Linda claps her hands. ‘Oh, Tess, she was wonderful. So efficient, but you could tell she really cared. She was as devastated as we were when they couldn’t charge that . . . that man, with Holly’s murder.’
I try again. ‘Tess recalled you saying that Holly had become so disruptive she had to leave.’ Her face changes. ‘Sorry, did we pick that up wrong?’
She fixes me with a bold stare – my punishment for implying that she gave up on Holly, which, for the record, was absolutely not my intention.
‘I could live with disruptive. I had lived with disruptive. I couldn’t live with destructive, with dangerous.’
‘To herself or other people?’
‘Both, and we were fostering another child by then, a much younger girl. It was an agonising decision and we didn’t come to it overnight. We had several Placement Support Meetings, discussed various strategies, but in the end, Sean and I had to do what was best for us.’ She’s on the defensive straight away. ‘And if that sounds harsh, you’ll be surprised to know that one of the first things they tell you when you become a foster parent is to make sure you practise high levels of self-care. You’re no good to your other children, or any future children, if you feel burned-out and resentful.’
Which makes total sense, of course. And yet you can’t help but feel heartsick for a vulnerable teenage girl who’s effectively been told that she’s too hot to handle.
‘So what was she doing that was dangerous?’
‘What wasn’t she doing by that point? Staying out until 1, 2 a.m. Wouldn’t say where she’d been, who she’d been with. One time, she staggered in, completely out of it, with her top on back to front, scratches and bruises all up her arms and legs. Next day, two men turn up at the door. They were easily in their twenties but Holly announces they’re her boyfriends – both of them, as if one wasn’t bad enough. Well, of course, Sean tried to warn them off, got a punch in the jaw for his efforts. Oh, and then there was the time she decided she knew how to drive a car at age fifteen. Cue a call from the police to say she’s been joyriding and she’s injured. We rushed to The Whittington and there she was, finding the whole thing hilarious.’
Should this be a red card, or a sign she needed more help? I don’t know and I can’t judge.
‘It was the drugs that sealed it, though – she was taking drugs in the house. Betsy, that was the other child we were fostering, got hold of an ecstasy tablet . . .’ She shivers. ‘I found it just in time, but it was the last straw. We’d warned her and warned her and warned her. Of course, I often think now that if we’d handled things differently, maybe she’d have taken a different path, maybe she’d never have been in Clapham that day.’
‘I’m sure you made the right decision.’ It feels like the kind thing to say.
She shoots straight back. ‘Oh, I don’t regret the decision, but I do regret not considering the obvious . . .’ We wait for the obvious as she fiddles with her sandal. ‘Losing her parents in such quick succession at a young age, the violence at Sycamore, foster placements breaking down . . .’ She takes a long, measured breath. ‘I think Holly had PTSD. Dangerous, reckless behaviour is a classic symptom, but I just passed it off as teenage behaviour – heightened teenage behaviour, admittedly. I honestly think it could have been a mental illness, though. She just didn’t seem to have any sense of danger, none whatsoever. She’d walk alone late at night. She’d pick fights with people you really shouldn’t pick fights with. She’d push people to the edge, almost for fun. I think she wanted them to strike back to confirm her belief that the world was bleak and other people were the enemy.’ She shrugs. ‘I’m not a psychologist, but the more I’ve thought about it over the years, the more it makes sense.’
It does.
And Simon Fellows is definitely someone you really shouldn’t pick a fight with.
17
‘Who’s been sitting in my chair?’ I ask, trying and failing to adjust the height back to something less suited to a giraffe.
‘That’ll have been DCI Dyer, Goldilocks.’ Ben Swaines’ voice hovers above me. I look up to see him standing there, dangling a document like a dog treat. ‘Do you need a hand with that?’
‘Nah, I’m done,’ I say stubbornly. ‘And, not to be pedantic, but it was the three bears that said that, not Goldilocks.’ I stand up, then sit down, try the chair out for size. It’ll do until I get Parnell to fix it properly. ‘So what’s that in your hand, then?’
‘Aha, wouldn’t you like to know?’ Swaines jerks his arm back and forth, daring me to make a grab for it. Instead, I turn to Emily. ‘Ems, Ben’s being a dick. What’s he got that I’m supposed to be excited about?’
A bawdy laugh from Pete Flowers.
Emily and I aren’t exactly friends, but we’ve established something of an entente cordiale of late. An acceptance that while we have little in common, bar a womb and an aversion to sushi, we’re both twenty-something women who share the same cramped space for sixty hours a week, so we might as well unite against the patriarchy when the need arises. Which, fortunately for us, isn’t all that often. The odd filthy laugh from Flowers, or Ben Swaines being a good-natured dick occasionally. Steele was right, we’ve got a nice set-up.
‘Serena Bailey’s bank records,’ Emily tells me. ‘He’s been guarding them like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.’
‘Has he now?’
I have them off Swaines in seconds, scanning the pages with supersonic eyes. The relevant dates are lined through with green highlighter.
23 February 2012
>
POS TESCO express, EDGWARE
£11.85
23 February 2012
>
POS THE POST OFFICE, MILL HILL
£4.55
23 February 2012
>
C/L NOTEMACHINE
£30.00
I look up. ‘No purchases made in Clapham the day she saw Holly.’
It’s a myth, or at least a misconception, that to be a good detective you need to possess the laser-focus of an Olympic athlete and the doggedness of an old hack. If anything, you need the attention span of a toddler. An ability to shift obsessions at whim.
So, bye-bye, Simon Fellows. Welcome back, Serena Bailey.
Swaines is looking at Steele, who’s wheeling her chair out of her office. ‘Doesn’t look like it. Happy now?’
‘Happy’ wouldn’t be the word I’d use. Possibly suspicious, certainly piqued.
‘What was Dyer doing here?’ I say, changing the subject.
‘Fuck knows, but she’s still here,’ says Flowers. ‘She’s gone out to get a coffee. Nescafé isn’t good enough for her, obviously. It must be all decaf soya lattes over in Counter-Terrorism.’
Right on cue, Dyer walks in, carrying something swampy in a clear cup that suggests Flowers isn’t too wide of the mark. ‘Hey, Cat,’ she says, smiling broadly. ‘You need to get Steele to stump up for a new chair. Yours is terrible. You’ll have back problems by the time you’re thirty. Leave it with me, I’ll have a word.’