Nowhere to Go: The heartbreaking true story of a boy desperate to be loved. Casey Watson

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СКАЧАТЬ in principle … Well, there’s no harm in me meeting the lad, is there?’

      Well, yes, actually, there was, I thought to myself as I started the engine and pulled out into the road again, police station-bound. I knew how my mind worked and it was already working overtime. An 11-year-old boy, a stepmother, nowhere to go. I was drawn like a moth to a flame.

      By the time I’d got to the police station, parked and made myself known to the desk sergeant, my mood had lifted considerably. Yes, Dad was still under the knife and it was major surgery, but he was also fit as a flea and it was a straightforward operation. And I trusted what we’d been told – that he’d be fine.

      I plonked myself down on one of the two scuffed chairs in the reception area and pulled out my phone to text Riley and let her know I’d been held up. And by what? I wondered. What sort of kid was John going to introduce me to? A challenging one, definitely, because John had already spelled that out. A kid who’d be difficult to handle. As, of course, he would be, since that was the sort of child Mike and I had been trained to foster. Oh, we’d had the odd sweet, biddable child here and there – and one or two who, notably, had been absolute angels – but that wasn’t our real remit. We were specialist foster carers, and our job was to take on kids who’d run out of their nine lives – certainly those who were deemed too difficult for there to be much hope of a long-term foster home as things stood, usually because of the emotional damage they had suffered in their short lives and the nightmare behaviours they displayed as a consequence. Our job was therefore to put them on an intense behaviour management programme, so they could face up to their demons, learn to control their emotions better and, hopefully, build self-esteem. It was through this, ultimately, that they would become more ‘fosterable’ and, in the long term, better able to cope with life.

      We’d been doing it for a few years now – ‘fostering the unfosterable’ as our fostering agency’s strapline had it – and though we’d seen a lot in that time, much of it saddening and deeply shocking, I was always prepared to be surprised anew. So, what sort of child would this boy be, I wondered?

      A very angry one, it turned out. ‘Brace yourself,’ John warned, once he’d come out to find me and take me through to the interview room where they were still keeping him. ‘To paraphrase that advert, he’s a bit of an animal.’

      He also fleshed out a little of the background for me before we went in. Tyler had apparently brandished the knife – a regular carving one – during a heated argument with his stepmother and proceeded to threaten to kill her. She’d tried to get it from him, apparently telling him she’d batter him with it just as soon as she had disarmed him, which made him thrash about all the more and, according to him anyway, that was how he accidentally stabbed her in the arm.

      ‘Though her story is different, of course,’ John said. ‘According to her, he most definitely didn’t do it accidentally, and she’s definitely going to be pressing charges.’

      ‘And is she badly hurt?’ I asked.

      ‘No,’ John said. ‘Thank goodness. Just a flesh wound, which the paramedics cleaned up before taking her to hospital. Just a couple of butterfly stitches in it now, or so I’m told.’

      ‘So she went off to hospital and he was brought here by the police?’

      John nodded. ‘And she’s saying that’s it, basically. She won’t have him in the house again. No way, no how.’

      ‘Is there a dad?’

      ‘Yes there is, and he’s apparently of the same mind. There’s also a half-brother. Bit younger. The stepmother’s boy.’

      So there was a situation right there, I thought. We exchanged a look. Obviously John had had the same one.

      Deciding to take on a new child should be a carefully thought out business. As a foster carer, you are opening not just yourself but your family and your home up to a stranger. A diminutive stranger, obviously – not a serial killer, or anything – but still a stranger about whom you start off knowing almost nothing, and what little you do know is often subjective. In this case, was the stabbing accidental or not? Without a witness, who were we supposed to believe?

      So the normal course of events would usually be a multi-stage affair: an initial meeting, and, if that went okay, a formal pre-placement meeting, which would be attended by the potential foster parents, the link worker, the child in question’s social worker and, of course, the child themselves. Only then, assuming all parties felt comfortable with the arrangements, would the child move in and the relationship become official.

      In practice, in my case, it rarely worked that way. Yes, in most cases, the steps happened, but rarely in the right order, and the truth was that, though I didn’t generally say so, I usually made up my mind about a child within minutes, not to say seconds, of making their acquaintance. And, so far, even when every warning bell had been clanging in my ears, I’d come up with the same decision. Yes.

      Tyler was a beautiful boy. Inky hair flopping over deep brown and densely lashed eyes, clear olive skin, lean, sinewy build. Romany blood, I wondered? Greek? Perhaps Italian? Whatever his bloodline, he would be a heartbreaker when he was older, I decided. Might even be breaking hearts already. He was wearing a crumpled black T-shirt, low-slung combat trousers (ripped) and a pair of no doubt fashionable but very elderly trainers, all of which should have made him look like any other scruff-bag 11-year-old, but seemed to hang on his wiry frame almost stylishly.

      Though there was nothing remotely stylish or, indeed, romantic about what was coming out of his mouth. ‘Get your fucking hands off me!’ he was railing, as John and I entered the interview room. ‘I don’t wanna fucking sit down, okay?!’

      ‘Sit down!’ the policeman closest to him barked, pressing him bodily back into the wooden chair on which he’d previously been sitting for his interview. He was one of three in the room, two of whom were obviously policemen – though only one was in uniform – with the third being the social worker, whose face I vaguely recognised, probably from a training session or social service gathering of some sort. He was middle-aged, slightly sweaty and looking harried.

      ‘Ah, John,’ said the nearer officer, who identified himself as PC Matlock and ushered us into the room. He closed the door firmly behind him. ‘And you’ll be Mrs Watson?’

      I nodded. ‘Casey,’ I said, shaking the hand he extended.

      I was about to add ‘Pleased to meet you,’ but the boy at the epicentre of this small earthquake beat me to it. ‘An’ who the fuck is she?’ he yelled, springing up from the chair again, causing it to crash back onto the floor.

      ‘Show some respect, lad!’ the same policeman snapped, as Tyler glared at me and John. ‘And pick that bloody chair up, as well!’ But this only seemed to inflame their young charge even further; instead of picking it up he decided to use it as a football, kicking it hard enough to send it skittering across the floor.

      The social worker flinched. ‘Tyler, stop it!’ he entreated. ‘Behave yourself! You are just making things worse for yourself, now, aren’t you?’

      To which accurate observation Tyler duly responded – by kicking the chair a second time. And then, as if pleased with the effect he was having, he drew his leg back and kicked it a third time for good measure.

      The as yet unnamed policeman – this was clearly no time for introductions, much less an exchange of pleasantries – snatched the chair up. Then in one reckless action, narrowly missing the social worker, he swung СКАЧАТЬ