Mummy Told Me Not to Tell: The true story of a troubled boy with a dark secret. Cathy Glass

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СКАЧАТЬ two o’clock, when there was still no sign of Reece, I began thinking about giving Jill a ring to make sure everything was going according to plan. I gave one final glance through the front room window and as I did a silver car drove up and stopped outside the house. I looked out from my vantage point behind the nets and saw a boy who’d been in the rear of the car scramble over the top of the passenger seat, fling open the passenger door and leap out on to the pavement. Aged about seven, heavily built with a shaved head, he began jumping up and down, yelling at the top of his voice: ‘Beat you! Beat you out! Beat you out the car, slag!’

      Reece had arrived.

      As I watched, a woman, who I assumed must be a social worker, jumped out of the driver’s seat, ran on to the pavement and grabbed his hand. ‘Don’t do that!’ she cried, anxiously. ‘It’s dangerous. You should have waited until I got out.’

      Reece, oblivious to her caution, continued jumping up and down, still shouting: ‘Beat you! Beat you, slag!’ Then he tried to head-butt her. I flinched as he narrowly missed her nose.

      I began towards the front door, making a mental note that when Reece was in my car I would have the central locking down, rather than just the child locks, until he learned to stay in his seat until I opened his door. I also made a mental note to keep my head up as I greeted Reece, for clearly head-butting was another of his accomplishments.

      ‘Hello,’ I said, smiling, as I opened the front door and they came down the path. ‘I’m Cathy, and you must be Reece?’

      The social worker was holding Reece’s wrist to stop him from running off — he clearly didn’t want to hold her hand. As they came into the hall she transferred his arm to me and sighed.

      ‘Hello, Reece,’ I said, not bending to his height. He didn’t look at me but stared and then lunged down the hall. I kept hold of his arm and he pulled against me.

      ‘Leggo! Leggo of me,’ he yelled.

      Placing my free hand on his shoulder, I tried to turn him round to face me so that I could make eye contact with him and gain his attention. ‘Reece, listen,’ I said, kindly but firmly. ‘Listen to me.’ He was still pulling and refusing to look in my direction. I didn’t want to bend forward to make eye contact, as that would leave me in exactly the right position for a well-aimed headbutt. ‘Reece, we are going down the hall now and into the back room. There are some toys there already set out for you.’

      ‘Leggo! Leggo of me!’ His voice was rasping, guttural, like an old man’s, and so loud it filled the air and obliterated any other sound.

      ‘OK. Let’s go down the hall together,’ I said calmly but firmly. I knew if I let go of him now in his heightened state of alert he would be off like a free radical, charging around the house, doing damage to himself and anything that got in his way. Later I’d show him round, but for now I just needed to get him calmer and establish some form of control.

      With Reece still pulling against me — and he was very strong with his weight behind him — I began steadily, if not a little jerkily, down the hall and towards the back room, which is our living room.

      ‘I’m Veronica,’ the social worker called from behind me, closing the front door.

      ‘Nice to meet you,’ I returned over my shoulder.

      ‘Slag!’ Reece shouted.

      Once we were in the living room I let go of Recce’s hand and closed the door. As I’d hoped he would, he went straight to the selection of games I’d arranged in the centre of the room; the rest of the toys were in cupboards in the conservatory that acts as a playroom.

      Veronica sank gratefully on to the sofa, happy to transfer the responsibility for Reece to me, while I remained casually standing in front of the door. It wasn’t obvious to Reece, but I was blocking his exit in case his interest in the toys vanished and he made a dash for it.

      ‘Sorry we’re late,’ Veronica said. ‘Imran was supposed to bring Reece but it became impossible.’

      I glanced at her questioningly as Reece continued overturning the toys, tipping them from their boxes but not actually playing with them. ‘Imran is Asian,’ she said, and then nodding at Reece, mouthed: ‘He’s racist.’ She looked anxiously from me to the framed photographs of my children on the walls, where there were some of my adopted daughter Lucy, who is part Thai.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll deal with it.’ For while some carers would refuse to look after a child who is deemed racist, I had found that children of Reece’s age will have learned such behaviour from home, and it can be unlearned pretty quickly. I was more concerned about Reece’s apparent ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder), which hadn’t been mentioned by Jill or Karen but was very obvious now. His continual agitated and jerky movements, his short quick breaths as though he was hyperventilating and his heightened state of alert, which stopped him from focusing on anything for longer than a second, suggested hyperactivity. I needed to get him calmer before I could offer Veronica a coffee, let alone address the paperwork, which she was now taking from her briefcase.

      Reece had finished turning out all the boxes of puzzles, jigsaws and toys, and they were now in a colourful mountain in the centre of the room. I slowly moved away from where I was standing by the living-room door and went over, squatting on the floor beside him.

      ‘Reece,’ I said, trying again to make eye contact, ‘choose a game for us to play with and we’ll put the rest away.’

      He didn’t so much as glance in my direction. His brain seemed so busy firing off in random directions it had blocked out almost everything and everyone around him, or any logical thought. I lightly touched his hand and he glanced towards me, but I didn’t think he’d actually seen me. ‘Reece, shall we play with these building bricks?’ I suggested. ‘I bet you are good at building things.’ I put two pieces together but Reece was already on his feet, going straight over to the bookcase, where he began pulling books off the shelves. By the time I was at his side he had cleared one shelf and was starting on the next. ‘Reece, would you like me to read you a story?’ No reply, and no response, just more books thrown on the floor.

      ‘Right, Reece. Here’s a nice book,’ I said more loudly. I stooped and retrieved a large colourful counting book from the ever-increasing pile on the floor. ‘Let’s read this one. It’s a counting book, with lots of pictures, and all the numbers to a hundred. I wonder if you can count to ten?’

      The books suddenly stopped raining down and he turned to look at me properly for the first time since arriving. I noticed what lovely brown eyes he had but what unusual front teeth. His front four teeth at the top were very large, overlapped each other and had prominent serrated edges. It crossed my mind whether this had contributed to the ‘Sharky’ tag his mother had given him, in which case it was unbelievably cruel.

      ‘Well?’ I said, making direct eye contact. ‘Can you count to ten, Reece?’

      He grinned broadly, which highlighted even more the unusual configuration of his teeth. ‘Of course I can, you silly bugger!’ he said. ‘I can count to a hundred.’ He grabbed the book from my hand and, throwing himself on the sofa, sat expectantly, waiting for me to read. I wasn’t worried about being called a ‘silly bugger’ or his snatching the book, for at last he was calmer and I had his attention.

      I sat beside him on the sofa as Veronica began sorting through her paperwork. Reece moved closer into my side and then placed the book in my lap. I opened it at the first page, which showed a huge three-dimensional СКАЧАТЬ