Four Waifs on Our Doorstep Read online

  She gave me her address and I went upstairs to Jamie’s bedroom to pack some of them up for him in black bags, so that I could carry them straight out to the car.

  Now, this lady lived in a narrow street at the back of Church Road, just round the corner from where we lived when the children first came to us. I pulled up outside her tiny Victorian cottage, and went to knock on her front door.

  ‘Hello,’ I said in a cheery voice as she opened the door a crack. ‘I’m Jamie’s mum.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, opening the door wider. ‘Have you brought Jamie’s clothes?’

  I nodded and went back to get out the first black sack, which I brought to her door and popped it down just inside.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said with evident resentment.

  ‘No, that’s just the first bag,’ I said calmly as I went back and brought two more black bags, then two more, and two more.

  Her eyes widened with every delivery. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Oh, that’s the contents of Jamie’s two wardrobes,’ I explained. ‘I haven’t emptied his chest of drawers yet. I’ll bring all that tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t have all this,’ she said, running her fingers through her thin grey hair. ‘He told me he had no clothes.’

  ‘Well, as you can see, that wasn’t quite true.’

  True to my word, I took almost everything else round to her the following day.

  She looked horrified. ‘I can’t take all that in,’ she wailed. ‘I haven’t got room.’

  ‘Well, I’ll just leave them on your doorstep then, I said, trying to keep a straight face. ‘Now, what do you want me to do with his weekend cases?’ I asked her. ‘And all his gadgets and other stuff?’

  ‘Don’t you bring them here, Mrs Merry, whatever you do. I can’t take any more.’

  ‘Well, perhaps this might teach you a lesson,’ I said, as kindly as I could in the circumstances. ‘Please do not believe everything disgruntled teenagers tell you.’

  ‘Well!’ she huffed.

  I didn’t hear anything for a while, but at least I knew where he was, and when I checked with the school, he was still going there, so I thought I’d let him come to his senses and perhaps he would eventually come back as if nothing had happened.

  But a few weeks later, I had another phone call from Mrs Edwards.

  ‘I don’t know whether you are aware, but your Jamie is smoking stuff.’

  ‘Yes, we knew that he was drinking and smoking weed. That’s why he left, when we tried to broach the subject with him. That’s what all this is about, his act of rebellion, staying with you, not contacting us and everything.’

  There was a short silence at the other end. ‘Well, I don’t want my grandson to be involved in this,’ she said.

  I don’t know whether she turfed him out or whether he just left, but soon after that I discovered that this lady’s grandson was the dealer Jamie had bought the drugs from.

  Throughout this time, I texted him once a week, saying ‘Are you OK?’. If he wanted to reply he did, but I didn’t push him. A couple of times he rang me out of the blue.

  ‘Shall we go for a coffee?’ he would ask cheerily.

  I found out that he spent the next few weeks sofa-hopping, and then finally went to the YMCA. But that didn’t last long as they have rules and Jamie has never been one for rules.

  ‘If you go out in the evening, you must come back by eleven,’ they said. ‘You’ll be kicked out if you don’t.’

  Well of course he didn’t come back and they threw him out. He did some more sofa-hopping, wheedled his way back into Mrs Edwards’s house for a couple of nights, got back into the YMCA and finally joined a house-share in the city, which he could just about afford on his housing benefit.

  The one good thing amongst all this was that he kept going to school. They excluded him permanently, about three months before his GCSEs, for his disruptive behaviour and telling the teachers what to do, but they let him go back and sit his exams.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Jamie rang me with a cheery voice. ‘I’ve just finished all my exams.’

  ‘Well done, Jay.’ I was relieved he’d managed to go back for that. He must be maturing a bit.

  ‘I think I surprised everybody when I turned up on time, clean and sober, for all my exams! I thought you’d be proud of me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s great. I am proud of you for taking your exams and even more because it took some guts to go back to school to do them after you’d been expelled. So well done. How did the exams go?’

  ‘They weren’t too bad.’

  ‘Well, you probably missed a lot, with missing out on so much school.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I think it was mostly revision the last few months.’

  ‘Well, at least you had a go.’

  On the day the results were due, Jamie went in to collect them and phoned me from outside the school.

  ‘I made my head of year cry,’ he announced.

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s all right. It was in a good way,’ he explained. ‘When I opened the envelope and showed her my results, she was so happy that she had tears in her eyes.’

  ‘The suspense is killing me, Jay. What did you get?’

  ‘I actually passed four of them,’ he said. ‘Four grade Cs. Isn’t that great?’

  ‘Yes, after all your troubles, I reckon that’s a real achievement. Just wait till I tell Dad. He’ll be so glad.’

  At around this time, Jamie met his girlfriend and they settled down together. He never came back to live with us, but he would often pop back for meals and family occasions, so we were all back on an even keel . . . or so we thought.

  23

  Making a Statement

  ‘I felt everybody was against me, being a teenager.’

  Stacey’s comment, years later

  The agency had grown to such a size that it was now almost running itself. Mike had long been retired and I wanted to join him. The children were more demanding now than for quite a few years, and I felt it would help if I was free to spend more time with them and with Mike too.

  Another successful fostering agency made a very good bid for ours and we agreed terms with them. Jane and our accountant dealt with all the paperwork side of things.

  I don’t know how long it was happening before I realised for sure, but I often had less money in my purse than I thought. It was just ten and twenty pound notes to begin with, and I couldn’t be sure that I hadn’t spent them myself.

  But finally one day I knew, because I’d been to the bank and drawn out a large amount, three thousand pounds, for a particular reason. When I went to my bag the next morning and got out my purse, the whole lot was missing. I was shocked. Could I not even leave my bag unattended in my own home? I had my suspicions, of course, but I didn’t want to risk doing anything hasty, just in case I was wrong.

  Meanwhile, some of fifteen-year-old Stacey’s secrets were surfacing, as the younger ones reminisced about our holidays for example.

  ‘Do you remember that caravan holiday?’ asked Carrie.

  ‘Which one?’ I said. ‘We had lots of caravan holidays.’

  ‘The one that was in Devon or near there. Stacey used to wait till you and Dad were asleep, then climb out of the caravan window and go into town with a very short skirt on.’

  ‘I never knew that!’

  ‘Yes,’ Stacey laughed. ‘I just wanted a bit of fun.’

  Even then, Stacey, as well as being the funniest, was the most outrageous. I think there must have been a lot of things going on that I didn’t know about, but money was always the thing that held her back . . . until she took the leap into larger scale theft and fraud.

  The head teacher phoned us.

  ‘Mrs Merry, can you come up to the school, please? I think we have a problem.’

  When I got to the head teacher’s study, there was Stacey, looking subdued, together with the head, the deputy, her form tutor and another teacher I didn’t know. Oh d
ear, I thought.

  ‘Mrs Merry,’ said the deputy head. ‘Are you aware of the school rules about jewellery?’

  ‘Yes. I know it’s not allowed.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She turned to Stacey’s form tutor. ‘Mr Bailey?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This morning, at registration time, I noticed that Stacey had quite a large ring on her finger, a five-stoned diamond ring. Well, they looked like diamonds, and I knew that it would be quite valuable if they were. So I had to confront her about it.’

  I was shocked. An image of the antique five-stone diamond ring, left to me by my grandmother, came into my mind. I hadn’t worn it in years. I just kept it in my jewellery box. It was one of two rings, the other with three diamonds, that I was going to give to Sally and Jane when they each turned forty.

  ‘What did Stacey say?’ I asked him, trying not to show what I was thinking.

  ‘She said: “My mum’s given it to me.”’ He paused. ‘Is that right, Mrs Merry?’

  I hesitated to answer, but I looked at Stacey, and her unconcerned face.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head slowly, sadly. ‘I do have a five-stoned diamond ring. But I didn’t give it to Stacey. I’m hoping it’s still in my jewellery box at home.’

  ‘Well, I wanted to show it to you, so that you could tell us if it was yours,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘But unfortunately, it was off Stacey’s finger in a trice and nowhere to be seen. We even searched her pockets, her bag and her desk, but there was no sign of it, only minutes after it had been on her finger.’

  The head turned to Stacey. ‘Can you tell us where it is?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied with a straight face. ‘I took it off, and then it got lost. I must have dropped it. Maybe somebody else picked it up and stole it.’

  ‘But that’s not all,’ added Mr Bailey, turning to the other teacher.

  ‘A couple of days ago, I told Stacey off for wearing jewellery too,’ she said. ‘That was a three-stone diamond-type ring. Do you have one of those, Mrs Merry?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. How could Stacey do this to me? I knew that stealing was like a disease or addiction to her, but it had always been small things until the phone topping-up fiasco. And now this . . .

  ‘I told her off about it and made her take it off, so she put in her pocket to take home. At least, that’s what I thought.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t give it to me,’ I said, then turned to face Stacey. ‘Did you put it back in my jewellery box?’ I asked her.

  ‘You don’t even know I took it,’ she protested, the tears welling up on demand. ‘Or the other ring. Why are you accusing me?’

  ‘Well,’ I answered, the anger building up inside me. ‘If they’re not both in my jewellery box when I get home, I’ll know, won’t I?’

  She looked down at the carpet and said nothing.

  Of course, they were missing when I got back, along with a third family heirloom ring, and I knew she must have taken them all. The evidence against her for the first two was undeniable.

  When Stacey arrived home that evening, I questioned her about what she’d done with the rings. She insisted she’d lost them and whatever I said I couldn’t make her change her story. But I knew those two rings were together worth about eight thousand pounds. And the other a few more. This was serious theft.

  ‘What do you think she did with them?’ asked Mike after I’d told him the story.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘But I’m very disappointed that she stole so much, both the money and the rings, and God knows what else, from her own mother.’ By now I was pretty sure it must have been Stacey that stole that cash from my purse as well, but I didn’t want to heap anything else on her just at that point, so I kept that quiet for now.

  ‘Maybe she’s pawned them,’ he suggested. ‘She must have known she could get money on those rings.’

  I was horrified. ‘But she’d never have got their full value.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can track them down,’ he said.

  But, if she did pawn them, it wasn’t locally and we never found them. I did look into trying to make a claim on our insurance, but that wasn’t possible because they were taken by a family member.

  On the day Stacey turned sixteen, there was a birthday card from her grandfather. It was the first time she’d ever had a card from him. She opened it and read what was written inside with a poker face.

  ‘What does it say?’ I asked her.

  ‘He wants me to go away for the weekend with him.’

  ‘And your grandma?’

  ‘No, just him, just the two of us, in a flat he’s rented.’

  ‘Oh.’ I had a bad feeling about this. ‘Why do you think he wants to be alone with you for the weekend?’ It seemed a remote possibility that he just wanted to treat her, and I was far more concerned that it was to do with her age, being sixteen.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked down at the floor. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Well, you’re sixteen now.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She looked puzzled.

  ‘It’s up to you, Stace. You’re old enough now to make up your own mind about your grandfather, and whether you want to go for a weekend alone with him.’ I paused. ‘If you do want to go, that’s fine. I won’t try to stop you, as long as you’re happy to go . . . but personally, I’ve got to be honest, I don’t trust the man. Think about it. Why does he want you to himself?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. That’s what I was thinking. And my gut instinct is I don’t want to go.’

  ‘OK. That’s fine. It’s your decision.’

  ‘I’ll write and tell him no.’

  Here was my chance to try to find out whether my hunch had been right about that man. ‘What memories do you have of him when you were little?’

  ‘Not much,’ she said. ‘I remember he used to give me a special chocolate drink at bedtimes when Caroline and I went to stay for a week with him, when Sam was born. He used to stand over me while I drank it. Then he would smile and say, “That’s because you’ve been good.” And I know he made me sleep in a bed with him, in a separate bedroom, and he gave me that chocolate drink. I don’t remember anything else. I don’t know what happened. Maybe I’ve blanked it out. I think I’ve blanked most of that week out.’

  It was now a few months since the phone top-ups swindle, but one day I had a letter from the bank. Not knowing what it was, I assumed it would be a statement, and left it to open later. When I finally got around to it the next day, it was much more serious than that.

  My heart lurched as I began to read it through.

  We have not written till now, because the person who defrauded your account is known to you, and you stated at the time that you did not wish us to take any action to retrieve the funds. However, our head office has asked us to let you know that this is a case of fraud and if you won’t take it any further we will have to pursue the legal route ourselves . . .

  I rang them immediately and spoke to somebody in their fraud department.

  ‘Do you have to prosecute her?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Please don’t. She’s so young, still a schoolgirl, and it would give her a criminal record for life. She wants to be a social worker when she grows up, and this might make it impossible.’

  ‘I realise the implications, Mrs Merry. But we have to follow the bank’s procedures in this case, as in any other.’

  ‘Is there anything I could do to stop you?’

  ‘Yes, you could sue her yourself.’

  ‘But, surely that would have the same effect?’

  ‘That’s true. Can you hold on a moment, Mrs Merry, while I consult my supervisor about this?’ I waited for what seemed like ages while the inane music played. ‘Are you still there, Mrs Merry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, but I am told that in this unusual situation, with your daughter still being at school, the bank would refrain from taking any further action in this case as long as yo
u take her to a police station to admit her guilt and make a statement.’

  It sounded a very serious thing to have to do. ‘Wouldn’t that still go on her record?’

  ‘I don’t believe it would give her a criminal record of any kind, if she just makes the admission in a statement. You can check that with the police. Making this admission would satisfy our head office, in these circumstances, and that way you would not need to have any charges made against her.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is that what you wish to do?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll take her down on Saturday,’ I said, feeling a mixture of relief and trepidation. I had no idea how she would take this, but it had to be done.

  I realised of course, that unless we sued Stacey for fraud, the bank wouldn’t replace my stolen funds. It was a great loss to me, and we couldn’t afford to overlook it, but it was a hard place to be in and I had to put Stacey’s future first.

  So I confronted her straight away.

  ‘Why did you do it, Stacey?’ I asked her. ‘The rings, and the money, and there was cash too from my purse, wasn’t there?’

  ‘I needed the money, Mum,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t think you’d notice.’

  I explained about the bank wanting to sue her.

  ‘The only way for you to avoid having to go to court and being prosecuted, with a criminal record,’ I explained to her calmly, ‘is to come down to the police station with me on Saturday morning and admit that you did it.’

  ‘What, just tell them I did it?’

  ‘And sign a statement to say that you did it. That way the bank will be happy, I won’t make any charge against you and your record will be clean.’ I paused. ‘But you have to get a hold of yourself, Stacey. You have to stop all this stealing. I can’t trust you any more, and I hate that. You’ve hit me very hard financially, and even worse, you stole away my family history in those rings. They were full of precious memories of my grandmother and other relatives. Their financial value is a considerable loss, but the stealing away of their sentimental value is something I can never get back.’ I paused. ‘Please stop stealing, Stace.’