sides.
‘Jesus,’ whispered Reed, his eyes fixed on the boy’s torso.
It was criss-crossed in several places by long, red marks.
Weals.
Scars, he noted, across the belly and close to the shoulders.
Amy hesitated a moment then pressed the stethoscope to O’Brian’s chest.
Reed also moved closer, running his gaze over the emaciated body. O’Brian’s ribs pressed so insistently against his pale flesh it seemed they must tear through the thin covering.
The boy stirred slightly, as if embarrassed by his own condition, and he pulled at one side of his shirt with a thin hand.
The nurse helped the boy to sit up, slipping the shirt from him.
There were more marks on his back, some of them vivid red against the pallidity of the skin.
Amy pressed the stethoscope to his back in several places, her brow furrowed.
Again Reed stepped closer to get a better look at the marks, reaching out to touch a dark line running from shoulder blade to lumbar region.
He felt the hard, coarse surface of a scar.
Amy was shining a pen-light at the boy’s eyes, watching as his pupils dilated and contracted with each flash of light.
‘Paul’ she said, softly. ‘We’re going to have to take you to hospital, do you understand?’
It was as if the boy had suddenly been hit by a 25,000-volt cable.
He leaped to his feet, pulling his shirt back on, anxious to cover his body, his eyes wide and staring.
‘No,’ he said, pleadingly. ‘Please. I’m all right.’
‘I want a doctor to take a look at you,’ Amy said, trying to slip an arm around him.
He pulled away violently, crashing into a trolley, overturning it.
It struck the floor, the instruments which had been laid upon it scattering over the tiles.
O’Brian backed into a corner.
‘Leave me alone,’ he said, his eyes filling with tears.
Reed took a step towards him.
‘We just want to help you, Paul,’ the teacher assured him, extending a hand.
The boy drew back even further.
‘Who did this to you?’ Reed asked.
O’Brian was panting madly, his eyes bulging wildly in their sockets as he looked anxiously from the teacher to the nurse.
‘Don’t call a doctor, please,’ he implored.
‘Why not?” Reed asked. ‘They’ll help you.’
‘No. I mustn’t tell’
‘Tell what?’ Reed asked. ‘Tell who did this to you?’
The boy was buttoning his shirt with one hand, keeping the other before him to ward off the teacher.
Reed saw bruises on the boy’s wrist. More red weals.
‘Have you been told not to tell who did this?’ the teacher persisted, taking a step back.
‘Don’t get a doctor, please,’ the boy repeated.
Reed sat down on the nearest chair, trying to keep the tone of his voice as low as he could.
‘Who told you not to tell, Paul?’ he asked, softly. ‘What do you think will happen if you do?’
O’Brian was quivering uncontrollably now, his eyes still bulging as he looked from the teacher to the nurse and back again.
Reed saw tears begin to trickle down his cheeks. ‘They told me not to tell’ he stammered.
‘Who?’ Reed demanded.
‘Please’ O’Brian sobbed.
‘Were you told something would happen to you if you told, Paul?’ Reed persisted.
The boy wiped his eyes with the back of one shaking hand.
‘Did someone threaten you?’
No answer.
‘Did the people who did this to you threaten to hurt you if you told?’ the teacher coaxed.
Amy looked at Reed, mesmerised by the tableau unfolding before her.
‘Did your mum or dad do this?’ Reed asked, his voice even.
‘They said they’d kill them’ O’Brian blurted, his body shaking uncontrollably.
‘Who? Your parents? Someone threatened to kill your parents if you told what happened? Is that it?’ Reed asked, swallowing hard.
Take it easy. Be patient.
He held out a hand to the boy, beckoning gently.
‘Just take your time, Paul’ Reed said, softly, his hand still extended. ‘We just want to help you.’
Reed got to his feet and took a step forward.
O’Brian pushed himself more tightly to the wall, tears now streaming freely down his cheeks. ‘Please don’t tell anyone’ he pleaded, his voice cracking.
‘I’m not going to’ Reed assured him. ‘I just want you to tell me who did this to you. Did someone hit you?’
O’Brian looked at the extended hand. ‘They said they’d kill my mum and dad’ he repeated.
‘So it wasn’t your parents who did this to you?’ Reed asked.
No answer.
He could almost touch the boy now.
Another step.
‘I can’t remember’ the boy said, weakly.
Reed reached out and clasped his hand gently. It felt so frail. So cold.
O’Brian suddenly ran to him, wrapped his arms around Reed’s waist, and the teacher felt the boy sobbing hysterically into his midriff. He closed his arms around the thin form and held on.
‘It’s OK’ he whispered. ‘No one’s going to hurt you now.’
‘They’ll kill my mum and dad and my sisters’ O’Brian blurted. He suddenly looked up into Reed’s face, his eyes wide and bulging.
‘Please help us’ he wailed, then buried his head in Reed’s comforting arms once again, his body shaking madly.
Reed looked at Amy.
‘Fetch Hardy’ he said, softly. ‘I want him to see this.’
Forty-six
‘Fucking garbage’ snorted Talbot, dropping his copy of the Express onto the table.
Rafferty looked up from his own paper and glanced first at his superior, then at the newspaper which was folded open at the centre pages.
Talbot took a sip of his coffee and ran both hands over his face.
He felt the perspiration on his skin, and when he looked at Rafferty it was through eyes rimmed vividly red, the whites criss-crossed by dozens of blood vessels.
Sleep had eluded him for most of the previous night. Two or three hours of oblivion at most had come to him. He’d been up since five, standing beneath the shower trying to reactivate his mind as well as his body. Now, five hours later, he felt as if someone had spent the night systematically beating him about the head with a plank of wood.
Too much whiskey usually had that effect.
The cafe in Charing Cross Road was empty but for himself and Rafferty, both men sitting at a corner table, Talbot periodically gazing out into the street at the passers-by.
