Ghost Child
Casey Watson

Molly Pritchard comes to live with Casey and Mike in unusual circumstances – not least because they are at the sharp end of a placement that both increasingly realise will have to come to an end  - that of Daniel, an out of control teenager they have been trying - and failing - to help for several months. 

Molly was only supposed to be staying for a few days, having been removed from her mother, but with mum now facing charges relating to drugs and neglect it becomes clear that Molly will need to stay in care a while and, with Daniel leaving them imminently,  Casey and Mike agree to keep Molly indefinitely. A sweet, cheerful girl with a really nice nature, she is absolutely no trouble after all.

But only a couple of days after Daniel leaves, Molly presents them with a potential bombshell. She tells Casey that she used to have a little sister, called Eliza, but that one day Eliza simply disappeared.

What Molly has disclosed to Casey, however,  doesn’t chime with the facts as she knows them – that Molly is her mother’s only daughter. Yet Molly is adamant that she ‘used to have’ a little sister.

Casey and Mike kick around possibilities. It could all be a figment of her imagination, of course. Or perhaps, for a while, Molly’s mother looked after someone else’s child – and, being so young, Molly simply assumed it was her little sister. Or maybe, given that they know little about Molly’s background, the family were relatively new to the area, and this other infant was placed into care in another local authority, and somehow the notes haven’t been transferred. But if that was the case, why wasn’t  Molly wasn’t placed in care too?

‘Or maybe the mum put the baby up for adoption?’ Mike suggests. ‘Or, I don’t know, she was someone else’s surrogate?’ he adds, frowning. ‘I guess that’s one way to earn money to buy drugs…’

Instinct tells Casey that this definitely isn’t just Molly playing make-believe,  and given that there is nothing about another child on record, could a terrible crime have been committed? Casey decides she’ll email the child’s disclosures to Christine and, in the meantime, they will just wait and see. But as she lifts the lid on her laptop she sees an email has come in from a Jordan Mitton, who’s apparently been assigned as Molly’s social worker. Thinking it’ll be just to fix up to come and visit them in the next couple of days so he can meet Molly, Casey opens it.

‘Apologies’ he writes, ‘but I don’t seem to have your mobile number. Is it possible for me to pop round for a chat? There’s been a development. We have a father on the scene now…’

When Jordan comes to visit, he brings news that a neighbour of Molly and her mum had been in touch with the police.  It seems a man, who they’d already seen hanging around the house, had been spotted apparently trying to break in. It’s subsequently turned out that this is Molly’s father, and that he’s been trying to track his daughter down since being released from prison almost a year ago, after serving two years for drug-related offences. It also transpires that they did live in a different part of the country at the time of his arrest and imprisonment.

While in prison the man had no contact with Molly’s mother - she’d cut him off -and has been desperate to find his little girl. And he wasn’t trying to break in – he was just looking through the windows, so see if anyone was there. With the police satisfied that no crime was committed, he’s now keen to do exactly that. He also says he knows nothing of his ex having another daughter.

  Both Casey and Jordan feel the same however; that Molly’s sister Eliza does exist and that they should put their heads together and investigate further. And two heads are definitely going to be better than one here, because it turns out that this seeming ‘ghost child’ is indeed real, and they are about to open a very large can of worms…