Four Waifs on Our Doorstep (28 page)

The head turned to Stacey. ‘Can you tell us where it is?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied with a straight face. ‘I took it off, and then it got lost. I must have dropped it. Maybe somebody else picked it up and stole it.’

‘But that’s not all,’ added Mr Bailey, turning to the other teacher.

‘A couple of days ago, I told Stacey off for wearing jewellery too,’ she said. ‘That was a three-stone diamond-type ring. Do you have one of those, Mrs Merry?’

‘Yes, I do.’ I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. How could Stacey do this to me? I knew that stealing was like a disease or addiction to her, but it had always been
small things until the phone topping-up fiasco. And now this . . .

‘I told her off about it and made her take it off, so she put in her pocket to take home. At least, that’s what I thought.’

‘Well, she didn’t give it to me,’ I said, then turned to face Stacey. ‘Did you put it back in my jewellery box?’ I asked her.

‘You don’t even know I took it,’ she protested, the tears welling up on demand. ‘Or the other ring. Why are you accusing me?’

‘Well,’ I answered, the anger building up inside me. ‘If they’re not both in my jewellery box when I get home, I’ll know, won’t I?’

She looked down at the carpet and said nothing.

Of course, they were missing when I got back, along with a third family heirloom ring, and I knew she must have taken them all. The evidence against her for the first two was undeniable.

When Stacey arrived home that evening, I questioned her about what she’d done with the rings. She insisted she’d lost them and whatever I said I couldn’t make her change her
story. But I knew those two rings were together worth about eight thousand pounds. And the other a few more. This was serious theft.

‘What do you think she did with them?’ asked Mike after I’d told him the story.

‘I really don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘But I’m very disappointed that she stole so much, both the money and the rings, and God knows what else, from her own
mother.’ By now I was pretty sure it must have been Stacey that stole that cash from my purse as well, but I didn’t want to heap anything else on her just at that point, so I kept that
quiet for now.

‘Maybe she’s pawned them,’ he suggested. ‘She must have known she could get money on those rings.’

I was horrified. ‘But she’d never have got their full value.’

‘I’ll see if I can track them down,’ he said.

But, if she did pawn them, it wasn’t locally and we never found them. I did look into trying to make a claim on our insurance, but that wasn’t possible because they were taken by a
family member.

On the day Stacey turned sixteen, there was a birthday card from her grandfather. It was the first time she’d ever had a card from him. She opened it and read what was
written inside with a poker face.

‘What does it say?’ I asked her.

‘He wants me to go away for the weekend with him.’

‘And your grandma?’

‘No, just him, just the two of us, in a flat he’s rented.’

‘Oh.’ I had a bad feeling about this. ‘Why do you think he wants to be alone with you for the weekend?’ It seemed a remote possibility that he just wanted to treat her,
and I was far more concerned that it was to do with her age, being sixteen.

‘I don’t know.’ She looked down at the floor. ‘What do you think?’

‘Well, you’re sixteen now.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She looked puzzled.

‘It’s up to you, Stace. You’re old enough now to make up your own mind about your grandfather, and whether you want to go for a weekend alone with him.’ I paused.
‘If you do want to go, that’s fine. I won’t try to stop you, as long as you’re happy to go . . . but personally, I’ve got to be honest, I don’t trust the man.
Think about it. Why does he want you to himself?’

‘Yes, Mum. That’s what I was thinking. And my gut instinct is I don’t want to go.’

‘OK. That’s fine. It’s your decision.’

‘I’ll write and tell him no.’

Here was my chance to try to find out whether my hunch had been right about that man. ‘What memories do you have of him when you were little?’

‘Not much,’ she said. ‘I remember he used to give me a special chocolate drink at bedtimes when Caroline and I went to stay for a week with him, when Sam was born. He used to
stand over me while I drank it. Then he would smile and say, “That’s because you’ve been good.” And I know he made me sleep in a bed with him, in a separate bedroom, and he
gave me that chocolate drink. I don’t remember anything else. I don’t know what happened. Maybe I’ve blanked it out. I think I’ve blanked most of that week out.’

It was now a few months since the phone top-ups swindle, but one day I had a letter from the bank. Not knowing what it was, I assumed it would be a statement, and left it to
open later. When I finally got around to it the next day, it was much more serious than that.

My heart lurched as I began to read it through.

I rang them immediately and spoke to somebody in their fraud department.

‘Do you have to prosecute her?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Please don’t. She’s so young, still a schoolgirl, and it would give her a criminal record for life. She wants to
be a social worker when she grows up, and this might make it impossible.’

‘I realise the implications, Mrs Merry. But we have to follow the bank’s procedures in this case, as in any other.’

‘Is there anything I could do to stop you?’

‘Yes, you could sue her yourself.’

‘But, surely that would have the same effect?’

‘That’s true. Can you hold on a moment, Mrs Merry, while I consult my supervisor about this?’ I waited for what seemed like ages while the inane music played. ‘Are you
still there, Mrs Merry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry to keep you waiting, but I am told that in this unusual situation, with your daughter still being at school, the bank would refrain from taking any further action in this case as
long as you take her to a police station to admit her guilt and make a statement.’

It sounded a very serious thing to have to do. ‘Wouldn’t that still go on her record?’

‘I don’t believe it would give her a criminal record of any kind, if she just makes the admission in a statement. You can check that with the police. Making this admission would
satisfy our head office, in these circumstances, and that way you would not need to have any charges made against her.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Is that what you wish to do?’

‘Yes, I’ll take her down on Saturday,’ I said, feeling a mixture of relief and trepidation. I had no idea how she would take this, but it had to be done.

I realised of course, that unless we sued Stacey for fraud, the bank wouldn’t replace my stolen funds. It was a great loss to me, and we couldn’t afford to overlook it, but it was a
hard place to be in and I had to put Stacey’s future first.

So I confronted her straight away.

‘Why did you do it, Stacey?’ I asked her. ‘The rings, and the money, and there was cash too from my purse, wasn’t there?’

‘I needed the money, Mum,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t think you’d notice.’

I explained about the bank wanting to sue her.

‘The only way for you to avoid having to go to court and being prosecuted, with a criminal record,’ I explained to her calmly, ‘is to come down to the police station with me on
Saturday morning and admit that you did it.’

‘What, just tell them I did it?’

‘And sign a statement to say that you did it. That way the bank will be happy, I won’t make any charge against you and your record will be clean.’ I paused. ‘But you have
to get a hold of yourself, Stacey. You have to stop all this stealing. I can’t trust you any more, and I hate that. You’ve hit me very hard financially, and even worse, you stole away
my family history in those rings. They were full of precious memories of my grandmother and other relatives. Their financial value is a considerable loss, but the stealing away of their sentimental
value is something I can never get back.’ I paused. ‘Please stop stealing, Stace.’

She hung her head and said nothing.

Saturday came and I drove Stacey to the police station. I sat with her while the policewoman wrote down what Stacey told her, then gave it to Stacey to read and sign, which she did very
belligerently.

‘Well done,’ I said, squeezing her hand, but she withdrew it within an instant and, without even looking at me, stood up and strode out of the little office, down the corridor and
out of the front doors to the car.

She had been subdued and resentful inside the police station, but as soon as we got back in the car, she kicked off big time, shouting and ranting all the way home.

I made a pot of tea and poured us both a mug.

I tried to talk with her about her plans for the weekend, but she refused to play this game, seething silently as she sipped her tea.

‘When I’ve had my pocket-money on Saturday, I’m leaving this dump,’ she announced, just as Mike came in, unaware of exactly what had gone on.

‘Oh well,’ he joked. ‘I’ll give it to you early, then!’

She slammed her mug down on the table, with tea going in all directions, stood up and stomped out of the kitchen, past Sam and Carrie in the hall, without saying a word, and straight out of the
front door.

We all watched her striding down the long drive into the distance.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said to the kids. ‘She’s just going walkabout. She’s taken nothing with her, so I’m sure she’ll be back later.’

But, of course, I was wrong. She didn’t come back that night. She didn’t answer her phone when I rang her and in the end, I was so tired, I just had to go to bed, hoping she would
creep in overnight.

As I began to drift off to sleep, all the troubles I’d had with Stacey for so long, all the heartache and all her frequent, screaming nightmares of her childhood abuse flashed through my
mind. I had struggled with her behaviour for so many years, just to get through each day. But no matter what, Mike and I had always been there for her, sticking up for her. We’d never had a
night out together since we’d taken the four of them in. We couldn’t leave them with babysitters; they’d never have coped. But that was all part of the deal. We’d never
regretted it, never complained. And we still didn’t, because we loved them all.

24

I
got up early the next morning, as usual, and checked in Stacey’s room, but her bed hadn’t been slept in. I remember coming down the
stairs thinking: Oh my God. I don’t know where Stacey is, whether she’s hurt – she could be anywhere.

Then I thought back to the previous day, the police station. Oh no, she’s going to have this on her file, and she’s thinking of going into social work when she leaves school.

I later found out that she’d reported me to Social Services for frogmarching her down to the police station and forcing her to go in. That wasn’t true as she’d come of her own
accord, but they probably wouldn’t have believed me. I was very mithered about that. And then I began to wonder whether perhaps it was all a mistake and the money hadn’t been taken
after all. But, of course, I knew it had.

That was the last we saw or heard of Stacey for a while, and it worried me sick. Why didn’t she answer her phone? Where could she have gone? How would she manage?

The pile of paperwork for the sale of the agency rose to mountainous proportions. We agreed a six-figure price for the lot, offices and all. Then they decided they didn’t want the two
offices. We all signed and they paid us a deposit. We had to pay to get out of the office leases, so that didn’t leave us with much. But we should soon receive the other part of the purchase
price, to sort all our finances out at last.

I phoned around various people and discovered that Stacey had gone straight to stay at the home of her boyfriend’s parents, but weeks went by and still no response to any of my texts or
calls.

First Jamie had gone, and now Stacey. It was this second escape from our clutches, as some people called it, that set the tongues wagging. Just when we were at our lowest, and needed support as
a family, we were overrun with professionals. We had tried every conflicting suggestion already, and look where it had got us. Even one or two of our friends were now making comments –
‘Maybe it was something you did’ or ‘Well, they wouldn’t have run away over nothing.’

I gave them all the same answer: ‘They’ve run away because I won’t let them take drink and drugs in this house. Is that so unreasonable?’ Of course I knew it was a lot
more than that, but I was too tired to argue any more. I just thought,
before you judge me, look at yourself.

Finally, after a few months, we found out where she was.

Jamie phoned me. ‘I saw Stacey,’ he said. ‘I hardly recognised her and she pretended she hadn’t seen me.’

‘Where? Is she all right? Was she with anybody?’ I had so many questions and wanted so much to go to her.

‘One of her friends told me that she’s heavily into drugs.’

‘Oh no!’ My heart sank.

‘And she’s sleeping around. She’s homeless and dossing down wherever she can.’

‘Where did you see her? I must go and find her.’

‘No, Mum, I don’t think you’ll do any good.’

‘But I have to do something.’

‘Well, this friend says she moves about, so I have no idea where she might be now.’

‘If you see her again, tell her we love her and to come home.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘I’m glad you phoned, Jay. At least I know you are settling down now,’ I said. ‘But I still worry about you.’