Chapter 6: A Hug From Mike Helps Kaye

It had been a surprising week for Lewis. Monday at school Joey had come to him at morning break to tell him about Andrew’s proposal, his mum’s acceptance and Andrew moving in. It was very obvious how happy he was about it. Lewis told him how pleased he was to hear it.

He didn’t mention the text he had had from Andrew on Saturday evening. ‘Joey agreed, Glady’s said, ‘Yes.’ Followed by ‘Thank you,’ and a thumbs up.

Then Friday he got a text from Buttler to tell him he was staying on to live in the Isle of Man. He had got a job with a local builder and had proposed to Sandra who had accepted. He got a similar message from Sandra. They both sounded very happy, so he sent them each his congratulations and best wishes.

Friday evening, he had a text asking when he could ring and speak to him from Ian’s friend Mark. He rang later as arranged and introduced himself. ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can do for me,’ he said, ‘But Ian is so convinced you can that I feel obliged to at least come and meet you. He’s been so good to me since we met and I don’t want to upset him, but equally I don’t want to waste your time.’

‘That’s no problem at all,’ Lewis assured him, ‘Come and have a coffee with me and see how you go. Then at least you can tell Ian you’ve been to see me, so he’ll be happy. You can walk out anytime you want, no explanation necessary.’ Mark liked the sound of that, so they arranged that he would come to the shop the next day at five.

Friday evening Lewis went straight from school to Ella’s. They had dinner with Julie and Reg. Gemma was at Ruperts. After dinner when everything was cleared away, they sat in the lounge chatting over a coffee.

Reg who worked for social services started telling them about a meeting he had been to during the week. ‘We organised it,’ he told them, ‘But people from all over the area came along. There were some lectures on current changes in the law and various legislations. Then it was thrown open to people to get up and relate problems they had encountered and how they had dealt with them.’

‘After a few had been up and spoken about various things, a lady from our area that I hadn’t met, but knew about, got up. She started by telling us about a case she had dealt with early on in her career. She had visited a flat after reports from a neighbour that a young boy was being abused.’

‘It was my first solo visit,’ she said. ‘I saw the neighbour who claimed the mother’s resident boyfriend was beating the hell out of her young son regularly. I went next door whilst the boyfriend was out and spoke to the mother.’

‘She assured me that her boyfriend was noisy when drunk but never laid a finger on either of them. I took the boy into another room and asked him too. He assured me no one had ever hit him, so I accepted what he said and left.’

‘What I didn’t know at the time was, that because I had been to see him, no action was taken on further complaints from the same neighbour, and I was not informed about them.’

‘After nothing happened, the neighbour went to the police. But as soon as they discovered Social Services had been involved, they didn’t feel they should interfere. They did pass the report on to us, but again it was not passed on to me.’

‘Some months later I was visited by a young man who was a friend of the boy I’d been to see. He showed me a recent picture he had taken of the boys back. It was black and blue, I felt sick when I saw it. Not just because of what he must have suffered, but because I was responsible for it.’

‘The young man went on to achieve what I should have done in the first place. He somehow managed to have the man arrested. He is now in prison and the young boy has fully recovered. I spoke to him recently and apologised. He told me it wasn’t my fault because he had lied to me.’

‘I also discovered that the reason he and his mum lied to me was out of the awful fear they had of their attacker. I am telling you all this, she said for two reasons. One is to say ‘Never dismiss complaints based on what the victims tell you. They are not always free to answer you honestly.’

‘The other is to remind you none of us are perfect. We can always make mistakes. But don’t be put off. Learn from them. I will never ever forget that picture for as long as I live. But that reminder will, I hope, ensure that I do my job even better and save a lot more victims.’

‘As she sat down to thunderous applause,’ Reg said, ‘The big chief got up and told us that following Miss Steels full report on what had happened, all the notification systems were under review and new rules would be introduced shortly to stop that happening again.’

‘As everyone dispersed, I went over and congratulated her. She hadn’t needed to report anything at all. But if she hadn’t, none of the systems would be being changed.’

‘A suspicion had planted itself in my brain already,’ he said smiling over at Lewis, ‘So when I asked her the name of the young man who had brought her the picture, it didn’t surprise me when she said, ‘Lewis.’

Ella gave Lewis a kiss. ‘So not only did you save the boy,’ she told him, ‘You and Miss Steel between you probably helped save dozens perhaps hundreds of others.’

‘There’s more,’ Reg said. ‘Gina and I chatted for a while afterwards. She told me she had gone back a month later to see how the mother and son were getting on. Apparently, the father had disappeared four years previously.’

‘He was now back home, and they were a very happy family again. Somehow, Lewis had discovered the missing dad in a hospital with amnesia after an accident over on the far side of the County. He showed him a picture of his wife and son which brought some of his memory back. Lewis brought him home.’

‘Lewis, you’re a bloody marvel.’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have done it alone, Lewis told them modestly, I had help from lots of people on the way.’

Julie had sat quietly listening. The more she heard about his exploits the more certain she was that he had somehow managed to engineer Ernie and Susans fast track adoption of Rupert.

But then, without Lewis’s involvement she would never have met Reg. So, whatever strings he had managed to pull he had improved the lives of just about everyone in the process.

Conversation moved on and then they decided to have a game of Cluedo in Gemma’s absence. To Julies great delight she won for the first time ever.

They all went up to bed around eleven o’clock and both couples enjoyed a night of passion.

SATURDAY

Lewis was first one up, having to be at the shop for nine. Ella came down in her dressing gown and insisted on getting them breakfast. As they sat eating, she laughed and said, ‘We’re really like a married couple at times, aren’t we?’

After seeing him off, she washed up their breakfast things then went up and got dressed. Reg and Julie still hadn’t surfaced so she decided they were either having a lie in or an early morning session. The sun was shining so she went and sat out in the garden with a book.

Lewis arrived at the shop in time to have a hug and a kiss with Mike before they opened up. He told him Ian’s friend was coming that evening. ‘We’ve got a visitor for lunch too,’ Mike said. ‘A young lady came in yesterday asking for you.’

‘She said her friend had told her to come and see you. When I said you were only here on a Saturday, she seemed very upset. I explained that you usually saw people on a Saturday afternoon after the shop closed. I said that I didn’t know if you had anything booked for today already.’

‘I offered to contact you and find out, but explained I wouldn’t get a reply until sometime after four. That seemed to scare her, and she also seemed very reluctant to contact you by phone herself, even with a text.’

‘So, in the end I suggested she joined us for lunch. I told her at least you can meet him and then you can arrange directly with him when to come and see him. I’ll be with you for lunch,’ I said, ‘But when you see him properly it’ll just be the two of you. He does occasionally see people at other times as well,’ I told her, ‘He’s very obliging.’

‘She said her name was Kaye. She seemed happy at the arrangement and ok with the idea I’d be there at lunchtime. Although she never actually said either way. That’s all I know,’ he said. ‘She didn’t look much older than you, but then, I’m no judge of age.’