What Came Before He Shot Her

police station, at the magistrate’s court, and at the Youth Offending Team’s office in Oxford Gardens—no mention had ever been made that there were two other Campbell children living with Mrs. Osborne. This knowledge had come to her via the Westminster Learning Centre, where a woman called Luce Chinaka had become concerned when some paperwork requiring a parental signature—or the signature of a guardian, for that matter—had not been returned as requested. The request had been made of one Joel Campbell in reference to his brother, Toby.

            It was no coincidence that Fabia Bender had received the phone call from Luce Chinaka. Overburdened with work, as all of the employees of the Youth Offending Team were, the secretary who routed phone calls to the social workers recognised Campbell  as being the surname of one of Fabia’s clients and she passed the phone call to her. Trouble historically ran in families. When Luce Chinaka expressed her concern about one Joel Campbell, it seemed likely to the secretary that a sibling of Ness had surfaced.

            “What sort of paperwork?” Kendra asked. “Why’d he not give it to me?”

            It had to do with advanced testing for Toby, with a possible placement in a situation better designed to meet his needs than was Middle Row School, Fabia told her.

            “Testing?” Kendra asked cautiously. This rang bells and set off sirens. Toby was forbidden territory. Testing Toby, assessing Toby, evaluating Toby . . . It was all completely unthinkable. Nonetheless, because she had to know the exact nature of the enemy she faced, she said, “What kind of testing? Testing done by who?”

            “We’re not certain yet,” Fabia Bender said. “But that’s not actually why I’ve come.” Because there were three children and not one occupying Mrs. Osborne’s dwelling, she explained, she was there to assess the living situation. She was also there to talk about establishing permanent, official, and formal guardianship over the children.

Kendra wanted to know why this was necessary. They had a mother, they had a grandmother—although she didn’t mention Glory’s removal to Jamaica—and they had an aunt. One of their relations would always look out for them. Why did this need to be official? And what did offi-cial  mean anyway?

            Paperwork, as things turned out. Signatures. Carole either signing her children over or being declared incompetent so that someone else could manage their lives. Decisions had to be made about the future, and at present there was apparently no one designated to make them. Should no one be willing to take on that responsibility, then the government—

            Kendra told her there would be no going into care for these children, if that was what Fabia Bender was alluding to. They were trouble; there was no denying it. Especially Ness, and there was virtually no reward in having to put up with the girl. But the children represented Kendra’s last blood relatives in England, and while she would never have thought that detail an important one, with Fabia Bender sitting at her kitchen table mentioning the government and mentioning testing for Toby, for her it became a detail writ very large.

            Fabia hastened to reassure her. When there was a willing family member, the government was always on the side of leaving children with their relations. Providing, of course, that the relations were suitable and could provide a stable environment in the children’s best interests. That appeared  to be the case—Kendra did not miss the emphasis on the predicate in that sentence—and Fabia would certainly make note of that in her report. In the meantime, Kendra needed to read and sign the paperwork given to Joel by Luce Chinaka at the learning centre. She also needed to speak to the children’s mother about establishing permanent guardianship. As long as there was—

            It was at this point that the dogs began barking. Since she knew what this meant, Fabia got to her feet at the same moment as Dix D’Court shouted from outside.

            “Ken, baby! Wha’s goin on? I come home to love my woman, and dis is my greeting?”

            Fabia strode to the door and opened it. She said, “Boys, enough. Let him pass,” and then she added to Dix, “I do beg your pardon. They thought you meant to touch the car and they’d been told to guard it. Do come in. They won’t bother you now.”

            A white woman in the house told Dix that something was going on, so he didn’t continue in the vein he’d been employing outside. He entered, carrying two shopping bags. He put them on the work top, where they spilled out vegetables, fruit, nuts, brown rice, beans, and yoghurt. He remained there, leaning against it, his arms crossed and his expression expectant. He was wearing a vest, just like those hanging above the bath, along with running shorts and trainers. The ensemble did much to emphasise his body. What he’d said outside before being admitted to the house did much to emphasise the way things stood between Kendra and him.

Both he and Fabia Bender waited for Kendra to introduce them. There was no getting around it, so she made as brief a piece of work of the matter as possible. “Dix D’Court, Fabia Bender from Youth Offending,” was how she put it. Fabia jotted down his name.

            “She didn’t know there were three,” Kendra added. “She’s dealt with Ness but she’s come because of Joel.”

            “He in trouble?” Dix asked. “Don’t sound like Joel, innit.”

            Kendra was gratified by the response. It suggested Dix’s positive involvement with the boy. “He was supposed to give me some paperwork from the learning centre and he didn’t.”

            “Dat an offence or summick?”

            “Just a point of interest,” Fabia Bender said. “Do you live here, Mr. D’Court? Or do you just visit?”

            Dix looked to Kendra for an indication of how he was meant to answer, which was answer enough. When he said, “I come an’ go,”

            Fabia Bender wrote something in her notebook, but it seemed clear by the way her lips adjusted that either lie  or falsehood  was part of the information she took down. Kendra knew she would probably consider Dix’s presence in the same house as a nubile fi fteen-year-old girl in whatever she might ultimately recommend. Fabia, after all, had seen Ness. She would likely conclude that a delectable twenty-three-year-old man and a seductive adolescent girl amounted to something that would be labelled Potential Trouble rather than Suitable Situation.

When she’d written what she needed to write, Fabia Bender closed her notebook. She told Kendra to ask Joel for the paperwork that Luce Chinaka had given him for signature and she instructed her further to tell Ness to phone her. She went through the motions of informing Dix of what a pleasure it had been to meet him, and she ended with stating her assumption that Ness had no private place for sleeping or dressing and was that the case, Mrs. Osborne?

            Dix said, “I built her dat screen and—”

            Kendra cut him off. “We give her the privacy and respect she needs.”

            Fabia Bender nodded. “I see,” she said.

            What she saw, however, was something upon which she did not expound.

WHEN KENDRA CONFRONTED Joel, she was both angry and worried. Despite her intention of doing nothing at all with the paperwork, she lectured the boy. If he’d only given her the documents in the first place, she told him, there would have been no need for Fabia Bender to turn up on Edenham Estate and consequently no report for her to have to fill out. Now there would likely be trouble in the form of hoops to jump through, explanations to give, investigations to endure, and offi cials to meet with. Joel’s reluctance to do his simple duty had put them all squarely in the jaws of the system, facing all of the system’s attendant time-eating activities.

So Kendra wanted to know what the hell he was thinking of, not giving her the papers that the learning centre woman—in her agitation she’d forgotten Luce Chinaka’s name—had wanted her to see. Did he understand that they were all under scrutiny now? Did he know  what it meant when a family came to the attention of Social Services?

            Of course Joel knew. It was his greatest fear. But he wouldn’t articulate it since to do so would give the fear a legitimacy that might make it a reality. So he told his aunt he’d forgotten because he’d been caught up in thinking about . . . He had to consider what the subject of his thoughts might be, and he settled upon telling her he’d been caught up in thinking about Wield Words Not Weapons since this was at least a wholesome subject. It wasn’t far from the truth anyway.

He didn’t anticipate Kendra’s encouraging him to go once she learned about it, but that was what she did. To her, it would be evidence of a positive influence invading Joel’s life, and she knew it was likely that positive