A Darker Shade of Blue Read Free

around her at the sink, she shrugged him angrily away.
    â€˜Marianne, for God’s sake …’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜We can’t go on like this.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Then do something about it.’
    â€˜Jesus!’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜I’ve already told you. A hundred times. Not now.’
    She pushed past him and out into the hall, slamming the door at her back. ‘Fuck!’ Tom shouted and slammed his fist against the wall. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ One of the twins screamed as if he’d been struck; the other knocked his cereal to the floor and started to cry.
    *
    The team meeting was almost over when Bridget Arthur, one of the probation officers, mid-fifties, experienced, raised her hand. ‘Darren Pitcher, I think we might have a problem.’
    Tom Whitemore sighed. ‘What now?’
    â€˜One of my clients, Emma Laurie, suspended sentence for dealing crack cocaine, lives up in Forest Fields. Not the brightest cherry in the bunch. She’s taken up with Pitcher. Seems he’s thinking of moving in.’
    â€˜That’s a problem?’
    â€˜She’s got three kids, all under six. Two of them boys.’
    Whitemore shook his head. He knew Darren Pitcher’s history well enough. An only child, brought up by his mother, who had given birth to him when she was just sixteen, Pitcher had only met his father twice: on the first occasion, magnanimous from drink, the older man had squeezed his buttocks and slipped two five-pound notes into his trouser pocket; on the second, sober, he had blacked the boy’s eye and told him to fuck off out of his sight.
    A loner at school, marked out by learning difficulties, readily bullied, from the age of sixteen Pitcher had drifted through a succession of low-paid jobs – cleaning, stacking supermarket shelves, hospital portering, washing cars – and several short-term relationships with women who enjoyed even less self-esteem than himself.
    When he was twenty-five he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for molesting half a dozen boys between the ages of four and seven. While in prison, in addition to numerous incidents of self-harming, he had made one attempt at suicide.
    Released, he had spent the first six months in a hostel and had reported to both his probation officer and a community psychiatric nurse each week. Since which time, supervision had necessarily slackened off.
    â€˜Ben?’ Whitemore said, turning towards the psychiatric nurse at the end of the table. ‘He was one of yours.’
    Ben Leonard pushed a hand up through his cropped blonde hair. ‘A family, ready-made, might be what he needs.’
    â€˜The girl,’ Bridget Arthur said, ‘she’s not strong. It’s a wonder she’s hung on to those kids as long as she has.’
    â€˜There’s a father somewhere?’
    â€˜Several.’
    â€˜Contact?’
    â€˜Not really.’
    For a moment, Tom Whitemore closed his eyes. ‘The boys, they’re how old?’
    â€˜Five and three. There’s a little girl, eighteen months.’
    â€˜And do we think, should Pitcher move in, they could be at risk?’
    I think we have to,’ Bridget Arthur said.
    â€˜Ben?’
    Leonard took his time. ‘We’ve made real progress with Darren, I think. He’s aware that his previous behaviour was wrong. Regrets what he’s done. The last thing he wants to do is offend again. But, yes, for the sake of the kids, I’d have to say there was a risk. A small one, but a risk.’
    â€˜Okay,’ Whitemore said. ‘I’ll go and see him. Report back. Bridget, you’ll stay in touch with the girl?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Good. Let’s not lose sight of this in the midst of everything else.’
    They sat on the Portland Leisure Centre steps, a wan sun showing weakly through the wreaths of cloud. Whitemore had bought two cups of pale