares she sees Naomi falling into the road, Billy’s face rising up in front of her, his mouth no longer glued shut but sewn with thick black stitches through each of his lips. He tries to mumble something at her but he can’t, and as he struggles to speak, the stitches begin to burst, thick red blood oozing from the holes they leave behind.

  ‘Have you told anyone about this?’

  Mary shakes her head, her face suddenly a shade paler, and in her eyes Ellie sees fear. Good. She should be a bit afraid. She doesn’t have any idea what she’s dealing with. Ellie hasn’t told her about the latest visions; she thinks she’ll keep those to herself a little longer.

  Ellie nods. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Okay,’ Mary says, pointing to the low wall that runs between the grass and the patio. ‘See those Coke cans over there? I set them up earlier. We need to go a little bit closer.’ She puts a hand on Ellie’s shoulder and guides her closer to the wall. Ellie sees immediately what is going on. ‘Okay,’ Mary says, ‘that’s right. Now I want you to knock one of them off.’

  ‘And how do you expect me to do that?’

  Mary sighs impatiently. ‘How am I supposed to know? You’re the one that does these things, you’re the one with the power. Maybe just think about it falling off or something.’

  Think about it falling off. Oh for goodnes
s’ sake.

  She squeezes her eyes shut, does a bit of light mumbling for effect. She wonders about waving her hands in the air but that would be going too far. After a minute she opens her eyes and they both look expectantly at the cans on the wall. Not one of them has moved. What a surprise.

  ‘I don’t think it works like that, Mary. I don’t think I can just think about things and make them happen.’

  ‘But how do you do it then?’

  ‘I’ve already told you,’ Ellie says, trying to remain calm. ‘When someone upsets me, I just think bad things about them, and then something happens.’

  ‘Well can’t you think bad things about the cans?’ Mary snaps. Ellie holds back a smirk.

  ‘Well . . . it’s not as if the cans have ever done anything to me . . .’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Ellie!’ Mary explodes in frustration, making Ellie’s eyes widen in surprise.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ Mary takes a step back and rubs her face with one hand. ‘I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just thought that maybe you’d have a bit more of an idea of how it works.’ She looks truly apologetic. ‘Why don’t we try something else?’

  Ellie shrugs, irritated by Mary’s loss of control. They all show their true colours eventually, friends, teachers, parents.

  ‘What if you imagine that those cans are people?’ Mary suggests. ‘Imagine they are the people who have upset you in the past. Imagine that can is Naomi Harper and she’s saying all those mean things to you.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Imagine she’s whispering to you, “You’re a freak, Ellie Atkinson, nobody likes you, you’ve got no friends, your mum and dad are probably glad they—”’

  She lets out a scream. One of the cans has flown clear off the wall, as though someone has shot a pellet gun at it.

  ‘Whoa.’ She looks stunned. ‘How did you do that?’