THE LOST BOY an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists Read online

  ‘You coming?’ Calcot demanded.

  Weston dragged his eyes from her legs, up past the curve of her hips and finally focused on her face. She was smiling — not much — just enough to show him she knew his game, just enough to let him know the double meaning was deliberate. He coloured a little, and she turned and walked up the steps to the front door.

  The nanny didn’t answer. Eventually they got a reply from the occupant of the front flat, a bleary-eyed man of forty or so, who grumbled that he’d bloody well disconnect the sodding bell if any other bugger woke him up, that a man couldn’t get a decent kip on nights, and he didn’t care who they were, he still had a right to a bit of peace and quiet.

  They tramped up the stairs to Miss Halliwell’s flat and hammered on the door. A weak voice asked who was there.

  ‘Police, Miss Halliwell, open up.’

  She did, as far as the chain would allow. ‘She’s taking employers’ rights a bit far, isn’t she, sending the police to check on me?’ she said.

  Calcot introduced them both and Miss Halliwell demanded to see their ID. Calcot handed over hers, and it was withdrawn through the narrow gap between the door and jamb. She closed the door while she read it. Weston was unable to contain his irritation.

  ‘We’re losing time, Miss Halliwell. Connor Harvey’s gone missing and we need your help.’

  ‘Connor—?’ They heard the click of the chain, and then she opened the door wide. ‘Connor’s missing? Is it the same man? The one outside his school?’

  Neither of them replied. They were staring at her face. Even in the dim light of the hallway, they could see it was disfigured by irregularly shaped, raised weals of angry dark red. Suddenly aware of their scrutiny, she shook her hair over her face and pulled her dressing gown tighter around her neck.

  ‘It’s not contagious,’ she reassured them. ‘Some kind of allergy, the doctor said.’ She walked through to the tiny sitting room, talking over her shoulder. The sofa was made up as a temporary bed, and the floor around it was littered with magazines. She seemed about to apologize for the mess, then changed her mind and invited them to sit.

  Weston looked around. Apart from the sofa, there was only a rocking chair and a few dining chairs clustered around a drop-leaf table. He took one of the dining chairs while Calcot sat on the rocker.

  ‘You called in sick,’ Calcot said.

  The nanny brushed a wisp of mousy hair from her face and Calcot noticed the dark red blotches had affected her hands as well.

  ‘I hardly slept a wink,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t go in looking like this. And anyway, I feel awful . . .’

  ‘No one’s blaming you,’ Weston said, seeing that she was ready to burst into feverish tears. ‘We’re just trying to get the facts straight.’

  Miss Halliwell nodded, trying to be brave. ‘I’m usually there by eight thirty in the holidays, so she doesn’t have to deal with him. She gets so cross, and he’s really such a dear little boy. I phoned at half seven. I just couldn’t—’ She broke off. ‘Do you think he’s all right?’

  Nice to know someone cares, Weston thought. ‘You don’t live in?’ he asked.

  ‘I used to, when he was little, but he boards odd days and weekends now his dad’s busier, so they don’t need me as much.’

  ‘What about his mum?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Couldn’t she look after him?’

  Miss Halliwell laughed. ‘She’s far too busy.’

  ‘Have you worked for them long?’ Weston asked.

  ‘Eight and a half years. Since Connor was a baby. He was my first job after college.’ Then, anticipating their disbelief that she could tolerate Mrs Harvey’s autocratic regime for so long, she added, ‘She’s not about all that much. And when she is, we stay out of her way.’

  ‘Do you get on with Mrs Harvey?’ Weston asked.

  She fixed Weston with a look she might use on a giddy five-year-old. ‘Did you?’

  ‘But you stayed.’

  ‘Connor’s a love. I couldn’t leave him. And Mr Harvey made sure she didn’t get rid of me.’ Her face crumpled suddenly, and she said, ‘It’s all my fault, isn’t it? If I’d been there—’

  ‘His mother was there,’ Calcot said.

  Miss Halliwell folded her arms across her chest, wincing a little in apparent discomfort. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’

  ‘So tell us,’ Weston said.

  ‘She acts like a spoilt brat. Barely notices Connor most of the time. Oh, he’s trotted out for half an hour at parties and such, so she can show him off — impress her friends with the doting mother routine — then he’s shoved up to his room and woe betide him if he interrupts her entertainment.’

  ‘What about Mr Harvey?’

  Her face softened. ‘He does what he can, but his business . . . He works such long hours.’

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  Miss Halliwell turned pink, making the marks on her skin flare dully. She blinked at them. ‘Of course not. I mean — I know he’d be away till late tonight — I was going to sleep over, but . . .’

  ‘So, you don’t know how we can reach him?’

  ‘No! Good heavens, what are you suggesting?’

  * * *

  ‘What were you suggesting?’ Calcot asked when they got back to the car.

  ‘I’m not sure. D’you think she’s carrying a torch for Mr H? Of course, she’s only a bit of a kid—’

  Calcot smiled. ‘Twenty-seven. Maybe a bit older. Isn’t that what middle-aged men are supposed to go for?’

  ‘Why ask me?’

  Calcot gave a short throaty laugh, and Weston pulled away from the kerb with a screech, scowling furiously.

  Chapter 3

  Jenny Campbell stopped in her tracks. Max Greenberg was seated opposite the stairway, across the polished Marley tiles of what was rather grandly termed the lobby of the third-floor administration section. He looked cool, if somewhat incongruous, in his pale green summer-weight suit. He sat on the dingy plastic chair — relaxed but poised, ready to strike. A small boy was seated next to him, dark haired, bright eyed. Even at this distance, Jenny could sense his fear: his eyes glittered, rather than shone. He was wearing the pyjamas and maroon dressing gown he had arrived in, and from time to time he plucked at the piping on the lapels and pockets.

  Jenny smiled at the boy — a reflex response to his anxiety and an instinctive desire to put him at ease. Although his gaze was unfocused, his manner remote, he seemed to tense at this tentative contact and looked down, away, his eyes flitting about the lobby, avoiding her.

  Jenny wondered if she should simply turn and walk away, but hospital policy was that nursing staff should change out of uniform before leaving the building, and anyway her car keys were in her locker. The only route to the changing room was past Dr Greenberg. The twinkle of mischief in his eye decided Jenny. She took a breath and stepped forward, quelling the expanding bubble of anger in her chest.

  Max rose to meet her. On one lapel he wore his hospital pass, which announced his status as consultant paediatric psychiatrist, and on the other, one of his collection of badges — this time it was a clown. Jenny had seen it before: you pressed his nose and a semicircle of LEDs lit up in sequence, juggling light, while the clown gurgled with laughter.

  Jenny was fond of Max. They had first met when he had sought her out to compliment her on an article she had written for Counselling News on foster carers as counsellors, and he had encouraged her to write a text on fostering, suggesting reading material and using his influence to set up meetings with eminent writers and practitioners in the field.

  His sharp style of dress and quick wit seemed ill-suited to working with sick and emotionally disturbed children, but he emanated a warmth and a solemn respect for the children in his care, to which they responded with instinctive trust.

  Max intercepted Jenny at the halfway point. Despite her rising indignation, she could not prevent herself observing that the boy showed
no alarm that his chaperone had abandoned him. He sat passively in the chair, his arms loose at his sides, hands hidden by the sleeves of his dressing gown, his shoulders rounded, and his eyes now fixed on the ground.

  Max offered Jenny a rueful smile.

  ‘What a rotten bloody trick,’ Jenny muttered under her breath.

  ‘Ah-ah. Pas devant l’enfant,’ Max returned, his smile broadening.

  The boy stirred as if waking from a daydream, blinked and looked up. Jenny, who was facing him, took the full force of his luminous brown eyes. She closed her own momentarily.

  ‘Why are you doing this to me, Max?’ she pleaded.

  They had discussed it earlier, on the ward, while Jenny tried to write up her case notes and obs for the night. She was too busy. Not just with the nursing — her lecture tour for the National Association of Foster Carers was due to start in two weeks, and she hadn’t completed her notes and preparation. ‘I told you I was busy. Sylvia from the emergency duty team has had a go as well. I told her the same thing: I won’t have time to be with him as much as he needs.’

  She realized she’d said won’t, rather than wouldn’t, and silently cursed her unguardedness.

  Max glanced over his shoulder to check that the boy wasn’t likely to wander off, then he took Jenny by the elbow and steered her to the far side of the lobby. Instinctively, they both turned their bodies so that they could keep an eye on the child. A steady stream of nurses came and went — the admin section was closed, but the nurses’ changing rooms were housed on the same floor. It was mainly the night shift finishing — the early shift had started an hour earlier, to allow for exchange of information, reading notes, briefings. Most exclaimed at the boy who sat apparently so passively and yet, Jenny suspected, unnaturally alert to movement and sound around him.

  The boy himself stole occasional looks in their direction while still avoiding their gaze, responded to the friendly greetings of the nurses by hunching into an even smaller huddle, and refused to look up until, shrugging with frustration, they carried on past him into the changing room.

  ‘I can’t let him go to just anyone, Jen,’ Max said. ‘You’ve seen the results of his medical exam.’

  Jenny fought the emotional pull of the evidence, meticulously observed and carefully noted by her colleague: withdrawn, silent and fearful, the boy had submitted to the examination, but he bore scars that suggested that he had at some time been subjected to physical abuse. The behavioural evidence supported this view. More immediate and compelling proof was the fact that X-ray examination showed that all the fingers of both hands had been broken in one traumatic incident in the past.

  Jenny frowned. ‘I couldn’t do him justice, Max.’

  She said couldn’t rather than can’t, knowing that Max would interpret it as taking a step back from the possibility of accepting the placement.

  ‘Fraser finishes for the holidays soon, doesn’t he?’ Max said.

  ‘He’d love you for that,’ Jenny said. ‘Three weeks looking after a severely disturbed boy on his own, while I swan off on my lecture tour.’

  ‘Not that long, I promise—’

  ‘Look, Max, we agreed to some breathing space after Luke moved on to his adoptive parents . . .’

  Max Greenberg wondered if he should tell Jenny that Luke was unsettled with his adoptive parents. Unsettled and disruptive. He decided against it. Jenny and Fraser would have him back quicker than a blink, but Luke had developed a strong bond with the two of them, and that was the reason for his present refusal to accept his new parents. It would only make the situation worse if he went back to Fraser and Jenny, only to be sent off to someone else in a few months.

  Luke had been with them for nearly two years, and they had become more attached to him than to any of their previous children. He knew they had felt bereaved by the loss.

  Max looked into his friend’s face. ‘I know if anyone can draw this boy out, you can. The wards are too busy, even if there was a bed available — and there isn’t,’ he said firmly, pre-empting Jenny’s objections. ‘There’s no physical reason for him to be in hospital. His injuries are historic. He needs one-to-one, Jen.’ There was no response to this, so he went on. ‘Social Services are desperate to find somewhere for him. They’d do their best to accommodate you on backup support, emergency cover when you need it . . . Come on, Jenny, you know what it’s like trying to get an emergency placement over a weekend. It’d just be for a week or two, till his parents turn up. Don’t worry,’ he added, noticing that Jenny’s expression had changed from truculence to concern for the boy, ‘we’ll make sure he’s safe to go back.’

  Jenny was watching another failed interchange between a staff nurse and the tiny figure seated at some yards’ distance. She sighed. ‘How old is he?’

  Max knew her better than to presume that he had got his way — Jenny had not yet agreed to take the child — and despite her soft-heartedness she could be stubborn if she felt she was being manoeuvred into a situation she didn’t like. ‘I’d estimate his age at between seven and eight.’ He frowned, measuring the boy against a mental catalogue of the heights and physical features and behaviours of the thousands of children he had cared for in his fifteen years as consultant paediatric psychiatrist at the hospital. ‘My guess would be a small eight-year-old.’

  She shuddered. ‘What would frighten a child so much he can’t even be induced to speak?’

  Max shrugged. ‘It doesn’t pay to anticipate what happened. He could be a gypsy child. He’s the right skin colour for it. They teach their kids not to talk to the authorities. If he’s been told to keep his mouth shut . . .’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Children at this age can take things very literally.’

  ‘Save the Piagetian theory for your students.’

  Max grinned. ‘It’d only be for a week — two at the most. He probably wandered off and wasn’t missed till it was too late. They’ll come back for him.’

  Jenny fixed him with a distrustful stare. ‘If you really believed he was a gypsy child you wouldn’t be so keen on my taking him.’ The clothes the boy was dressed in suggested money, and his fearfulness hinted at something far more sinister than merely having got lost.

  Max hesitated. It didn’t do to prevaricate with Jenny: she saw too readily through any attempt to fudge the truth and was too incensed by it to make it worth the aggravation. ‘All right, I’ll give you my gut reaction. His responses were worrying. I want him somewhere where he’ll feel safe.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else?’

  ‘The only other vacancy is a busy household with older foster children. It wouldn’t be appropriate for him.’

  ‘Where was he found?’

  ‘South end, Garston, but he might’ve wandered some distance from home.’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘An eight-year-old wandering around the city in the early hours in his nightclothes and slippers. Anything might have happened to him.’

  Max went on. ‘The police are knocking on doors to ask if they’ve seen anything. In a day or so they may want to take a few pictures, see if they can get a response from the Liverpool Echo or local TV. The contact’s Mike Delaney,’ he added, knowing that Jenny had worked with Sergeant Delaney before and liked him.

  Jenny repeated the sigh, more deeply this time, and Max thought he detected a promising note of resignation in it. ‘What are you calling him?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I thought perhaps Paul,’ Max suggested, too cautious even now to believe that Jenny had finally capitulated.

  At that moment all hell broke loose. Jarmon Willis, a charge nurse and old nursing college friend of Jenny’s, had approached the boy, much as the female staff had done, but instead of recoiling and refusing to speak, the boy suddenly leapt to his feet and ran for the stairs screaming. Jenny intercepted him and picked him up. He was kicking and shouting: wordless, unearthly, terrified sounds that clattered off the bare walls and proliferated down the echoing staircase.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘yo
u’re safe.’ She repeated it over and over, catching his hands to prevent him gouging at her face, gently restraining him, turning from Jarmon. She waved the shocked charge nurse away and he disappeared through the door to the right of the female changing room. ‘Look, he’s gone.’ The child stared wildly over her shoulder, then abruptly slumped in her arms, passive once more.

  Max held back, as he had done when the boy had reacted so violently, hoping that once Jenny had established contact, she would find it impossible to walk away from him. Sometimes he was appalled by his willingness to manipulate adults for the benefit of the children in his care, but the child needed to be placed with someone he could trust. Max had a powerful feeling about this child: something that made him uneasy in himself and fearful for the boy. Jenny was the best person to look after him, and he could see that she was coming to a decision.

  Jenny set the child gently on his feet, seemingly afraid that he would fall down, but he did not. He stood beside her, looking at the floor, panting slightly, tears rolling unchecked down his face, his nose running. She fished a paper handkerchief from her pocket and wiped his nose, then crouched down beside him. He responded by becoming unnaturally still, so that even the air around him seemed hushed, and Max was reminded of the freeze reflex of fawns.

  Jenny turned at a slight angle to the boy and lowered her head so that he could look into her face if he chose to favour her with one of those fleeting, sidelong glances.

  ‘My name is Jenny Campbell,’ she said. ‘I don’t know your name.’ The boy’s stillness seemed to intensify. Max stood quietly apart, admiring her skill in knowing precisely how long she should wait for the boy to come up with a name if he chose to, without making the silence burdensome for the child. After a few seconds, she nodded, accepting his decision.

  ‘I thought, if you don’t mind, I’d call you Paul for now. Would that be all right?’ The boy seemed to relax infinitesimally, and Jenny glanced up at Max. This was an acceptance.

  ‘Max thinks it would be best if you came home with me for a little while, just until we find your mummy and daddy.’ A movement at the periphery of her vision told her that the boy had stolen a glance at her.