What Came Before He Shot Her

wouldn’t find the gun he’d been given by the Blade. This was tucked in the space between the floor and the bottom drawer of the clothes chest. The only way to get it out was to tilt the chest up, and his aunt was unlikely to go to that extreme once she realised there was nothing to find elsewhere in the room.

            Kendra dumped out his rucksack and pawed through it, a woman on an undefined mission. She was looking for something without knowing what she was looking for: evidence that he’d mugged someone successfully, gobs of cash to indicate he was selling some kind of contraband— weapons, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol . . . It didn’t matter. She just wanted to find something that would give her a sign of what she was meant to do next because, just like Joel but with different cause, she was finding herself running out of options.

            There was nothing: in the rucksack, under or in the bed, inside books, behind posters on the walls, in the chest of drawers. She went from all this to shaking Joel down, and he removed his clothes for her in an indifferent cooperation that infuriated her. The only answer was Toby, she thought, and she wondered why she hadn’t considered it before. So he was made to undress as well, and this in turn infuriated Joel.

            He said, “I told you! He don’t have nuffink to do wiv . . .” He said nothing else.

            “What?” Kendra demanded. “With what? What? ”

            Joel would have liked to stalk from the room, but Dix was in the doorway, an impassable object. Toby was, if anything, crying harder than ever. He fell onto his bed in his underwear. Joel was inflamed, but he did nothing. There was nothing to  do, and he knew it. So he told his aunt the truth. “I won it, okay? I won the fuckin money at Wield Words. Fifty pounds. Dat’s it. You happy now?”

            She said, “We’ll see about that,” and she left him, crossing the corridor to her own bedroom where she placed a phone call that she made certain her nephews could hear.

            She told Ivan Weatherall Joel’s claim. She even used the word claim to indicate her incredulity. Governed more by anger than by wisdom, she told him more than he needed to know. Joel had to be watched, she said. He had fractured her trust in him. He’d sneaked off without permission, he was responding to her questions with insolence and defiance, and now he was claiming he’d got some unaccounted-for money off the poetry evening. What did Ivan know about that?

            Ivan, naturally, knew quite a lot about it. He confirmed Joel’s story. But more than one seed in more than one breast was planted through this conversation. It would not take long for that seed to sprout.

WITH A CLEAR understanding of what would happen should she fail to cooperate, Ness went to counselling in Oxford Gardens. She sat through three appointments, but since she was there under duress, that was the extent of her participation in recovering from the assault made upon her: sitting in a chair that was faced towards the counsellor.

The counsellor in question was twenty-five years old, in possession of a first-class degree from a third-class university, and of a solid middleclass background—clearly evident in her choice of clothing and her careful use of words like loo  instead of toilet—which put her in the unfortunate position of believing she had most of the answers required to navigate encounters with recalcitrant adolescent girls. She was white, blonde, and squeaky clean. These were not faults, but they were disadvantages. She saw herself as a role model instead of what she appeared to be to those who were supposed to be her clients: an adversary incapable of relating to a single element of their lives.

After those three meetings with Ness, she decided group counselling might be an efficacious approach to achieve what she termed “a breakthrough.” To her credit, she did a considerable amount of homework on her client, and it was on this subject that she approached Fabia Bender, a manila folder in her hand.

            “No luck?” Fabia said to her. They were in the copy room, where an antique Mr. Coffee was delivering a viscous-looking brew into a glass carafe.

            The counsellor—whose name, for reasons known only to her parents, was Ruma, which the well- travelled Fabia knew very well meant “queen of the apes”—recounted what her sessions with Ness had been like so far. Tough, she said. Indeed, Vanessa Campbell was a very tough nut to crack.

            Fabia waited for more. So far, Ruma was telling her nothing that she didn’t know.

            Ruma drew a breath. The truth of the matter was that they were getting absolutely nowhere, she said. “I was thinking about a different approach, like a group,” she offered. “Other girls who’ve gone through the same thing. God knows we’ve got them by the dozens.”

            “But . . . ?” Fabia prompted her. She could tell there was more to come. Ruma had not yet learned to obscure her intent through the use of careful intonation.

            “But I’ve done some digging around, and there’s information here . . .”

            Ruma tapped her fingernails—well-groomed, French manicured, uniformly shaped—against the folder. “I’m thinking there’s a lot more than meets the eye. D’you have the time . . . ?”

            There was never enough time, but Fabia was intrigued. She liked Ruma, she knew the young woman meant well, and she admired the tireless way Ruma pursued every avenue for her clients, no matter how ineffective her efforts might prove to be. Where there was breath, there was life. Where there was life, there was hope. There were worse philosophies for someone who’d chosen the profession of counselling the unfortunate, Fabia thought.

            They repaired to Fabia’s office once the coffee was brewed and Fabia had filled herself a cup. There, Ruma shared the information she’d come up with.

            “You know Mum’s in a psychiatric hospital, right?” Ruma began. To Fabia’s nod, she added, “How much d’you know about why she’s there?”

            “Unresolved postnatal blues is what I’ve got,” Fabia told her. “She’s been in and out for years, as I understand things.”

            “Try psychosis,” Ruma said. “Try severe psychotic  postnatal depression. Try attempted murder.”

            Fabia sipped her coffee, watching Ruma over the rim of her cup. She evaluated the young woman, heard no excitement in her voice, and approved of the level of her professionalism in the matter. She said, “When? Who?”

            “Twice. Once she was prevented—evidently just in the nick of time—from chucking her youngest out of a third-floor window. This is from a flat they lived in, in Du Cane Road. East Acton. Neighbour was there and she phoned the cops once she got the kid away from her. Another time she parked the same kid’s pram in the path of an oncoming bus and did a runner. Clearly out of her head.”

            “How was that determined?”

            “History and examination.”

            “What sort of history?”

            “You said she’s been in and out for years. Did you know it’s been since she was thirteen?”

            Fabia didn’t know this. She considered the fact. “Any precipitating event?”

            “And then some. Her mum committed suicide just three weeks after being released from a facility herself. Paranoid schizophrenic. Carole was with her when she took the leap in front of a train in Baker Street underground station. This would have been when Carole was twelve.”

            Fabia set down her cup. “I should have known this,” she said. “I should have found out.”

            Ruma said quickly, “No. That’s not why I’m telling you. And anyway, how much digging are you supposed to do? It’s not your job.”

            “Is it yours?”

            “I’m the one trying to make the breakthrough here. You’re just trying to hold things together.”

            “I’m putting on plasters where surgery’s called for.”

            “No one knows till it’s time to know,” Ruma said. “Anyway, here’s my point.”

            Fabia didn’t need to be told. “Ness slipping into psychosis? Like her mum?”

            “It’s possible, isn’t it? And here’s what’s interesting: Carole Campbell tried to kill the youngest because she believed he’d inherited the affliction. I don’t know why, because he was a baby, but she singled him out. Like a mother dog who won’t nurse a newborn pup because she knows something’s wrong with it. Her instincts tell her.”

            “Are you saying this is  inherited, then?”