Dark Tidings on the Thames (The Kier and Levett Mystery #7)

Chapter 1

‘We just want to know what happened,’ the policeman says.

The little boy in front of him does not reply. He just stares down at his hands as he fidgets with them, thumbs flicking against one another.

He is eight years old but, seated alone in the middle of the large red settee, looks much younger.

They all do, in here, the children. This is the comfort suite: a large room designed to look more like a comfortable lounge than an interview room. There are boxes of stuffed toys against one wall, and tattered paper comics in a pile on the table. The boy has shown no interest in any of them.

He is dressed in faded blue pyjamas, and his limbs are thin as sticks.

His hair hasn’t been cut in a long time: an embarrassing pauper’s fringe and upward curls at the back where it rests on his shoulders.

From what the constable can see of his face, it is entirely blank, as though the events of the night have slapped the emotion from him.

His silence, his impassivity, they hang in the air like bruises.

He has been through a lot, this boy.

‘Can you tell us what happened?’

More silence.

He glances at the child protection officer, who is the only other person in the room. She is prim and efficient, dressed in a neat grey suit; her hair is tied back in a bun and she wears glasses. She cannot help him.

The boy speaks suddenly, without looking up.

‘Where’s John?’

The policeman leans forward.

‘Your brother? He’s here too.’

‘I want to see him.’

‘That’s not possible right now.’

The boy doesn’t look up, but the policeman can see the grimace.

The paternal part of him wants to help, but there is no way he can let him see his brother.

The other boy – older by two years – is in a room downstairs.

They have already spoken to him, and they will have to speak to him a lot more over the coming days.

The policeman shifts slightly.

‘We need you to tell us your version of what happened,’ he says.

But that sounds overly official – too formal for this child in front of him – and he remembers what the child protection officer told him before they began the interview.

He says, ‘You can tell it as a story if you want. Tell us it as though it’s not really happening. ’

The boy’s shoulders slump a little. He is malnourished, the policeman realises. Uncared for. But then – he has seen the state of the house the boy came from, and he knows that whatever the boy has experienced did not really begin tonight. It must have started a long time ago.

After a long moment – gathering himself – the boy finally looks up, and meets the policeman’s eye.

And … there is something there, isn’t there?

His expression isn’t entirely blank at all. For a brief moment, the policeman imagines he is looking at someone or something a little bit older.

And as the boy starts to speak –

‘It was late. After midnight, I think.’

– he can’t entirely shake the sentiment. As the boy begins to tell the story of what happened, the policeman touches the cross that hangs around his neck and reminds himself that this little boy has seen so much horror tonight.

And yet the doubt persists.

Yes, he thinks.

This boy has been through so much.

Perhaps.