The Boy No One Loved (9 page)

But whatever the arguments about the boundaries between parent and counsellor, this was extra support and friendship for Justin, and that could never be a bad thing. I nodded and gave Simon a quick smile.

He smiled back. ‘We’re also going to allocate a skills worker to him. Someone who can take him out and about into the wider community, and hopefully engage his interest in some new hobbies and team activities, as a means of helping him form proper friendships.’

I really did like the idea of this because, right away, I could see how much Justin would get from this extra, focussed-on-fun-instead-of-talking kind of attention. He’d be excited, I knew, and I’d enjoy telling him about it.

‘So there you have it,’ Simon finished. ‘Let’s hope it reaps some benefits. At the very least, if we can continue to make progress with his schoolwork, and all things social, he’s definitely moving in the right direction.’

Twenty failed placements already, I thought. And now a child-protection investigation for his mother, to boot. Could it really be that simple to make progress? I wasn’t sure I believed that, but I truly hoped so.

The meeting was adjourned soon after, and everyone started preparing to leave, but John, I noticed, didn’t put on his jacket.

‘Couple of things to tell you,’ he said, as everyone filed back out through the front door. ‘Any chance of another cup of tea?’

We went back into the kitchen, John carrying the tray of crockery, and I set about re-filling the kettle.

‘I’ve tracked down one of Justin’s previous social workers,’ he said, joining me at the sink and transferring cups and saucers to the dishwasher for me. ‘He’s retired now, so I went and paid him a visit personally. Just to see if there was anything else I could dig up.’

I rinsed out our mugs ready for a fresh brew. Him tea, and me my drug of choice, another coffee. ‘And?’ I said.

‘And I think the consensus is that Justin’s been telling you the truth. It’s pretty much the exact same thing he told this chap back then. Back when he was … oh, about six or seven.’

‘But that wasn’t on his file,’ I pointed out.

John shook his head. ‘No, you’re right, it wasn’t. Seems this chap at the time pretty much dismissed it.’

‘Dismissed it? What, all that stuff about performing oral sex on the drug dealer? About the dog? About setting the house alight? He was
five
. Why would he lie about something like that? God, could there have
been
a greater cry for help?’

‘I know.’ John frowned. ‘But apparently – and I quote – he just “thought he was being fanciful”. Told me he was always lying. And used to say a lot of stuff that was obviously untrue, like when – aged 5 – he beat up his mum’s boyfriend with a pool cue, and how he used to smoke cannabis and so on.’

I tried to picture Justin the little boy and this notion of him ‘always lying’, and how risky a business it was to just assume something like that. I wasn’t naive – I knew better than to believe everything children said, but, still, there is a difference between a kid telling you that he beat someone up in a fight, and the other kinds of horrible things that Justin had disclosed. It didn’t take a genius to realise that a child of five wouldn’t know such things. Not unless he had actually witnessed them.

I was so sad. How different might his future have been if he’d been properly listened to when he was still young enough to benefit from someone actually believing him? Instead, it seemed, it hadn’t even been recorded. He’d already, it seemed, been given up on. ‘But I’m still on it,’ John promised, as the kettle boiled. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

And John had obviously meant what he’d said, for there was more. That lunchtime, not an hour after he’d left, an email came through:

This new information, strangely, didn’t faze me at all. If anything, it simply cemented my determination to stop this damning cycle – this business of everything Justin said about the horrors of his early childhood seeming to fall on deaf ears. Challenging though he must have been to deal with – I recalled again those twenty failed placements – I simply couldn’t understand why there’d been no continuity in caring for him. Except perhaps it wasn’t so difficult to understand why. He’d been shunted back and forth, from care home, to foster home, back to his mother’s home, endlessly, and it seemed that at no point had anyone taken responsibility for addressing the root of his problems. At no point had anyone even heard alarm bells, and stopped to ask themselves why.

Justin was damaged because of the things that had happened to him when he was too young to make any sense of them. Then damaged further by an assumption – be it for whatever reason, perhaps no reason – that the problem, at every stage after that,
was
him.

Well, no more, I thought. From here on in, no more.

When Justin got home from school that afternoon I had already prepared a tea of crumpets and hot chocolate – his favourite – for us both. And as I boiled the milk and toasted the crumpets I told him about all the new things the agency had decided to put in place. How he’d have a couple of new friends to take him out for treats and new activities at the weekends; how, because he’d started doing so well at school (both in terms of behaviour and schoolwork, the incident notwithstanding) that they’d set him new, more challenging, targets and, most importantly, because he’d been doing so well with his points – the recent outburst again, notwithstanding – that Mike and I were setting him new targets too.

From now on he’d earn points by doing more complex things, because the day-to-day things that seemed challenging when he came to us, such as behaving nicely at mealtimes and making his bed, were no longer things any of us even thought about any more. From now on he would have to think harder about earning points.

‘How?’ he wanted to know.

I sat down beside him with the buttered crumpets, and showed him the new list I’d made up that afternoon.

‘No more exclusions from school,
obviously
, is at number one,’ I said. He smiled ruefully at this.

‘And then there’s no TV till you’ve done whatever homework you’ve got, okay? Three chores around the house every week – but
without
being asked, which is what makes it harder – and being polite all the time, to everyone, both in and out of the house.’ I went down the complete list for him as he finished his first crumpet. ‘What d’you think, then? You reckon you can manage all of those?’

‘Easy,’ he said, picking up his mug and grinning at me over it. ‘Easy, that lot are, Casey. Piece of cake. Does this mean that my pocket money goes up too?’

I grinned back at him. ‘Well, let’s just see how you go with your new points first, then me and Mike might have a chat about that.’

I put a second round of crumpets into the toaster to start browning. He seemed genuinely excited about both the new targets and the new provisions. And why wouldn’t he be? There were clearly people in the world who genuinely wanted to make his life better. It wasn’t rocket science, was it? Of course it pleased him.

In any event, he seemed to have forgotten all about being angry with me. Long may that state of affairs continue, I thought.

The end of the week saw another email arrive from John Fulshaw:

I was so pleased that John seemed to be making such an effort to discover all the details of Justin’s past for us. It really seemed to me that this was crucial to making further progress with him; it was a cliché, but I felt understanding where he’d come from was the key to helping him find a brighter future.

And what a complicated past it was turning out to be. At the end of that week, when John came for the promised visit – we’d arranged for him to come back so the two of us could do a quick follow-up on the LAC meeting – his expression told me he’d more to impart.

‘I have more news,’ he said, without preamble, as I showed him in. ‘Though brace yourself, because it’s not very edifying, I’m afraid.’

‘Go on,’ I said, as we went into the kitchen. ‘I’m pretty much braced for anything, to be honest. I take it it’s not the kind of information you’d have been thrilled to pass on before we agreed to have him?’

‘You got it,’ said John. ‘Hit the nail on the head, Casey.’ And it turned out he was right. If we’d known it, we might well have acted differently.

He’d been to see the couple earlier in the day, as he’d planned to, and it turned out they’d had Justin for six months a couple of years back; at the time he left them Justin had been nine. They told John that for the first few weeks things had been fine, that they’d all got on and that he’d settled very well.

The placement had followed a period when he’d been living back with his mother, truncated when she’d decided to place him back into care so she could ‘concentrate on her new boyfriend’. I felt my hackles begin to rise as John recounted what had happened. How could a mother do that? It was one thing to be in extremis and not coping; quite another to pick up and discard your own flesh and blood just because you decided they were annoying you. But she’d been able to do it that first time, hadn’t she? And if you’ve done something once, however shocking that something is, you get acclimatised; it’s not quite so shocking the next time, and little by little, in this case, it seemed, she had perhaps come to see social services and voluntary care orders, in a drug-addled way, as simply an extended form of childminding.

But at the same time, for Justin, this was a brutal betrayal. Hurt and rejected, he had refused to have contact with his mum following this, perhaps (to my mind) to punish her for sending him away, perhaps in the hope that she’d change her mind. But after three months he relented and asked his carers if he could see her again, and she agreed on two hours every two weeks. Two whole hours – what a generous mother she was, I thought grimly.

It was around now that his mood took a turn for the worse; he became sullen and defiant and withdrew into his shell, telling the couple that his mum loved him and wanted him back but that social services wouldn’t let her have him.

Once again, I felt my anger rise as John recounted what they’d said; that when they investigated, Janice did confess that that was what she’d told Justin, because she didn’t want him ‘knowing that she didn’t want him back’.

I’ll bet
. I thought grimly.
Need a scapegoat to let you off the hook? Try social services. They’ll be happy to carry the can.

‘So what happened next?’ I asked John, as I poured milk into our drinks. ‘Was he told the truth in the end?’

‘Yes,’ he said, nodding. ‘Several times, over the years, I believe. But Justin, of course, refused to believe it. On the couple of occasions when he did confront his mother it would, I’m told, invariably end up in a screaming match, with her inevitably insisting that all social workers were liars, who only wanted to split up families. She’d then come grovelling to social services, apologising for it, but still maintaining that she’d done it because she didn’t want to hurt him by telling him the real truth. Bloody awful either way, don’t you think?’ He sipped his coffee. ‘And Justin’s subsequent behaviour on this occasion – understandably, I’d say – got worse and worse, culminating in him being excluded from his primary school. He apparently went wild one morning, completely out of the blue, and ended up smashing two computers. It took three staff members to restrain him. And then Janice decided she’d had enough of him too, and suspended contact again, for two months.’

‘That poor boy … and this was meant to teach him a lesson?’

‘Exactly. And, as you can imagine, when his foster mother broke
this
news, he took it very, very badly; she’d expected that, of course, but not quite the extent of it – not at all. He went into a complete rage and attacked her with a screwdriver, apparently, hitting her with it and threatening to stab her.’

‘Oh, God …’

‘I know. Bloody wretched, isn’t it? Anyway, they never managed to get the relationship back on track again and a couple of months later they felt there was nothing more they could do for him. So he was transferred back into a children’s home.’

He paused again, to munch on a biscuit.

‘God,’ I said, shaking my head as I let it sink in. ‘It’s just so heartbreaking, isn’t it? At every turn it seems to get worse. You really have to wonder if his life wouldn’t have been so much better if she’d just rejected him outright and allowed him to move on. Surely that would have been better in the long term than this repeated cycle of hope and then rejection?’ John was nodding. ‘But the poor kid,’ I went on. ‘Those two little brothers. It’s just so bloody wretched to think just how much he clearly loves those little ones, yet he’s been forcibly separated from them for more than half his life.’

‘You’re spot on, Casey,’ John said. ‘The word “damaged” really doesn’t do it justice, does it?’ And there’s more.’

‘More information?’

He nodded. ‘I tracked down another care worker this week too – Mona. She worked in a children’s home Justin spent time in. Still does, in fact. Anyway, he was there for a year or so when he was about seven.’

‘So just before he got fostered.’

John smiled ruefully at me. ‘Pass. There may have been another placement in between. I don’t know. Could have been back with his mum, even, for a time. But Mona said they were actually pretty close for a while. Well, she
thought
so; she said he struggled to make attachments to anyone, really, but she liked to think she’d broken through to some extent.

‘Anyway, seemed it all went pear shaped; there was this incident. Another child in the home – a boy, couple of years younger – complained that Justin had been burning him with a lighter. And as he had the burns to prove it, Mona obviously followed it up. Had to question Justin, naturally, and the thing that really got to her was his reaction to being questioned – apparently it really scared her. She said he may have been only a young child, but that there was something about his expression – well, you already know, Casey – you’ve seen it, and you’ve described it. Well, it worried her. Really made her uneasy. Anyway, he called her ‘a fat bitch’ and apparently challenged her to prove it, which of course, she couldn’t, and that was that.

‘Anyway, the upshot was that he never spoke to her again. Not once. Though she said he’d always smile sweetly at her in passing. She’d never forget him, she told me – and I think she’s feeling for you now. You know what her last words were?’

‘Go on, John – surprise me.’

‘That he’s a newspaper headline waiting to happen.’

John’s words – or rather Mona’s – stayed with me all day. Kept me awake that night and still sat on my shoulder the next morning. It had been a spine-tingling moment, sitting there in my kitchen with John. I’d always had that sense that Justin was the human equivalent of a simmering pot, always about to boil over. Had had it since the first time we ever met him, even before he came to live with us. Now, though, armed with all this new information, I didn’t just have my gut instinct confirmed, I also knew that when the explosions came, they were likely to be of more volcanic proportions.

But it wasn’t just a case of dealing with the straightforward venting of Justin’s simmering anger. The damage to him was deep and the manifestations of it were highly complex, as I was to find out, only a couple of days later, for myself.

We’d been really pleased, the following week, to see some evidence of Justin seemingly beginning to fit in more with his peers – he’d been talking a bit about a boy he’d befriended, whose name was Gregory and who apparently had some challenges of his own to deal with; he had learning difficulties, or so Justin informed us, and lived with his aunt, as his mother ‘couldn’t cope with him’.

We’d already met Gregory a couple of times as he and Justin had started walking home from school together, along with his aunt, and he would sometimes invite them to call into our house for a drink and a biscuit on the way. I got on well with Aunt Jennie, and the two of us had shared a couple of coffees together whilst the boys had half an hour on the PlayStation. She never outstayed her welcome and I was happy that Justin seemed to have made a friendship that was lasting beyond the usual week or two.

I wasn’t too surprised, then, when one day Justin burst through the door after school and started to plead with me for Gregory to come over for a sleepover.

‘Oh, please,’ he begged. ‘Can Greg sleep at our house this Saturday? He’s asked his auntie and she said it’s okay if you say so. Oh, please, Casey. Please say he can.’ But though I might not have been surprised, I was also unsure. A sleepover was quite a big thing for us to contemplate, and was also something that could be construed as a ‘reward’ on his programme, for which he would need to earn points.

Plus he hadn’t known Gregory that long yet. ‘I don’t know, love,’ I said, to give myself time to discuss things with Mike, and maybe John. ‘You’ve not known each other long, and your room isn’t that big, and …’

‘Oh
please
Casey,’ he interrupted, eyes wide, looking hopeful. ‘I’m
begging
you. We could easily make a bed up on my floor.’

He looked so sincere, and so excited at the prospect, that my resolve started to weaken immediately. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘No promises, but here’s what I’ll do. If you ask Greg to get his aunt to call me tomorrow, so we can have a chat, then maybe – just maybe, mind – we could give it a try.’

Saturday came and along with it the sleepover, which, following various chats and some hard thinking, we had now agreed could take place. I had spoken to Jennie, who had filled me in a little more about Greg. He had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), she told me, and was on medication, but that wasn’t anything I couldn’t deal with. I’d also spoken to Mike, and had a quick word with John, and we’d all agreed that this would be a good opportunity for Justin to develop his social skills. And this was something that so far, he seemed keen to impress us with – since I’d told him I’d consider it, he’d been a model of good behaviour, tidying his room and repeatedly promising that I wouldn’t have to lift a finger or get anything organised; he would do absolutely everything.

And true to his word, he did just that, making up the bed on his floor by himself, and then, once Greg had arrived and settled in, not only showing him how to work one of his PlayStation games, but also allowing him to play with his precious toy soldiers. I smiled as I served them a special fish and chip supper. I needn’t have worried, I realised. He was doing himself proud.

But perhaps I should have listened to my instincts more keenly, and been a little slower to relax. It was around eleven in the evening when I heard what sounded like a scream, coming from Justin’s room.

‘Did you hear that?’ I asked Mike, reaching automatically for the remote, so I could check if my ears were working right. We were nearing the end of a movie by now and all had been quiet since I’d gone up to tuck them in at around ten, having allowed an extra half-hour with the lights and TV on.

‘I definitely heard something,’ Mike confirmed, getting up. ‘I’ll go and check. They’re probably just messing about.’ He headed off, seeming largely unconcerned, which was reassuring. ‘You’ll have to tell me what I missed when I get back.’

Two minutes later, however, I was far from reassured to hear Mike’s voice from upstairs too – I could tell he was shouting. I leapt up to go and join him and really give the boys what for. I should have known they’d play up at some point.

But what greeted me was not ‘playing up’ in any normal sense. I entered the bedroom to find Justin standing at the side of his bed, with a very strange look on his face. It took me a few moments to process what was happening. Mike was kneeling on the floor close by, glaring at him, and it was then that I noticed that Gregory was huddled beneath a duvet on the floor between them. I could hear Gregory sobbing and groaning from inside it, clearly reluctant to give it up, while Mike was trying to prise it from around him.

‘What the hell is going on?’ I said, looking from Mike to Justin. Justin simply stared at me, his features hardening. ‘Mike?’ I persisted.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ he said, turning to me. ‘But I think he’s hurt Greg in some way.’ He pointed his finger at Justin as he spoke. ‘That’s all I know, because neither of them will tell me. All I’ve managed to get out of Greg is that Justin’s really hurt him and that he wants to go home to his auntie. ‘C’mon mate,’ he said, giving another gentle tug on the duvet. ‘Let’s get you out of there and see how you’re doing.’

I got down on my knees and put my arms around Greg through the duvet. ‘It’s okay sweetheart,’ I said gently as Mike moved aside to make room. Perhaps he’d respond better to a female voice. ‘Let’s just have a look at you, eh? Then we can phone your Auntie Jennie.’