Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

The discovery of the weasel upset her, though she couldn’t quite work out why. Perhaps it was because there was no outward indication of injury. She tried to put it from her mind and continued walking but almost immediately thought she heard footsteps, splashing water, at some distance behind her. She turned round but the hill was empty.

There was nowhere to hide except the old mine workings and who would want to skulk there? So she knew she had been imagining things again.

She walked on and she began to count, though not now the traces of otter left on the bank. Now she counted the foster parents who’d cared for her, though she knew the number already. She listed them. Recently it had become an obsession to list their names. She knew it was unhealthy, this preoccupation with the past, and perhaps if she hadn’t found the weasel, the sunshine and the smell of the peat would have kept the old memories away.

But perhaps not. Rachael’s story of the discovery of Bella’s body, white in the torchlight, had jumbled the past and the present in her mind. That was what had started the confusion. It was as if a child had shaken a jigsaw puzzle in its box. The picture was fractured.

Grace’s mother had committed suicide by hanging.

There had been six foster families. In the social services department this was something of a record for a child like her. At the beginning everyone was sure she would be adopted. She was pretty enough, white, only four years old. She had been well brought up and already spoke politely. She didn’t have tantrums. Occasionally she wet the bed but that was only to be expected after coming in from the garden to find her mother hanging by her dressing gown cord from a light fitting. It had been sunny that morning too. The psychologist said she was very bright.

The first couple were Aunt Sally and Uncle Joe. She could hardly remember them because she was there for such a short time. It must have been emergency placement but she knew their names because they were in a scrapbook kept for her by her social worker. There were no photos.

She crossed the burn back to southern bank, this time wading, feeling the pressure of the water against the supple rubber of her expensive Wellingtons. Although it was stupid she wanted to avoid the mine buildings and the tunnel trap. Out loud she said: Aunt Sally and Uncle Joe,” and had a brief recollection of a flowery dress, a whiff of cigarette smoke, being held on a lap against her will.

She remembered the second couple better. The plan was that they would adopt her. Recently she had returned to this memory over an dover again. It was like poking a sore tooth with her tongue.

She had been in this house for a long time, months certainly, perhaps a year. She had started school. School was a modern brick building, with large windows and grey carpet tiles on the floor. Because of the carpet they had to be very careful wiping their feet before going in.

Each morning Lesley walked with her to the white wooden gates which had been pushed open to let the teachers’ cars through. Lesley would go with her into the cloakroom and hang up her coat. There she would try to kiss her goodbye. In the classroom there were two boxes one for reading books and another for packed lunches. Grace’s packed lunch box was made of pink plastic and had a picture of Barbie on the side. Each day she returned a reading book. She had already moved on to the ones with orange stickers on the spines; most of the children in the class were still reading the blues.

If it rained Dave gave them a lift to school in the car and then she wore Wellingtons pink to match the lunch box which had to be changed in the cloakroom. Lesley and Dave were her foster parents’ names but she already called them mum and dad. She wanted to be the same as the other children in her class. She could be on the books with the green stickers but had slowed down so she wasn’t too different.

They lived in a new house on a new estate. This too was made of brick with large windows. There was a garage which held Grace’s tricycle and her doll’s pram, a small patch of lawn and a rockery at the front, and a garden at the back. In the summer, Lesley said, there would be a swing. The road was still being built, and there were muddy puddles everywhere. Lesley hated the mud and so did Grace. They were both tidy individuals and so appeared perfectly matched.

That was what the social worker said when Dave and Lesley told her that they didn’t want Grace to live with them any more.

“But I thought you were perfectly suited.”

Grace knew that was what she said because she was listening at the door. It was slightly open, but nobody noticed her. She must have heard Lesley explaining apologetically that they didn’t think the placement was working out, but later she didn’t remember that bit. She just heard the social worker say, “She’s such a sweet little thing.

What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her.” Lesley and Dave looked at each other hoping the other would explain. They might just as well have said everything was wrong with her.

“You didn’t phone to say there’d been any problems.” By now the social worker was getting desperate. If the placement broke down it would be considered her fault. She was a messy woman with flyaway hair. The hem of her skirt had become un stitched and her long cardigan was wrongly buttoned. Grace disapproved of this lack of order. She took great care of her clothes, especially her blue and white school dress.

The woman continued: “I mean we might have been able to help. Has she been wetting the bed again?”

“That was never a problem.” This was David. He was chief mechanic in a big garage on the main road out of town. Grace had seen him there.

He wore blue overalls with his name embroidered on the chest and sometimes a blazer with gold buttons. He had come home early for this meeting. He had scrubbed his nails and put on a jacket and tie.

Awkwardness had made him aggressive.

“We weren’t bothered about that. Of course not. What do you think we are? Ogres? And at least it proved she was human.”

“What do you mean?” The social worker’s voice rose as if she was about to cry. Even at the age of five Grace realized that, in this situation, this wasn’t the right way for a responsible adult to behave.

“Look.” Dave leant forward. From her hiding place Grace could see the curve of his back. He was a very big man and from this angle he looked deformed like one of the illustrations in Jack and the Beanstalk, her latest reading book. Perhaps, as he had just said, he was an ogre.

“Look, we don’t want to muck you about, but we’ve got to be straight, haven’t we? I mean, better now than when all the forms have been filled out. Save you some work, eh?”

He gave a quick barking laugh. Grace understood that this was supposed to be a joke but the social worker didn’t find it funny. Nor really did Dave because he continued seriously. “We can’t love her,” he said.

“We wish we could but we can’t. She’s so cold.

She stares at us with those eyes. She won’t let us touch her. You’ve got to love your own kid, haven’t you?” He paused. “Perhaps it’s where she comes from.”

“What do you mean? Where she comes from?” The social worker’s voice was shrill, almost hysterical.

“Well, they’re different to us, those people, aren’t they?”

“She’s a child,” the social worker said. “She needs a family.” She didn’t deny the difference. She turned towards Lesley. Dave moved and Grace saw that he wasn’t an ogre at all. He too looked close to tears.

“Do you feel the same way?” the social worker asked.

“We’ve tried,” Lesley said. “When you first told us about Grace we thought she’d be perfect for us, we really did. Despite the differences. And when you told us what she’d been through we expected her to be upset. We wouldn’t have minded. We could have coped with bad behaviour, nightmares, tears. We thought we’d be able to help. But we can’t get through to her. That’s what’s so dreadful. She doesn’t need us.”