Too Hurt to Stay: The True Story of a Troubled Boy’s Desperate Search for a Loving Home

Riley had now returned and we both sat down at the kitchen table. ‘You know what?’ I said, as I settled Jackson on my lap with his favourite squeaky duck. ‘This isn’t the first time something’s gone missing this week.’ I lowered my voice a little. ‘Now I’m wondering if it’s Spencer.’

‘What, like stealing from you?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe “borrowing”. Or maybe as some sort of game. Who knows? Or maybe it is just my age. It’s just … hmm, well, I think I’ll have to keep my eye out, won’t I? It won’t be the first time. These things do happen. Occupational hazard!’

We moved on then, changed the subject, and got on with catching up on gossip. And when Spencer finally tired of playing dinosaurs with Levi, as he’d predicted, we relocated to the living room so Levi could instead play with Jackson, who’d just started crawling. Well, a kind of crawling, anyway. It was actually more rolling and pulling himself about using his elbows, but it got him from A to B efficiently enough.

Spencer, at that point, went back up to his room, and the rest of the afternoon sped by. So much so that our loose plan to pop to the shops at some point had disappeared along with the Jaffa Cakes. That was often the way things worked out at the moment. One toddler was fine, one little baby was a breeze, but sometimes the business of getting kitted out, and then trailing both of them round town – with an eight-year-old boy in tow now too, for that matter – involved more effort than the pair of us felt like making, especially on what was turning out to be a typically wet late-August day. Spencer had also come back down to join us, and I’d put a Disney film on for them to watch.

We were still in the living room when Mike got home from watching Kieron playing football, and, shocked to find us there, he even commented on it. He picked up Levi and swung him up high over his head, causing Jackson to dissolve into fits of giggles. ‘Now then, mister,’ he asked, ‘how come your mummy and your nanna aren’t out shopping? It’s incredible. Did you confiscate their purses?’

Unbeknown to Mike, he’d said something particularly astute, because 20 minutes later, after we’d packed away the toys ready for Mike to drop them home, Riley couldn’t seem to lay hands on hers.

‘You seen my purse, Mum?’ she asked, following me out into the kitchen, rummaging in her handbag as she went. About to leave now, she wanted to pay me for some raffle tickets I’d been selling for a local charity, and had brought the money round especially.

‘I haven’t, love,’ I said. ‘You definitely sure you brought it?’

‘Course I’m sure. Maybe Levi’s been messing about with it. Levi,’ she asked as he toddled in behind her, ‘have you been playing with Mummy’s purse?’ He looked at her blankly, shaking his head. ‘Spencer, how about you?’ I asked, following Riley back into the living room to look for it. He was sitting where we’d left him, the movie still running, and there was something about his demeanour that made me look twice.

‘No,’ he said, chewing his nails. ‘Why would I know anything about it? That’s typical, that is. Why am I getting the blame? I always get the blame for what little kids do.’

A clear case, it occurred to me, of protesting too much. ‘I’m not blaming you, Spencer. I was just asking if you’d seen it. Now can you help us look, please? Riley’s due home and she needs to find her purse.’

He stood up quickly enough and I assumed he was going to help, but instead he made straight for the door and up the stairs. Moments later, we all heard his bedroom door slam.

‘Well,’ said Mike, who’d caught the tail-end of this, ‘that was something of an over-reaction, don’t you think?’

‘It was,’ I replied. ‘And I wonder if there’s more to it.’

I told him of my suspicions about the things that had gone missing. He didn’t look surprised.

‘Well, that’s probably it, then,’ he said. ‘After all, they did say he had hidden depths, didn’t they? So maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what the petty offences all were. Maybe stealing’s his thing.’

‘God,’ said Riley. ‘Honestly …’

Mike frowned. ‘Which means we’ll have to search his room, of course.’

I felt hesitant. ‘But what if it isn’t him? What if that’s exactly the sort of thing that happens to him at home? Won’t make for much of a start, will it, making it clear we don’t trust him?’

‘Mum,’ said Riley, ‘I take your point, but it can really only have been him. If Levi had had it out we would have already found it, wouldn’t we? He’s not been anywhere else in the house today, has he? And I definitely had it, and he was in here all that time, with my handbag. It must have been him.’

‘We need to confront him, at least,’ Mike added. So, all out of options, we trooped up the stairs.

Mike knocked on the door before pushing it open, and found Spencer sitting on his bed, reading a book. ‘Listen, mate,’ Mike said, ‘I know you said you hadn’t moved Riley’s purse, but when something goes missing we have no choice but to search everywhere for it, and that includes your room, I’m afraid. Is that okay?’

Spencer shrugged and stood up. ‘Course,’ he said, moving into the doorway, out of the way. ‘Help yourself. That’s fine.’ Mike began searching.

I joined him. Between us we found nothing. We looked under the bed, behind the curtains, under the pillows, inside the drawers. I’d been fostering long enough to have got pretty clever: our very first child, more chillingly, had a habit of self-harming, and used to carefully stash any sort of blade he could find. With Spencer watching, however, this felt distinctly uncomfortable, especially as it looked as though the purse really wasn’t there.

‘It’s obviously not here, Mike,’ I began, having run out of places to look for it. ‘Let’s go and have another look in the dining room, shall we? Perhaps it’s –’

Mike raised an arm then, to stop me. He now had an odd sort of look on his face. And as I watched, his gaze moved from Spencer to the wall – to the place where we’d hung a print of two footballers. He held his gaze there, and the effect on Spencer was immediate. He let out a whimper, then suddenly rattled off down the stairs.

‘What the … hey!’ I heard Riley exclaim, from the hall. She was waiting there with the little ones, phoning David.

‘What?’ I asked Mike. ‘What is it, love?’

‘That picture.’ He crossed the room in two strides and clasped the print in both hands, lifting it slightly so he could free the cord and take it off the wall.

I was just wondering how on earth you could hide a purse behind a picture – any purse, let alone Riley’s receipt-stuffed great big thing – when the question I’d not yet finished asking was answered. As Mike stepped back with it we both gasped in unison, unable to quite believe what we were seeing.

Before us was a hole, in the shape of a raggedy-edged circle, about eight inches in diameter and going back some way. Enough plaster had been dug out to expose the timber framework, and as I stepped closer it was clear that a huge space had been made available, because Mike was already beginning to pass things to me. First the Jaffa Cakes, unopened, then the missing DVD, then the earrings, which had been carefully wrapped in a folded envelope, then one of my necklaces – one that I hadn’t even realised was missing – then a cigarette lighter Riley had accused me the week before of losing, then finally, with a last insertion of Mike’s arm, Riley’s purse.

I stood speechless with shock at the scene laid before me. If we’d found this stash anywhere else, I could have believed it. The bottom of the wardrobe, say, or tucked away in a box under the bed. But it was that hole. That painstakingly constructed hole had floored me. How much time, how much industry, how many handfuls of carefully smuggled plasterboard must have gone into the creation of that secret safe of his? He was eight years old. Eight! It seemed beyond comprehension. Except, was it?

Mike brushed plaster dust from his forearm and pulled his sleeve down. ‘Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned,’ he said.

Chapter 5 (#uc607c84b-48cb-547b-851d-0adaddac6dea)

‘Right,’ said Mike, his expression grim. ‘This needs tackling right now.’

He laid the picture on the bed and we both trooped back down the stairs. At the bottom of them Jackson was now dozing peacefully in his push chair, but Riley had followed Spencer into the living room, Levi close behind her.

‘He’s behind the sofa,’ she told Mike. ‘Curled up in a ball. I’ve tried talking to him but he’s not saying anything. I take it he did have my purse then?’ she asked, turning to me. ‘Whoah!’ she exclaimed then, seeing the haul in my hands. ‘My purse and then some.’

‘Come on, young man,’ Mike said, sternly pulling the sofa out a little. ‘Out from there, please. We need an explanation for this, mate. You can’t just go taking things that don’t belong to you.’

But Spencer had no intention of coming out, it seemed. In response to Mike’s words he just made himself even smaller, hands over his ears, head pressed into his knees, rocking back and forth as if trying to block the world out. A not untypical reaction from a boy of his age, I mused. Not when they’ve been caught red handed.

‘Come on, love,’ I coaxed. ‘We just need to talk about it, that’s all. You don’t need to take things, love. If there’s something you want, you only need to ask.’

I got glared at for this by both my husband and my daughter. I could even hear Riley’s unspoken words: you want my purse and all the money in it? Yeah, of course, mate!

But I felt a softer approach would be the only one that would work here. ‘Spencer,’ I said. ‘You can’t stay here for ever, love, now, can you? Hiding away’s not going to help. We need to discuss this.’

Riley’s phone chimed. ‘That’s David,’ she huffed. ‘He must be outside. I have to go. Dad, can you help me with the kids, please? Leave Mum to deal with the Artful Dodger here, shall we?’

I almost smiled, but not quite. The image of that hole in one of my bedroom walls stopped me. But Spencer did look a little like he might have been recruited by Fagin. What with his mop of silky hair and his butter-wouldn’t-melt looks. And a rather forlorn sight, right now – very Dickensian – as he trembled and cowed behind the sofa.

But I was wrong to be fooled by such superficial details.

‘Come on, love,’ I began, while Mike went out to help Riley transfer Jackson into his car seat, and stow the push chair in the boot of David’s car. ‘Come out and let’s sit down and talk about this, eh?’

But I barely had time to finish what I was saying, because Spencer, apparently having decided the coast was clear – well, of Mike, anyway – was up out of his hidey hole and barging right past me. ‘Fuck off!’ he yelled. ‘I’m off to bed and don’t no one dare come up. I hate you all!’ And there he was, gone.

Ah, I thought, as I watched him go. And so the fun begins. The real work, I knew, was about to start.

In the end, I decided to let Mike deal with him. Already he seemed to be a boy who responded to male authority, so Mike’s suggestion – that Spencer would be more likely to realise how serious this was if the dressing down came from him – seemed a good one.