by M K Farrar
But life is never that simple. With a boyfriend at home who believes her career shouldn’t be more important than getting married and having children, and with a boss who seems to want her to stay late all the time, but not for work reasons, and with other patients who need her, Amy is torn.
As she delves into the family’s past, and starts to feel unsafe in her own home, she starts to wonder if this is one child beyond her help.
Get book one is this heart-racing psychological thriller series from NY Times and USA Today bestselling author M A Comley, and M K Farrar.
Watching Over Me
Crime after Crime
Book One
Chapter One
“Tell me how long you’ve been feeling this way?”
Amy Penrose leaned forward in her chair, the lid of her pen pressed to her lips, her notebook balanced on her lap. Claire, the girl seated on the sofa opposite, hadn’t met Amy’s eye since she’d arrived.
The patient pulled her knees into her narrow chest and wrapped her arms around her shins.
“It started after my dad left. I was eating too much because it was the only thing that made me feel better, for a little while anyway, but I put on weight.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
Claire gave a small shrug. “I didn’t really notice at first, then some of the kids at school started saying stuff behind my back, calling me names, and drawing pictures in the toilets.” Her gaze flicked momentarily to Amy’s, perhaps checking she was being understood.
Amy nodded to show she was.
Claire continued. “But I couldn’t stop myself eating.”
“So, what did you do?” Amy asked gently.
The girl’s pale cheeks bloomed with colour, and her voice dropped in volume. She was clearly embarrassed to talk about it. “I started making myself sick. It was easy at first, and after I’d been sick, I discovered I didn’t want to eat. The weight dropped off.”
“What happened then?”
Her lips twisted. “Everyone kept telling me ‘well done’ and saying how great I looked, so then when I ate something again, I binged and then threw up.”
“And the cycle started all over again,” Amy filled in for her.
Claire nodded and blinked quickly, doing her best to hold back tears.
Amy reached to her desk and plucked a tissue from the box and handed it over. Claire took the offered tissue but didn’t wipe her eyes, instead bundling it into a tight ball in her palm.
Only thirteen years old, and already with a history of anxiety and eating disorders, Claire coming to see Amy was a last chance saloon before they took the step of hospitalising her. The teenager’s hair was thinning and hanging in greasy strands over her eyes. Her skin had an ashy tone, and where she’d lost hair on her head, it had sprouted over her skinny arms in a fine down.
Young women were constantly exposed to magazines like Vogue and Seventeen, and the pert bodies of the fitness instructors on morning television. It was no surprise they were feeling the pressure to live up to models these days.
Amy’s heart broke to see young girls so pressured into conforming, and she couldn’t see it stopping any time in the future either. Not that Amy wasn’t a young woman herself, of course. She’d taken a different route in life than many of her school friends, who were already getting married and having children. Instead, Amy had decided to focus on her career, which was why she was here now, rather than stuck at home with a couple of kids hanging off each leg.
The Kensington clinic was a far cry from the tiny flat Amy shared with her boyfriend in East London. It meant she had to travel right across the city to get to and from work every day, but she didn’t mind. She was thrilled to be finally working after studying for so long. She’d completed her first degree in psychology six years earlier and had only recently completed her therapy training. Her qualifications were framed and hung on the wall behind her.
A light knock came, and the door opened. The receptionist, Linda, poked her head through the gap, her smile apologetic.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Doctor Penrose, but there’s a gentleman and his son in the waiting room. The father says the social worker sent them here as an emergency referral.”
Most of her referrals came from social workers. Many were brought in via children’s schools, though some parents sought help outside of a school setting and the referral came through their GP instead.
“This is my last appointment,” she said. “They’re going to need to book in for another day.”
The receptionist paused in the doorway, her features tightening. Amy could imagine the handwringing happening just out of view.
“They both seem most distressed.”
Amy hesitated. She really did need to get going once she’d finished the session with Claire. Gary was going to be home soon, and he liked for her to be back before he walked in the door. She kept joking about how it was the eighties and not the fifties anymore, but then he’d comment about how he supported her working, just as long as they still got to eat together. Of course, it wasn’t the eating together that he was interested in, it was making sure she was the one doing the cooking, but she wasn’t going to fight him on that. She had to pick her battles, and with Gary, there were plenty to choose from.
But responsibility weighed on her shoulders. What if she turned these people away and something terrible happened? How would she be able to look at herself in the mirror each day, knowing there was something she could have done?
“Okay, Linda. I’ve still got to finish up here and then I’ll be right out.”
Linda gave a relieved nod and backed out, pulling the door shut behind her.
Amy turned her attention back to the teenager. They discussed the eating plan her doctor had put in place, and how Claire would deal with the anxieties around eating what felt like a lot of food for her. They also talked about distraction techniques for when the urge to make herself vomit took over.
After another twenty minutes, she finished their session.
“You have my number if you need anything,” Amy said, rising to her feet. “Don’t hesitate to call if you’re struggling.”
“Thanks so much, Doctor Penrose.”
She smiled at the young woman. “Anytime.”
Amy saw Claire out of her office, then took a breath and exhaled long and slow. She was clearing her mind from everything that had been said with the patient, preparing herself to take on someone else’s issues. She liked to help people, but sometimes it could be draining. It was hard not to take her work home with her—something Gary often complained about when she wasn’t as bright and smiley as he liked her to be. Sometimes it felt like he wanted her to wear a mask and just be a shell of a person rather than someone who was educated and empathetic.
Amy stepped out into the waiting room she shared with a couple of other therapists. The room had several doors leading off it—the door to her office and the offices of the two other therapists, plus a toilet. A corridor led to the front of the building, and chairs were positioned around the outskirts of the room. A coffee table was piled with magazines—publications more highbrow than those she’d been berating in her head not long ago—and a couple of large indoor plants were positioned in each corner. In the background, calming music played softly.
Linda glanced up from the reception desk and gave her a tight smile. She jerked her chin to where a father and son were sitting, several empty seats between them.
“Would you like to come through?” she called out to them.
The father got to his feet and hit the boy on the shoulder to tell him to get up, too. The boy did so, but he kept his head hung, his shoes scuffing across the waiting room floor as he approached.
“Hello, Mr...?” She realised she hadn’t been given a name.
“Swain,” the father filled in. “Robert Swain.”
She looked to his son. “And this is...?”
“Edward. His name’s Edward.”
“Hello,
Edward, I’m Doctor Penrose. It’s nice to meet you.
Edward didn’t respond, and she followed them into her office. She gestured for them both to take a seat on the sofa her last patient had recently vacated and took her usual chair.
Edward sat across from her, beside his father. She could tell he was tall for his age, but he was hunched over, his shoulders rounded, as though he was trying to make himself smaller. His fingers knotted together in his lap, but they were constantly moving, twisting and curling around each other. She noted the blue marks on the inside of his wrist, and her gaze darted to the father.
“Oh, I was told to give these to you.” Robert Swain handed her a paper folder. “It’s Edward’s file.”
“Thank you.” She schooled her face into a calming smile and leaned forward slightly. “So, tell me what brings you here, and how you hope I can help.”
“Edward has been expelled today. The headteacher finally decided they couldn’t deal with him anymore.”
Her gaze dropped to the folder of notes on the table in front of her. The boy was twelve years old. He had a history of fighting, self-harm, and intermittent eating disorders.
“What happened?” she asked softly, focusing her question on the child instead of the father.
Edward shrugged. “Nothing.”
The father smacked him on the shoulder. “Tell her.”
“Edward?” she coaxed.
The boy kept his head down, fixated on his hands. “I only wanted to know what it looked like.”
She made sure she kept her voice soft. “What ‘what’ looked like?”
His father filled in the silence. “Frogs for a science lesson. This little creep—”
“Please, Mr Swain, we don’t use language like that in here. This is a safe place,” she chided.
He glowered, clearly not appreciating being told off, but continuing anyway. “I mean Edward decided to sneak into the science room during a lunchtime, where he then dissected one of the frogs. He left it splayed out across the bench, skinned and open, and all its insides pinned to the wood. You can imagine the reaction of the teenage girls who came in for their lesson after lunch had finished. The headteacher said he’d never heard screams like it, and he’s worked in schools for the past twenty years.”
“What made you want to do that, Edward?” she asked.
He shrugged. “That was what the frogs were there for.”
“Yes, but they’d have been gassed or something first,” Robert Swain insisted. “The students wouldn’t have cut one open while it was still alive. And it would have been done in a lesson, not just because you felt like it!”
Tension was rising in the room, and she lifted both hands to try to settle things back down. “Let’s take a breath.” She turned her attention back to Edward and rephrased her question. “How did cutting up the frog make you feel?”
That same shrug again. “It didn’t make me feel anything. I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong until the screaming started. I thought I’d done a good job.”
She picked up her notepad and wrote down: Lack of impulse control, curious nature, possible abuse at home.
She sensed the father trying to get a look at what she’d written and flipped the notepad over.
“Can you tell me about any other times that have got you in trouble at school?”
“He’s been fighting—” Robert started, but she raised a hand to stop him.
“If I can hear it from Edward’s point of view, that would be great.” She smiled at the boy, but he still wouldn’t meet her eye.
“Just fighting, mainly.”
“Why do you fight?”
“Because the other kids call me names. They say I’m a freak and a weirdo, and sometimes punching them in the face is the only way to get them to shut up.”
A part of her thought ‘good for you’, but she wasn’t going to say it. She wondered if, in years to come, when Edward filled out and was as broad as his father, if he wouldn’t also have the same reaction at home.
“Can’t you just prescribe him some drugs and make him better?” the father butted in. “Make him normal.”
She winced at the word. “Mr Swain, I’m not a medical doctor. I have a doctorate in psychology not psychiatry. They’re interchangeable but are actually different.”
“So, it’s a bloody waste of time us coming here, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. Drugs aren’t always the answer.” She offered the boy a smile. “In fact, they rarely are, at least not without other help. Can you tell me a little about what life’s like at home? Have there been any tensions Edward might be responding to?”
She hadn’t missed the fact Edward’s mother wasn’t with them.
Robert Swain shot his son a look. “His mother took off a couple of years ago, so yeah, I guess you could say there have been tensions.”
Amy frowned. “Can you tell me exactly what you mean when you say she ‘took off?’ Is she still in touch?”
Robert Swain clasped his meaty fingers together and shook his head. “No. She just upped and left one night. That was during the first week of September, two years ago. We haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
That was strange. Amy hadn’t had the best of mothers, but her mother had never abandoned her.
How did they know something else hadn’t happened?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Robert filled in for her. “And no, nothing more sinister befell her. Her leaving like that was reported to the police, and they didn’t find anything to suggest she might have come to any harm. Susan had always struggled dealing with Edward, and it got harder and harder the older he got. She obviously decided she’d had enough, and she packed a bag, and that was the last we saw of her.”
Amy’s heart contracted at the thought of a ten-year-old being abandoned by his mother, and not only that, having it made clear that he was the reason she’d gone. Did Edward blame himself? One thing Amy had never thought as a child was that she was the one responsible for her father leaving. There had been no doubt in her mind that her mother was to blame. Maybe that had only been a small comfort, but it had been a comfort, and those nights she’d been able to spend at her father’s house had been moments of respite. Her mother had been completely inflexible about the times Amy spent with her dad, just like she’d been with everything in her life. If something happened and her dad needed to work late, or was ill, she’d never let him switch nights. If he wasn’t able to take Amy for whatever reason, that week would be skipped, and the following week alone with her mother would feel like it stretched on endlessly.
Amy considered herself a reasonably good judge of character, and something about Robert Swain felt off. She couldn’t detect an ounce of compassion or love from him, and she had to wonder if Mrs Swain leaving like she had was more to do with her husband than her son. Amy wasn’t one to judge—the idea of being a parent was terrifying—but she was sure Edward’s mother must have been in a terrible place to just up and leave like that. Even her own mum, who never seemed to have a maternal bone in her body, hadn’t left her, though there were plenty of occasions where Amy wished she had.
“Did you start to feel worse about things after your mother left?” she asked Edward, tearing her thoughts from her own family.
“I guess,” he murmured.
She flicked her gaze to Robert, silently telling him he could weigh in now.
The father shrugged, a mirror of his son. “Well, it didn’t bloody help, did it?”
Amy gave Edward a sad smile. “I guess it wouldn’t have.” She nodded to his wrists. “And those marks on your arms. How did they happen?”
It was important for her to be curious but not judgemental.
Edward’s lips tightened, and he still didn’t meet her eyes.
Robert Swain put up both hands. “Don’t look at me. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve a good hiding for all the bullshit he puts me through, but I didn’t do that to him. When he loses it, he hits himself.”
/> “You did that to yourself?” she asked Edward.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
It wasn’t as though it was illegal for the father to hit the child. She hoped that would change one day, but it was 1983, and the laws seemed to be playing catch up when it came to a modern way of thinking.
Edward was clearly an angry young man, but with Robert for a father, and a mother who’d abandoned him, she could hardly blame him. This wasn’t something she was going to be able to deal with in one session, and it was already far later than she’d been planning on leaving. Gary was going to be in one of his moods by the time she got home, stomping around the flat and barely speaking to her. Sometimes, she thought he preferred not talking to her rather than arguing because when they argued, she was normally able to put across a perfectly reasonable case to prove her point. At least when he wasn’t speaking to her, he could keep convincing himself that he was the one in the right.
Amy placed her notepad and pen onto the coffee table in front of her and sat back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap.
“Edward, I believe you’re dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety...”—she missed out saying that it was due to his home life, and the fallout from his mother deserting him—“and I think you have some anger and impulse control issues that I’m sure we can work through. Of course, we can’t do it all in one session. It’s going to take time. Because of your age, I’d normally prefer to do a family-based session...”
She trailed off, allowing their reaction to her suggestion to follow.
Edward immediately tensed and hunched further into himself.
Robert Swain gave a huff of exasperation. “I shouldn’t even be here now. I’m supposed to be at work, but I got called out to deal with this mess. I can’t take every week off to come here and sit in this room. Edward’s perfectly old enough to get himself here.”
With that kind of attitude, perhaps it was best that the father didn’t attend. Sometimes, having an uncooperative or defensive family member could hold progress back rather than helping it.