‘But you can’t un-adopt a child in the UK, can you?’ Kim asked, her thoughts turning back to Daniel.
Cutler shook his head. ‘The adoption is only voided if the child is adopted by someone else.’
‘And was he?’ Bryant asked.
‘We’ll never know.’
‘I think not,’ Kim said. Penn’s discovery of the monthly payment to social services had continued for eleven years, until Daniel had reached the age of eighteen. As Daniel’s parents, they had been liable for child support until he reached adulthood.
Kim stood. She’d heard enough.
‘Inspector, I’d really like you to understand that she—’
‘I understand as much as I need to, Doctor Cutler. Thank you for your time.’
She headed for the door, not wanting to hear any more about the suffering of the woman.
She understood perfectly what it had done to Helen but, more importantly, what had it done to Daniel?
SIXTY-SIX
‘Wasn’t there a little Russian boy adopted by an American woman that was in the news some years ago?’ Stacey asked.
Penn nodded. ‘Yeah, if I remember correctly, she put him on a plane, alone, with a note saying she’d made a mistake or something.’
Stacey shook her head. ‘That’s beyond me. How could anyone do that?’
‘Desperate measures, Stace. I think he was violent, threatening to kill her or something. She said the orphanage in Russia had misled her about his mental condition.’
‘Are you excusing her actions?’
‘I don’t judge anyone if I haven’t lived their life.’
‘But she took responsibility for him, Penn. She signed a piece of paper committing her to being his mother. His mother. It’s not like buying a pair of boots that leak the first time you wear them. A child is not returnable.’
‘What should she have done?’
‘Get him help, understand him, love him and do everything she would have done if he’d been her natural child, and not return him like a faulty iPad because it didn’t work the way she’d thought. It undermines the whole adoption process.’
Penn sighed. ‘There are families that give up their parental rights to natural children too. It’s never as simple as—’
‘Nothing about having kids is simple. When did your mum know that Jasper had Down’s syndrome?’
‘Pretty early. Mum was known as a geriatric pregnancy with Jasper, so the doctor ordered all kinds of tests. I think it was a CVS – chorionic villus sampling or something – that picked it up.’
‘You ever hear her talk about terminating the pregnancy or giving Jasper up because he wasn’t what she’d originally expected?’
Penn looked horrified. ‘Bloody hell, Stace.’
‘Exactly. You can’t imagine a life without your brother, and your mum didn’t even consider another option.’
‘People give up children all the time. And there are times when it’s the right thing to do.’
‘And all I’m saying is that I feel some decisions are made easier when the child is adopted, and they shouldn’t be.’
‘I wonder whatever happened to the Russian boy,’ Penn said, pulling his keyboard closer. It was Penn’s way of saying they fundamentally disagreed and that he didn’t want to discuss it further.
Stacey accepted his position.