Girl On Fire

by Tony Parsons

  ‘George Halfpenny,’ I said.

  He was on his feet, shaking his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t kill Ahmed Khan. Please believe me. I was swimming with my brother.’ He sank back on the low bed, his face crumbling. ‘I’m innocent,’ he said.

  Whitestone laughed, a short bitter bark of loathing.

  ‘I’m not arresting you for the murder of Ahmed Khan,’ I said. ‘I’m arresting you for the assault on PC Simon Sykes.’

  ‘Remember him?’ Whitestone said. ‘The police officer you dropped?’

  ‘The cracked skull caused a blood clot on the brain,’ I said. ‘PC Sykes is still in a coma. He may never wake up. And if he does, he may never walk again.’

  ‘Unlucky for him,’ Whitestone told Halfpenny. ‘And unlucky for you, too.’

  I took a step closer to the man on the bed.

  ‘George Halfpenny, I am charging you with inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent against a police officer executing his duty within the meaning of Chapter Five of the Criminal Justice Act.’ I rattled it out: ‘You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.’

  He looked up at us with his mouth half open but he said nothing and he did not need to say a word because at this moment they are all thinking exactly the same thing.

  What will they do to me?

  How long will I get?

  ‘Life,’ Whitestone told him, so softly that it was almost a sigh.

  24

  Stan loved meeting new people.

  Our small red dog was indiscriminate with his affections, although in these hot summer days he showed a definite preference for the builders that thronged the city because they were often wearing shorts, and a pair of bare legs always had Stan’s nose twitching with interest.

  He perked up the moment the woman from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service appeared on our doorstep.

  ‘Mr Wolfe? Ms Vine.’

  She was not wearing shorts but had on a long, swishy skirt above stout walking sandals but it was enough to have Stan’s nose testing the air and his tail wagging. He padded out of Scout’s bedroom, where he had been napping, crossed the room and delicately inserted his nose just under the hem of the skirt. All I could see of him were his ruby-coloured hind legs and that feathery tail swishing like windscreen wipers.

  I said what I always said when Stan was thrusting his attentions on someone.

  ‘I hope you like dogs.’

  She froze, looking down at the creature that had inserted itself under her skirt.

  ‘Not really,’ she said.

  She was a large woman in layers of vaguely ethnic clothing – a flowing scarf, peasant blouse, that long hippy skirt that had enveloped Stan. He took another tentative step inside and she jerked away.

  Stan blinked with surprise in the sudden sunlight.

  ‘Could you?’ she said. ‘Bit allergic.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  I picked up Stan, carted him to Scout’s bedroom, shut the door and returned to the loft.

  The woman from Cafcass was staring out of one of the big windows.

  ‘Coffee?’ I said.

  ‘I’m good.’

  As we settled ourselves awkwardly on the sofa, half facing each other, I realised that our conversation was being conducted in monosyllables.

  But then Ms Vine began to speak.

  ‘As you probably know, my department looks after the interests of children involved in family proceedings,’ she said. ‘We interview the concerned parties and then advise the court on what we consider to be in the best interests of the children.’

  She had a thin green file in her hands.

  I stared at it.

  Was that it? This thin green file? Were our lives in there?

  Scout. Me. Anne.

  The old life. The new life. The future life.

  Did something as big as all that really fit into such a thin little green file?

  Ms Vine seemed to take my lack of response as a sign of incomprehension. And perhaps she was right. The man in front of her did not have a clue what was happening to his family.

  ‘So my role,’ she said, speaking slowly to help me get it, ‘is to look out for the child’s interests in care, supervision or placement proceedings.’

  Is that what this was – a placement proceeding?

  I thought we were talking about Scout’s life.

  ‘So are you a social worker?’ I said.

  She bridled at such a prosaic description.

  ‘When working on care cases we are known as a “children’s guardian”. It’s my role – as children’s guardian – to be the independent voice of the child in court. Do you have any questions, Mr Wolfe?’

  ‘I don’t really understand what’s happening,’ I said. ‘What exactly you’re trying to find out. What might happen next. I know there has to be some kind of court hearing—’

  She cut across me, pursing her lips with impatience.

  ‘You haven’t been advised by your solicitor?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I am here to ensure that a court makes decisions that are in the child’s best interests,’ she said.

  She still had not said my daughter’s name.

  I waited.

  She peeked at the thin green file.

  ‘Scout,’ she said. A smile of recognition. ‘Like the little girl in To Kill a Mocking Bird. The guardian’s job is to be Scout’s voice in court. I’m on her side.’ She patted her thin green file. ‘Scout’s side. Usually there’s mediation in a case like this before we get to a family court hearing, but because of the special circumstances, there will be no mediation.’

  ‘Hold on. What special circumstances?’

  She met my gaze levelly. ‘Because of the violence.’

  ‘What? There’s never been any violence! I would never hurt Anne! I would never hurt any woman! That’s not the way I was raised. That’s not who I am.’

  ‘You didn’t assault Oliver Lewis?’

  The husband.

  The bloody husband.

  I laughed.

  She sat up straighter, her mouth flexing.

  ‘You find me amusing, Mr Wolfe?’

  ‘I find you misinformed, Ms Vine. There was nothing resembling violence between myself and …’ The new guy, I thought. ‘Mr Lewis,’ I said. ‘Some voices may have been raised. A chair may have been knocked over. But it was all handbags – sorry, man bags – at ten paces.’ I shook my head. ‘I was never arrested, never charged and never found guilty of harming a hair on this gentleman’s moisturised head.’

  We stared at each other for a bit.

  ‘The law,’ I said. ‘It’s sort of what I do.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Wolfe,’ she said. ‘Me too.’

  She got down to the heart of the thing.

  ‘It’s unusual for a daughter as young as Scout to be living alone with her father.’

  I waited. I didn’t feel like telling her my life story.

  She was still waiting.

  ‘Families come in all shapes and sizes,’ I offered.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said, as if we might have to come back to that one. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me something about Scout’s current arrangements at home? Childcare and so on. Your network of support. That’s a question, Mr Wolfe.’

  ‘I have a lady called Mrs Murphy who helps me. She lives on the other side of the meat market. Very close. Mrs Murphy loves Scout.’

  There was a notebook in her hands.

  ‘So this Mrs Murphy is a relation?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Employee?’

  I shrugged. Mrs Murphy was so much more than that. ‘She is,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t cover it. You see, Mrs Murphy has a big family and they—’

  ‘Your parents? Do they help with Scout?’

  ‘My parents are dead.’

  ‘Siblings? Do you have brothers an
d sisters, Scout’s aunts and uncles, who help you?’

  ‘I’m an only child,’ I said.

  She wrote for a while. Her eyebrows arched at this strange man who had so few people in his world. As she jotted down these details, I thought I should make some point about how well we were doing, Scout and I, how it had been desperately hard at first but now we were doing fine. But I said nothing. I was afraid of what was going to happen next.

  ‘And how – in your opinion – did the current arrangements come about, Mr Wolfe? Why – in your opinion – is Scout living with you and not her mother?’

  ‘It’s not my opinion,’ I said. ‘It’s what happened. My ex-wife left the family home. She had a new life with a new man who is now her husband.’

  ‘The man you didn’t assault.’

  We stared at each other. The man I didn’t assault. That was a good one.

  ‘That’s the guy,’ I said. ‘My wife – ex-wife – Anne – was busy with her new life. I don’t know how else to explain it – to excuse it. I think when people start a new life – new home, new partner, new children – there’s not enough space in their life for the old life. The life they left behind.’

  I looked towards the big windows of the loft, the July sunshine streaming down as if from heaven.

  ‘I’ve thought about it a lot over the last few years,’ I said. ‘Trying to understand it. Trying to make sense of what happened. And that’s the best I can come up with. There is only so much room in someone’s life. And I know men do that sort of thing all the time.’ I looked back at the woman from Cafcass. ‘But women do it too. My daughter and I were left to get on with it. And that’s what we did.’

  ‘Your ex-wife maintains that you froze her out.’

  I put the brakes on my anger.

  ‘After my ex-wife left, my daughter didn’t get a birthday card from her mother. That’s how busy she was. That’s how cruel she was. My ex-wife wasn’t frozen out. She opted out of her family. And Scout and I carried on.’

  As always in our home, there was a scattering of toys and playthings on the floor that belonged to my daughter and our dog. A Konk toy. An old Angry Princess doll. And an extra-small-sized boxing glove.

  Ms Vine stared at it, as if in disbelief, and then picked it up.

  ‘Scout’s,’ I said.

  ‘Boxing?’

  I smiled.

  ‘My daughter enjoys banging the pads.’

  For a moment she was speechless.

  ‘You don’t think it encourages violence?’

  ‘I think it encourages my daughter to believe she can stand up for herself in this rotten world. I want her to be a confident little girl. I want her to be a strong young woman. I want her to be ready for whatever life throws at her.’

  ‘So she punches things?’

  ‘Hard and often,’ I said, rising to the bait.

  She was writing this down.

  Don’t lose your rag.

  ‘There have been – let’s see – nine afternoons when you were late to pick up your daughter from school, Mr Wolfe?’

  ‘Who’s counting?’

  She gave me a smile as thin as her little green file.

  ‘The school was very understanding,’ I said. ‘They’ve been great—’

  ‘This is not about how understanding the school are, Mr Wolfe. It’s about the welfare of your daughter! It’s about how capable you are of facing up to your responsibilities as a parent. I am trying to ascertain if your job is compatible with Scout’s best interests.’

  ‘It’s not a job. It’s a calling. And it’s not nine to five. It’s twenty-four seven.’

  I did not know how to explain it to her. There was so much that I found hard to explain.

  ‘Did you ever see photos of 9/11?’ I asked her.

  She looked at me as if I was speaking some unknown language.

  ‘One of the most famous 9/11 photographs is of an NYFD fireman called Mike Kehoe when he was running into one of the towers as everyone inside was trying to get out,’ I said. ‘Everyone thought Mike Kehoe must have died in there when those towers came down. Because so many of his colleagues died that day. Three hundred and forty-three NYFD firemen. Sixty police and eight paramedics. But Mike Kehoe made it out.’

  She was resisting the urge to sigh.

  ‘What’s your point, Mr Wolfe?’

  ‘My point is that the world is divided into the people who run away from life-threatening trouble and the people whose job it is to run towards it. That was Mike Kehoe’s job – to run towards trouble. And I like to think that I’m like Mike. At least, I aspire to be a man like Mike Kehoe. And you need people like us. Because if someone is kicking down your front door in the middle of the night, then you will pick up the phone and call for one of us – the people who run towards trouble – to come and put ourselves, without thinking, without asking questions, between you and whoever is kicking down your front door. But – and this is my point – it’s hard to schedule the trouble, so sometimes people like me are late for the school pick-up. And sometimes we never make it home at all.’

  She was unimpressed.

  She looked at me as if that was all just a pile of – what would she call it? – patriarchal macho bullshit.

  She glanced at her watch as if I was wasting her precious time.

  ‘And what happens to your daughter if you never make it home?’

  ‘I hope that she will be proud of me.’

  She raised her unplucked eyebrows.

  ‘So what happens next?’ I said.

  Scout would be home soon. And I wanted to be alone by then.

  ‘It’s the court’s job to decide what will happen to your child,’ Ms Vine said. ‘The judge will listen to everyone involved in the case before she or he comes to her or his decision.’

  ‘But you don’t know Scout,’ I said. ‘None of you know her.’

  She slammed the little green file shut as if that was an irrelevance.

  ‘Well, I think that’s it,’ she said, standing up.

  ‘Not quite,’ I said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Ms Vine,’ I said. ‘Please – I don’t want any of this for my daughter.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I don’t want Scout to be interviewed by you – or anyone like you. Please don’t be offended. It’s nothing personal. I know you are just doing your job. And I understand your job is to stick up for the child. But please – please, Ms Vine – I don’t want Scout’s happiness poked and probed and pushed around. I don’t want her life in a courtroom. I don’t want her questioned.’

  She barked with laughter.

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  Because we – my beautiful ex-wife and I – have already stolen too much of her innocence, I thought.

  Because Scout has already paid too high a price for the mistakes that two adults have made.

  Because it would hurt and confuse and upset her.

  But I didn’t say any of that.

  ‘Because I love her,’ I said.

  We were on the way to the door. I could hear Stan scratching to get out of Scout’s bedroom. He knew there were bare legs walking about in the loft. He wanted to get at them. He wanted to get his head up that hippy skirt. He wanted a good sniff.

  ‘I don’t have the contact details for your legal representative, Mr Wolfe.’

  ‘I don’t have one,’ I said.

  ‘Get one,’ she said.

  Scout was exhausted when she came back from the long afternoon with her friend Mia.

  It was more than a passing fancy. Rowing was her thing that summer. Rowing on the Thames. Rowing on the Serpentine. And it was exhausting.

  Stan and I waited by her bed as Scout wearily brushed her teeth, got into her pyjamas and crawled under her duvet.

  Her eyes were closing before I opened the book of poems at random.

  ‘On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair

  I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool! I don’t care.
r />   The head does its best but the heart is the boss –

  I admit it before I am halfway across.’

  I closed the book and kissed the top of her head.

  ‘Sleep now, Scout,’ I told her.

  But she was already sleeping.

  My phone vibrated as Stan and I padded from Scout’s bedroom. It was a message from an unknown number.

  I will make you crawl

  I flew to the window as if I would see him waiting for me in the street.

  And there he was.

  He was long and lean, fit and hard inside athletic gear. If you didn’t see him coming it would be over before it began. And even if you saw him coming, he looked like he would hit you with maybe more than you could handle. He was wearing running shoes. At his feet there was a kitbag that could contain anything. A hoodie was pulled up, shielding his face. He was loitering at the start of the Grand Avenue, the great central passageway through Smithfield meat market.

  And he was looking up at our loft.

  I stared at Scout’s bedroom door.

  All my instincts were to stay here with her.

  But I knew that would never make us safe.

  Settle it now.

  I put down food and water for Stan and triple-locked the front door behind me as I quietly let myself out. And I thought of that social worker.

  You’re not my daughter’s protector, I thought.

  Because I am.

  I could not leave by the front door on Charterhouse Street without him seeing me so I went up to the roof. The view caught my breath and held it. The meat market was getting ready for the night. There was a wash of moonlight on Wren’s great white cathedral, the old high-rise towers of the Barbican and the newer, far taller towers of glass and steel that soared everywhere across the city.

  From the roof I could see that the man in the shadows was still down there, and he was still staring up at the loft. There was good cover for him in the Grand Avenue.

  A convoy of refrigerated lorries and white vans lined the street. Men in white coats were everywhere, hauling their loads of meat into the market. An easy spot to get lost in the crowd.

  I crossed to the back of the building and clanked down the old iron fire escape. The emergency exit door at the back of the building was never locked. It took me out on to Cowcross Street, one of those old winding backstreets in Smithfield. I walked down it quickly and paused at the start of Charterhouse Street.