Nowhere to Go (6 page)

‘Grant, will you do as you’re
fucking
told!’ she snapped, causing the heads of the other couple of people cruising the aisles to duly snap up in surprise. ‘And come right back here this minute!’

At which point I might have said something conciliatory – there was really no need for that sort of response, surely? But Tyler beat me to it.

‘He can talk to me if he fucking wants to,’ he roared at her, ‘so leave us alone, you bitch!’

‘Tyler!’ I started, reaching to grab a hold of him. It was almost automatic. And he was ready for it, and wrestled his arm free.

‘Leave me alone!’ he screeched back at me. ‘He’s my fucking little brother! I can talk to him if I want to!
She
can’t fucking stop me!’

Except, obviously, she could. The aisle cleared, then, one pensioner even breaking into a trot. ‘Tyler,’ I said again, firmly but not aggressively. ‘Don’t make this worse than it already is, okay? Come on, come away …’

But he completely ignored me. For all the things that he was and might be – he was still something of an unknown quantity – he was never slow in coming forward, and he was brave. He marched up to her and, though she was taller than him by a good seven or eight inches, jabbed an angry finger towards her chest.

‘They’ll get you!’ he told her, while his younger brother kept casting anxious glances at me. ‘They’ll get you! They
fucking
will, you witch!’

His little brother was by now tugging on the sleeve of his school sweatshirt. ‘Ty,’ he was saying, ‘stop it! Please, Ty – just leave it!’

‘Tyler,’ I said, grabbing his wrist again, ‘come on. Come
away
.’ I looked at his stepmother, who finally met my eyes and rolled her own.
You see?
they seemed to be saying to me.
You see what I have to deal with?
And before she could get a word out he played right into it too, swinging a leg back, then hammering his foot into her shin. Now she did speak.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ she said, mostly to me, finally. ‘He’s a fucking
animal
!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, because I didn’t really know what else
to
say. ‘Come on, Tyler. Come on, let’s get you home. Come on, you have to
stop
this.’

‘Too bloody right!’ his stepmother said, bending down to rub her shin. ‘Jesus Christ, I can’t even go into the supermarket without being fucking
assaulted
… Grant, will you get right here,
now
!’

He scuttled to her side and, having at last got a firm grip on Tyler, I left the trolley parked by the fabric conditioners and dragged him away.

The duty manager intercepted us just as we’d cleared the fruit and veg. ‘Is everything all right?’ he wanted to know, looking anxiously from me to Tyler and back again.

‘Everything’s fine,’ I reassured him brightly. ‘Isn’t it, love?’ I added. I didn’t loosen my grip on Tyler, not even a little. Then, before the man could ask anything further I sidestepped him and left them to it. We’d perhaps come back and do the shopping another day.

And as I walked Tyler to the car – he was crying now, but I pretended I didn’t know that – I remembered that thing car insurance companies always say you should do in the event of an accident. That, even if you know the prang is your fault, you should never say sorry, because that’s the same as admitting liability. That you should never do that, because that’s for
them
to decide.

This was like that, I decided. Just the same sort of thing. And though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it mattered to me so greatly, I really wished that I hadn’t said that sorry.

It was a 15-minute drive from the supermarket to home, but as I ushered Tyler back up the front path I realised that it wasn’t only him who was still feeling agitated – my own heart was still pumping with adrenalin. No, it hadn’t actually flared up into a full-blown physical tussle, thank goodness, but it had been an ugly, disturbing scene and, more than that, a telling one. It had told me a great deal about the state of affairs in Tyler’s home – none of which filled me with much hope.

And it seemed events were moving on apace now, as well. As I put my key in the door I could hear the house phone ringing.

‘Go on, love,’ I said to Tyler. ‘Get upstairs and change out of your uniform while I get that. Then come straight back down. You and I need to have a chat, okay?’

Tyler, no doubt glad to be off the leash, ran off up the stairs as instructed, while I made a grab for the phone.

It was John Fulshaw. ‘Ah, you’re there,’ he said. ‘I was just about to hang up.’

‘Sorry,’ I gasped into the receiver, ‘long story. How are you?’

‘I have mixed news to give you, I’m afraid,’ John said, without preamble. ‘The good news is that Will Fisher has agreed to do an extra half day a week with Tyler during the school holidays – assuming that suits you, of course – take him off on some outings – swimming, go-karting; that sort of thing. Thought it might give you a bit of extra breathing space.’

‘That
is
good news,’ I said. And for me as well as Tyler. I wasn’t Methuselah, but neither was I a spring chicken these days, and what with the holidays approaching, and with trying to support Riley through those intense early months with my gorgeous but demanding grand-daughter, those few hours a week to catch my breath would be welcome indeed. ‘But what’s the flip side? Go on. I’m braced.’

‘It’s not
that
bad,’ John reassured me. ‘Just a little unexpected. I’ve just taken another call from Will – just as I was going to ring you with the first news, funnily enough – to say they have Tyler’s court date, and it’s rather short notice. Which is no problem for them – they already have their case organised, and it’s obviously a strong one – but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for you and Mike to put something together – you know, as in what we talked about? Just a few illustrative snippets to show how he’s doing; how he’s remorseful, keen to make amends and so on.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But exactly how short are we talking about here?’

‘It’s next Wednesday. 11.00 a.m.,’ he said. ‘You know where the courts are, don’t you?’

Jeepers, I thought. That
was
pretty short notice. ‘Next Wednesday! That’s less than a week away! Yes, I know where the courts are,’ I added, ‘but, oh dear, I have to tell you that we’ve had something of an incident this afternoon – which I think might just upset the apple-cart a bit.’

I explained to John about what had happened following our encounter in the supermarket, and how it had given me more of an idea of what we were up against. ‘And the frustrating thing is that this could happen again, couldn’t it? With the family living so close by, we could end up bumping into them all the time.’

Which, given what had happened, was now becoming a worry, for obvious reasons. The way Tyler’s stepmother had been with him spoke volumes. It was the clearest indication yet that she really wanted nothing more to do with him – not to mention how she obviously felt about letting him near his little brother, which was the thing that had saddened me most of all.

And made me determined to try and get something more out of him – particularly about the night in question – so we’d at least have a fuller picture of what we were up against, come the hearing. ‘Leave it with me,’ I told John. ‘Don’t worry – we’ll get something together. I’ll also run through the court procedure with Tyler so that he’s prepared for what’ll happen. Maybe after what’s happened this afternoon he’ll feel a little more like talking anyway. I really hope so. That poor lad needs to fight his corner.’

‘Er, not literally, Casey,’ John corrected. ‘That’s how we got to this, remember!’

John was right. But Tyler needed someone to fight his corner for him, and, in that respect, I knew I was number one candidate. I also had an hour before Mike was due home so it was time to start tea, and I intended to put it to good use.

‘Come on, love,’ I called up the stairs to Tyler, once I’d said goodbye to John. ‘I need to talk to you. Don’t worry,’ I added, when he didn’t appear, ‘you’re not in trouble.’

There was still no response, and I’d already mounted the first couple of stairs when Tyler appeared at the top of them. It was obvious he’d been crying, and trying to wipe away the evidence. My heart went out to him. ‘I’m not?’ he said. ‘You
promise
I’m not?’

‘Absolutely not,’ I reassured him, as I beckoned him back down. I felt a rush of positivity. This was exactly what I’d been waiting for. Not that I wanted him upset and crying, of course, but I did want a way in. A tiny chink in the armour. A little glimpse into the heart of the hurt kid that I knew lay behind the cloak of attitude and anger. ‘I promise, sweetie,’ I said again as he started to walk slowly down the stairs. ‘No, you shouldn’t have lashed out physically – but you already know that, don’t you? But, apart from that, you have nothing to reproach yourself for. It’s not
your
fault that we bumped into them, is it? And, as far as I can see, it’s not your fault that you weren’t allowed to speak to your brother, either.’

Which I knew, even as I said it, wasn’t perhaps the most appropriate thing for me to be saying to him. My normal world was one in which adults, in the main, knew best, hung together and were of largely similar opinions – the world where if a child came home and said that their teacher had told them off, it was natural to assume it must have been for a good reason. And, in truth, I didn’t know. Perhaps there was a very good reason why Tyler wasn’t allowed to speak to his little brother – perhaps he had ‘previous’ with him, as well. But my instinct screamed otherwise. If there was a good reason for Tyler to be denied contact with his sibling, then I felt 100 per cent sure it would already be in the notes somewhere – as extra ammunition, fired by his stepmother, in the cause of taking him to court. But there was nothing. Which spoke volumes to me.

So I didn’t care, I decided – not on this occasion, anyway. This particular kid had already been through enough. ‘Come on,’ I said, daring for the first time to ruffle his hair as he walked past, ‘let’s have a sit down, shall we? And have a proper chat.’

Tyler scrubbed at his eyes roughly as he took a seat at the dining table. I’d hoped he might head for the living room and get comfortable on the sofa, so that I could join him, but perhaps he wasn’t ready for that level of physical closeness yet. And much as I wanted to give him a cuddle, his brittle little body told me I needed to bide my time for a bit. At least he was here with me, and his tears were progress in themselves; tears of hurt he was finally letting me see.

I sat down opposite him and folded my arms on the table. ‘That phone call I just took was from my link worker, Tyler. You remember John, who brought you here?’

Tyler nodded and sniffed, and as he did so I noticed something else. He’d changed into his favourite hoodie, but the hood, for once, was down.

‘Well,’ I continued, deciding to leave Will out of things for the moment, ‘he was calling to tell me that they now have a date for your court appearance.’

I watched as a look of panic crossed his features. ‘It’s next Wednesday,’ I added quickly, ‘but, Tyler, that’s a
good
thing. It’s better that it’s so soon. It means it’ll be over and done with – so you won’t have it hanging over you, making you worry.’

‘But that’s less than a week away!’ he cried, parroting what I’d just said to John. ‘They’ll send me down, won’t they? I know they will.’

I would have smiled at his choice of term if I had felt at all like smiling. As it was, I was more concerned with reassuring him. ‘Tyler, they won’t be “sending you down”. They won’t be sending you anywhere,’ I added, crossing my fingers that I was right. But how could I not be? He was 11. There couldn’t be a magistrate in the land that would countenance such a thing, surely? And if we were unlucky enough to find one who felt differently, I’d take it upon myself to appeal in the strongest terms. Chain myself to the court railings, if need be, I decided. Or the bike rack, more likely. But it would be unnecessary. He’d already been sent ‘down’ after all – down into the care system. Down to our house.

Which, to my mind, was the first positive in the whole sorry business. ‘How do you know?’ he argued. ‘One of my mates threatened this old lady with a knife once, and he got sent away for
ever
.’

‘Don’t be daft, love. They won’t send you away,’ I said, ‘I promise you. Sweetie, what you did was done in the heat of the moment. You were angry about so many things, weren’t you?’ He nodded slightly. ‘Whereas your friend – well, I’m just guessing, but I bet that was completely different. If he threatened some poor old lady with a knife, then he probably deserved to get sent away, didn’t he? But I can assure you it won’t have been for ever.’

Tyler looked like he was about to burst into tears again – which was no surprise, really, if he’d been harbouring a conviction that his fate was to be flung into jail. I needed to steer the conversation to a safer place for him. ‘Look, sweetie,’ I went on, ‘John also called to tell me that the social workers are going to try and help you. They will have written letters that they’ll read out in court to tell people about you – about what happened that night, and about other bad things that happened to you – the things that happened when you were little. Do you understand that?’

‘D’you mean about my mum dying?’

‘Yes, about your mum,’ I said, nodding. ‘And about
how
she died, too. And also about anything else they might know about anything that could have hurt you. That’s what they’ll be there for. You know, if you’ve told them stuff already, or to the police – you probably spoke to the police about it, didn’t you? Well, they’ll have it all written down and they’ll tell everyone about it, to try to help the judge understand why you might have acted as you did.’

It was clearly a lot for him to take in, the idea that anyone might want to help him. But once he had, another thought had obviously struck him. ‘But the judge prob’ly won’t believe them,’ he said, with feeling. ‘
She lies
, Casey! All the time! She tells all sorts of lies, and everyone
always
believes her. She’ll tell them how bad I am and how good
she
is and that’ll be that,’ he finished. ‘Ten years for me!’

I did suppress a smile at that, because he sounded just like the Artful Dodger. And with those big soulful eyes, he even looked a bit like him, too. But it really wasn’t funny to see just how convinced he was that that would happen. ‘Not at all!’ I said firmly. ‘Courts are not stupid, Tyler. They have to listen to
both
sides of every story. That’s their job. Doesn’t matter if it’s a kid or an adult – they listen to everyone equally. And only then do they make up their mind who they believe the most.’

‘An’ they’ll believe her!’ he persisted.

‘Not if they haven’t got very good reason to,’ I countered. ‘And not if they have very good reason to believe
you
. Which is where social services come in, and where Mike and I come in, too. Tyler, we
know
all about the bad things that happened to you when you were little, and we’re here to help you – you know that, don’t you? To help make things better for you in any way we can. And one of the things I have to do next Wednesday is read out my own letter to the court – just like the helping letters I just mentioned – telling them how you’ve been feeling since you came to us. So what we need to do now is see if there’s anything else you’d like them to know about you. Anything at all. About that night with the knife, or about any trouble
before
that night happened … anything that’s happened … anything that’s been done to you … anything that made you upset, made you feel so angry, perhaps – even something you might now feel sorry about having said or done … or any other feelings you might have, about
any
of it. Anything that’s niggling you – about your dad and stepmum, about your brother, about your real mum … about
anything
, okay? And I’ll sit and listen, and I’ll remember what you tell me, then I’ll write my letter for the court and I’ll show it to you, okay? And then, assuming you’re happy with what I put, I can read it out on Wednesday, to help the courts understand you a bit more.’

He pondered this for a few moments, a little crease forming on his forehead. ‘But why do they want to understand me?’ he asked, in a small, thoughtful voice. ‘How would that help?’

I risked reaching across and ruffling his hair again, and I was thrilled when he didn’t flinch. ‘Because, sweetie,
everything
happens for a reason. It might seem like you did what you did just because you couldn’t control your temper, but you know – and
I
know – there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? And we want the judge to know that as well, don’t we? So,’ I finished, hoping that his fear of ‘going down’ would prove the catalyst for him opening up, ‘do you want to give it a go? Do you want to tell me?’

By the time the morning of the court case came around the following Wednesday, I looked in the bathroom mirror and decided I looked as if I’d aged by half a decade. I had hardly slept, and had bags under my eyes the size of suitcases – the baggage, I decided wryly, that I had finally wrestled out of Tyler, and clearly stashed in a convenient, but gallingly visible, location.

I would shove a couple of teaspoons in the freezer, I decided, and, once they were nicely chilled, give myself five uninterrupted minutes with them on my face. Because today was a day when I would need to be on song and look on top of things, particularly given the circumstances of the court case. I needed to look sharp and in control – not like a woman who was worn down by the stress of trying to manage this apparently
un
manageable, knife-wielding young thug.