“You should never work with animals.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Mel watches as my left hand tries to stir my coffee. “Are you still with Julianne?”
“Uh-huh. We have Charlie now. She’s eight. I think Julianne might be pregnant again.”
“Aren’t you sure?” She laughs.
I laugh with her, but feel a pang of guilt.
I ask about Boyd. I picture him as an aging hippie, still wearing linen shirts and Punjabi pants. Mel turns her face away, but not before I see the pain drift across her eyes like a cloud.
“Boyd is dead.”
Sitting very still, she lets the silence grow accustomed to the news.
“When?”
“More than a year ago. One of those big four-wheel drives, with a bulbar, went through a stop sign and cleaned him up.”
I tell her that I’m sorry. She smiles sadly and licks milk froth from her spoon.
“They say the first year is the hardest. I tell you it’s like being fucked over by fifty cops with batons and riot shields. I still can’t get my head around the fact that he’s gone. I even blamed
“You should have got in touch. We didn’t know.”
“Boyd lost your address. He was hopeless. I know I could have found you.” She smiles apologetically. “I just didn’t want to see anyone for a while. It would just remind me of the good old days.”
“Where is he now?”
“At home in a little silver pot on my filing cabinet.” She makes it sound as though he’s pottering around in the garden shed. “I can’t put him in the ground here. It’s too cold. What if it snows? He hated the cold.” She looks at me mournfully. “I know that’s stupid.”
“Not to me.”
“I thought I might save up and take his ashes to Nepal. I could throw them off a mountain.”
“He was scared of heights.”
“Yeah. Maybe I should just tip them in the Mersey.”
“Can you do that?”
“Don’t see how anyone could stop me.” She laughs sadly. “So what brings you back to Liverpool? You couldn’t get away from here fast enough.”
“I wish I could have taken you guys with me.”
“Down south! Not likely! You know what Boyd thought of London. He said it was full of people searching for something that they couldn’t find elsewhere, having not bothered to look.”
I can hear Boyd saying exactly that.
“I need to get hold of a child protection file.”
“A red edge!”
“Yes.”
I haven’t heard that term for years. It’s the nickname given by social workers in Liverpool to child protection referrals because the initiating form has a dark crimson border.
“What child?”
“Bobby Morgan.”
Mel makes the connection instantly. I see it in her eyes. “I dragged a magistrate out of bed at two in the morning to sign the interim care order. The father committed suicide. You must remember?”
“No.”
Her brow furrows. “Maybe it was one of Erskine’s.” Rupert Erskine was the senior psychologist in the department. I was the junior half of the team— a fact he pointed out at every opportunity.
Mel had been the duty social worker on Bobby’s case.
“The referral came from a schoolteacher,” she explains. “The mother didn’t want to say anything at first. When she saw the medical evidence she broke down and told us she suspected her husband.”
“Can you get me the file?”
I can see she wants to ask me why. At the same time she realizes it is probably safer to remain ignorant. Closed child-care files are stored at Hatton Gardens, the head office of the Liverpool Department of Social Services. Files are held for eighty years and can only be viewed by an appropriate member of staff, an authorized agency or a court officer. All access becomes part of the record.
Mel stares at her reflection in her teaspoon. She has to make a decision. Does she help me or say no? She glances at her watch. “I’ll make a few phone calls. Come to my office at one thirty.”
She kisses me on the cheek as she leaves. Another coffee is ordered for the wait. Down times are the worst. They give me too much time to think. That’s when random thoughts bounce through my head like a ping-pong ball in a jar. Julianne is pregnant. We’ll need a child gate at the bottom of the stairs. Charlie wants to go camping this summer. What’s the connection between Bobby and Catherine?
Another van— but it’s not white. The driver tosses a bundle of papers onto the pavement in front of the cafe. The front-page headline reads: REWARD OFFERED IN MCBRIDE MURDER HUNT.
Mel has a clean desk with two piles of paperwork on either side in haphazard columns. Her computer is decorated with stickers, headlines and cartoons. One of them shows an armed robber pointing a gun and saying, “Your money or your life!” The victim replies, “I have no money and no life. I’m a social worker.”
We’re on the third floor of the Department of Social Services. Most of the offices are empty for the weekend. The view from Mel’s window is of a half-built prefabricated warehouse. She has managed to get me three files, each held together by a loop of red tape. I have an hour before she gets back from shopping.
I know what to expect. The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. That’s what the social services do. When they mess about with people’s lives they make a careful note of every decision. There will be interviews, family assessments, psych reports and medical notes. There will be minutes of every case conference and strategy meeting as well as copies of police statements and court rulings.
If Bobby spent time in a children’s home or psych ward, this will have been recorded. There will be names, dates and places. With any luck I can cross-reference these with Catherine McBride’s file and discover a link.
The first page of the file is a record of a telephone call from St. Mary’s School. I recognize Mel’s handwriting. Bobby had “displayed a number of recent behavioral changes.” Apart from wetting himself and soiling his pants, he had “displayed inappropriate sexual behavior.” He had removed his underpants and simulated sex with a seven- year-old girl.
Mel faxed through the information to the area manager. At the same time she phoned the clerk in the area office and organized a check through the index files to see if Bobby, his parents or any siblings had ever come up on file. When this drew a blank, she started a new file. The injuries worried her most. She consulted with Lucas Dutton, the assistant director (children), who made the decision to launch an investigation.
The “red edge” is easy to find because of the border. It records Bobby’s name, date of birth, address and details of his parents, school, GP and known health problems. There are also details about the deputy headmistress of St. Mary’s, the original referrer.
Mel had organized a full medical examination dated Monday, 12 September 1988. Dr. Richard Legende found “two or three marks about six inches long across both his buttocks.” He described the injuries as being consistent with “two or three successive blows with a hard item such as a studded belt.”
Bobby had been distressed throughout the examination and refused to answer any questions. Dr. Legende noted what appeared to be old scar tissue around the anus. “Whether the injury was caused accidentally or by deliberate penetration is not clear,” he wrote. In a later report he hardened his resolve and described the scarring as being “consistent with abuse.”
Bridget Morgan was interviewed. Hostile at first, she accused social services of being busybodies. When told of Bobby’s injuries and behavior, she began to qualify her answers. Eventually, she began making excuses for her husband.
“He’s a good man, but he can’t help himself. He gets angry and loses his rag.”
