Chapter Twenty-Five
‘Icing Sugar’

It was the following Sunday, late morning, when I spotted a golden opportunity to introduce the subject of the past, and the memories we carry from it. Alice had wanted to look at some of my photograph albums, as she did from time to time. These albums contained pictures of my family and also the children we’d looked after, some of them going back years. Alice and I were in the sitting room with the French windows open on another gloriously warm sunny day. I was sitting beside her on the floor as she turned the pages of the album and asked questions about the children in the photographs.

‘You’ve got lots and lots of pictures,’ she said, closing one album and opening the next.

‘Yes. I like photographs.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘It reminds me of all the good times we’ve had. Sometimes memories can fade, so it’s nice to have something to remind us. That’s why I take lots of photographs of you – so that when you leave we will both have something to remember each other by.’ Alice didn’t say anything but studied the present page of photographs, which had been taken in the summer two years previously. Adrian had been twelve, Paula eight, and Lucy hadn’t arrived yet. In Lucy’s place was a five-year-old boy who had stayed with us for three months. Adrian was kicking a ball to him while Paula could be seen in the background on the swings.

As Alice looked at the photographs I casually said: ‘These photographs were taken one summer. I like summer. Do you remember last summer – before you went to live with your nana and grandpa?’

‘Yes,’ she said with a small nod.

‘I thought you might, because you have a very good memory. Do you remember seeing your dad last summer? Before you started seeing him at the family centre for contact?’

‘Yes,’ she said again, still looking at the photographs.

I was surprised, because Alice had never mentioned it. I paused, wondering how best to proceed, and then decided a direct and honest approach would work best with Alice. ‘Alice, this could be important, so I want you to think hard. Kitty has asked me if you can tell me what you remember of seeing your dad last summer.’

‘We met him outside our flat,’ Alice said without hesitation.

‘Who’s “we”?’

‘Mummy and me.’

‘What, you mean in the street outside the flat, where you lived with your mummy?’

Alice nodded. This confirmed what Chris had said at the review – that he’d met Leah in the street once, although he hadn’t mentioned Alice being there.

‘Were you surprised to see him?’ I asked. ‘Or did Mummy tell you that you were going to meet him?’

‘I was surprised. I didn’t know him. He said he was my daddy, and Mummy said he was.’

‘And was Mummy surprised to see him, do you remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what did you do? Did you talk to him or just carry on going with Mummy? Do you remember?’

‘He came into our flat,’ Alice said, again without hesitation.

‘Your mummy asked him to come in?’

‘I think so.’

‘And were you happy for him to come to your flat?’ She shrugged and turned another page in the album. ‘So what happened when Daddy came in? Did Mummy make him a drink? Did he play with you? Don’t worry if you can’t remember.’

‘He stayed, for a long time,’ Alice said.

‘What, for the whole day?’

‘No, lots of days and nights. Mummy was happy to begin with, and I liked it for a bit. It was like a proper family with a mummy and daddy. Then he made Mummy upset and angry and she shouted a lot.’

‘That was very sad, and it can be frightening when adults shout. Did Mummy shout at you?’

‘No, she shouted at Daddy. And he made Mummy cry,’ Alice added. I wondered if this could have been the screaming and shouting the neighbours had heard last August and had reported to the police – unaware that Chris was in the house, they’d assumed it was Alice Leah had been shouting at.

‘Alice, what did Daddy do to make Mummy shout and cry? Do you know?’ I sensed I might not want to hear the answer, and I was right.

‘He kicked Mummy in the head and the tummy. It hurt her so much she screamed and cried.’

I looked at Alice carefully. She had stopped turning the pages of the album and was now staring at it as though staring through it, as she concentrated on what she was remembering.

‘It was very naughty of him to hurt Mummy,’ I said. ‘It’s wrong for people to hurt each other, and certainly mummies and daddies should look after each other. Alice, why haven’t you told me all this before?’

‘He’ – she meant her father – ‘said I mustn’t tell. And Mummy said it would make it bad for her if I told.’

‘When was this said to you? Last summer?’

Alice nodded. Then her brow creased. ‘Sometimes he used his head and banged it in Mummy’s face. He made her nose bleed and it was all swollen. One day I saw Mummy on the floor and Daddy was kicking her. I went to help her and he kicked me too. Daddy said he didn’t mean it – I got in the way. But I didn’t like him hurting my mummy. I wanted to help her.’

I was appalled. This was the man Alice was seeing regularly at contact and with whom she was supposed to be going to live! ‘Daddies shouldn’t do hurtful things and certainly not kick and head-butt,’ I said. ‘It’s very, very wrong.’

‘That’s what Nana and Grandpa said.’

‘You told them?’

‘They saw what he did. The last time, when Mummy was on the floor, there was lots of blood and she couldn’t get up. After Daddy had gone, I helped Mummy crawl to the phone so she could phone Grandpa. She told him she had been hurt and Grandpa and Nana came in the car and took us to their house. They made Mummy better and said Daddy was an evil man.’ Alice paused and, still deep in thought, said reflectively: ‘Daddy was horrible to me and my mummy at our flat, but he’s nice to me now.’ Well, yes, I thought, he would be in supervised contact and in front of Sharon; he couldn’t be anything else but nice! My anger flared.

I was shocked by what Alice had told me, and greatly saddened that a young child had had to witness such horrendous domestic violence. But on another level I was pleased Alice had witnessed it, and had been able to tell me, for it supported what Mr and Mrs Jones had been claiming all along, and also put Chris in an entirely new (and worrying) light. Once Kitty was aware of what Alice had said, doubtless further investigation would be carried out into Chris’s background and suitability to parent Alice, which must now surely be called into question.

However, as if what Alice had already witnessed wasn’t bad enough, there was more to follow, which made me wonder why Mr and Mrs Jones’s claims had been so easily dismissed, and why Chris hadn’t been investigated sooner, before it was decided that Alice should go and live with him.

‘Alice, you did very well remembering all that,’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me or is that it?’

‘He stayed lots of nights,’ Alice said again, returning her gaze to the photographs. ‘And he was horrible to my mummy. Sometimes he pulled her hair out and made her scream. Sometimes he teased her and made her beg.’

‘How do you mean, “teased her and made her beg”? Can you explain?’

Alice was looking at the photograph of Adrian and Paula having a water fight in the garden, their enjoyment a far cry from what Alice was now remembering. ‘Daddy had something Mummy wanted and he wouldn’t give it to her. He teased her with it,’ Alice said.

‘What sort of something?’

‘I don’t know. It was like icing sugar in a small plastic bag. He held it in his hand above Mummy’s head, and when she tried to grab it, he moved it and laughed. That’s teasing, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly sounds like it.’

‘The only way she could get the bag was to beg. She had to kneel down in front of him and pretend she was a dog. He made her run round his legs and bark. Then she had to kiss his feet and he gave her the bag of icing sugar.’

‘Then what happened after he’d given Mummy the bag?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

‘Mummy went into the bathroom and when she came out she was happy again, for a little while. Daddy put some of the icing sugar on some paper in a little line and sniffed it like he had a cold.’

I nodded. There was no doubt in my mind that the ‘icing sugar’ was an illegal drug, probably cocaine – which was either snorted, or sometimes diluted in water and injected. At the review Mr Jones had said that Chris had introduced Leah to drugs and used his words – ‘one little line won’t hurt, just for old times’ sake’. A line of cocaine is exactly what it says – a thin line of cocaine powder, which can be snorted. What Alice had just told me seemed to substantiate Mr Jones’s claim that Chris had got Leah on drugs. It was shocking that Alice had had to witness all this, but thank goodness she had.

‘Well done for telling me all this,’ I said again. ‘It must have been very upsetting for you to watch.’ She nodded and I gave her another hug. ‘Is there anything else you can remember so I can tell Kitty?’ Alice shook her head. ‘One last question, Alice: did you see your dad after you left the flat and went to live with your nana and grandpa?’

‘I didn’t see him, but he came to Nana’s house and wanted to see Mummy. Nana wouldn’t let him in. He pushed Grandpa and tried to force his way in. Nana called the police.’

‘But you didn’t see him?’

‘No.’

‘All right, love, well done. Let’s talk about something nice now. You see these photographs,’ I said pointing to the next page in the album. Alice nodded. ‘They were taken while we were on holiday. When school finishes in July we shall all go on holiday to the seaside.’ Alice smiled.

While Alice pored over the photographs of sea and sand and happy children paddling, I grabbed my folder and began writing up my log notes while what she had told me was still fresh in my mind. As I wrote, I used the words Alice had used as much as possible – a verbatim account gives credence to the disclosures a child makes. But I knew that while I believed what Alice had told me, it would doubtless be hotly denied by Chris (and Sharon), and would still have to be proved. How could it be proved? I’d no idea, but one thing that had occurred to me was that if Chris had gone to Mr and Mrs Jones’s house looking for trouble, and Mrs Jones had called the police as Alice said, then surely the police would have a record of that 999 call. I knew it wasn’t much in terms of evidence, but it was a starting point that would surely uphold what Alice had told me and what Mr and Mrs Jones were saying, and would, I hoped, lead to the truth of what had happened last summer when Chris had reappeared in Leah’s life.

Later that afternoon, while Paula played with Alice in the garden, I typed up my log notes, printed out a copy and put it in an envelope addressed to Kitty. I would post it when we went out later, and I would also phone her on Monday and update her. The doubts I’d previously entertained about Chris parenting Alice (due to his lack of enthusiasm and commitment) were compounded and I felt very protective towards Alice. For while I knew that contact was strictly supervised and Alice was safe there, I also recognized how confusing and upsetting it must be for Alice to be seeing her (abusive) father. She was now in regular contact, and being encouraged to form an attachment to a man whom she’d witnessed violently and sadistically assaulting her mother, while her mother – the victim, whose only crime was not being strong enough to stand up to Chris and say no to the drugs he’d offered – had been banished from Alice’s life. What a conflicting and warped message this must be sending to Alice, I thought! How confusing and frightening! And if he had behaved as Alice had described, what was stopping him from behaving similarly in future when Alice went to live with him? I feared for Alice’s safety and wanted desperately to protect her.