I looked at Oliver and for the first time in my life, I felt a pang of feeling for the man. I was touched that he was here for Scout’s arrival. ‘How’s work?’ I said, feeling like I should say something to him.
His mouth twisted into something between a grin and a grimace.
‘The bank let me go,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ I said. And that was the end of that conversation.
The handover had the feel of a sleepover. It didn’t feel real. It did not feel final. It was only when they all went inside and the door closed behind my daughter that I felt a sense of loss as acute as an amputation.
My daughter was gone and yet it felt like she was still there.
As if she would always be there.
Stan was sleeping when I stopped the car by the side of Richmond Park. A giant red stag stared at me from the tree line. I had thought that nothing could replace having Hampstead Heath as your back garden.
But perhaps I was wrong. There were wild open spaces everywhere.
Still watching the red stag, I finally returned the voicemail message from my brilliant young lawyer, Maria Maldini.
She was not angry with me and I was grateful for that.
‘As you can imagine, I just took a rather triumphalist call from Mrs Lewis’ lawyer at Butterfield, Hunt and West,’ she said.
Mrs Lewis. The mother of my child. What a mess we make of our lives, I thought. And it is always the children who pay the price.
‘I didn’t do it for my ex-wife,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t do it for myself. I did it for my daughter.’
‘Well,’ my lawyer said brightly, as if she already understood something about this world that I had yet to learn. ‘Let’s hope it works out, shall we?’
When Stan and I got home, Edie Wren was standing outside my front door, trying to call me. And Layla Khan was sitting on my doorstep.
Edie and I stepped away while Layla fussed over the dog.
‘Layla’s run away from home,’ Edie said. ‘Turned up at West End Central. She wouldn’t tell me everything but her grandmother sounds like a nightmare. She can’t keep doing it, Max, because social services will take her into care.’ Edie chewed her bottom lip, looking at Layla and Stan. ‘That’s why I brought her here. If she hangs around West End Central, someone’s to call social services just to get shot of her. What are we going to do with her?’
‘What can we do, Edie?’ I said. ‘We’re going to take her home. Going into care isn’t going to bring her any joy, is it?’
Edie leaned closer, lowering her voice.
‘But her grandmother knocks her about, Max,’ she said. ‘Calls her a whore for mucking about with her hair and make-up. She’s a sixteen-year-old girl growing up in London, for Christ’s sake.’ Edie shot a protective look at Layla. ‘I’m really concerned about her, Max. There’s other stuff going on that she doesn’t want to talk about. Apparently some cousin’s turned up from Islamabad. She’s got all these family members laying down the law.’
‘Edie,’ I said. ‘It’s good that you care about the kid. But you can’t change her world. What else can we do with her apart from take her home? Do you really want to hand her over to social services? You think that’s going to sort out her life? A few years being abused in care and then chucked on to the streets to fend for herself? Living with her family has got to be better than that, doesn’t it?’
‘But how can I send her back, Max? She trusts me. I was tempted to take her home with me. Just until we worked something out.’
‘Then you would have both been in trouble,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to work out, Edie. Apart from the least worst option.’
We all went up to the loft.
Layla picked up a Frisbee and zipped it too high and hard across the room, as if Stan was a Labrador.
He gamely went after it anyway.
‘Layla?’ I said. ‘We are going to have to take you back to your grandmother. The alternative is to let social services take care of you. In the eyes of the law, you’re still a child.’
Layla glared at Edie with tears in her eyes.
‘You said he would think of something.’
‘I said he would try.’
‘I thought you were my friend. I bet you think you support women’s rights, don’t you? Well, what about my women’s rights? Or are you too scared of looking racist to stand up for my rights?’
‘I am your friend,’ Edie insisted. ‘And I’m going to keep an eye on you. And I am not going to let anyone—’
But Layla wasn’t interested.
‘You tell me to fit in!’ she said. ‘You tell me to integrate! You tell me to assimilate! Then you send me home to a place where I have to turn the clock back five hundred years.’
We had no answer to that.
‘Maybe my family were right about you,’ Layla said, looking at both of us now. ‘You hate the lot of us. We destroy your buildings because you destroy our countries. And we hate you right back.’
‘That’s not you talking,’ Edie said. ‘That’s your father or your uncles talking. That’s some dick with a beard on YouTube. But it’s not you, Layla.’
‘You don’t know me,’ Layla said, and stormed off to use the bathroom.
We watched her go. Stan belatedly returned with the Frisbee, disappointed the game was over so soon.
‘I promised her that we would work something out,’ Edie said.
‘And you did,’ I said. ‘Layla goes home and you keep an eye on her. Explain to dear old granny – and anyone else that’s hanging around – that nobody’s allowed to knock a child about in this country.’
Edie dragged her fingers through her hair.
‘Layla doesn’t really hate me, does she?’ Edie said. ‘She’s a teenager. Hormones all over the place. Reminds me of me at that age.’ She smiled ruefully at me. ‘You’ve got all that to look forward to, Max.’ She looked around the loft. ‘Scout’s got a sleepover?’
I took a breath. ‘Scout’s living with her mother now.’
Edie took that in.
‘I’m sorry, Max. That must have been hard.’
‘It’s hard but it had to happen. And how are you, Edie?’
‘I’m fine. I’m good.’ She hesitated. ‘I bailed out of the thing with Mr Big after the wife turned up at work.’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘I should have done it years ago. She was right. I should have known better. And he was never going to leave his wife. But it’s OK. Most relationships don’t end too soon. Most of them go on too long.’
She ran her fingers through her red hair as we stared at the bathroom door and waited for Layla to come out.
‘I just wish I could sleep,’ Edie said.
I nodded.
‘Me too,’ I said.
We drove Layla home.
At the far end of Borodino Street a crowd was gathering behind police tape and a short line of uniformed officers. At the other end, where we showed our warrant cards to a hefty uniformed sergeant, there were three police vans. Two of them were full of more uniformed coppers, drinking tea and laughing as if they were not expecting anything too arduous in the shift that lay ahead.
Most of the houses on Borodino Street were boarded up now. The locals were moving out. The developers were moving in. Building work was everywhere. A scaffolding lorry was parked halfway down the street. In a year or two Borodino Street would be full of luxury apartments for young professionals.
I stared at the crowd waiting beyond the police tape.
There were still some George Halfpenny haircuts but their numbers were swelled by local youths and perhaps not so local. They were white, black and Asian, with little in common apart from their age and their boredom.
The boys of summer, I thought, and I could smell a riot in the warm air.
‘How many have you got up here, Skipper?’ I asked the sergeant.
‘A full PSU.’
A complete Police Support Unit consists of an inspector, three sergeants, eighteen officers and three drivers for the three vehicles that every PSU is split into. So there were a couple of dozen officers to manage a crowd of perhaps a hundred.