Читать книгу Trapped: The Terrifying True Story of a Secret World of Abuse онлайн | страница 35

It was the sound of their laughter earlier that had helped me through the gruesomeness of our first full day with Phoebe. I felt so proud of them: not only were they kind and loving, they possessed a wonderful ability to laugh at the downright awful, a gift inherited from their father. Somehow, remembering their capacity for humour helped me in marshalling my own and my low mood slowly lifted.

But it wasn’t just fretting over Phoebe’s starvation diet that was keeping me awake: knots in my stomach reminded me that I had to supervise a contact session between Phoebe and her parents in the morning. When children are removed without parental consent, contact usually takes place under the supervision of contact workers employed by the local authority, but since Phoebe was in voluntary care, the arrangement was to be more flexible.

Curious as I was to find out what her parents were like, contact was one of the tasks of fostering that I dreaded. Looking after the children was often the easy bit; Looked After Children (LAC) reviews, Child Protection Conferences and contact sessions, in fact anything involving other adults was the unappealing side of the job as far as I was concerned. Being a natural introvert, I tended to shy away from meetings, particularly when there was the possibility of confrontation.

Turning to my side, I tuned in to the low hum of traffic drifting through my open bedroom window, trying to dismiss thoughts of Phoebe from my mind.

The smart-looking couple stood a few feet inside the entrance of La Trattoria, their shoulders turned fractionally away from each other, expressions downturned. When he spotted us, the man, in his early 40s and tall, stepped forward with a confident air. Phoebe bounded ahead of us and ran to his outstretched arms, throwing her thin arms around his neck.

‘How have you been, my little sweetheart?’ Robin Steadman asked, smiling warmly as he lifted his daughter from the ground and tickled her side. She squealed with excitement. Slim but broad-shouldered, he looked immaculate in his double-breasted suit and tie, every inch the man about town. Salt and pepper, wavy hair was swept back from his tanned face; it was easy to imagine him sitting behind a shiny desk in a suave London bond broker’s office.