Afterwards

school fires. Just over a quarter were started by children younger than seven years old.’

But what have statistics to do with Adam?

‘We think it was most likely a prank, a bit of fooling around that went wrong,’ DI Baker says, as if this will appease you.

‘But Adam knows lighting a fire is wrong,’ Sarah says. ‘He’d think about the terrible consequences that may happen. For a child that age he’s extremely mature and thoughtful.’

I didn’t realise how well Sarah knows Adam. I’ve always thought she was critical of him, seeing him as wet, not like her tall, athletic sons.

‘And he knew Jenny was in the school,’ Sarah continues, desperately trying to convince him. ‘His own sister was in there, for God’s sake.’

‘Is there any animosity between the siblings?’ DI Baker asks.

‘What are you suggesting?’ you ask and there’s violence in your voice.

‘I’m sure he didn’t intend the fire to do the terrible damage-’

‘He didn’t do it.’ Yours and Sarah’s voices overlap with the same certainty.

‘What about the intruder?’ you ask. ‘The one who tampered with Jenny’s oxygen. You think that was a little boy too, do you?’

‘There is absolutely no evidence that there ever was an intruder,’ DI Baker responds impassively. ‘We have talked to the medical director and connections sometimes become faulty. It’s not significant.’

‘There was an intruder! I saw him!’ I shout, but no one hears me.

‘Jenny must have seen Hyman at the school,’ you say. ‘Maybe his accomplice. Something that implicated him. That’s why he came here, to-’

DI Baker interrupts you. ‘It really isn’t helpful to indulge in unsubstantiated theories.’

‘Adam wouldn’t do it,’ Sarah says again, with controlled fury. ‘Which means that someone else did.’

‘So you believe your brother’s theory now too?’ His tone is mocking her.

‘I think we should look at every possibility.’

His face shows contempt.

‘You told us Silas Hyman voluntarily gave a sample of his DNA?’ Sarah says and Baker looks irritated. ‘But have we actually got any DNA evidence from the scene of the fire?’

‘It’s really not productive to-’

‘I thought not. And now we won’t be looking for it, will we?’

‘Sarah-’

‘If it was Hyman behind this, he’d happily volunteer his DNA if he knew that within twenty-four hours his accomplice would nail a child for it, and the forensic search would stop. He could well have banked on nothing being found for the first twenty-four hours.’

DI Baker looks at her with doughy immovability.

‘The truth of the matter is that we have a reliable witness who saw Adam Covey coming out of the Art room, where we know the fire was started, holding matches. Just moments later the automatic heat detector and smoke detectors went off.

‘But as I said we won’t be pursuing it any further. We are satisfied that he didn’t intend the terrible consequences of his actions and that he’s been punished enough as it is. So we’ll just interview him and-’

‘No,’ you say vehemently.

They are not going to interview Adam. They can’t do that to him.

‘You can’t accuse him of this,’ Sarah says. ‘He can’t know people thought him capable of this.’

‘He doesn’t need to go to the police station to be interviewed. We can do it here. So that his father can be present. You too, if you want. But I do need to interview him. You know that, Sarah.’

‘What I know is that a totally innocent and vulnerable child has been set up.’

‘I have asked a police constable to bring Adam and his grandmother to the hospital. They should be here in half an hour. I suggest we reconvene then.’

Baker leaves the room and I hurry after him.

‘You don’t know Adam,’ I say to him. ‘Haven’t met him. So it’s not your fault that you don’t understand why he couldn’t have done this. He’s good, you see. Not in a goody-goody way but a moral way.’

‘Mum, please, he can’t hear you,’ Jenny says.

‘He likes reading Arthurian legends,’ I continue. ‘His favourite is “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. And that’s what he wants to be. Not a pop star or a footballer or whatever it is other boys want to be, but a knight like Sir Gawain, and he’s trying to find a modern equivalent. And you might think that quaint or funny, but it’s not for him; it’s a moral code that he wants to live by.’

‘Even if he could hear you,’ Jenny says, ‘I don’t think he knows about Gawain.’

She’s right, this man wouldn’t have a clue.

‘He also likes history programmes,’ I continue. ‘And asks not only why people are wicked and do wicked things, but why people allow themselves to be led by such people. He thinks about these things.’

How can you make someone understand a boy like Adam?

DI Baker seems to be hurrying now, speeding his pace; I keep up.

‘You probably think that all mothers say these things about their sons, but they don’t. Really. They boast about how fantastic their boy is at sport and doing outdoorsy things and being fearless – breaking an arm as he was determined to climb it! That kind of thing. Not being good and kind. Not being like Adam.

‘You might think it’s me boasting now, but it isn’t. Because we don’t live in an age of chivalry, do we? We don’t live in a time when Adam’s virtues are valuable.

‘And all I really want is for him to be happy. Just happy. And if it would make him happy I’d swap his kindness for being in the football team in a blink and trade decency for popular. But he doesn’t have the choice and so I don’t either. Because that’s how he is.

‘And even though it makes him unhappy and I want him to have less lonely characteristics, I am so proud of him.’

‘He’s afraid of fire,’ Jenny says to DI Baker, joining me. ‘He won’t even hold a sparkler,’ she continues to his back. ‘He got burnt by a spark from the fire when he was a toddler, and ever since he’s been afraid.’

If she could make herself heard she’d give DI Baker logical reasons for why Adam couldn’t have started the fire.

And she’s right. He is afraid of fire. I remember, again, him flinching from Donald’s lighter.

DI Baker reaches the exit of the hospital and I yell at him.

‘Don’t do this to him! Please! Don’t do this to him!’

And for a moment he feels my presence. For a second I am a draught on his back, a tingling in his scalp, something touching his thoughts. A mother. A guardian angel. A ghost.

12

You’re at Jenny’s bedside. There’s no longer a police officer as it’s ‘no longer deemed necessary’.

You deem it necessary.

Sarah arrives. ‘Ads is on his way,’ she says.

‘I can’t leave Jenny on her own, now that Baker’s taken away her protection.’

‘There’s lots of medical staff here, Mike. Far more than the burns unit.’

Doesn’t she think there’s a real risk?

‘Tell Baker why I can’t leave Jen.’

‘I think he’ll get it.’