When you’re a child, you have a hierarchy of dependence. Your first port of call is your parents, closely followed by the rest of your family. In Daniel’s case, calling on his parents wasn’t possible and his family was right here in Pendleton House. This was the only family he’d ever really known. People who weren’t flesh and blood but who he ate with, lived with and grew up with. The nuns were the closest thing he’d had to parents in a long time – perhaps ever. But the looks in the eyes of the junior nuns in the early hours of that morning told him everything he needed to know.
He didn’t know who’d called the police, nor from which phone. He could tell from the Mother Superior’s face that it wasn’t her, but he didn’t know any other rooms in the building which had a telephone apart from her office. Judging by some of the questions the police officers were asking him, he assumed it must have been one of the boys.
The police hadn’t let the Mother Superior sit in the same room when they spoke to him, instead having told her they’d speak to her separately afterwards. The officers were both dressed in plain clothes – something that even Daniel’s young brain knew meant something was serious.
‘Do you know who made the phone call to the police, Daniel?’ one of the officers asks. Daniel says no, he doesn’t. He hopes the officer can see that he’s telling the truth. The police have to know these things. It’s their job.
The other officer speaks. ‘The person who called the control room made some very serious allegations. About Mr Duggan. Do you want to tell us what that was all about?’
The officers sound curt and accusatory.
‘No,’ Daniel says. ‘Because I don’t know what they said.’ This time, he hopes they can’t see the truth behind his eyes.
‘Are you sure?’ the same officer replies.
‘Yes.’
A moment of silence. ‘Well, in that case we can only presume that it isn’t true, can’t we?’
The first officer speaks again. ‘We know it can’t be easy for you having to live here, but it doesn’t excuse boys from making things up about other people. Especially about people who put a lot into the community and who keep a roof over your head. Do you know what it’s like out there on the streets? Cold and alone, without anywhere to live?’
Daniel shakes his head.
‘That’s what they had to do in Victorian times. Then after that there were workhouses. Life isn’t perfect, but you should think yourself very lucky that you live in a society that looks after you when you get in trouble.’
The way the police officer says these things makes even Daniel start to question his own attitude.
‘If you were outside this house, on the streets, and behaved in the way that you did earlier tonight, what do you think would happen?’
Daniel shrugs, his knuckles starting to throb now that the adrenaline has well and truly subsided.
‘I can tell you what would happen. You’d be going down to the police station. You’d be arrested and put in jail. Would you prefer that?’
Daniel swallows and shakes his head. He’s pretty sure they wouldn’t do that at his age, but he still isn’t particularly keen to find out.
‘Good. Now you’ll be pleased to know you’ve got a second chance. A last chance. Mr Duggan has told us he doesn’t want to press charges. Do you know what that means?’
Daniel shakes his head again.
‘It means he doesn’t want to take it any further. He doesn’t want you to be arrested and put in jail. Do you think that’s a good thing?’
Daniel thinks for a moment, then nods. ‘I suppose.’
‘You’re lucky Mr Duggan is a gracious man,’ the officer says. ‘He didn’t have to do that for you. But he did. Because he’s a good man. Do you understand that?’
Daniel nods, and begins to pick at the seam of the armchair he’s sitting in. He knows what this means. Even at his age, he understands the concept of them doing him a favour as long as he promises not to say any more about Mr Duggan. He’s not happy with it, but he doesn’t particularly want to go to jail, either.
Part of him wonders if Mr Duggan might change his ways after tonight. After seeing how close he came to being found out. After Daniel fractured his eye socket, broke four of his teeth and burst his eardrum. Even though he’s the one sat here being spoken to by the police, he knows who came off worse tonight. And he knows one thing for sure: he doesn’t have to worry about being the boy to be called out of his room on Mr Duggan’s next visit.
21
We finally arrive at the campsite. On any other occasion I would describe it as ‘lovely’, but that hardly seems like the right sort of word to be using now. A place to bed down and gather our thoughts is what it is. Here, we can lie low and keep away from motorways and police cars, at least until the initial buzz has died down and we can work out how to prove I had nothing at all to do with any of this.
That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway, because deep down I just want to keep running. I don’t feel safe anywhere – not here, for sure. Interpol will soon know we’ve been through France. My car went through the tunnel and was seen leaving at Calais. Jess went into the shop in Kerzers, too, and she’s not exactly the sort of woman a shopkeeper’s going to forget seeing – particularly not if he’s male. And what about the police officers who saw us on the motorway just a few miles back? No, this isn’t good. As far as I’m concerned, we need to be a lot further away, and it’s only really Jess’s insistence and apparent total control over the situation that’s actually keeping me here.
I need to have my escape route planned. The only problem is, I don’t really know where we are or how to get anywhere. We’ve been doing everything based on an old map we found in Claude’s glovebox and Jess’s intuition and sense of direction. She wasn’t keen to activate the GPS feature on her iPhone for fear of being tracked, and I wasn’t going to argue with that.
After Jess has paid (in cash, naturally) for the caravan, she makes her way back to the car, the baseball cap pulled down as far over her head as it’ll go with her hair tucked up inside it, and looks back over her shoulder before leaning through the window to talk to me.
‘Come on. It’s this one over here. Try and keep out of people’s sight until we’re inside, though.’
Once I’ve parked the car up next to the caravan and made sure I can’t be seen, I grab my bag out of the car and step inside. My first impression is that it’s actually not a bad place to stay. Sure, it’s just a caravan, but it’s clearly laid out for people who want to have a half-decent holiday.
Jess puts the carrier bag from the shop in Kerzers down on the table and rummages through it, taking out a few items.
‘Right, here’s some razors and some scissors. We’re going to have to use accents while we’re here, too. I told the woman on the reception we were Norwegian.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jess! Norwegian? At least pick an accent I can actually do.’
‘What, like French? Yeah, because they won’t see right through that one,’ she replies.
‘Seriously, though. Who the hell knows what a Norwegian accent even sounds like?’
‘Exactly. It’s foolproof. Now, get that beard off. When you’re done, I’m going to cut your hair.’
I stare at her. ‘Cut my hair?’
‘Well, yes. I’ll need to cut it before I shave it off or it’s going to hurt like hell.’