Free Someone Else's Son by Sam Hayes

‘Why were Social Services called out seventeen times in the first year of her life, Vincent? Why do the photographs in the police file show bruising across her back consistent with a man’s hand delivering the blow? Why do your wife and girlfriend, God help them, have faces like rotten apples? Why, I want to know,’ and Carrie stood and turned to her audience, ‘was this little babe not taken into care ages ago?’ She was shouting now; waving a photograph of the toddler above her head. She was a mother. None of this was her life, but it still hurt.
    Total silence. Then one person in the audience clapped. Then another and another. Suddenly, the three hundred-strong studio audience were on their feet applauding. Too many kids had slipped through the net in recent years and the public wanted answers. When they had quietened, Carrie continued.
    ‘Did you or did you not hit your daughter?’
    More silence.
    Carrie touched her earpiece. Give him ten more seconds , she was told by the director. She knew they’d be on the edge of their seats backstage. She’d been hammering him for nearly an hour. He had to crack soon. Even Dennis had come in for this one. A confession was what he needed. Camera two get closer , Leah ordered, overriding Matt’s decision to go for a single camera viewpoint.
    Vincent stared at his feet. He scuffed his toes together. ‘She were naughty,’ he eventually said. ‘Everyone smacks their kids. It ain’t a crime.’
    The audience became a ripple of gasps and shock. Boos and calls of abuse rained down on to the stage. The child’s mother flew out of her seat and security barged on to the set to handle the fracas. Carrie allowed the scene to continue for a moment longer before turning personally to camera two to sign off to an ad break with her trademark gesture.
    ‘Super, darling,’ Leah said in a silly accent. ‘You are truly Queen of Confessions.’
    Dennis also muttered a couple of words of praise before heading backstage to question Vincent further.
    Carrie sat in her usual chair for the short commercial break. The audience was still restless. The set behind her was filled with security guards and angry shouts of abuse. The atmosphere crackled with tension, but she ignored it. She had her job to do; let the others take care of the rest. There was more to come after the break; another set of wrecked lives to expose.
    For a moment, Carrie was overcome with tiredness – not in the physical sense, but emotionally. This unexpected feeling – and she didn’t like it – jolted her as if someone had shoved her sharply from behind. Dealing with these people was gruelling, she acknowledged that. They’d filled her life for the last ten years. If she was honest, she could do with a break from their misery, their tragedy, their hopelessness, the lot that wasn’t hers but had almost become so by default. Every show was getting harder. But ironically, without their misfortune, she would still be a regional journalist eking a living from stories that occupied half a column on page ten of the local rag.
    With less than a minute to go, Carrie needed to be in control for the remainder of the show. The ratings on this next item would be sky high.
    The make-up girl fussed over her cheeks.
    She smiled.
    It was black and white. As clear-cut as the two-tone shoes she’d chosen for the show. Work was work. Home was home.
    She took a call on her mobile.
    She batted the make-up girl away.
    Who was this?
    Her mouth fell open.
    She dropped her bottle of water.
    She felt the cold liquid splash her ankles.
    She ran.
    Leah Roffe skimmed the report. It had not been a good morning. She took off her glasses and glanced at her watch. This week’s show had been off air for an hour now and the station switchboard was still in meltdown. She frowned at Dennis. ‘I can’t make much out of these cases.’ Their usual weekly brief in readiness for future shows wasn’t providing the distraction from the earlier disaster