Groomed: Danger lies closer than you think

Even so, I couldn’t help wonder about the extent of it – even for a modern female teenager. Was the glut of possessions the fruit from her labours on the phone? And if so, how much of it did it mean she’d been doing? No wonder she had no interest in going to school.

It was a question I imagined I might answer in time but for now the main thing was where to put it all.

‘I’ll do it,’ Keeley said, when Danny offered to help her upstairs with it. ‘That way you can all get on with talking about me, and I don’t have to sit there getting brain-dead.’

It was said with no attitude – just a statement of fact. And, having glanced at Danny, who immediately nodded his approval, I told her that was fine. ‘Though only while we go through all the files and so on,’ I told her. ‘Then you’ll have to break off and come down.’

‘Good. That should give me at least an hour, then,’ she said dryly. Then she grinned at Danny. ‘I have a very thick file, don’t I?’

I told the men to set up at the dining table, while I finished making the tea and coffee, and by the time I’d come back in with the inevitable plate of biscuits both John and Danny had already spread out various clipped-together documents on top of it. Care plans, risk assessments and background information. All the things that should make caring for Keeley a breeze.

Well, in theory.

I was actually happy that Keeley had taken herself off for a bit as reading through the case notes – which made for grim reading, even though I already knew the gist of it – I had loads of questions popping into my head, not least of them being to wonder about her blood family, and what had become of all those little brothers and sisters. Even if I couldn’t help reunite them, I could at least try to find out they were okay and happy, couldn’t I? But that would need to wait. First things first, and the first thing in this case was that Danny and John were both keen to establish whether Mike and I would keep Keeley till she was sixteen and, hopefully, a bit beyond. If at all possible, anyway. It seemed she had very different plans.

‘Her birthday is only a matter of weeks, now,’ Danny added, as if trying to tempt me.

‘I know – she’s reminded me several times,’ I said, grinning.

He nodded. ‘The Big Day. And she’s certainly been counting them,’ he said. ‘And I doubt all this imbroglio will have changed her plans either.’

‘What sort of plans?’ I said.

‘To wave bye-bye to the Burkes. Once she’s sixteen she can legally stick the proverbial two fingers up at the system, of course.’ His face grew serious. ‘She’s made it abundantly clear that as soon as that day comes, in her ideal world she’s “offskies”, as she puts it.’

‘Offskies where?’ I asked. ‘And what’s going to happen about school?’

‘Offskies not too far away, I hope,’ Danny answered. ‘Though I’m sad to say that school has become a bit of a lost cause.’

My heart sank. ‘But she’s only just started year eleven,’ I said.

‘Or rather, hasn’t started year eleven,’ he corrected. ‘She’s got a long history as a non-attender. I’ve been trying my best, but, again, her mind’s set.’

‘And that’s that? There’s nothing you can do to convince her otherwise?’ I asked, concerned. In our short acquaintance, it seemed to me that a sixteen-year-old Keeley, alone in the world, and out of education as well, was a tragedy waiting to happen. ‘Does she already have an assigned “moving on” worker, then?’ I asked him, recalibrating my thoughts. She’d obviously been planning to escape for some time, then. ‘Does she have a pathway plan?’

These were both things put in place when a child was approaching the time they would officially be leaving care. It usually meant that measures would be taken to ensure continued safety until they could properly look after themselves. It could take the form of finding them supported lodgings, or a flat in a supervised building, or, if they were ready for it, complete independence. It all depended on the individual child. And it definitely didn’t generally apply to children who were still almost a full year off normal school-leaving age.

Danny nodded. ‘We’ve started a pathway plan,’ he confirmed. He then pointed at the biscuits. ‘You mind if I take the Bourbon, John?’

‘Consider it yours,’ John said.

‘Thanks. But we have to move quickly because Keeley is so adamant that, no matter what, she doesn’t want us interfering in her life beyond sixteen. And with what’s just happened, I don’t doubt she means it, too. Of course, we’d rather she stay in foster care for a bit longer –’ He glanced at John. ‘At least till she has some sort of plan in place. Some idea of what she might do for a job. Or, once she’s old enough, a college place. But her mind is pretty set. If we don’t work with her, she could literally just disappear, couldn’t she?’ I nodded. She certainly could. ‘No, we just have to sell the idea well enough that she accepts that if she works with us she can still have her freedom, but with the security of us lot lingering in the not too far background.’

‘And you’d like Mike and me to be integral in selling that proposition?’ I asked. Both men nodded. And it was certainly different, I had to admit. I’d never been in quite this kind of position before. This was a teenager – a pretty smart one – who believed that she didn’t need help. She didn’t want to be fostered. She didn’t want anyone telling her how to live her life any more. And, though she didn’t know it, what she’d get, as a result of what she wanted, would be to become just another dispiriting statistic – a child from the care system, lost first in it and then to it. And her outlook as a child who’d been in care was already pretty bleak. There were more than enough stats to bear that out.

And our job in this process was apparently clear. It seemed that rather than our usual job – of loving and nurturing her with a view to her staying in a family setting – ours, even – we were essentially just being asked to keep things calm and contain her. To keep her out of trouble for as long as possible, until she had a ‘release date’, as if our home was just a half-way house for rehabilitating prisoners.

I didn’t need to think hard to know there were two ways this could go. It could either be extremely easy, or the complete opposite – and how it played out would be largely up to Mike and me. We could take Danny at his word – feed Keeley, clothe her, provide bed and board and a reasonable amount of boundaries for her – and, all the while, without paying too close attention to whatever else her life consisted of, including her charming little phone-sex business. After all, that was all we were being asked to do.

Or, to use Mike’s words, I could instead ‘do a Casey’ – try my level best to help change her mind about rejecting the system, and the attendant depressing outlook that might lead to. To do what I could to stop her becoming another component that made up those same statistics – the ones that proved a childhood in the care system meant a life of, at best, chronic under-achievement, unemployment (without GCSEs she had little to offer an employer) and, at worst, a life of criminality, drugs or worse; one destined to follow the path set by her mother, and so ensuring that the cycle continued.

A path which could so easily start from a bedroom in some grotty flat and a mobile phone. With no Casey snooping outside to curtail her paying hobby, what was to stop her, after all? As she unpacked her possessions upstairs, oblivious, I made my choice. Whether she liked it or not (and if Danny was right, she definitely wouldn’t like it) I decided I was going to do a Casey.

Keeley didn’t need calling down in the end. She appeared in the dining room half an hour or so into the meeting, red in the face from her unpacking exertions, and, having first visited the kitchen, holding a glass of water. I pulled out the chair between Danny and me. ‘We’ve pretty much done all the boring stuff now,’ he told her. ‘Just need to hear your thoughts now, about staying here – if you have any? Is there anything you need to ask me while I’m here, Keels?’

Keeley glanced around the table. ‘So I am going to be staying here, then, am I? I mean, that’s fine by me,’ she said, gracing me with a smile. ‘Anywhere so long as I don’t have to go back there. And it’s only till I’m sixteen, anyways, so it’s all good,’ she finished.

I resisted the urge to pitch in with ‘you’re welcome’, and catching my eye – and perhaps my thought process – Danny grinned.

‘Don’t worry, we hear you loud and clear, Keels,’ he said. ‘And yes, Casey has very kindly agreed that you can stay here for a while. But like anywhere,’ he went on, leaning forward for emphasis, ‘the Watsons have rules, and I expect you to heed them, okay? If you’re expecting me to go out on a limb and sort you out some accommodation for after your birthday, then you have to do your bit, too, okay? Following the rules, as I’ve told you before, is a normal part of life. We all have to do it and you’re no exception.’

It was obviously a conversation they’d had several times before. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ Keeley replied, nodding, ‘I get it. I have to behave myself. And I have been.’

Danny’s gaze became stern, which put years on him. Which was good. ‘Well, from what I hear,’ he went on, ‘you don’t quite “get it”, Keeley. Last time I checked, having phone sex, or whatever it is you call it, isn’t