Silent Voices

need pity. ‘An amicable split,’ she told her colleagues. That was the same day Elias’s class teacher rang Connie to express her concern about the boy.

 
Chapter Ten
     
    ‘There was a case conference,’ Vera said. She was holding a case conference of her own in the incident room at Kimmerston. All the team were there: Joe Ashworth, her right-hand man; her teacher’s pet, the beautiful Holly; and old man Charlie, bleary-eyed and scruffy. And Billy, the crime-scene manager, who had, Vera thought at times, more sense in his little finger than the rest of them put together, despite his wayward cock. ‘Seems to me that’s what social workers do when they can’t decide what action to take.’
    The weather had changed and it was more like winter again, still almost dark outside and rain dribbling down the windows. Vera pulled her attention back into the room. She hadn’t slept much, but felt charged with energy, could feel it running through her big awkward feet and tickling her fingers.
    ‘The teacher’s concerns were a bit vague. Elias was coming to school tired and hungry. There were outbursts of temper and he wasn’t that sort of kid. A couple of times he peed his pants. She knew social services were involved, so she got in touch with Connie Masters. Any other situation she’d probably just have had a word with the parents.’
    ‘No sign of abuse?’ Holly was wearing smart jeans and a tight black sweater. Vera always noticed the younger woman’s clothes, fuelling the irrational envy just like picking at a scab.
    ‘Not physical abuse,’ Vera said. ‘No bruises or burns. A younger child and they’d have called it “failure to thrive”. Just a sort of listlessness, a change of personality.’ She thought abuse came in many forms.
    ‘What came out of the case conference?’ Joe Ashworth was good at feeding her questions; he wanted to move the meeting on. He looked tired. But then he’d been up most of the night too, digging into the Elias Jones case.
    ‘Everyone decided there was no reason to take dramatic action. Connie Masters would visit a bit more regularly – she was only calling in three or four times a year. She’d talk to the lad on his own and to the mother. The teacher would investigate what was going on at the school. It could be that the boy’s change of behaviour had nothing to do with the situation at home. Maybe a bit of bullying or a falling-out between friends in the playground.’
    Charlie coughed and spluttered into a grey handkerchief that might once have been white. Vera looked up at her class. ‘So at this point everything done by the book, you see. All decisions and actions recorded. Exemplary social-work practice.’ She waved her fingers in the air to indicate quotation marks. The last phrase had been taken from the committee of inquiry’s report.
    ‘Where does the victim come into it?’ Charlie asked.
    ‘Jenny Lister.’ Vera emphasized the words, glared at him to make sure he’d got the point: the woman deserved the dignity of a name. ‘She was Connie Masters’s boss. She chaired the case conference. She’d known Elias’s mum since she was a bairn, because Mattie Jones had been in and out of care all her life too.’ She looked at Ashworth, inviting him to take over the story. He walked to the front of the room. Eh, lad, is this what you want? To be in charge and push me out, like some cuckoo shoving its overweight foster mam out of the nest. She wasn’t sure whether to be proud of him or annoyed by his cockiness.
    ‘So it was left to Connie Masters to follow up with the family. But she was falling apart at the time too. Her husband had just left her and she had a toddler to bring up on her own. A lot was made of that in the inquiry. It wasn’t felt that she was entirely objective when it came to working with Elias’s family.’ His tone was verging on the self-righteous. He could get that way at times, and it made Vera want to give him a good slap. Just because he had the perfect wife and kids, he thought everyone should be able to do it. But she let him continue.
    ‘Connie Masters arranged to take Elias out. Sold it to him as a treat. They’d take a picnic out to the coast, stop for fish and chips on the way home. She thought a full afternoon away and he’d be more likely to open up to her.’
    ‘Was that normal?’ Holly interrupted, turned in her seat to make sure they were all taking notice of her. ‘I mean, for a social worker to spend all