‘I can leave you in here for the night, or we can talk and you can be taken back to prison. Up to you, Vernon.’
‘Can I have a cup of tea?’ The man gave them a strange look, all fight gone, and then got slowly to his feet. His next words were hardly audible. ‘I knew it wasn’t over.’
Anna built a garage from wooden bricks and drove a few toy cars inside. Keith, Gail’s son, had not said one word for over an hour. He stood with his back pressed against the wall while Anna built a fire station and then a house with the toys available for the children. All the while, she was watched by Alison, the Child Protection Officer, whose patience was running out.
Anna knocked down the garage and built a square pen. She went over to the farmyard filled with plastic animals and brought back two pigs. She crawled on the floor, making snorting noises, and put the pigs inside the pen.
Keith moved away from the wall; he came and sat beside Anna. It was an electrifying moment. He had been so silent, so unapproachable. Without a word, he picked up the wooden bricks and began to assemble square pens of his own. He then pointed to the two plastic pigs. She handed them to him and he placed them inside the pens.
‘Oink oink,’ Anna said.
She would never forget the way he looked up at her, his tiny freckled hand holding a pig. His head had been shaved to a crew cut because of the head lice. It made him appear older and tougher than he really was. The expression in his clear eyes was so painful.
‘Mummy,’ he said.
‘Do you remember this place? Did you help feed the animals at the bungalow? There were hens too, and a henhouse.’
He nodded, and began building something else. He was very focused, looking around to find the right bricks, all the while remaining totally silent. Another carer, younger and more junior than Alison, came in and handed her some notes. They sat whispering together as Anna watched the boy select toy cars from all the various types littering the play area. He was very careful, discarding one after another, then choosing a red and white car to place at the side of the house he had built. It took a long time.
‘Is this your house?’ Anna asked.
He stared at her and then went to pick up a red bus; he stood with it in his hands.
‘Oh, that’s a bus. Did you go on a bus?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know where this house is?’
He stared at the house he had built and then angrily kicked it apart, stamping on the bricks. He put the bus down and started to crawl around, running it up and down the worn carpet.
‘Did you go with Joseph? Leave the house with Joseph?’
It was so frustrating and, at the same time, so emotionally draining; the child was so tense, so far out of reach, and yet so close to answering. His lips moved as if he was saying something, then he went and sat in a corner, holding the bus and refusing to even look at Anna. She stood up and stared at the carers.
‘Thank you,’ she said. Then: ‘I think I should go.’
Alison joined her; she could tell that Anna was upset. ‘It takes a long time. If we do have any breakthrough with him, we’ll contact you. You did actually get him to interact with you, which is more than we have been able to do.’
‘It’s heartbreaking,’ Anna said, turning to look at the boy huddled in the corner with the bus.
‘Yes. We have tried to get his grandmother here; she has promised twice and not turned up, which is even worse. I don’t think she wants any involvement, to be honest. We obviously didn’t tell the children she was due to come. We’ve learned never to make promises.’
‘What will eventually happen to him and his sister?’
‘We are waiting on suitable foster carers, but they will have to be very special.’
‘Will they be able to stay together?’
‘I can’t say. It will be a big decision for whoever takes him on; his little sister is doing very well, but she is still mute.’
They walked to the door, speaking softly so that he wouldn’t hear. ‘But she was not sexually abused?’
‘She was not penetrated, but she was used for oral sex. We use dolls and play games; well, you must know how we work.’
‘Dear God…’ Anna closed her eyes, near to tears. Everything in her wanted to say, ‘Let me take them, let me care for them!’ In practical terms, it was ridiculous to even contemplate, but she felt so angry and emotional; she felt she needed to help these two defenceless children. She knew that numerous foster families felt the same way, but few were trained to deal with such traumatized children; even sadder was the fact that siblings sometimes had to be separated.
Anna was shaking Alison’s hand when the younger carer who had been in the nursery room with them hurried out.
‘Alison, can you come in quickly?’ she said.
‘What’s happened?’
‘He was using the crayons and began scrawling all over the wall. I told him to give me the crayon and then he started to urinate in the corner of the room. I went over to him, not to admonish him, but to take him into the toilets, and—’
Alison turned and hurried away. Anna hesitated, but then followed. The door was ajar. The little boy was screaming, kicking and fighting; then suddenly, as if all the fight had been sucked out of him, he ran into Alison’s arms, weeping. She sat rocking him back and forth.
‘It’s all right, no one is going to hurt you. You’re safe, shush now, there’s a good boy.’
Anna jumped; the young girl had come to stand behind her.
‘Thank God — at last.’ She shut the door.
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’
‘He’s crying, letting Alison hold him; it means we’ve broken through.’
‘You mean you’ll be able to talk to him?’
‘Maybe.’
The door opened again. Alison asked for some orange juice and biscuits, and a clean pair of pants. She looked almost with irritation at Anna.
‘No, you can’t see him,’ she said. ‘Please don’t even ask.’
Vernon sat with his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the table. He looked in bad shape. Langton sat opposite him, Lewis to his right. Vernon had been talking for over an hour, and he was shaking. Langton checked his watch. It was almost four. He picked up his clipboard and jotted down a note.
Lewis glanced down. Langton had scrawled: He’s still holding back.
‘What’s going to happen to me?’
Langton said they would get a duty solicitor in but, until they had pressed further charges, he would remain at the station.
‘But I done nothing.’
‘You withheld vital information, Vernon. If you had disclosed what you knew—’
‘But I had nothin’ to do with it, I swear before God. All I was doing was protecting myself. This isn’t right. I could have told you where the house was, but you know I’d be dead meat.’
‘You declined to have a solicitor present at the start of this interview: that is correct, isn’t it?’
Vernon looked at the tape recorder and then at Langton. ‘But we was gonna make a deal, you said to me.’
‘I know what I said, Vernon, and the deal is you will continue this interview and make a formal statement.’
‘I don’t want a fucking lawyer.’
‘That’s your decision.’ Langton stood up. ‘If there is anything else you want to talk to me about, now is the time, because if you think you have a hope in hell of staying in a cushy open prison, you’ve got another big think coming.’