Will You Love Me?: The story of my adopted daughter Lucy. Cathy Glass

does Lucy drink from?’ Doris asked. ‘Can she use a trainer cup?’

      ‘No. She has a bottle. It’s in her cot,’ Bonnie said.

      Still carrying Lucy, Doris left the kitchen, had a quick look in the bathroom, which, while basic, was functional, and then returned to the living room. Doris passed Lucy to Bonnie and they returned to their chairs. Doris looked at Bonnie carefully.

      ‘I have concerns, love,’ she said evenly. ‘I think Lucy isn’t doing as well as she could, and I think you are finding things difficult too. I want to help you.’ She paused and waited for Bonnie’s reaction, but there was none. ‘When I return to my office I’m going to arrange what’s called a case conference so I can work out how best to support you and Lucy. Don’t look so worried, I’m not going to take Lucy away. But you will need to make some changes, all right, love?’

      Bonnie nodded. ‘I know,’ she said, though by now she sounded like she’d agree to anything just to get rid of Doris.

      ‘One of the options might be for you and Lucy to live in a mother-and-baby unit for a while, where you will be shown parenting skills and monitored. Or – and I will need to discuss this with my manager – you could stay here with support. You’d be monitored and assessed and would need to attend parenting classes.’

      Bonnie nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.

      ‘Good. I’ll go now and I’ll phone you later today, after I’ve discussed the options with my manager. Can I have your phone number please?’

      Bonnie reeled off eleven digits as Doris wrote.

      ‘Thanks,’ Doris said with a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll leave the two of you to have your porridge now and we’ll speak later.’

      Bonnie nodded and, carrying Lucy, went with Doris to the front door and saw her out. As Doris left the building she was already calling her office. Although she wouldn’t be taking Lucy into care today, the mother would need to start cooperating and making some changes, otherwise she’d have no alternative but to apply to the court for a care order. While this wasn’t the worst case of neglect Doris had seen – far from it – she agreed with the health visitor that the warning signs were there, and without intervention she had little doubt Lucy’s situation would deteriorate further.

      Three hours later, having spoken with her manager, Doris phoned Bonnie to arrange a meeting. An automated voice message told her the number was unobtainable, so Doris concluded that Bonnie had either accidentally or deliberately given her the wrong number. As Bonnie and Lucy’s case wasn’t the most urgent she was responsible for, and her caseload was so heavy she had to prioritize, Doris set in motion the case conference and then put Bonnie’s file to one side to concentrate on another, more pressing case. She decided to call in on Bonnie on her way home from work, check the phone number and advise her of the date of the meeting. It would also give her another chance to see how they were doing.

      When Doris returned to Bonnie’s flat at 5.45 p.m. and rang the bell there was no reply. She was about to call through the letter box when the door to the flat next door opened and the elderly lady Doris had seen that morning appeared.

      ‘She’s gone,’ the woman said bluntly, as if it was Doris’s fault. ‘Packed her bags and left with the baby about an hour after you left this morning.’

      ‘I don’t suppose you know where they’ve gone?’ Doris asked, her heart sinking.

      ‘No. Like I said, she never spoke to me.’ And, returning inside, she closed her front door.

      Chapter Seven

       No Chance to Say Goodbye

      It may seem incredible in this age, when there is so much data stored on people, that someone could simply disappear. But on that fine June day when the sun was shining and the air was alive with birdsong, and Lucy was nearly eleven months old, that is what Bonnie did. Fearing Lucy would be taken away from her, she quickly packed her bags and vanished. Had Lucy been the subject of a court order the police would have been alerted, and a missing person bulletin put out. But there was no court order, only a concern of neglect, the level of which hadn’t merited the measure of applying to the court for an emergency protection order. It’s true that the social services could have applied for a court order after Bonnie had gone, but they didn’t, presumably for the same reason one hadn’t been applied for before: that though Lucy had been neglected she wasn’t, as yet, at risk of significant harm – the threshold that needed to be reached before the social services applied for a care order. Had they done so, the police would have been alerted, resulting in a better chance of finding Bonnie and Lucy, and Lucy would have been taken into care.

      With no court order and no verifiable details of Bonnie that might have helped trace her, it is likely their case stayed open at the social services for a few months – while Doris checked with Maggie and local agencies to see if anyone had heard from Bonnie – before being filed away until such time as Bonnie and Lucy reappeared. It’s on record that Maggie told Doris she’d telephoned her sister a couple of times during this period to see if she’d heard from Bonnie, but she hadn’t, and Maggie said her sister was so immersed in her own problems that she had little interest in what her daughter and granddaughter were doing or even in whether they were safe.

      With no evidence to go on, it’s impossible to know of the life Bonnie and Lucy led during the next fourteen months while they were ‘missing’, but one can guess. Living ‘underground’, away from the attention of the authorities, relies on a hand-to-mouth existence, funded by cash-in-hand jobs if you are lucky, but more likely, borrowing, begging, stealing, prostitution and sleeping wherever you can: in doorways, under bridges, in squats, on someone’s floor, in cheap bed and breakfasts, or in beds with no breakfast. It would have been even more difficult with a baby, but unregistered, unregulated and unscrupulous landlords can be found down the backstreets of any big city, their clientele hearing of their location by word of mouth. These ‘landlords’ cram as many mattresses into a room as it will hold and charge only a few pounds for the night. They are always full. Not only with runaways, but the short- and long-term homeless, drug addicts, alcoholics, those with mental-health problems and criminals wanted by the police – of all ages and both sexes. Such places are health hazards and are often responsible for passing on infections; for example, tuberculosis. With no fire escapes they can also be death traps. But if you are avoiding the authorities as Bonnie was, you are unable to obtain benefit money without risk of being discovered.

      When Bonnie and Lucy reappeared, fourteen months later, it was in the Accident and Emergency department of a hospital two counties away. It was a Friday afternoon and they were both suffering from highly inflamed rashes that covered large areas of their bodies. They were diagnosed as having scabies. Scabies is caused by parasites burrowing under the skin and laying their eggs. It is most commonly found in those living in overcrowded conditions with poor hygiene. The irritation caused by the infestation is unbearable and most sufferers go to their doctor in the early stages of the disease. The doctor at the hospital noted that these cases were very severe, especially in the child, and had clearly been left untreated for some time, causing the child a lot of distress. The doctor prescribed a lotion, which had to be applied after a bath from the neck down to the toes, left on overnight and then washed off. He explained to Bonnie that a second treatment would be needed a week after the first and told her to go to her own doctor to get the prescription for it and also to have their condition checked. He was concerned that some of the child’s sores were becoming infected, so he also prescribed an antibiotic cream. He explained that scabies was highly contagious and all clothing, bedding and towels used by them must be washed in very hot water and dried in a hot dryer to prevent another infestation. When registering at the hospital, Bonnie had given her address as the flat she’d lived in near her Aunt Maggie and her doctor as the one she’d seen when she’d first arrived at Maggie’s. It is unknown if Bonnie took Lucy to a doctor for a follow-up appointment; she certainly didn’t go to that doctor.

      Bonnie