The Boy No One Loved: A Heartbreaking True Story of Abuse, Abandonment and Betrayal

Justin wasn’t in his room when I went up to tell him, however, and I then realised I could hear the sound of the shower going. What was in residence, however, was a very strange smell. A sort of mixture of body odour and wet dog. And as soon as I smelt it, I was reminded that Kieron had already mentioned this to me. Kieron had said, just a couple of days ago, actually, that Justin’s room smelt a bit like a hamster cage. At the time I hadn’t given it much thought, but now I knew exactly what he meant. I wrinkled my nose as I poked my head in a bit further.

One of Justin’s rules – and one of the ways he earned points – was that he was responsible for keeping his own room tidy. Not such a big deal, since he still had so little in it. I only went in there myself to collect things like empty mugs and laundry, and since he’d arrived with us, had only spent any time in there to strip and change his bedding for him. Even so, I decided, as I went to call to him in the bathroom, I’d say he’d been with us for coming up to four weeks, so his room could probably do with a bit of dusting and polishing – not to mention de-fumigating now, apparently. So once they’d gone out I decided I’d go in and give it a proper once-over, with the help of some elbow grease and bleach.

But that could wait till after I’d spoken to John, which I did straight after Riley and David had come to pick Justin up. There was such a lot to tell him that I spent a good ten minutes updating him on the events of the previous few days. ‘I need information,’ I told him, once I’d filled him in on what had happened between Justin and his mum. ‘Surely you can find some files on him somewhere. His behaviour is really giving us cause for concern, and, now we’ve seen how bad things are with his mother, we know there’s so much we aren’t privy to. There must be. He has huge emotional issues.’ I filled John in on the hole-punching business. ‘And my instinct is that they are pretty long-standing. But what’s the root of it all? What specifically? We feel we’re stumbling around completely in the dark here, John. We can’t help him without knowing properly about his background.’

I knew I must have sounded desperate, but the truth of it was that we were. If others didn’t help us, by giving us some solid information on which to base how we dealt with him, then we couldn’t really help Justin, could we? Only contain his behaviour, which, unless the underlying reasons for that behaviour were established and dealt with, was a pretty pointless thing to be doing. In my opinion we wouldn’t have been doing our job properly, if these crucial questions continued to remain unanswered.

The good news, however, was that John hadn’t been idle. Indeed, he’d been one step ahead of us already and had tracked down two of Justin’s former social workers.

‘One’s retired,’ he said, ‘and one’s now at a different authority. But both have agreed to meet me and discuss more of his background. I am on the case, Casey,’ – he laughed as he said this – ‘I really am. I’ll be back to you as soon as I can, promise.’

Feeling cheered by John’s news I then trotted upstairs, armed with my collection of germ-busting sprays. There was no smell, however odd, that I, cleaner extraordinaire, couldn’t get to the bottom of and completely expunge, and this one would be no exception.

My investigations bore fruit pretty quickly. The smell seemed to be coming from the big built-in cupboard in the corner; when I opened it, the stench increased tenfold. I began rootling around among the various shelves and boxes, and eventually came upon a supermarket carrier bag, full of something soft and squashy, and tightly tied at the top. When I finally managed to wrestle it open, my suspicions were confirmed. The stench was so strong, it literally exploded in my face. Gagging now, I peered in and looked at the contents: around ten pairs of dirty, smelly socks. But these were dirty, smelly socks way beyond any usual definition of such articles – and I thought that as someone who’s been a mum to a teenage boy and no stranger to nasty, noxious niffs. They were stiff, too, so had obviously been there a while; they almost crackled as I pulled them from the carrier.

It was then when I saw something that immediately swept away all my previously light-hearted thoughts about boys and their attention to personal hygiene. No, these socks weren’t just dirty, they were, all of them, bloody. The toe parts of all of them were liberally covered in the stuff, dried on and almost black in colour.

I got up from the floor and sat down on the bed, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. It was clear now just what the source of the foul smell was, clearer also why he’d so carefully squirrelled them away. Presumably till he could find some secret moment at some point, when he could wash them himself, away from my eyes.

I put the bag down, and started to search the room further. Which wasn’t something I’d ever dream of doing with my own kids. Not something I’d do, period, in normal circumstances, with anyone. But this was serious. This was necessary, because some instinct drove me on. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew there would be something hidden somewhere. I just knew there was something else to find.

I was on autopilot now and went methodically through his room, inch by inch, searching carefully in every nook and cranny. And after the best part of an hour spent pretty much ransacking Justin’s bedroom, I finally made my first find. I’d lifted up the mattress by now, to get a better look at the bed base, when I noticed a tiny tear in the mattress itself. It was very small, but also straight and clean and precise – it was clear it hadn’t happened accidently. Very gingerly, I pushed a finger inside.

My fingertip found it – somewhat suddenly and painfully. I had caught it on the end of something sharp. Not wishing to slice off the top of my finger, I very carefully winkled it out. It was the blade from a craft knife. One that had come out of the set we had bought for him, I imagined.

Once again, instinct kicked in and drove me on. Brushing aside my initial feelings of dread at what I might find next, I began my second search with renewed vigour. My attention to detail wasn’t disappointed. Within half an hour I had a decidedly grim haul, all laid out on the bedroom floor around me: a variety of knives and blades of all kinds, with which he’d obviously been cutting himself. There were some scissors, which I recognised, that I thought I’d mislaid – I’d even enlisted Justin’s help in trying to find them, I remembered – and two or three disposable razor blades, with the plastic blade holders melted off, which meant he must also have found a lighter or matches. Plus there was a small vegetable knife, which I hadn’t ever seen before, and a Stanley knife, which I guessed he might have taken from our tool box.

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