As we entered, a young boy ran down the hall, yelling ‘Joss!’ at the top of his voice.
‘Kevin!’ Joss cried. ‘How’s my little brother?’ She spread her arms wide and he ran into them, laughing. ‘Good to see you, mate,’ she said, and hugged him hard.
Joss’s sulky ill humour, which had dominated the last couple of days, immediately lifted. Now I saw a loving older sister, as pleased to see her little brother as he was to see her. Her tenderness gave me a glimpse of another, much warmer side to Joss that she usually kept well hidden under a tough exterior.
‘Come through to the living room, Cathy,’ Linda said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Could I have a glass of water, please?’
‘Sure.’
She showed me into a tidy and tastefully furnished living room at the rear of the house that overlooked a garden with recently mown grass and borders of shrubs and flowers. I sat in one of the armchairs as Joss and Kevin appeared in the garden from the back door, laughing and throwing a ball to each other. Linda returned with two glasses of water and set them on the coffee table. ‘You’re not in a rush, are you?’ she said. ‘It’s nice if they spend some time together. I’ve already packed Joss’s sound system and some other things she might need.’
‘Thanks. I can stay for a while. It’s lovely to see them playing together. I expect Kevin misses Joss a lot.’
‘He does,’ Linda said. ‘For all Joss’s bad ways, she’s always been a good sister to Kevin.’ I nodded. ‘We had to wait a while for Kevin,’ Linda said. ‘There’s an age gap of five years, but right from the start Joss adored him. She liked to help me feed and change him when he was a baby, and she’s always looked out for him and protected him. Even now, big as she is, she’s still happy to have a rough and tumble with him.’
The patio doors were slightly open and through the gap the sound of Joss and Kevin laughing drifted in. I smiled and took a sip of my water.
‘How has Joss been?’ Linda asked, concerned.
‘About the same,’ I said. ‘She has been late back the last two evenings, so I’ve stopped half her pocket money, as was agreed at the meeting. Joss wasn’t happy, but she can earn it back.’
‘I didn’t think much of that behaviour contract,’ Linda said. ‘Neither did Eric when I told him. He wanted to put in a formal complaint. He’s never liked that social worker.’
I wasn’t going to be drawn into a discussion about Amelia; clearly she’d thought she was doing what was right, so I steered the conversation in a different direction and now asked Linda something that had been on my mind for a while.
‘Joss has a lot of nightmares. Did she have them here?’
‘Yes, and at her other carers’.’
‘When did they start?’
‘A few days after her dad died, but they got a lot worse about a year ago. I don’t know why. Eric says it’s the drink and drugs affecting her brain.’
‘They certainly won’t help,’ I said. ‘But I suppose Joss still carries the memory of her father’s death with her. It must have been very traumatic for you all.’
‘Yes, it was. Although it was over four years ago now, if I think about it I can still see it as clearly as though it were yesterday – and I had bereavement counselling for two years. Joss would never talk to anyone about what happened. She began bed-wetting and having nightmares a few days after her father died. The bed-wetting stopped as she got older, but the nightmares continued on and off. Thankfully Kevin didn’t witness the horror as Joss did. You don’t forget it.’
She took a deep breath and swallowed hard before continuing.
‘I’d collected Joss and Kevin from school that afternoon. Kevin had just started nursery. Steven, their father, had taken the day off work sick. He said he had a stomach ache, that was all, and then he’d spent most of the afternoon tinkering in the garage. The car wouldn’t always start and he thought he knew what was wrong with it. He seemed fine, normal, when I left. There was nothing to say he was about to take his life. I called goodbye as I left the house, and when he didn’t reply I assumed he couldn’t hear me because he had the radio on. He usually had the radio on when he was working in the garage. I now know he could have already been dead.’ Linda paused and took another breath. My heart went out to her. ‘The coroner put the time of his death at around three o’clock, which was the time I left the house. If Steven wasn’t already dead then he was about to kill himself. Of course, I’ve tormented myself with what if, instead of calling goodbye, I’d gone into the garage to say goodbye – could I have saved him? I’ll never know.
‘When I returned from school with the children,’ Linda continued, ‘Joss – always a daddy’s girl – wanted to be with him in the garage. She liked to be with him, helping him, passing him a spanner or a rag to wipe his hands on when they were oily. She was by my side as I opened the door, that door in the hall.’ Linda nodded in the direction of the hall. ‘It goes straight into the garage. Joss ran in slightly ahead of me and screamed. He’d tied a rope to a rafter in the roof of the garage and hanged himself by stepping off the car roof. I grabbed Joss and pushed her out of the garage, but it was too late. She’d seen what I had. I knew straight away he was dead.
‘I closed the door and phoned for an ambulance. They played the call in the coroner’s court and you can hear Joss screaming in the background. It’s blood curdling. The paramedics and police arrived, and my parents came over and looked after Joss and Kevin while I gave a statement to the police. Mum and Dad were as devastated as we were – they loved Steven like a son. No one had expected it, absolutely no one. The police notified Steven’s parents as I couldn’t make that call. After they’d got over the initial shock, they blamed me for not noticing Steven was depressed. But he wasn’t. Perhaps I should have seen something, but try as I might I don’t know what it could have been. His parents don’t see us any more.’ Linda stopped.
‘I’m so very sorry,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Cathy. You never forget something like that, but I told myself that Joss was young and in time she would get over it. I was going to move us away, but this house was our home and it had seen happy times too. The counselling helped me. I never dreamed I’d marry again, but then eighteen months ago I met Eric and he proposed five months later. Joss was cold towards him from the start, but I assumed it was just a matter of time. Eric has been very understanding, but it hasn’t helped. Joss has said some awful things to him – that she wishes he’d hang himself.’ I grimaced. ‘I know, awful, isn’t it? Kevin has been far more accepting, but then, of course, he’s younger and didn’t see what Joss and I saw. To be honest, Cathy, if I could have foreseen how this would turn out, I wouldn’t have remarried. I thought we’d all be happy, but we’re not.’ Linda’s eyes filled and she reached for a tissue. I felt so sorry for her, but it was difficult to know what to say. Sometimes a tragedy is so great that words are completely inadequate.
We were both quiet for some moments. My gaze went to the garden where Joss and Kevin were now playing badminton, laughing and shouting as they hit or missed the shuttlecock. In their play I saw the happy, carefree family that had lived here before tragedy struck.
‘Joss is only thirteen,’ I said. ‘Perhaps in time, and with her living away from home, she might start to see things differently.’
‘That’s what I thought when she first went to stay with my sister. I thought, give her time and she’ll mend her ways and come back. But it hasn’t happened. As you know, her behaviour was so bad at my sister’s that we had to ask the social services for help. Then the first two carers weren’t able to cope, and now I’m so worried they’ll put her in a secure unit before long. Imagine your thirteen-year-old daughter in prison … although they don’t call it that.’ Linda’s brow furrowed.
‘I’m