‘ . . . And that, your honour, is when the assault occurred, occasioning the cut above my left eye, which required stitching at the hospital.’
He’d asked for it. How was I to know the plate would break? I wouldn’t do it again, not after the bruising I got. No, sir. I wouldn’t repeat that mistake twice.
‘Are charges pending?’ said the beak.
‘No charges have been placed.’
‘And is it your opinion the boy could make use of normal community facilities?’
‘Not immediately. In time he could attend school. We are confident enough that he has some faculties.’
‘Very well. Your charge is to be placed in a community school deemed suitable by the local authority, preferably an agricultural colony where he can work off any excess energies prior to eventual schooling.’
‘The authority has a place in mind that might just fit the bill.’
The coach struggled over the hill, the engine wheezing, and all the colours changed. The grass was still as green as can be – that would be with the rain – but the sky was grey now, some purple clouds blackening at their edges. Out the window looked like the kind of picture you’d see in old movies about werewolves or Frankenstein and the like. I didn’t like the look of it – not one little bit. I didn’t want to be here at all.
7
DI Bob Valentine sat in his office and stared out of the window. The sky was its usual overcast shade of gunmetal, with a pink smear along the horizon. The commuter traffic was building on the King Street roundabout, and the sound of impatient drivers blaring horns echoed all the way from the town centre. It was a picture of normalcy he knew the town of Ayr usually occupied, but somehow nothing was as he had once known it.
Something drew Valentine from his chair and he approached the large window, staring further into the scene he knew so well. A ship was docked in the harbour, an unusual sight at the best of times, but the tall, elegant vessel spoke of simpler days. It would be a tourist ship, some kids on an adventure outing perhaps; he’d read about it in the Post eventually.
His thoughts were drifting again, to hopes the kids on the ship were being looked after. It was an adult’s responsibility, to care for children. It was every adult’s responsibility. Children were the most precious gift we had. They were everything – our joy, our pleasure, the very symbol of our love. Children were to be treasured. He thought of Clare and the girls. And he thought of two children, unknown to him, with their hands cable-tied, crammed into a rusty oil drum.
When he had first looked at the child in the barrel, with the blackened, leathered face, he wanted to take away his pain. It was an overwhelming feeling – a need like a parent’s to keep a child safe. He didn’t know who the child was, and it didn’t matter, because he was every child. He was the child Valentine had once been, who played on the same streets, collected conkers and ran errands for adults, set jam jars out for bees in summer and made snowmen in winter. The child was his friend, every one of his friends, climbing trees and kicking a football at a wall, playing soldiers with sticks and knock door run. And then it hit him. At some point, all those long summers and longer winters ended for two children. There were two fewer children queuing at the ice-cream van when it did the rounds. Two fewer children being called in by their mothers as the sun faded and playtime drew to a close. For no reason that those children could have fathomed, everything ended. The lives they had known, the hopes they had held, any dreams for the future, ended.
Child murder was the most grievous sin Valentine could imagine. Taking one child away from their family was a crime like no other; but worse, it diminished us all. Child murder took all our futures away and told us there was nothing left. Because if we couldn’t care for our children, couldn’t protect their lives, we had nothing left. And we deserved nothing more.
Valentine closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the windowpane. The glass was cold and damp, and he felt his skin absorbing the moisture. His head felt warm. There was still an ache in the back of his skull that he couldn’t account for, but that pain didn’t matter to him now. It was the feeling of sadness, of a solemn loss, that had overtaken everything else; he was filled with hurts that were greater than himself.
The hand that touched his forearm felt very far away, and it took several seconds for him to register what it was.
‘Boss, are you ready?’ said DS McCormack.
Valentine snapped out of his thoughts and stepped away from the window, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘Sorry, Sylvia, I was off on one.’
‘Sir?’
She deserved an explanation, as much as he could supply anyway. ‘Those kiddies, I was thinking about them. I don’t think I’ll ever shake that boy’s image from my head.’
‘Me neither. It’s horrifying. Are you sure you’re OK now?’