was about to tell me.
‘So,’ I said, ‘you want us to take a child in.’ He nodded. ‘Just for over Christmas? Or are we looking at a more permanent thing?’
John rubbed his hands together again. They were pinkish, and mottled from the cold. ‘I don’t know yet. It’s a big mess. Police involved. Shocking. All very sudden, so there’s no care plan in place yet, obviously. Shocking,’ he said again. John wasn’t easily shocked. ‘It’s a little girl,’ he went on, grimacing. ‘Literally just been brought in to us. And you’ll need to prepare yourselves. Ah, Mike,’ he said, looking up. ‘Good.’
Mike came in with the coffees, having presumably left Riley and the others to deal with what needed dealing with – which, it occurred to me, could usefully involve turning the TV off.
‘Go on, then,’ I urged John, once Mike had pulled up another chair. ‘Exactly how shocking? How bad is it?’
Pretty bad, as it turned out, even to our experienced ears.
‘Her name is Darby,’ John began. ‘Six years old. Lives with both parents.’
I knew this could mean everything and nothing. Many foster kids – most of the type we tended to foster – came to us having already been involved with social services, from dysfunctional families, fractured ones, the kids of addicts of various kinds – and a fair few who’d already been in the care system for a while. That this girl came from a home with a mother and father could mean lots of things, good or bad, so I couldn’t pre-judge. What I knew it wouldn’t be was some sort of tragedy, such as both parents having been killed in a road accident. Police, he’d said. A big mess. That was telling.
‘She’s come to our attention,’ John continued, ‘via a known paedophile. And, as I said, you’ll want to brace yourselves …’
The word was galvanising. We did. In fact, I don’t think I’d sat so stiffly to attention since I’d last been to a lecture on fostering protocols. Though this time it wasn’t so I didn’t drift off to sleep. On the contrary, I’d rarely been so riveted.
The little girl, Darby Sykes, had indeed come to them via a known paedophile – one who’d been browsing through his usual diet of hardcore child pornography when he thought he recognised a child that he knew. That the images would have been disturbing wasn’t in question – physical abuse of small children was the kind of material he mostly went for, but in this case, realising he knew the child lit some flame of disquiet in him. Identifying the actual victim meant he couldn’t switch off the part of his brain that was required to pipe down in order for him to enjoy what he was doing.
And what he’d been doing, John explained, in a quiet, measured voice, was watching little six-year-old Darby, on film, on his laptop, initially dressed up, and made up, but soon almost fully naked, and acting out various scenarios with a variety of sex toys. Above each moving picture was apparently a banner. It read ‘Our Little Princess’.
Chapter 2
The known paedophile, John continued, had been sickened. He smiled grimly, once he’d told us that, as if to say I know – even paedophiles as depraved as this one had their limits. ‘He was apparently really sickened,’ John went on. ‘Which he must have been, mustn’t he? Because he reported it to the police even knowing the probable consequences – that, when they seized his computer, which they obviously would do, he’d be in big trouble himself. They live on the same estate,’ he continued. Then spread his palms wide. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about, really, does it?’
‘I feel sick too,’ Mike said, echoing my own sentiments. ‘Six? You say she’s six?’ He shook his head. ‘And her parents are filming her for paedophiles? I honestly just can’t imagine anything more terrible.’
John sipped his coffee. ‘Yes, six, and an only child, thank God. Which is not to say the couple haven’t …’
‘Jesus,’ said Mike. ‘It’s so sick.’
‘But she’s safe now. The police acted swiftly, thank goodness. She’s safe with us now.’
‘Since when?’ I asked.
‘Since two hours ago.’
‘At the office?’
He nodded. ‘But look – listen, both – don’t say yes if you don’t think …’
‘How could we possibly say no, John? God!’ I said. ‘What kind of a state must she be in?’ I tried to imagine what kind of mental turmoil the child was in. Had she been held prisoner in her own home? Forced to ‘perform’ under threat? Would she be glad to have escaped? Desperate? Hysterical? Or, on the other hand – and the thought crept unavoidably into my brain – was she more distressed at being taken away from all she knew? Was what she’d been forced to do her version of normal?
Mike and I exchanged glances. I knew his thought processes would be similar. A few years previously we’d fostered siblings who’d been born into a family that were at the centre of a terrifyingly huge paedophile ring. The older one, Ashton, was his grandfather’s son – one of several children he’d sired with his own daughters. Most chillingly, however, was that, groomed virtually from birth, these two terrified innocents had been distressed, no doubt about it, but not about the sexual abuse, which for them was just another way of showing love – no, they were distressed at being taken from their ever-loving granddad.
Hearing the shouts and whoops of my own grandchildren coming from the other room, my heart felt suddenly leaden. ‘Then go and fetch her,’ I told John, returning Mike’s affirmative nod. ‘Bring her here. Of course we’ll have her. That’s settled.’
John’s frown lines smoothed out slightly. A box had been ticked. A problem shared and halved. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and I knew he really meant it. ‘I knew I could depend on you two. And, of course, I’ll go back and organise for her to be brought to you right away. But you need to be aware of what you are taking on. Seriously. I know you’ve a lot of experience of this sort of thing –’ He spread his palms. ‘Would that it were otherwise, eh? But this appears to be a severely damaged little girl. And in all kinds of ways. It’s in a different league, honestly –’
Mike laughed grimly. ‘You said it, mate. Sheesh. You’re telling me.’
‘Horrific,’ John agreed.
‘And the parents,’ I said, thinking suddenly about the monsters who’d done this evil. ‘What’s happened to them now?’
‘Arrested,’ John said. ‘Not sure what’s happening next there. But if you’re absolutely sure you’re happy to take little Darby, even if just in the short term, I’ll go back and sort things. She’s already been allocated a social worker – though I’ve not met her myself yet – and she’s the one who’ll bring Darby over to you. Say an hour or so?’ He glanced back towards the kitchen, sniffing the air. ‘Give you time to have your dinner at least.’
Dinner, understandably, was the last thing on my mind. And, unsurprisingly, I had entirely lost my appetite. We ate anyway, because, aside from everything else, the rest of the family were all starving – all bar Tyler, who pitched up not long after John had left us, and in doing so reminding me why we did what we did. I hugged him extra hard, as if he were a living, breathing talisman against the evil that was going to come and visit, in the shape of the reality it forced into our minds.
We
