What Came Before He Shot Her (72 page)

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 middle-class 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?”

“It’s the old nature and nurture thing. The predisposition is inherited.

Look. This is a brain disorder: proteins not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. A genetic mutation. That sets someone up for psychosis. The person’s environment does the rest.”

Fabia thought about Toby, what she’d seen and heard, and how the family attempted to shield him, about everything they’d done from the first to see to it that he would not be evaluated by someone who might pinpoint an illness that could spell misery for him. She said, “There’s clearly something wrong with the youngest. That’s evident enough.”

“They
all
need to be tested. Evaluated by a psychiatrist. Have a genetic history taken. What I’m saying is that my idea for Ness to enter group counselling is a load of bollocks. If she’s heading for a psychotic breakdown—”

“If she’s
in
one already,” Fabia offered.

“Or if she’s in the midst of one, then we need to get on to this before something else happens.”

Fabia agreed. But she wondered how Ness—both uncommunicative and uncooperative in sessions with a counsellor—was going to take having her mind probed in one way or another by a psychiatrist. Not well, she decided.

A visit to the magistrate was in order, then. What Fabia and Ruma could not effect in the girl would surely come about if the magistrate’s court gave her the word. And more than the word: the option between cooperation or incarceration. The mere threat of an increase in her community-service hours would hardly make an impression upon her.

“Let me talk to some people,” Fabia said.

IVAN WEATHERALL, BEING neither an idiot nor a fool, had quickly put together a number of pieces to the puzzle of Joel Campbell once he’d taken that phone call from Kendra. Most of these pieces had to do with Joel’s talent and with Wield Words Not Weapons, but some of them related to the attempted mugging in Portobello Road. This, he’d earlier concluded, was so far out of character in the boy that only a case of mistaken identity could possibly explain it. In conjunction with Joel’s quick release from custody, there seemed to be no other answer.

But Kendra’s call had forced him to consider the possibility that there was a Joel he didn’t know. Since there were two sides to every coin—a ghastly cliché, but one that had an apparent application in this particular case as far as Ivan was concerned—it stood to reason that Joel had kept part of himself hidden from Ivan, and the truth was that the facts supported this conclusion.

Ivan didn’t know about Joel’s dealings with the Blade. As far as the less wholesome individuals who populated parts of North Kensington went, Ivan knew only that Joel had rubbed metaphorical elbows with Neal Wyatt. And Neal was someone whom Ivan mistakenly saw as troubled, but not essentially dangerous. So while Ivan understood that something worrisome was brewing within Joel, he thought in terms of the home itself instead of the streets.

What Ivan knew was this: The aunt’s boyfriend was a live-in. The father was dead. The mother was gone. The sister had been sentenced to community service. The younger brother was . . . well, rather odd.

Change in the form of a new home, new school, and new associates was difficult for anyone to endure. Was there any wonder that Joel occasionally lost his grip on the ability to cope? The way Ivan saw things, Joel was a perfectly good lad. Surely, then, any potential for serious trouble could be nipped in the bud if the adults in his life all agreed on how to deal with him.

Ivan himself had grown up under the firm but loving thumbs of his parents. Thus, firmness was what was called for, he decided. Firmness, fairness, and honesty.

He decided to visit Joel at home. Seeing Joel in situ, as he described it to himself, would gain him further information on how best to help the boy.

Joel admitted him to the house—obviously surprised but quickly altering his expression to shield whatever else was going on within him—

and cartoon noise from upstairs suggested that the little brother was present as well. Beyond the entrance and in the kitchen, Ivan could see Joel’s sister. She was at the table, one foot propped up on the edge as she painted her toenails metallic blue. An ashtray sat next to the bottle of varnish. Cigarette smoke plumed upward in a lazy spiral. A radio playing on the work top added to the general cacophony of the household. Rap music issued forth, most of it grunted indecipherably by a singer later identified by the DJ as someone calling himself Big R Balz.

Ivan said, “Could I have a word, Joel?”

“I ain’t written nuffink lately.” Joel glanced beyond Ivan as if wishing him to leave.

Ivan wasn’t about to be dismissed. “This isn’t about your poetry, actually. Your aunt phoned me.”

“Yeah. Know.”

“I’d like to talk about that.”

Joel led him into the kitchen, where Ness looked Ivan over. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Lately, as she’d managed in the past, all Ness had to do was to fix her great dark eyes upon people to discomfit them. She was scornful on the surface but something else beneath it. That
something else
made people uneasy.

Ivan nodded a hello. Ness’s full lips curved in a smile. She gave him a head-to-toe and made an evaluation of him that she didn’t bother to hide, taking in his lank grey hair, his bad teeth, his worn and countri-fied tweed jacket, his scuffed shoes. She nodded but not in an exchange of greeting. Rather, her nod said Man I know your kind, and she lit another cigarette from the dying end of the one in the ashtray. She held it between her fingers with the smoke coiling around her head. She said to her brother, “Dis’s Ivan, eh? Di’n’t t’ink I’d ever see him over here.

’Spect he i’n’t round dis part of town very often, innit. So how you like it, mon, seein how us ethnic types live?”

“He ain’t like dat,” Joel said.

“Right,” was her laconic response.

But Ivan wasn’t put off by Ness. He said, “Good heavens, I’ve seen you before, but I’d no idea you were Joel’s sister. You’re in the drop-in centre, aren’t you? Playing with the children? You’ve obviously got a real gift for working with them.”

This was hardly the response Ness expected to get from the man.

Her expression fixed itself into place. She drew in on her cigarette and barked a harsh laugh. She said, “Yeah. Make a
proper
little mummy, wouldn’t I?” She pushed away from the table and sauntered from the room, up the stairs and out of sight.

Ivan said to Joel, “Did I say—”

“Dat’s just Ness,” Joel said.

“Bruised soul,” Ivan murmured.

Joel looked at him sharply. Ivan met his gaze. His own was open and too difficult to look at, so Joel glanced away.

Ivan sat at the table. He carefully screwed the top back onto Ness’s abandoned nail varnish. He nodded at a chair, meaning Joel was to sit as well. When Joel had done so, moments ticked by. Rap music continued to blare from the radio. Joel got up from the table and snapped it off. They were left with the sound of explosions upstairs: a cartoon character meeting his fate, Toby crowing with laughter as he watched.