Give Me the Child

by Mel McGrath

  I make it to Dominic’s office in the city with half an hour to spare and spend it forcing down a cheese sandwich in a nearby café. He meets me at the reception desk of Hunt, Baylor, Strachan. The offices are in one of those huge cityscape-defining towers of glass which have sprung up in London since the nineties and which – on a weekday at least – lend the Square Mile a darkly glamorous air. Between Monday and Friday the foyer is a stew of psychopathic traits, Dark Triad operators and emptying souls. On a Sunday it’s a zombie town, populated by sleepless functionaries who’ve given up their lives for something they once thought they wanted.

  But there are exceptions.

  ‘Cat. How wonderful to see you. It’s been far too long.’ Dominic hugs me in close. His smell is the unaltered aroma of events long ago. In an instant, the neurotransmitters of scent memory, norepinephrine and acetylcholine, rustle up in my mind Dominic’s younger self, the two of us in a museum somewhere. And then, in the blink of an eye, the memory is gone. A security guard makes up a pass and Dominic chaperones me through the barriers and into the lift.

  I have a recurring dream about lifts. Some people dream about being stuck in a broken one, others about lifts that plummet. In my dream, I’m in a huge, unstoppable lift which bursts from its building and, shaking like a rocket, heads into the sky.

  We get out at the eighteenth floor and go through a set of glass double doors into a swanky reception area decorated with the obligatory ginger flowers in a large, high-status vase. I follow Dominic down a broad corridor and into a room decked out in a tasteful Scandi style with a sofa, an armchair, a desk and an expensive coffee machine in the corner.

  ‘Coffee? Something stronger?’ He motions me to the sofa.

  ‘Just water.’

  He fills a glass from a funky-looking water filter, puts it on the coffee table and sits back in the armchair beside the sofa. He’s in expensive casual, a linen shirt, jeans, but unshaven.

  ‘Sorry not to get back to you before. Hellish litigation case. Now, what’s the problem?’

  ‘I seem to have rolled over the stone of my marriage and found all kinds of dark, biting things living underneath.’

  As I relay the story, he sits back, thumbs tucked under his chin, hands set into fists over his mouth in that way that he always does when he’s thinking.

  ‘I’m not going mad, am I?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Dominic scratches his cheek. ‘What’s Tom’s game?’

  ‘If I knew that, I might be able to anticipate his next move, but I don’t. My best guess is that he’s protecting Ruby.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘I don’t know that either, not for sure.’ I have my suspicions, but I’m not ready to voice them yet.

  Dominic sits back and folds his arms and a look of concentration comes over him. ‘The DV Protection Order is brand new and it’s tough. Legally, the magistrate has the power to order a custodial sentence and take Freya away. Obviously, we won’t let that happen.’ He flashes me a wan, only half-convincing smile. Scratching his cheek now. ‘The order is designed to give protection to victims of domestic violence even when there’s only he said/she said evidence. So both sides are allowed to admit hearsay. We can take advantage of that to show extreme provocation. If we can corroborate your suspicion that your stepdaughter had been violent towards your daughter, it would really help. You say your daughter confided in you?’

  ‘Yeah. Freya told me Ruby hit her and held her underwater in the pool until she thought she was going to pass out. She threatened her too. Ruby said if Freya told anyone what Ruby had done, she’d end up like Ruby’s mother.’

  ‘Would Freya give evidence?’

  ‘Against her father and her half-sister? What if we don’t win the case and she has to go back and live with them? How can I ask her to do that?’

  Dominic takes a breath and thinks again. ‘Did anyone else witness Ruby bullying your daughter?’

  ‘She’s too clever for that.’

  ‘Was anyone else there when Freya told you all this?’

  ‘No.’ A mistake, I realise now. I should have called Sal in from the waiting room. But it was all so delicately balanced. I wasn’t sure Freya was going to disclose anything at all.

  Dominic is leaning against his fists again, thinking. ‘For mitigating circumstances, we need evidence to suggest that you had a reasonable expectation Ruby would carry out her threat against Freya and that she presents a real danger to your daughter. You work with disordered kids all the time, Caitlin. Isn’t there something in your field you can call on, I don’t know, some kind of research?’

  There is. I take a breath, and tell him about the scans.

  ‘But I haven’t even had the chance to look at them properly and, as you know, I’m really wary of using anything involving my area of expertise.’

  He grimaces. ‘The Spelling case.’

  ‘Exactly. Won’t the other side use that to try to undermine me?’

  ‘Maybe. But at least this time you’d be giving concrete evidence and courts like certainty.’

  ‘Whatever is on those scans, Dom, it’s not going to “prove” anything. Neuroimaging just doesn’t work like that.’

  Dominic fixes me with a steady look. ‘No one in court is going to know that except you.’

  ‘That’s hardly ethical. Besides, even if the court doesn’t question the evidence, they could very easily question how I came by it. ‘

  Dominic raises his eyebrows. ‘That might be a risk you’ll have to take if want to protect your daughter.’

  ‘It’s all I want.’

  ‘Then isn’t it a little too late for professional scruples?’ He reaches over and takes my hand. ‘It’s your life and your daughter’s life we’re talking about.’

  ‘There is something else. About Ruby, I mean. But right now I don’t have any hard evidence.’

  ‘Then go and get it.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  At the top of Forest Hill you can see all the way across the soft silver rope of the river to the dazzle of Canary Wharf. It’s a glorious view, even now, with the city in a state of chaos, and in other circumstances I’d stop and take it in. But there’s no time for that now when there are so much more important things to do.

  Trust nothing except the evidence.

  The front door of the Dionysius cafe is locked, but there is a light on at the back and after a few minutes’ knocking the sallow manager comes bustling to the door, waving his arms. He gives no sign of recognising me.

  ‘We are closed. Private function.’

  ‘I need to talk to Ani.’

  He takes a closer look and, registering my face, regards me levelly.

  ‘Go away, lady.’

  He is about to turn his back on me when a small man in alligator shoes with a belly like a beach ball comes out from behind the bead curtain at the back. The manager’s body language suggests subservience and a hint of hostility. The two men exchange a few words in Albanian. Whatever is said, the manager opens the door.

  ‘You wait.’ He gestures towards a small table with a single chair sitting by the cash till and taps his watch. I do as instructed and take a seat. From here I have a view to the back of the room where a dozen men are drinking what looks like moonshine and playing a game of dominoes. From time to time, one of the men at the large table raises a glass in my direction and says something in his language. Whatever it is cracks up the rest of the table. Before long, though, the men tire of their little game and forget me. Time passes. I’ve been at the table for an hour when a flat-faced woman in a headscarf bustles out with a tray on which sits a teapot, a fancy glass, a bowl of sugar cubes and a plate of tiny, dry-looking pastries. I nod a thank you.

  ‘Ani?’

  She presses her lips together and shakes her head to indicate this has nothing to do with her then rattles off back behind the bead curtain. I pour a glass of tea. It’s strong and bitter. I add sugar and sip. No appetite for pastries. When, after another wait, there is
still no sign of Ani, I rise from the table and make my way through the bead curtain to the room beyond. The manager is sitting with the elderly proprietor. The woman is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘You want talk Ani, you waiting now,’ the manager says simply, his eyes directing me back to the table on the other side of the bead curtain. The men at the large table have grown steadily rowdier. One among them, a pit bull in his early thirties, stands and lurches through the bead curtain, belting out a song. He’s savagely drunk, barely able to hold his balance. Whatever he’s singing seems to amuse the proprietor and his sidekick. There is a sense of expectation. A male tang of adrenaline and sweat drifts over. Behind my eyes a pulse begins to tick. The pit bull takes a step towards me. The eyes fixed on me are glossy and hard. He’s enjoying himself.

  ‘My friend says maybe you work imigrim,’ the manager says.

  Fear grips my throat. I think about the woman and hope she is somewhere close by. ‘No, I am a friend of Ani’s. I’ve got some work for him.’

  The pit bull tuts and shakes his head. His eyes narrow. This is starting to feel dangerous. I stand to leave and, as I turn, the pit bull moves his feet a few inches nearer. Instinctively I back away but he suddenly lurches towards me. My heart drums. The pit bull can feel my hesitation. To be seen to be afraid now would be a big mistake. What to do? He is too far gone and having too much fun to be reasoned with and if I make any sudden movement to leave, he will reach out and grab me. My only chance is to befuddle him. I bite down to steady my jaw and extend a hand, as if inviting him to shake it. He looks at me then at the hand and for a second I detect his confusion. Taking advantage of the moment, I make a rapid sidestep and lunge through the bead curtain and race towards the door. Suddenly I’m out on the pavement and spinning on my heels. When I look back the pit bull is standing outside with one arm clutching the lamp post and the other beckoning me back, shouting, ‘Zezak! Zezak!’

  At the station, I stop running. It’s dark now. A lone woman in her forties sits in the shelter. Further down the platform, a group of kids smoke weed on the benches. One of the girls is clutching a bottle of vodka. A bunch of kids drinking before going on to some club or other. The young are springing back from the riots, routing around the damage, putting forth new growth.

  The announcement board flashes up the next arrival. Shortly afterwards, two yellow eyes appear in the pink gloom of the suburban night and the train begins to crawl along the platform. The lone woman disappears into a carriage further along.

  At Surrey Quays, Gloria calls. She’s angry. ‘You go back? Without telling me? Act of a crazy bitch. Next time, they say they come for me. You want that?’ She sucks her teeth. ‘Now I don’t know, how can I trust you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Gloria, but I had no choice.’

  The train ticks on through tidy south-eastern suburbs before diving into a tunnel. In the darkness, I say simply, ‘Is there anything you wouldn’t do to get your Elmira back?’

  Silence. And the phone signal fades.

  I get out of the train at Rotherhithe and run along the south bank of the river, hoping the exercise might clear my head. At London Bridge, I stop for a moment. A dazzling view pours out on either side, the blaze of lights an urban PET scan, buzzing and illuminated, each part of the city interconnected in a million seen and unseen ways to every other, the whole joined at the midpoint by the river. I pull out my phone and punch in my sister’s number. A voice heavy with sleep asks me if I have any idea what the time is.

  ‘Is Freya with you?’

  ‘I told you it would take a couple of days to sort out with work.’ The lush sound of yawning. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m picking her up tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Has she said anything to her father?’

  ‘About seeing you at the hospital? Or about Ruby?’

  ‘Both. Either.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. You asked her not to, remember?’

  I reach the hotel just before one. The foyer is deserted, the only sound a whine from the vending machine at the back. A lamp flickers as I pass, the fluorescence coming to the end of its natural life. I climb the stairs. In my room, I shrug off my clothes, take a shower and throw on the robe I was wearing when I escaped from Dunster Road. My backpack has chafed where the straps cut in along the shoulder. The clumsy getaway from the cafe. I’m hungry too. Moments later my reflection is dancing disconcertingly among the packets of crisps and bars of chocolate in the vending machine at the end of the corridor. I make my selection. The machine whirs and the cable cars of crisps in row C move forward. A thought stirs and forces a bitter laugh. What if human needs could be met this way? You could plug in the code, there would be a small wait, and the fulfilment would drop into a slot at the base. Of course it would never happen, because human needs are so complex and unpredictable. What need is Ruby serving in terrorising Freya? What starts Joshua’s requirement to flush kittens down toilets or set fire to handbags? What leads kids to stab other children they barely know? What hole is being filled in the moment between the clench of Christopher Barrons’ fist and its impact on his wife’s face?

  My therapist had this theory that all human violence, whether internal or external, is an attempt to restore self-esteem. But if that’s true then are we nothing more than complex devices designed for the management of our own wayward egos? I wrestle with those kinds of questions daily in my work but in all the years of my research I’ve hardly come closer to any answers. Because, for all the advances we’ve made in understanding the human brain, there is still no scan for the human soul.

  Sleep doesn’t come till after dawn and I wake not long afterwards, unsettled by the wisp of a dream. I am on a camping trip with Tom and Freya. We used to do that some weekends, Tom and Freya and I, when she was very small. Just get in the car on a Friday night with a tent and pitch it where we felt like it. I think we were at our happiest then. But in the dream Tom has pegged out the tent on a clifftop and I am terribly afraid that our daughter might take one step too far and fall to her death. I’m fussing and complaining but still Tom is insisting the tent stay where it is. ‘Look at the wonderful view,’ he says. ‘If we move, we’ll lose it.’ And I’m looking around but I’m not seeing any view. Because in the dream the tent only looks out across a fearful charcoal-coloured void.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  People find different ways to unhook themselves from their pain. I of all people know that. Some get drunk, either to forget or give them whatever it is they need to punch out at the first unwitting passer-by; others take drugs, hurt themselves or have sex with strangers. People like me, quieter souls, tend to avoid these things. Our demons are the slow-burn, vengeful kind. We don’t make scenes or shout or behave badly. People like me wait until all is quiet and still and then we rise from our beds and creep like cats out into the darkness.

  A fool might think this makes us less dangerous.

  Back in the quiet of my room, I punch in Tom’s number on the hotel phone.

  This isn’t without risk. The terms of the DVPN forbid any contact. If Tom chooses, he could inform the police and get me arrested. But if I know my husband at all, I’m willing to bet he’ll at least be intrigued by my call. I can’t shake the feeling that Tom’s protecting Ruby for all the wrong reasons. And to find out what they are, I need to get him back on side.

  Two rings, then before I’ve had a chance to speak, Tom’s voice. ‘Cat! This is a surprise.’

  ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’ I let this pass. This is a game and Tom is very good at games.

  ‘Listen, I’ve had time to think. I know I shouldn’t be calling but I feel so ashamed of what I did to Ruby. It was so wrong. With all that was happening, I wasn’t well, I wasn’t coping. I see that now.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says Tom.

  ‘I don’t expect you to believe me but I wish I could take it all back. The jealousy, the nasty accusations, the attack on a little girl.’


  ‘You were completely out of line.’

  ‘I know, I know. But the thing is, I’m seeing a psychiatrist now and I’m feeling so much better about everything. Clearer. And I want to make it up to you all. I just think, whatever happens to us, for Ruby and Freya’s sakes, we need to meet and talk things through.’

  Another sceptical hum. ‘The thing is, Cat, there’s a DV notice. You’re not supposed to be coming anywhere near me or the girls.’

  ‘You can have the house, Tom.’

  His voice brightens. ‘I can?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I don’t care about any of that. So long as I can see Freya every now and then.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure.’

  ‘Let’s just talk it through.’

  People speak about the epiphany, the moment the scales fall from the eyes, but more often than not what we call the moment of truth is actually the moment the lie finally breaks. Because we all hold on to lies. Sometimes lies are the only thing holding us together. We hang on to them even as we’re peering over the precipice. And even when the truth holds out a hand still we cling to the lies, as the world we thought we knew slips slowly from our grasp.

  Hoopoes Chicken Shop. Tom is sitting at our usual table, amusing himself with a game, a single curl over his forehead dancing in time with his fingers, a reminder of something else I once loved and maybe still do: Tom’s coolness, his cheerful confidence, an inbuilt sense he has that everything will turn out OK. He looks up, sees me and stands up from the table. Those manners.

  ‘Cat, you look great.’ His hand against my arm, the old erotic charge.

  He waits for me to take my seat and only afterwards resumes his own.

  I sit down. There’s an opened bottle of San Miguel on the table. ‘Beer OK?’ I swing my legs in under the table, notice him watching. While his attention is diverted my eyes cut to his phone. I feel an overwhelming desire to let him know how close I am to smashing him at his own game. But I don’t.