Cradle to Grave by Aline Templeton Page B

say please. You’re my servant.’
    ‘I’m your granddad’s servant. Let’s go and see what he thinks, shall we?’
    Nico took a step back, considering. Involving his grandfather in situations like this was seldom a good idea.
    ‘Please,’ he threw over his shoulder, then picked up the stool and climbed on to it again.
    Cris put down his knife. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘Bacon roll.’
    As the man went to the huge American fridge to fetch the bacon, Nico began kicking again.
     
    ‘Can’t raise the boss,’ DS Andy Macdonald said to DC Ewan Campbell. ‘She’s not in the car and her phone’s off.’
    ‘Out at Rosscarron. No signal there.’ Campbell, a red-headed Highlander from Oban, tended to speak as if dictating an old-fashioned telegram with a charge per word.
    Macdonald looked at him with respect. ‘You don’t say a lot, but you always know what’s going on, don’t you?’
    ‘I listen,’ Campbell said simply.
    Macdonald grinned. ‘OK, I talk too much. We’d better head on down there, anyway. This is going to be an all-hands-on-deck ­situation. Does Your Omniscience know where Kim is?’
    ‘Late shift,’ Campbell obliged.
    ‘Just lost her morning off, then, hasn’t she? You’ve got her mobile number, no doubt.’
    Campbell looked at him coolly. ‘Lazy bastard. Get it yourself.’
    ‘That’s hurtful, you know, really hurtful. And insubordinate. Anyway, I’ve just remembered I’ve got it on speed dial, so I won’t put you on a charge just this once.’
     
    Kim Kershaw leaned over the child in the wheelchair, holding out a brightly coloured toy bird.
    ‘Look at this, Debbie!’ She jiggled it invitingly and after a moment the girl stretched out an uncertain hand and touched it.
    Kim’s face brightened. ‘Well done, honey! Now, if we press this, it sings – listen!’
    At the sound of the little tinny song, the blank eyes flickered with some sort of interest and a carer passing by stopped with a sympathetic smile.
    Kim turned eagerly. ‘She actually reached out for this. That’s definitely a step forward.’
    ‘Debbie’s in a good mood today,’ the woman said. ‘Got a smile from her this morning, didn’t I, Debbie?’
    ‘Did you?’ Kim looked wistfully at the child’s expressionless face, sighed, then said, ‘She’s so much better here. I can see real improvements. It was so awful in that other place – nobody cared. They didn’t talk to her like you do. You couldn’t expect her to make progress there.’
    ‘We-ell,’ the carer said uncomfortably. Talking couldn’t make any difference to Debbie Kershaw and it was heart-breaking if her mother thought it would.
    ‘I wish I could have her at home,’ Kim said, ‘but . . .’
    ‘She needs more care than you can give her,’ the woman said firmly. ‘Don’t go beating yourself up about it. And if there’s an emergency . . .’
    Kim shuddered at the recollection of previous emergencies, before she had been persuaded to put Debbie into residential care, occasions when she had thought that thanks to her lack of skill she might lose Debbie altogether.
    She smoothed back the dark hair from Debbie’s face. The brown eyes were dull again, and Kim looked in the bag at her feet. ‘Now, let’s see what we have here. The musical box – you liked that yesterday.’
    Kim was winding up the gaily decorated toy when her mobile phone rang. She fetched it out of her bag, glanced at the caller number and grimaced.
    ‘Yes? . . . Oh, all right. Be there as soon as I can.’
    She put the toys back in the bag and, taking the thin, fragile hand, bent to kiss her daughter’s forehead. ‘Bye, sweetheart. I’ll be back soon.’
    The carer watched her go. Some people truly had it tough. She’d just been brooding about the fuss at breakfast over her own ten-year-old wanting her ears pierced. Put it all in perspective, really.
     
    In a house the size of Rosscarron, it was only to be expected that there would be staff – a local wifie,