Casey Watson - Groomed - Danger lies closer than you think

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

HarperElement

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First published by HarperElement 2017

FIRST EDITION

© Casey Watson 2017

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Cover image © Jan Bickerton (posed by model)

Cover layout © HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Casey Watson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008127600

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008217617

Version: 2017-08-24

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Topics for Reading Group Discussion

Casey Watson

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

About the Publisher

This book is dedicated to the army of passionate foster carers out there, each doing their bit to ensure that our children are kept as safe as possible in such a changing and often scary world. As technology is reinvented and becomes ever more complicated for those of us who were not brought up amid such advances, we can only try to keep up, in the hope that we continue to learn alongside our young people.

I remain endlessly grateful to my team at HarperCollins for their continuing support, and I’m especially excited to see the return of my editor, the very lovely Vicky Eribo, and look forward to sharing my new stories with her. As always, nothing would be possible without my wonderful agent, Andrew Lownie, the very best agent in the world in my opinion, and my grateful thanks also to the lovely Lynne, my friend and mentor forever.

Mid-September. To me, always a melancholy time of year. Summer clinging on in bursts, the sun still trying to keep the air warm – but undermined by the chill creep of autumn once it sets, increasingly bullying its way into its rightful place.

I try to like autumn, what with the spectacular colours and all those lovely piles of crispy leaves. But it’s not my favourite. In fact it’s my least favourite season; sandwiched as it is between summer and Christmas, which isn’t a season but, to my mind, ought to be. It always seems to take much too long to arrive and, once it does arrive, is always over much too quickly.

Still, autumn has a plus point, and that’s the telly. And amid a slew of programmes that had returned from their summer break was the Saturday night ritual of The Jonathan Ross Show , a family favourite since way back when. Which was why, when my mobile buzzed, given the day and the timing, I thought it must be Riley who was calling.

Mike laughed. ‘She knows you so well,’ he said, chuckling, as I got off the sofa to go and fetch it. ‘Heaven forbid you miss lover-boy.’

He was referring to the actor James McAvoy, who was one of the guests that night, and of course he was absolutely right.

‘Cheek,’ I called back to him as I disappeared into the kitchen. ‘I just happen to think he’s a particularly fine actor.’

‘Course you do,’ he answered as I reappeared in the doorway. ‘Just like I admire Fiona Bruce for her brilliant journalism.’

But by this time I already knew that it wasn’t Riley calling. The display on the phone said no number ID. Perhaps it was James McAvoy declaring his undying devotion.

It wasn’t.

‘Hello, is that Mrs Watson?’ asked a female voice. ‘Casey Watson?’ I told her yes. ‘Ah, good,’ she said. ‘Helena Curry here. EDT. Very glad to have managed to get hold of you. Am I right in thinking you might be available and free at the moment?’

I gestured with my hand that Mike should pause the TV. ‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘We don’t have anyone else in at the moment. Well, apart from our long-term foster son, of course.’

‘Tyler,’ she supplied, before I could. She’d done her homework.

Not that we thought of Tyler in that way any more. He was our permanent foster child these days, and just as he called us mum and dad, so the ‘foster’ tag had long since disappeared from the ‘son’ bit, at least in our heads.

With football training in the morning, Tyler was already up in his bedroom, having just gone up to catch up with one of his favourite crime programmes on his new laptop – the surprise sixteenth birthday present we’d presented him a couple of weeks back. To say he was pleased would be the understatement of the year. If not the century.

But it looked like our own viewing plans were about to be scuppered, EDT being short for emergency duty team, the go-to people for any child who was placed into local authority care out of office hours.

Not that this child – or rather teenager – had just come into care. Helena Curry went on to explain that the girl, whose name was Keeley and who was fifteen years old, had actually been in care since she was ten. ‘She’s run away from her foster family, basically,’ she said. Her voice sounded tired. ‘Was picked up by the police a couple of hours ago.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said, imagining this most complicated of scenarios. It was dispiriting enough when a child entered the system in the first place, but there was an added sadness when a child was already in the system – particularly if they’d been in care long term. You tried to stay optimistic but experience had long since shown me that a downward spiral could so easily happen.

‘I know,’ Helena agreed. ‘She refused point blank to return, and when they tried to insist she made quite a serious allegation against the male carer. So here we are. In need of alternative accommodation – and with specialist carers, which you and your husband, of course, are.’

‘Ah,’ I said, trying to work out what this might mean for us. ‘So it wasn’t just a case of fetching up at W for Watson, then?’

She laughed. ‘Not in this case, no. No, given the circumstances, and the length of time the girl has been in care …’ There was a pause. It felt a pregnant one. ‘And from what’s on her file …’